Flowering Cactus

 

Acrylic on board 15cm x 15cm (6" x 6")

 

It was great to hit the paintbrushes again!

 

 

Each time I attend something interesting I mean to blog about it in detail, but I've fallen very behind with my blogging lately. So I hope you don't get too bored while I catch up all at once by posting photos of some of my recent outings. 

 

There have been so many festivals to attend and things of interest to do with the advent of the warmer weather. I enjoyed the Groat St Festival in late October - an event that promotes sustainable community living.

 

 

The lovely Eco-Faerie Sarah of Handmade Wonderland.

 

 

 I visited the Western Australian Herbarium mid November with the Wildflower Society and was absolutely boggled to find myself face to face with an actual specimen that the great Sir Joseph Banks himself had collected on Cook's first voyage of discovery in 1770. It was right there! I could have touched it! But I didn't.

 

 The Herbarium gathers and documents Western Australia's botanical species diversity. We saw many interesting specimens which even included lichen and seaweed.

 

 All kept safely in temperature controlled filing systems.

 

I was so pleased to see that one of the vaults had been named after my heroine Georgiana Molloy.

 

 

Sally kindly brought along some of her stunning home-grown verticordia flowers to grace their front reception.

 

On the drive home my friend Corinne and I oohed and aahed over the gorgeous Jacaranda trees in full bloom that line many of the streets in the older suburbs.

 

We also drove off course to investigate what was left of an old market garden area that had long been marooned amongst suburbia. Inevitably it too has now succumbed to "progress".

This little pioneer homestead now sits alone in a sea of new blocks that are ready to be built upon.

 

 

A few weeks back I went with friends to the Artist Open House Fremantle event. We walked through the streets of South Fremantle from house to house where many artists were exhibiting. So much great art and architecture. The murals below made me think of Sami who blogs about Perth and features murals on Mondays - you can check out her great blog here 

 

 

Last week I accompanied my mum to the HBF pioneer's garden party in the grounds of Government House.

 

 

Government House was built in 1863 and sits quietly in it's lovely 3.2 hectare surrounds while the city centre grows ever bigger and bustle-ier around it.

 

 

I was thrilled when American art blogging buddy Michael Perchard sent through a photo his nephew took of him reading my book in Boston on Thanksgiving! You can check out Michael's great blog by clicking here

 

I hope everyone's having a great week and I hope to visit all my favourite blogs very soon!

My Early Writing and Art Career

 

 

There are times when I bewail the fact that I have a tendency to hoard things, and there are other times when I'm quite pleased about it. When I happened upon some of my old primary school exercise books today, I was quite pleased about it.

 

The most battered, and the most treasured, amongst them is my grade two story book - circa early 70s. I wrote the stories below at the age of six and they are the earliest records of my writing. There are certainly no signs here that I would aspire to writing when I grew up. However, I like to think that my passion for art was already in evidence.  I can still remember drawing some of these pictures and the fun I had while doing them.   

 

 

 

Leap ahead two years and my writing was still very lack lustre. I have the dreaded "improving" stamp on this page. I remember the teacher coming around to stamp our work and I always hoped to receive the coveted "very good" or "excellent". I thought the word "improving" meant "terrible" because it seemed to be reserved for the worst work.

In year four, every week we had to write a bit about what we'd been up to in our own lives and then we had to write about something we'd read in the newspaper. I suspect I may have read about a timber worker having an accident going by the picture and the rather brief interpretation of the article I'd read. 

 

 

I'd love to hear if other people still have their old primary school books in their possession.

 I'm afraid I have made a rod for my girls' backs. I have whole folios full of their artwork from baby scribbles through to their high school days. Each piece with their name and date of execution all carefully inscribed on the back.

 

***

Below is my art blogging buddy Sally Chupick reading my book while relaxing on a short painting and hiking holiday with friends in Vermont. Sally is a wonderful artist and has recently been invited to show her work in the Kingston General Hospital in Canada. check out her very inspiring blog by clicking here

 

 

And below is my neighbour Elyse reading my book while visiting Angkor Wat in Cambodia. She and her husband Graham had a fascinating holiday in Cambodia and Vietnam recently.

 

 

I hope you all have a great weekend! 

