Lamington on Doily

                                          Acrylic on board  6" x 6"

I very nearly ate the main attraction in this still-life before I could paint it. I confess I did eat just a sliver after cutting it in half. For a while I thought I'd discovered a fail-safe tool to enable me to loosen up my style and paint quickly. I was itching to eat it, but even with that motivation I still couldn't manage the elusive speed and looseness I was after. I began the painting on Tuesday, got back to it on Thursday and finished it on Saturday. Of course by the end, eating it was the last thing I wanted to do (it had dried up and practically  grown legs!).

For those that don't know, lamingtons are an Australian cake and were popular for fundraising in the form of "lamington drives" for schools and other organisations. I have special memories of Mum making batches of them when I was a child and of me helping to coat them in coconut. This specimen was bought from the local bakery - I'm not much of a baker I'm afraid.

Just as an aside - after whining so much about never seeing Twenty Eight Parrots anymore, this morning I was excited to hear their distinctive trill. I grabbed my camera (the one I still haven't learnt to use) and managed to catch a very poor snap of two in the tree out the front. Can you spot them?

A Year of Progress

                                            Acrylic on board 6" x 6" (the one on the left)

Today I painted the same subject matter as I painted about a year ago. I was interested to see what progress I may have made over the duration. I don't know that today's painting (on the left) was any easier than it was the first time around, but the outcome was certainly far better. Although, I think today's lemon could have been more subtly rendered. I had spent more than an hour drawing in the outline yesterday and then decided to spend a few hours on my writing instead of beginning to paint. Hence, today I had a slightly shriveled lemon to work from and I was trying to compensate by plumping it up a bit. I'm excited to find that I am actually making some progress with my weekly painting habit.

Sugar Bowl with Tongs

                                                  Acrylic on board  6" x 6"
I find that I really enjoy the challenge of painting china and shiny things. I painted this over the course of three days and spent about seven hours on it. If I ever hope to offer my work for sale, I need to learn to loosen things up a bit.

Rainbow Lorikeet

I have managed to photograph one of the Rainbow Lorikeets that frequent the area. They are such beautiful birds but I confess to not being able to properly enjoy their beauty. I still haven't quite forgiven them for bullying out our lovely native Twenty Eight Parrot which we almost never see in our garden anymore. They should be a good lesson to me to accept the things I cannot change.  I will make that my goal today!

Now I must get on with the painting that I began working on yesterday.  This post is just another strategy to delay getting on with it. I often have to push through the barrier of inertia each time I begin painting.  It only takes moments before I am in the creative flow so I don't know why I carry on like this. It doesn't happen all the time, but I seem to be going through a patch of it lately.

Birds and Flowers

I am posting some photos of local birds for anyone who is interested and particularly for Michael Perchard who kindly posted great photos on his blog of beautiful Cardinals and Chickadees from his local area in the USA.
First a distraction though, with the above photo I took yesterday of our Red Cap Gum, flowering in all its glory. It almost looks as if the photo is upside down but that's just because of it's weeping habit. It often has a gaggle of feral Rainbow Lorikeets visiting but not yesterday when I had my camera at the ready. We used to get a lot of the Twenty Eight Parrots in our garden but since the unwelcome proliferation of the lorikeets we don't often see them in the back yard. They are still easy to spot in local bushland thankfully. Here is one below.

The Pink and Grey Galahs are amongst my favourite birds.  They have a wonderful sense of humour and are very raucous. I'm sure they even play chicken on the roads. We've had them waddle across in front of us, taking their time and swaggering with nonchalance, only to fly off with seconds to spare. They fly in flocks and descend on trees or grassed areas like a bunch of juvenile delinquents. Last year when driving through the wheatbelt we saw hundreds of them wheeling through the sky as one.  I'd forgotten how big their flocks could grow to in the open country. They nest high up in tree hollows.

Last but not least today is a photo of some Kookaburras from the kingfisher family - also ferals to our state from the East. They have been established here since before I was born and I was well into adulthood before I knew they were blow-ins.  They make the greatest sound imaginable. They laugh like hysterical maniacs when at full throttle.

Finished

I enjoyed putting more detail into this painting. I may have made the cloth too dark when I added the shadows but it is done now. I had originally intended to add some more pieces but decided against it in the end.

