From my sketchbook

I sat and waited while John had a blood test early this morning, it has cooled down and was a lovely breezy early morning. While I waited I sat in the car and sketched the odd bits and pieces I could see, one of the lamps, a bit of the band stand, part of a seat, a poplar leaf and the base of the huge poplar tree and a leaf from another tree there, not sure what it is. so not a totally wasted half hour. we also had a lovely walk on the beach near Hayborough, although I got my shoes wet as the Hindmarsh river has burst out in a totally different place and it was a bit wider than I thought. All in all a lovely morning.

Young Pacific gull

It is heating up again after a lovely mild few days, in wandering the garden I have found many deaths after the last burst of heat. When John and I went walking a few days ago there was this young Pacific Gull wandering, not far away with all his feathers ruffled up, or perhaps he was starting to moult, any way I loved his attitude and so did a fairly quick pencil sketch which I then did a bit more to when I came home. I also took his photo so I had a bit more reference. John is off fishing today as it is the Australia Day holiday, a fairly busy long week end which we have had moments of being out there with the crowd, and being home, quietly. After seeing the stage 4 finish of the Tour Down Under cycling race I found it much more enjoyable to watch the last two stages on tv, you see so much more and some of the shots of the country they go through are lovely. I just dont like the million amateur cyclists who clog the roads and have little thought for drivers doing the speed limit of 100 kph when they are doing at the most 30 and there they are 2 abreast around a blind corner. I am surprised more dont get skittled. We had aprox 9000 amateur riders down here the day the tour came through, from the early hours of the morning until quite late at night, getting into town was a nightmare, especially when they wobble all over the road. I shouldnt complain but ....

Small book and RAK

I made a small accordion book and I have been playing with tea bags, small bits of paint, just using pen and pencil so I decided to put them all together yesterday. a lot of fun. On my other blog here I have a play it forward random acts of kindness (RAK) going, if you care to look I will choose the first 5 people to comment on that post and ask for their name and address and then at some time through the year I will send a small piece of either art work in either fabric or paint. I would love to have 5 people to send to through the year. All you have to do is play it forward, eg say that you will also do this, cant be too hard, just something small and fun and put it up on your blog. It is much cooler here today but I am a little on edge as I keep hearing planes and helicopters in the distance, I hope no idiot has started a fire, they are still trying to contain the ones we already have alight. It has been a terrible week with such heat, at one stage I really wasnt sure I was coping all that well. today I almost, almost! need a jumper. We live in a difficult part of the world at times. I am still having problems loading photos from picasa, it was ok for a couple of days but is now not working and loading from my other picture source is not easy and I am having to re learn how to do it. Hope this one comes up.

Too hot to do much

So I sat under the fan and did a bit of sketching practice.
the weather is awful, hot and humid, thundery, lightening strikes caused lots of fires and there is one far enough but only just from us.
we havent been quite as hot as Adelaide but certainly hot enough.
Rather like the rooster head, then I practiced people and tried to put them in a street scape.
Too hot to get the paints out. All this is pencil.
I did manage some ironing, early but now, everything will get fed late tonight.

Back on blogger

I havent been able to load pictures to my blog from picasa for several days, so at last I am back, not that this is a great post!
It is getting very hot here nearly 40C today and getting hotter over the next few days, we hope for no power outages and no fires.
Yesterday I went to a Welsh youngstock show about an hour and a half away, the day was warming up, the judges were a bit slow and we had 7 ponies there, we did well, 10 champions and 4 supremes in 2 rings but I was tired and so decided to leave early.
As my notes say, if you can read them (double click to enlarge) the car ran out of power and I pulled to the side of the road and called the RAA, and I sat there for a good half hour, and sketched the grasses on the side of the road.
An hour later I was, thank goodness on my way again, he thought it was the alternator, I wasnt out of petrol but low so he put more petrol in the tank and with the instructions, if those red lights come on again, stop and ring the RAA again, thank heaven whatever he had done had fixed the problem and I got home, tired, worried and with a head ache.
John was fishing so no help, the girls all at the show and not answering phones, so no help, I dont very often have break downs but my dear old car is just that, getting a bit older, so today she is in being looked at.
I am so grateful to the RAA guy, he did a great job and I was so glad I decided to leave early and that I had found a bit of shade by the road side and even a bit of a breeze.
Scary though!