My Pet Tree

                                           Watercolour and ink on paper 10" x 15"

I've been wanting to try plein air for a while now, as well as try my hand at watercolour and ink beyond illustration. The ink outline got a bit lost in the end and I regretted painting the background first as I made a dog's breakfast of it - I wish I'd left it out. However, I thoroughly enjoyed getting outside and painting from life on a glorious, sunny, autumn day. I love this eucalyptus tree that is in our garden, and have been wanting to paint it for years. The trunk looks stunning in the dappled light (in real life that is!). I painted this over the course of two hours this afternoon and by the time I'd finished, the shadows were getting much more pronounced. I began to deepen the shadows as you can see on the right hand limb but then I realised I was losing the nuance I had captured originally. So it is a rather flawed piece but successful enough to inspire me to try again.

I want to get a light-weight outdoor easel so I feel I can go further afield. Now that the weather is cooling down I won't get burnt to a crisp. I didn't have a very practical set up today. I just sat on a camp stool with the paper clipped to a board and I held it on my lap. I brought down an old kid's chair to put everything on.   Here are some progress shots.

Oh Yes, this is the best shot I've been able to get of a stingray so far, so I will keep trying! Yes, it is that black shape in the middle of the photo!!

Dappled Light at Houghton

                                                    Acrylic on board 15cm x 15cm

I've been making excuses lately about not having time to paint because of being on a writing bender. While it's true that I've been writing at every available opportunity, it doesn't mean I can't make more effort to fit things in around it. In fact, I had been managing creative balance quite well for a year or two but I got derailed when I hurt my back last October and haven't managed to get back on track since. Michael Perchard's comment on my previous post somehow permeated my writing fog and I now hope to revive my weekly painting habit. Thanks Michael!

Say Hannan's

Oil on board circa 1990

Once again I am reduced to scraping the barrel of my lean body of work in order to post some art work. There has been no lack of creative energy pumping through my veins lately but it has all been channelled into my writing. I took this snap while visiting my mum and dad today as it hangs in their dining room. The colours have come up quite gaudy in the photo I'm afraid.  I had painted the hotel from a photo I took while visiting the gold mining town of Kalgoorlie-Boulder in the late 1980s. "Hannan's" was the name of a local beer and "Say Hannan's" was their slogan. There are a lot of places and things in the area that incorporate the name Hannan, due to the first person to strike gold in the area being an Irish prospector by the name of Paddy Hannan in 1893. The town sprung up around the consequent gold rush. In real life the hotel was on a bituminised street in the town but I made up the background by drawing inspiration from some other photos I'd taken of flowering everlastings in the local bushland.

Flowers and Wildlife

Begonia in Blue and White Pot

Acrylic on board 15cm x 15cm

Not long ago this beautiful begonia was the first thing to greet people that came through our front door. I took some photos for art reference while it was in its prime as I knew I wouldn't get a chance to paint it from life for a while. Lucky I did, as the poor thing has since gone to meet its maker and is probably having a good old whinge about me with all the other begonias that have suffered a similar fate at my hands. 

I began painting this yesterday but downed tools when we heard there was an unusual visitor at one of the suburban beaches. The girls and I whipped down to Sorrento Beach to goggle at a giant Elephant seal that had hauled itself out of the sea and was enjoying a bit of R & R. It was a monster, I couldn't believe how huge it was - apparently around 2,000kgs and still just a teenager. It is a very rare occurrence to see them this far from home as it has come all the way from Antarctica. It must have been feeling the heat - 37 Celsius. I took a couple of snaps but it was hard to get a good view of it's head as there were a lot of other spectators there too along with news crews. 

Unlike Elephant seals, something that I do commonly see when I walk along the beach are stingrays gliding through the shallows but unfortunately I haven't seen them on the days when I've taken my camera. They are such beautiful creatures.

Another wildlife treat I had recently was when my husband and I were celebrating our 24th wedding anniversary at a restaurant on the river called Mosmans. I was impressed to see how healthy the Swan River is looking these days - the water is crystal clear. To our delight a black swan and its two cygnets swam right past us. Black swans are native to Australia and our river was named after these black beauties.

Look at how clear the water is!

Oh yes, check out my latest Banksia Lane Press post if you want to see more of Western Australia.

                           

Ayers Rock - Blast from the Past

In the 1980s I had an eight month stint working as a waitress at the Sheraton Ayers Rock Hotel in the newly built tourist town of Yulara. Yulara is situated 20 kilometres from the iconic Ayers Rock (Uluru) in the middle of Australia. I painted this while I was there - not by looking at the rock itself as you'd expect, but from a postcard of all things!! At the time I was very enamoured with the pointillism technique developed by the French post-impressionist painter Georges Seurat and tried to emulate his style.

I was recently composing an anecdote from this period in my life to include in the book I am writing at the moment. In my quest for supporting material I got in touch by email with one of my friends who I worked with at the hotel. We hadn't been in contact for at least 20 years and it was so nice to hear his news. Below is a photo of the two of us taken with his camera standing at the base of Ayers Rock.