In-Progress

                                                            5" x 7"
Having a blog is a great motivating tool for me. I know without doubt that if I hadn't set up my painting blog  in August last year, my weekly painting habit would have bitten the dust long ago.  Having made a commitment in public (initially to an audience of one - or maybe less) that I would endeavour to paint for a few hours every week, I felt compelled to keep my word.
With blog-post expectations breathing down my neck each week, there was none of this nonsense of just waiting around for inspiration to bite me, no, I just had to get on with it.
At the same time I have also been writing, so free time for procrastinating is not thick on the ground.

I feared that I might not finish this painting that I have been working on today, so I thought if I posted it, then I would feel compelled to finish it off.  I still intend to improve on what is already there, and add a few more pieces on to the table.  I'm just not sure what to add and where to put it as yet.  I have been working from this photo I took a couple of weeks ago.

I think I am being a little optimistic at being able to invent and move things around as I just don't have the skills yet to get shadows and tone right on things I can see, let alone things I'm fabricating. I would love some lessons in still-life composition and in how to loosen up. I see so many amazing blogs of people who do fantastic still-life paintings.  I aspire to being somewhere in the vicinity of their talent one of these days.

Workshop with Leon Holmes

Yesterday I attended a full day painting workshop with Leon Holmes at the lovely Marie Turner's house who was hosting the event. Leon did his demonstration from the balcony which offered panoramic views across bushland and rooftops with the Indian ocean in the distance.
It was such a great day.  The sea breeze was in and everyone was lovely.  Leon paints in oils and I learnt so much from him despite the fact that I paint in acrylics. He is an amazing artist who achieves such vibrancy and a great sense of place in his work. Marie is also a fantastic artist who works predominantly in watercolours.

                                           Acrylic on board 12" x 9"

After the demonstration we all did our own paintings. I did mine (above) from a photo I had taken of Trigg beach a year or so ago.  Leon helped me to crop the photo to a more suitable composition which was an insight for me.  I hadn't realised until then that I'd been overlooking some obvious rules of composition. The above is where I got it to with a few pertinent pointers from Leon.  The painting below is after Leon demonstrated to me on how to use other techniques to get different outcomes which was fantastic. It still needs more work but I might just leave it there so I will be able to see and remember all the salient points that I learnt. I will try out my new insights onto a new painting. It was a very rewarding and enjoyable day.

Blue and Orange Cups

                                            Acrylic on board  6" x 6"

I thoroughly enjoyed myself painting this today.  I began drawing in the outline yesterday and finished it off today - 4 or 5 hours in total.  I had to interrupt the flow at one point to whiz out to collect my daughter and her friend from an outing.  I had dropped them off a couple of hours earlier and as we drove along the coast, the colours in the ocean were gob-smacking - lots of greens and aquas.  I was itching to capture the beauty. So when I went to collect them later I took my camera and stopped along the way to take a few shots.  The colours had lessened marginally owing to the sun's position.  It is always at it's most glorious, colour-wise, in the mornings and early afternoons owing to the glare later in the afternoon as the sun heads inevitably towards the horizon. The sea breeze was smacking in and all was perfect, except for not being able to linger, as I had girls to collect and a picture to paint.

Goldfields Glass

                                      Acrylic on board 6" x 6"

I am coming to realise that I enjoy painting shiny things.  So when I saw the Daily Paintworks glass challenge, I had to enter!

I have quite a few old bottles that I collected decades ago near old mining sites in the Western Australian goldfields, some abandoned since the days of the great gold-rushes.  I wouldn't have a clue as to what the original contents were for this odd shaped bottle.  Over the years from exposure to the sun, the colours in the glass have ripened into beautifully rich hues.

The flower is from a malaleuca (paper bark tree) growing in our garden.  Unfortunately its future is in peril because of needing to replace the fence.

Rottnest Lakes

                                         Acrylic on board  12" x 9"

I wonder why it is that when I begin some paintings, I feel as clueless about how to approach it as if I've never painted before.  After finishing my second hydrangea painting the other week, I was basking in the glory of feeling I was really seeing some progress with my style and felt it was all onwards and upwards from there. This painting left me feeling like there was as much poetry in my brush as you'd find in a blocked drain. Nothing came easily and I didn't enjoy the process at all.

I guess it calls for more frequent painting to get more consistent results. I am also devoting time to writing, so I'm not sure how many hours I could spend a week on painting.  Does anyone have any thoughts on whether or not painting just once a week is enough to see real progress over the long term?

Here is the photo I used for reference.

Fabulous Fabrics

                                                Acrylic on board 7" x 5"

I painted this today for the Daily Paintworks fabric challenge. I painted from a photo I took a few months ago while buying fabric for my daughter's ballgown.  The shop assistants had kindly allowed me to take a few shots of their fabulous wares.  There were acres of glorious bolts of fabrics and displays such as this one.  There is nothing like browsing through the yet-to-be realised potential of beautiful fabrics to get the creative juices flowing.

