Trees

Not a brilliant painting, I was trying to do some wet in wet and using the odd colours I am seeing in my garden as a background for one of the dead trees I saw today on my walk, result of the drought which is now thankfully over.
I have been having a brilliant week doing the eco dyeing with India Flint but I have also been having terrible trouble working out how to post photos as there seems to be a problem between blogger and picasa, but after having this new computer for a couple of months I have now worked out where my photos are and how to access them through my pictures and firefox. Whew!
This post is really to work out where they all are and now I have succeeded in doing a scan, fiddling with it in picasa and exporting it to my pictures I feel a bit happier.
Off to make a salad to go with the fish we are having that John caught the other day.

Almost painting

I had a dyeing workshop with India Flint yesterday, see my other blog on the side bar. It was almost like painting, the silk took the colours of the eucalyptus leaves beautifully, a wonderful day.

Permission to play

A few moments, a painted background, a sprayed stencil, a stamp some drawing around hearts and words.
Fun.
I have no idea what I would do with these but they are relaxing and fun to do.
Occasionally one needs to go back to childhood and play.

For Virginia

I did try to do horses, but I am not sure they worked very well but it was fun trying, I dont think some of the hind legs are too good, had to find a photo to finally get something like they should look.
Cold and damp here today, I am sure winter is coming, all my joints tell me so and I am thinking of at least finding a heater, not quite ready for the fire!
Nothing seems to be going to plan, although I do have a casserole on, so much for my week of getting things done, I seem to have done nothing but ferry cars around today.
Millie and her Mum and Celina will be out for dinner tonight, and then John suddenly remembers a meeting, well he will have to eat when he comes home.
Saw Sarah's new Cairn terrier pup, she is gorgeous.
Off to find the wet weather gear and feed the chooks and dogs.

Odds and ends

My two ghostly figures are waiting to be clothed, they have been painted and now I am trying to find the right material for them, they are a part of an on going series I have been making over time but somehow the photo I took made them look really weird.
Cold and damp and very low light today, so after a walk, and trying not to eat, I am trying to lose some of this extra weight I am carrying, I had another play with markers and paint, Still trying to make birds work, Alisa Burke on her blog was doing a much better one than this but he was fun and I am still trying to remember which markers run and which dont.
I really am finding this bright journalling great fun to do, so quick and easy.
I know Virginia I am supposed to paint horsews who look like strung hackneys for you to practice walking, I will one day!
Hope you have had a brighter day than mine, I hate having to turn on the lights in the house, where did summer go? I loved the cooler weather but rugging up in mid March is a bit of a worry about what the future weather holds for is going into autumn and winter.

Is it a cat, a rat or an owl?

I was trying to do cats but some how some of them turned into other things.
Using a brush and an idea!
Possibly getting sillier in my old age.

Playing with dogs

After Tuesday's class I thought I would like to improve on my dog, I cant say that I have but I had a lot of fun playing, you may see more as I strive for a more realistic quick few stroke dog.
Lost a little mare yesterday, we think she and another got into a kicking fight and she was so badly injured we had to put her down. I was totally beside myself as I wasnt home and she was a special favorite, but probably started the whole stupid thing. I am begining to think I have done something awful, but I cant think what for all this to be happening at the moment.
I know that when you have animals things tend to happen but I hope my set of three disasters is now over.

Person on the beach

This is the result of todays watercolor painting class, the dog looks a bit like an insect but on the whole I am quite pleased with it.
It was supposed to be a young girl but I decided mine looked more like a fellow!
(or possibly a middle aged rather stocky woman). Learnt a lot, was really pleased with my waves, a few areas I mucked up but it was a long but very enjoyable day.

Top Chook!