A Wonderful Week

 

Ink pen on sketch paper

 

 

 Ellenbrook, an old pioneer homestead near Margaret River/Yallingup.

 

 

What a thoroughly fabulous time I had last week! The sketch above was done while I was holidaying in the South West for a couple of days with a friend.

 

But the day before embarking on our trip to Yallingup, this same friend and I drove to our friend Sally's property near the town of Gingin. Sally is an expert when it comes to our native flora, both in knowledge and the ability to propagate from cuttings and seed (no mean feat let me tell you!). I have yet to point to a flower that she doesn't know the name of in Latin. We were gobsmacked at the extent and variety of wildflowers that she has growing in the beautiful gardens she has created from bare sand and gravel. She also grows them to sell and specialises in Verticordias, so if anyone is interested in knowing more details, please send me an email.

 

 

Sally in her garden.

We are still in the prime of our spring wildflower season  - as you can see!

 

We had such a nice morning with Sally!

 

A couple of days later near Yallingup, my friend and I were walking a very small section of the 135km Cape to Cape Track. Our little snippet of the track was a six kilometre round trip along the cliff tops on a very sandy and, at times, rocky path.

We had two close encounters with snakes, one a large dugite (My friend saw it first and I just saw the tail as it slithered into the bush) and the other a baby "something" (I was the only one that saw this one and I'm not very good at identifying snakes, because, thankfully, I rarely see them!).

 

The photos below don't do justice to the colours of the wildflowers growing in the coastal vegetation - lots of pimelia, scaevola and smatterings of hibbertia - or to the depth and perspective of the ocean scenes. We had the most perfect weather for it - a tad chilly so we didn't overheat from all the walking in the crisp sunshine.

 

 

 

 

 The ocean in the photo above is actually a long way down. unfortunately my camera didn't seem to capture any depth in the landscape. It probably would if I actually learnt how to use it and didn't just rely on the auto option!

 

Oh yes, my book had accompanied us on the trip and it looked rather fetching I thought with the ocean as a back-drop!

 

 

And now back to Perth - from today, Dymocks in Karrinyup have stocks of my book! Yay!

 

 

And to my own garden. I took this photo today of my violas - they continue to flower prolifically. I have never had such a prolific and extended flowering period with these favourites. It's been months of solid flowering. 

 

 

Below is my beloved purple melaleuca also flowering prolifically. The pompom flowers remind me of my childhood growing up in the bush. We didn't have that exact variety but something very similar. 

 

I hope you are all having a great week!

 

Dusting off the Acrylics

 

Acrylic on board 15cm x 12cm (6" x 4.5")

 

 

Photo reference on the computer

 

This is a painting of my youngest daughter. The photo reference was taken last year around her 18th birthday, and doing a portrait from it was supposed to be part of her present. I'm only ten months late!!

 We had various people coming and going today and when I showed them the painting I made sure they got a very fleeting glimpse. Oh it looks just like her they all said, but with a longer glance one can see that it's not a very exact likeness at all. However, it is my first attempt at a portrait in acrylics and considering I've barely used my acrylics for the last 18 months I was pretty pleased with the outcome.

 

 

I had originally intended to paint a still life of some china and had taken these photos for art reference while having afternoon tea at a friend's house recently .

 

Another week passed and the beautiful spring weather made the balcony the perfect place to enjoy a spot of tea with a friend last weekend. So I took more photos with the idea of painting from one of them, but the portrait won out in the end.

 

 

Mmmm, mulberries my friend had picked off her own tree and brought along to have with our cuppa.

 

A beautiful specimen of the native Eremophila nivea is happily flowering in my garden for the third year running.

 

Please excuse the blurriness of the above photo.

 

My peach tree in blossom

 

I spotted this cute bobtail goanna while walking through local bushland last week.

 

 

One of my friends recently travelled to the south of Italy and took my book along for reading material. Here she is below in action! What great shots!

 

 

For a bit of fun, I would love to receive any photos to post here on my blog of people reading my book in exotic locations - whether it be while on holiday or even with an outlook distinctive to the area you live in. If you are too shy to feature in the photo, just my book and the scene would be fun too! I hope everyone is having a great weekend!