Curve

I felt like a bit of mindless colour after I had finished cooking this afternoon. I have roasted some chicken pieces, made an egg and bacon pie and some puff pastry 'things' with the left over pastry filled with a bit of this and that and hope they taste ok!
It has been steadily and quietly raining for part of the day, so everything is wet underfoot, and as you pass by certain areas of the garden you get a drenching.
The lawns were mown yesterday, they will be growing like crazy again.
Not sure how we are going to organise tomorrow, I think it will be a matter of see what the day brings.
I am sitting quietly well I will be when I finish this, doing a bit of embroidery and waiting for the Melbourne family to arrive.
I have food if they need it so I dont really have to worry too much, I have done enough worrying up until now about how where and what, I dont really know why, as John says there will be more than enough food to feed an army!
A bit of Basho
All day in grey rain
hollyhocks
follow the sun's
invisible road.

Note book page

By now I think those who follow this blog will know that when i am tired I retreat back to simple and fun sketching, houses, gardens flowers. I love simple houses and I love flowers, simple ones I dont have to think too much about but make me smile.
So here is my offering.
I have had a messy and stressful few days and today was not much better, it now looks as if it will be wet for Saturday when we are scattering my mothers ashes and the family are all coming. So I am having to think up a few new scenarios, like lunch here and can I fit them all in. Should I clean out the garage? There will be small children etc etc. I dont think I want to know about it.
On top of that I have been told that I have to feed the ponies for a week early in December while those who normally feed will be at a very National Show a few States away. I dont know how with my knee I can do it. Some how I will have to work out something.
So my childish sketch pleases me and I have had one red wine too many and am heading off to bed.
Night all.
I know in the end it will all work out.

Possible collage for stitch

Not that this is a collage, it is drawn by me from some of the photos I have taken to see how it would work. All this is coming from a new book I have called Drawn to Stitch by Gwen Hedley. Lots of ideas and things to try out.
I am not terribly good at drawing first, I tend to go straight in and see what happens.
We will see what happens to these, maybe something, maybe nothing.
I have so little time at the moment, another bed in the garden to weed, my car is playing up so time wasted on that and it is still not right.
It is getting warmer so pots and gardens to water and tonight I should be getting dressed to go out to Tabby and John's for a bbq.
Another snippet from one of Rogers poems.
Warm as sunlight,
moist as mist,
dispassionate
as a child kissed,
sure as is
a windless night,
life is loose
yet apple-tight.

Sketchbook pages

I dont quite know why there is a black line down the middle of this page, but I did have to put a strip of paper down between the next pages as they were a bit insecure.
Just faces and a bird I was trying to draw who was outside the bedroom window, I had terrible trouble with its legs as it kept on moving.
Well I saw my GP today who basically said I had a b------d knee and has advised a specialist who I will see in November.
I actually feel a bit better knowing that there is something wrong with it and that I wasnt imagining things.
So I still have to wait to see if its a replacement or just an arthroscope, or perhaps I just put up with it!
I pulled a couple of large wheelbarrows of weeds today, but have a lot more to do, I find that once it was 3 wheelbarrows, now it is only 2. Bother getting old.
Another snippet from one of Roger McKnight's poems.
The earth is round;
that part I see
describes a circle
out from me;
my swag's tight-rolled:
but that is all.
I hear the plover's ravelled call.

Blue Chooks

They were not supposed to be so blue but the sketchbook I used has very porous paper and it dried in seconds so I couldnt really get the wash I was hoping for.
Still they are fun and I think I am beginning to get the 'feel' for drawing them.
They really are crazy things.
A quick play between housework, to ease my back and knee.
Another short poem of Roger McKnight's.

New Ways
The children gone
from too simple a farm,
against her old way.
it's the wife, not the man,
who, to keep them all warm,
goes to let his dog in.

Some times you have to play

and just go with the flow and see where it will lead you.
This is what I ended up with, it was fun and took only a few minutes, I may put a wash of colour over it at some time but at the moment it pleases me.
Internet woes,busy nights and days and I have not posted for a few days.
To day it is overcast, cold and drizzly and heaven knows when the towels I put on the line will ever dry.
We had a lovely morning walk, I went down to inspect the new foal and am about to vacuum, Oscar is losing a huge amount of hair and it is every where, again! He is such a big cat and even though he doesnt have a fluffy coat there seems to be ginger hairs on everything.
We went to dinner with friends last night and had a few adventures getting there, these are mostly dirt roads, and back ones at that, and we did manage to dodge all the livestock but there were kangaroos, cattle and for a first two fallow dear shot across in front of us. I know there are a lot of escaped deer around but so far I have never seen one. I believe further down the peninsular there are big ones, wouldnt want to put one of those across the car.
I am slowly getting a few things done and sorted out but I have no doubt that I will be in an awful muddle again in a few days. I feel there is no point in clearing out my work room for guests until just before they come, as I will no doubt want what I have cleared away to the bottom of the pile.
John keeps telling me we need a clearing sale.
This is a snippet of a poem written by a neighbour, Roger McKnight.
Spring
Simple pleasures simply come,
and this is one -
blossom snowing from a plum
tree, in the sun!