It turns out that my friend has since become a very successful professional photographer. He is an award winning specialist car photographer and writer. You can check out his fantastic work at his website here - James Mann

Below is a photo taken "in the day" of me dressed for a toga party in front of my painting. And the last one was taken the day I was leaving Yulara to come home to Perth. It was such a great time of my life. I can't believe it's nearly 30 years ago! But then I look at my reflection in the mirror and it's not so hard to believe after all!

Australia Day Weekend

            

Snap Happy - acrylic on board 15cm x 15cm (6" x 6")

I painted this today from a photo I took in December while on my morning walk. I took over 70 photos and thought I had some great shots amongst them. But when I got home and downloaded them, I discovered to my horror that there had been a smudge on the lens which had blighted most of them. At least I can ignore the smudge when using the shots for art reference. 

I rather liked the colours of the palette near the finished painting and couldn't resist photographing it. Also, I thought people might be interested to see how I am now storing my most frequently used paints. I commandeered one of my acrylic greeting card stands which makes them so much easier to find. Usually I'd have to scrabble through a messy pile of them just lying next to the easel. 

***

We recently celebrated the Australia day long weekend.by spending several days in a fishing town north of Perth. There are some huge and spectacular sand-dunes to be seen on the trip up. As the years pass they march slowly across the landscape. You can understand how they get around when you see the sand blowing in the strong winds. If not for the heat and the vegetation you could be forgiven for thinking they are smacking great snow drifts. They made me think of all my fellow art-bloggers who are getting a lot of snow lately.

The beach house where we stay is authentically 1970s and I love it! It still boasts most of its original decor. This macrame owl wall-hanging is just like the one I aspired to making in the 1970s but never did. Back then it seemed like the last word in style - haha! I did however make a mission-brown pot-plant hanger which I was very proud of at the time.

Dreaming of Escaping the Heat

Pen and watercolour on paper 13cm x 13cm 

My dear art blogger friend Michael Perchard recently posted some stunning snowy scenes that looked very exotic to my heat addled eyes. While his part of the world was getting extreme winter temperatures, we were getting extreme summer temperatures. It reached 43.3 degrees Celsius (110F) the other day in Perth and a snowy landscape seemed a rather appealing place to be. But of course, in reality it would be far too cold for comfort as my pink and grey galah discovered. 

It was the combination of Michael's great photos and the extreme weather conditions from one hemisphere to another that inspired me to do this quick illustration. It was a quicker option than painting too! The writing is still winning by a long way at the moment. 

Time Flies!

watercolour illustration circa 2006

Please excuse the quality of this reproduction. I just took a quick snap of it with my old camera. My new camera has turned it's toes up, but hopefully someone will be able to resuscitate it for me.

My youngest daughter recently received the good news that her exam results will enable her to go to her university of choice. So we are all very proud and excited for her.

It's the end of an era! By March I will have both of my daughters going to university. Here in Perth most kids live at home while attending university - mine included, so it is nice to have them living with us for several more years at least. A few of my friends and I were marvelling at how recently it seems that we were going in to their pre-primary classes to help out, and here they are (seemingly 5 minutes later) all grown up.

I did the above illustration when my daughter was around 9 or 10 years old (again, it feels like 5 minutes ago!). She is in the middle with her special friends of the time. I tried to keep all their heights in proportion to each other and they all described to me what they wanted to be wearing in the picture. It was so much fun to do and the girls all loved the finished picture. I sent it to a greeting card publisher in the UK in the hope of selling it - but no luck!

At the moment I'm still in a writing frenzy and I had to pull myself away from the manuscript to post this. I had a moment this morning when I thought I might rear up and do a painting, but the moment passed and the writing won. Hopefully the paintbrushes will be called into action by the end of this coming week.

Three more sleeps!!

This is a Christmas card design that I sent out to family and friends a few years back. I did this illustration in watercolour and ink. It is a medium I really enjoy and hope to do more of in 2014.

I didn't get cards made from my recent Christmas painting in the end. Unfortunately, it turned out to be too expensive to do a small print run. I will hopefully do a few more Christmas designs and get a larger print run organised for next year.

I'm still struggling to get over my back pain. It has put me off painting because sitting is the worst position for it. Hopefully it will resolve soon and I'll be pumping out paintings in the new year!

I've been walking along the beach a lot lately and I took my camera with me yesterday. Divine conditions and looking set to be similar for Christmas day. Rather than having a white Christmas - we are more likely to have a white-cap Christmas if there's a good swell!

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a healthy and creative New Year!

I've really enjoyed this past year of getting to know so many people on-line and really appreciate all the support and encouragement that has come with that.

Singapore

My youngest daughter and I have just spent a wonderful week in tropical Singapore. I particularly loved the lush tropical vegetation. When we returned home to Perth everything looked browner and drier than ever in comparison. But it is summer here of course.

I loved the Singapore Botanic Gardens which are home to the Orchid Gardens.

The above orchids were at the front entrance of our hotel near Orchard Road.

We couldn't go to Singapore without visiting the Raffles Hotel for high tea.

We had breakfast with the Orangutans at the Singapore Zoo

Above is a scene from China Town

Now I need to get myself back into painting and writing mode!!