Tropical garden

I have had this sketched up for nearly a week now and finally put on a background yesterday and threw more paint at it today. Lots of things wrong with it if you look hard, but it does convey the riot of colour that we saw when we travelled north.
Just a bit of fun to try to get myself back into some paint but at the moment my life just seems to be so full of other things I have very little time to properly paint.
We have had some glorious rain, and enough, about 2 inches to make us feel a bit more comfortable about things, but of course now we need a follow up!
Always the way with farmers.

Ballarat

Well I have been missing for some time but am finally home from my week away at Textile Forum in Ballarat.
To see more on that go to my Back Valley seasons blog.
A glorious week and very busy but the only sketch I did was in the only few minutes I had between class and dinner one day and I did the view out of our second floor dormitory window. Not terribly exciting, the back of the house next door and a bit of courtyard in between. I dont really know if this was even a house, it may have been part of the school.
We worked very hard and I came home very tired and havent stopped since I got home.
The country all the way over was very dry and we are looking awful here, there is talk of forcast rain on Thursday and Friday, I do hope so.
John has been really depressed about this and he is not normally.
At the moment he is cleaning out the gutters to get any rain at all that falls as the rainwater tanks are almost empty.

Great Keppel Island

I did a quick sketch of this from the beach at the Capricorn Resort, Yeppoon, there were a lot of islands out there, all part of the Great Barrier Reef.
It was still pretty windy and the waves were up. The resort on Keppel is closed at the moment so any thoughts of going over there for a look were dashed.
The light was not terribly good as there were a lot of storms around and still the affects of the cyclone.
Hot and humid.

Tropical foliage

I have tried everything with my scanner and still it scans stuff too lightly. I have also tried enhancing it with adobe but that doesnt work either. I think if you click on it you will see it better.
Any way here is a small sketch I did of the tropical plants in the garden of the apartment we stayed in at 1770.
I need to find time to get some of these sketches done properly but I honestly have not had much time, still running around after horses although we did manage a walk on the beach this afternoon.

The golf course at Capricorn Resort Yeppoon Queensland

While John and Jill hit buckets of balls I sat on the top veranda at the Golf course and sketched and then drew it. Imagine my surprise when I had finished it to look up and see three Brolgas, large grey native cranes, feeding along the edge and then stalking across the middle.
The golf challenge that was played on this, the Championship course the next day was played with great difficulty as no one had told them it was closed for renovations, even though it had been booked last December.
I have to say this was quite typical of this particular resort, rooms that became swamps and were not particularly clean, not terribly good quality food and generally for what was paid very disappointing.

Home from Queensland

This is a page from my sketchbook. We were staying at a rather lovely little place in 1770, so named I think because Captain Cook careened his boat in the inlet.
I sat on the deck in front of our little apartment there and sketched and painted while the others had a snooze.
It was an interesting place and although I didnt get bitten our friend Jill who we were with got badly bitten by either sand flies or midges or both. They love me so I make sure I have plenty of insect repellent on.
I will put up odd pages from my sketchbook and others as I get them finished.
I didnt exactly have a lot of time to sketch while we were away and some were very sketchy to remind me of what and where I had been.
Since getting home I am flat out trying to get everything done and my life is not my own, children away, ponies to feed and grand children to mind.

Bushfire

We have seen so many images of the Victorian fires and I have been trying to find time to do this for a few days, it is what has stuck in my mind.
I can hear rain on the roof at the moment, probably not much but it smells fresher outside and any rain is better than nothing, it washes the dust off and makes us all hopeful.