Thankfully though, it wasn't me who would be let loose on the lovely fabric we bought.  As much as I would love to be a competent dress-maker, I've never really had a talent for it and have long since accepted the fact. Acceptance came quite easily really in the face of the hard evidence, and by my early twenties I decided to stick to cross-stitch and embroidery of which I was reasonably capable.  So I never once set foot outside in one of my own creations. Although, now that I think of it, I did make a green windcheater in my late teens and painted a huge frog on it in fabric paints. I cringe to admit that I did actually step foot outside in that one!!

My daughter created a beautiful ballgown from the fabrics we bought that day with the guidance of her amazing school sewing teacher.  She will wear it to her school ball in March.

New Year's Eve Sunset

                                                       Acrylic on board 7" x 5"

Today I began painting a still-life of a silver fork on some flowery fabric.  I had decided to do something to submit to the Daily Paintworks fabric challenge.  I had a moment of clarity just as I put brush to board that it wasn't going to end well. The pattern and colour of the fabric were way too ambitious for me, particularly after having tired myself out in the garden beforehand.  I wrestled with the painting for a while and it became more disastrous by the moment. After half an hour or so I admitted defeat as I could see it would go nowhere no matter how much time I spent on it. Today was the first time I've painted over something I'd made a start on. I'd already squandered some of my painting time so I needed something else to paint that wouldn't take too long.

On New Year's Eve my husband and I had trotted down to the beach just in time to see the sun set on the old year.   I hadn't taken my camera but the moment we got there I wished that I had.  The clouds were fairly nondescript so it wasn't the showiest of sunsets, but the simplicity of the colours were rather breathtaking.  After I had stopped bleating about wishing I'd brought my camera, I made the effort to become present and really take in everything around me. The colours in both the sky and water were amazing. I don't know if there was something more startling than usual about the colours being reflected on the water, or if I just found them so because I was paying closer attention than usual.

It was like watching a moving sea of jewels glittering as they rose and fell with the swell of the waves.  I tried to commit the colours to memory as I toyed with the idea of trying to paint the scene later.  I didn't really think I would end up getting around to it, but today I was desperate to just paint something quickly.  This is the first time I've painted from memory - and it shows!  But it was fun giving it a go.

Happy New Year!

Hydrangea in Pot

                                            Acrylic on board 6" x 6"

Yay! I managed to squeeze in one more painting by year's end.  I was very pleased with the results of today's painting, although not so much with the photo of it.  Couldn't seem to get a lovely crisp reproduction because I still haven't learnt to use my camera properly!

I could hear Greg Baker's voice (see blog for 27th Nov) in my head today while painting, which was a good thing.  It helped me do better with the tone.  I also put more effort in on the foundations before starting on the detail.

I was also quite pleased at the composition of the painting which I cobbled together from a photo I had taken a week or two ago.  Mostly when I've painted from photos I get bogged down in trying to faithfully reproduce them - colours and all.  Not that I ever succeed of course but it doesn't stop me trying.

This is the same hydrangea that I used for reference last time but it had changed colour somewhat since I took the first round of photo reference shots.  When I bought it, it was an elegant creamy colour with purple highlights.  I didn't realise that it was just in its adolescence and it soon matured into a lovely vibrant purpley, blue colour.

Merry Christmas!

We had a lovely Christmas day that began with our traditional swim at the beach. I was relieved to see that the conditions were very calm and clear when we arrived - all the better to spot any unwelcome visitors.  Our state has had too many shark sightings and attacks in recent times to be able to swim with gay abandon anymore.  Not that I was ever particularly relaxed swimming in the ocean anyway, being shark phobic long before they became regular news items.  The temperature rose to nearly 40C today.  The sea breeze had limped in by midday but took till the late afternoon before it became refreshing.

There were a lot of people setting up on the beach, but they are out of sight in this photo owing to the angle of the shot.  Not so many in the water as usual and very few  further out.  Usually on a day like this there would be flotillas of snorkellers mooching around the reefs taking their new flippers and goggles out for a test run.

I'm hoping now that the Christmas frenzy is over I will have time to paint by the end of the week.

I hope everyone had a very merry day!

Hydrangea

                                                  Acrylic on board  5" x 7"

Wasn't very pleased with this effort, but am posting it to show the evidence that I have wielded a brush today.  I have a lot to learn about tone. I intend to make it a high priority in the quest to improve my paintings.