I am having fun with my journalling, this very bright rooster was born last night and filled in today. Quick simple and fun.
I may be doing some serious painting tomorrow, but today this is giving me something to do when I am tired.
We had a holiday today, for a blasted horse race, now the horse race wants to move to May and the powers that be, spinning Rann our Premier still wants the long week end, for what for goodness sake. Of course this year it was a lovely week end, not too hot, but last year it poured with rain or was it stinking hot? One of the other we dont often have weekends like this. I like long week ends but at this time of the year we have far too many.
Better get off my hobby horse, this is supposed to be a non political blog!
We had morning tea with friends and I did some messing around in the garden and a bit of flower play (not showing that its an online class).

Paints and markers

I have just finished the last of my 5 week course with Alisa Burke's on line course sketchbook delight, and what a delight it has been, filling pages with colour and trying out media I would not normally use. the top one is of a small dahlia I have in a pot, all these odd colours and the second one which looks all misty proves that the cheap markers I have smudge and run when I used watercolour paint, but I think it looks great, they were last years dried agapanthus heads I have had in my workroom for ages.
We were told to fill our pages, put in borders, it has been so much fun, although I am yet to journal all over the edges, I suppose I still could.
these are in my A6 tiny take with me sketchbook but it is holding up well and I am loving using the water brush.
If I ever go any where perhaps I will take a new collection of stuff with me.
Terrible shots of the earthquake in Japan, we have been all over those areas and it, like Christchurch were on my list of places to re visit. I think I will rule out San Francisco, heaven, what else is going to get devastated the whole of the Pacific rim area is moving rather a lot at the moment.
I keep wondering when some of the so called dormant volcanoes we have not far from here may start to rumble again, the scientists are now saying there is no such thing as a dormant volcano.
It is an interesting life and an interesting world.

Melbourne sketches

I didnt have a lot of time to sketch, and when I did they were a bit quick, the first one of the shells and banksia cone were the only ones I really had time to play with, I had bought a water pen and a small stack of koh i noor paints while I was away as I forgot to take any with me. I had picked up these shells on the beach and the cone by the track up to the road on our daily walk.
We did a lot of train travelling and I caught this quick glance of a very fat man walking a very small dog from the carriage window.
One of the nice things about Melbourne is the public transport system which is very easy and cheap, we tended to get a pass every day and that covered trains trams and buses.
We needed to get a bus to the railway station and one day up to the shopping center and one day into Melbourne to walk the botanic gardens which is my very poor sketch at the bottom, I had forgotten my small travelling sketchbook that day also bought a pad for $1 and this was it, I did have a pen and used the paints later. The paints have a very limited colour selection and they are very strong but they are light and fun to use.
Met up with the boys from Yorkshire we stayed with 2 years ago, Stephen is here to judge but as we are not going to the show we had a wonderful morning tea with them in one of those incredible tea houses that you can only get somewhere like Melbourne in Australia. They had found it while exploring and took great delight in taking us there!
We had a lovely time catching up with the family, doing our usual mad explorations and walked our feet off, today I am recovering and washing! (What else).

Rooster

Sometimes when I am feeling tired i sit in my big chair and sketch, this was a very sketchy rooster that I had fun with and then added some colour.
I think I do better with this type of thing than trying too hard at painting.
I threw up for most of the early hours of Tuesday morning and felt very off all day yesterday, thank goodness today I was better, I presume some 24 hour thing but I missed my painting lesson and a beading class which was really annoying.
I am eating very carefully at the moment but alas, alack I dont seem to have lost any weight!
We did have a lovely but rather brief walk this morning, John had a specialist appointment, not much to be done it may be the blood pressure pills he is on or an allergy, or a slight infection that he is coughing and hawking all around the place.
At least it was nothing worse.
There are a family of crows making a racket outside the bedroom door, they have for some reason decided this year that as the parrots are not eating the fruit in the fruit trees that they will, really annoying but then I did bring back and rear the first baby crow many years ago, out of its nest too young in a gale, and the family has returned with all their babies ever since. When we had outside cats they used to come and eat the cat food, now I dont have outside cats they still come but this year it is the fruit, and I did think we might manage to get ripe stuff from the orchard this year, sigh!
Off to get some ironing done.