Carving a new stamp

I am really into birds at the moment, and as I have to sketch a bird before I carve a stamp I suppose this sort of qualifies for this blog. I havent really had a lot of time for anything at the moment, I feel frustrated as I am getting so little done and feel tired all the time.
This was a practice stamp on a piece of paper I had used for spraying and painting onto so there are a few splodges that shouldnt be there but on the whole I am quite pleased with this little bird.
It looks a bit like our blue wrens that are all over the garden this year, I think it must have been a very good year for those who nest in this garden, there are baby birds every where.
We seem to be having a bit of rather changeable weather, not too bad today but going back to winter tomorrow if the weather man is right.
I havent watched much of the Commonwealth Games but I did manage to see both the marathons, I dont know how they do it but it was nice to see we got a silver in the men's, with Kenyans on either side and a bronze in the women's with the women ahead both being from Kenya, it must be such a thrill for people from Kenya to have such runners, although I heard today that they mostly come from one area where there is a priest who trains them. The pain they all go through to win is far more than I would ever want to do.

Dreaming of last year

This small sketch is me dreaming of ruined castles, high hills and copses of trees and churches and fields all rolled into one.
We had a wonderful trip last year and I am still loving the photos that roll past on my screen saver.
After a stinking hot day yesterday, it is back to damp and cold today and both of us have had trouble keeping awake!
The garden has had to be watered but the trees in the orchard are flowering as never before. It is so long since we have had a cool spring, although yesterdays 30 degrees C and a hot wind was a shock to the system. Really that is not so hot but we have been in the mid teens for weeks.
Not a lot to tell, we had our friends over the week end but even that was rather slow and not much done except eat, drink and chat! Very pleasant as we havent caught up for 2 years, we were overseas last time they were this way from the west.
My dog is out there barking to be fed, he has got very confused with daylight saving so it (his barking) seems to go on for much longer than it did.
I go for the MRI on my knee tomorrow so I will be interested to find out exactly what that tells me, if anything!
I am sewing and playing around with that and not drawing and painting, I must get back into some sort of routine. I have this awful feeling that Christmas will be upon me before I know it.
Here is a classic Basho haiku.
Spring air-
woven moon
and plum scent!

More Sketchbook pages

I really am not sure what to do in my sketchbook, the pages are so thin and some I am gluing together, some just pasting new paper onto the pages and painting.
These two are a little bit of nonsense on a page that was glued together, and the other was another bit of play on a sketchbook paper that was glued onto the paged. I do worry a bit that the pages will unglue!
There seem so many pages to use and although my theme is pretty open ended, it is 'If you lived here' I feel a bit silly at times just putting up my scribbles when some of the pages others have put up look fantastic. I suppose it takes all sorts.
Another lovely evening after a drizzly damp start to the day, everything is growing so fast and I will never keep up with those wretched weeds!

Art house Sketchbook pages

I am very slowly getting stuff into this, the first are some quince blossoms, the tree in the orchard is covered in blossom this year so I hope we can make quince paste again, the first time in several years.
the second is of the scarab dung beetles that are around at the moment, I dont know what the scanner did but he has red legs, not purple ones. they are quite lovely and bumble into the windows at night.
A pleasant day, John off to more meetings in Adelaide. I had a couple who want a peacock, but I did explain that mine are more or less wild and fend for themselves but I will see if I can catch some chicks when the time comes.
This haiku by Shiki could almost be about the quince, but the plums are in flower too.
Evening moon
on the lute
plum blossom falling.

It is the silliness

I am not doing very well with Carla Sonheims on line class, time just seems to get away but the other day she suggested elephants, I think it was dont look and dont take the pen off the paper. Well I cheated a bit with the eyes and had to back track for the ears but here are my three grey beauties cavorting in amongst the grass and the flowers.
I lovely thing to quietly sit and play with last night while there was nothing worth watching on tv.
I had a lovely day yesterday, and thank you to all who sent best wishes, I have to say that the food and surroundings were better than if we paid to go out and what we had was healthy ( well apart from the fizz) and so both lunch and dinner were the best food and good wine and no rush and no hurry. Have a look at the photos on my other blog here.
Today is still warm and I have tidied, the cleaning comes later, I dont know how we have so many things that seem to pile up on top of things but at least you can now find room on the top of tables.
We had quite a foggy morning this morning so this Haiku by Shiki says it all.
How far the skylark soars
over
a cloud-mountain
breathing -in sun-mist!

My Birthday give away winners are...

I cut up paper, numbered those who had commented and put those numbered pieces of paper into a hat and John pulled out the winners who are
Robyn Gordon and Julie Oakley. I will contact them by e mail.

Happy Birthday to me.

Well after an awful lot of stuffing around finally i can put up some photos.
So what have I been doing? Not a lot and here is a doodle that I did while waiting for my plane to leave, 40 minutes late so not too bad.
I had a lovely time in Melbourne, but very few sketches, I really didnt have time as it was such a rushed visit.
The weather was lovely and the stuff people did at the Geelong Forum was fantastic. I was so glad I managed to see it all.
Thank you to every one who wished me Happy Birthday, and to those who dont know, once you have used up your free space on blogger, in my case 1000 photos, you then pay and the rate varies, I just paid $5 for 20 gb for a year, I will see how soon it runs out.
Paying for it was easy, getting my account to recognise it was not but now I know what to do I hope I remember in 12 months time!
I will draw the Give away before I go to bed tonight.
Off to have a seafood salad and champagne for lunch in the sun in the garden, I wont look at the weeds!

I am not Happy!

See my other blog here for the reason.
Still time to go in my give away.
Back tomorrow.