I had bought a few lovely potted hydrangeas of different hue to decorate the back garden for my daughter's afternoon birthday tea party.  It was a challenge to get some good photos before the heat spoilt them.  Having come straight from their pampered greenhouses they hadn't had a chance to harden up against the heat.  I have one long suffering hydrangea that has limped through quite a few summers in my care(lessness).
It is looking its happiest for years.  Now it's used to the harshness of the big outdoors it doesn't wilt so easily .  Since re-igniting my passion for gardening recently the garden and potplants are looking better than they have for some time.

Native Garden

This week went in a blur.  Impossible to squeeze in any painting time unfortunately.

The other week I took some photos of the native flowers I have been planting in my garden.

The above is a Verticordia Plumosa (I think!)

This is a red lechenaultia.  I have also planted some blue ones - mid and sky blue.

I'm trying to create a dazzling understory to the huge eucalyptus tree that dominates this area.  Time will tell if the new arrivals are happy with their sunshine quota.

The light is very dappled, which is very pretty but maybe not robust enough for some of the plants.

Oh yes! Like phoenix' from the ashes, a few seedlings finally appeared in the pots from the September propagation class . Although, with the temps in the mid to high 30Cs the last couple of days, I think I already have some casualties.  As I mentioned before, all my cosseted cuttings from that class turned their toes up, so imagine my surprise to find that three cuttings I have simply shoved in the dirt are all looking very much alive.  They were bits that had broken off various plants when I was getting them out of their pots.

Workshop with Greg Baker

On Sunday I went to an all day painting work-shop.  The first I’d ever been to.

The workshop was at the home studio of Greg Baker http://www.gregbaker.com.au/ a very eminent local Perth Artist who also exhibits in Europe.

After spending all year painting alone in my art room, wrestling with a medium I really know very little about, it was great to see a master in action and get some insights into how I can improve my work.

Greg works predominantly in oils at the moment, but is also very accomplished in acrylics and pastels.  He demonstrated in all three mediums for us throughout the day displaying his consummate skills.  In the afternoon, along with many of the others, I attempted to emulate his style by using his photo reference that he painted from during the day – a scene from Rottnest Island waters.

I tried in vain to capture the light in the way he does, but I enjoyed the attempt nonetheless.

The first photo was taken once I’d decided I could risk going no further.

The second photo was taken after Greg made a few gentle tweaks that helped to enliven the scene.

Such a joyful day! Life has become very hectic this past week or so, so I’m hoping I will find a quiet day soon to paint before I forget all the jewels of wisdom I collected on Sunday.

Below is the final result after Greg added a few deft strokes and demonstrated how to do a glaze by adding medium.  I was pretty clueless about how to get the best out of my paints so I am going to try using medium in my next painting.  All very exciting!

Art Deco Strainer

                                                    Acrylic on board 5" x 7"
I painted this today in two sittings - 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon.  It was 6.30pm when I finished, so the photo was taken at dusk and probably hasn't done justice to the colours, but I was too impatient to wait until morning.
I set these items up right in front of my easel to get the view I wanted, hoping all the while that I wouldn't get paint on the fabric. Thankfully I didn't! I also painted "Christmas Baubles" from life as I find it takes so long to try to get a good photo of the subject.  Also the colours end up too far from the originals.  It is far more satisfying painting from life even though it is harder to keep the exact angle that you begin with.

 I hadn't originally begun with a top view like this.  It was slightly on an angle so I took care to make sure the plate wasn't exactly round. Then I discovered that I had painted the strainer from a top view and suddenly the plate looked like it had a flat bottom.  I tried to change the strainer to have the same perspective, but it didn't save the plate, so in the end I made the plate a little rounder.  Now I see that I forgot to change the shine on the strainer back to what I had originally.   However, it wasn't precise enough in the first place to get too precious about its faults at this late stage.

Christmas Baubles

                                          Acrylic  -   canvas on board  8 x 6
                                         Available as Christmas cards on Fine Art America

I began painting this last Thursday and have returned to it for a couple of hours most days since.  I had run out of rectangular boards and had to use canvas. I think it took longer doing it on this rather than on board because it was harder to get the fine detail on the textured surface.  However, I was quite pleased with the finished result and thoroughly enjoyed myself.  I didn't try to loosen up in the end, as I liked the challenge of the fine details.   Which isn't to say that I wouldn't dearly love to also be able to do this subject matter in a looser style.  Hopefully I will find it easier as I continue to paint more regularly.

For anyone who is curious as to what happened to the cuttings and seeds I was trying to grow from the propagation class I did a few months ago, here is an update.  Everything died!
There were half a dozen that bravely clung to life for a while, but slowly and surely the hints of green disappeared entirely.  Surprisingly, this bleak outcome hasn't put me off and I hope to try again later on.  In the meantime I have bought dozens of seedlings from a specialist native nursery "Lullfitz" and every single plant is thriving where I have planted them.

Banksia Nut

                                          Acrylic on board 6" x 6"

I painted this today from a photo I took in local bushland in May.  I'm no botanist but I think it is the nut of the Banksia Menziessii. I did the painting below in May from a flower on the same bush.

                                        
                                          Acrylic on board 6" x 6"

                                             The real thing.

Oak Leaves

                                                    Acrylic on board 5 x 7
I painted this today from a photo I took, looking up into the canopy of an Oak tree my dad planted about 15 or 20 years ago.

I find I am sometimes a little disappointed with the photos I take of my finished work.  I had thought that by buying a digital SLR , the photos of my artwork would magically improve and be glorious reproductions of the originals.  I guess it would help if I actually learnt how to use it first and stopped relying on its automatic mode.

Goldfields Bottles

The above photo was taken last year of a still-life I set up with the intention of painting one day.  The bottles probably date from the late 1800's and were found in the Western Australian goldfields half buried in dirt.  The flowers are dried everlastings that a friend picked  for me a couple of years ago on her farm.

Unfinished Painting

I have posted this half-finished horror just to prove that I have done some painting today - over 3 hours in fact! It took me ages to work out what I wanted to paint.  In the end I decided to try the bucket of cut banksia flowers that I took a photo of the other week. I have no idea what I was thinking!  As usual I thought I'd be able to loosen up and simplify it - and as usual I didn't succeed!  I also thought I'd use up one  of my larger canvases that are gathering dust and taking up room.  This one is 20" x 16".  It is canvas on board.  After using the small hard boards lately - which I love - I didn't enjoy painting on the canvas again.  I find that too much time is spent trying to get the paint to cover the surface thoroughly.  But maybe that's just due to inexperience.  When I called it quits today I had almost decided that I wouldn't bother continuing with it.  But I will persist - I hate leaving things half finished.

Macaw

                                         Acrylic 7" x 5" on board
I entered this painting into the Daily Paintworks Birdbrain challenge today. Very exciting!

Wildflower Festival

 Today I went to the wildflower festival at Kings Park with Mum and Dad. As soon as we stepped out of the car park we were regaled with stunning mass plantings of everlastings.  Further along were the beautiful red and green kangaroo paws (above).

 The banksias were particularly stunning at the cut wildflower stall.

Here is a beautiful banksia mosaic that has been laid at a little rest-stop alongside one of the paths.

There were the usual swathes of everlastings sown throughout  the bush 

 We had a short walk through the natural bushland as well to see if we could spot any orchid stragglers.  Only spotted one lone donkey orchid and quite a few cowslips.  It seems that overall the orchids flowered earlier this year, because last year at the same time it was oozing with them - including enamel orchids and red and white spider orchids.

 Butterfly sunning itself on a gum leaf.

There was a riot of kangaroo paws growing naturally in the bush.

I bought a few kangaroo paw seedlings at the plant sale.  I'm afraid there have been quite a few casualties amongst the cuttings I was trying to grow from the propagation class.  But there are a few potential survivors that still have a slightly green hue.  I will keep my robust new specimens out of sight of my poor tortured cuttings.  I don't want them giving up hope before I've even got them into the ground.

Rottnest Seagull

                           6" x 6"  Acrylic on board

I painted this today with the intention of submitting it to the Daily Paintworks "Birdbrain" Challenge. However, my daughter has taken a shine to it and is ambivalent about me selling it.  I haven't offered anything for sale yet and this was to be the first one. Maybe next time!

Spider Orchid

                                                      5 x 7 Acrylic on canvas

I thought I would continue with the theme of spring flowers for my painting this week.  This was painted from a photo I took last year on a bush walk.  I love the architecture of Australian flowers.

I have been checking my cuttings every morning and although some of them have turned their toes up, most of them still have some vestiges of chlorophyll coursing through their veins. I don't know if this means that some just take longer to die or if it means they are still in with a chance. Time will tell.

Donkey Orchid

                                                                7 x 5  Acrylic on board

I don't feel I did any sort of justice to the real thing, so I will probably re-visit the subject later on.