Nests :)

'The Collection'

'Under the Wire'

'Chicken Scratch'

'Nurture'

So as an addition to the feathers, I have created some small nest paintings to be sold as a set of four. I am sure Julie Ford Oliver has inspired me with her beautiful birds nests! They are all mixed media of some kind. I dont know why some of them have photographed with that waffle appearance, it isn't part of the painting.

Exhibition Looming :O

'Lady Ostrich' 8 x 10 Ink & Pastel

Hi there, its been a while since I have posted, I am starting to feel the pressure of my first solo exhibition, where did the last month go? Also I have had family home on holidays etc so lots of excuses not to paint, but that was fun too :) The top picture is one of my little feather pictures, I hope to fill the screen above with fifteen different feather paintings (so far I have done 4 yikes) - just so there is something small and affordable, I was thinking of pricing them at $25 each - the materials for each one are about $6 - $7 and they take about 10 - 20 minutes to complete...sound fair? I figure if I sell all fifteen I can cover the price of the alcohol I need to supply for opening night :)

New Doggy

'Smoko'
1m x 70cm soft pastel on Elephant colourfix

First of all, a big thank you to Dale McDonnel. A lovely lady with a beautiful dog who shared her photo of Taff on Wetcanvas many moons ago and inspired at least two works from me. This one started easily but then I got bogged down with silly little things...still needs tweaking but I need to let it percolate for a few days. I think the pressure of getting work done for an exhibition is making me a bit less relaxed in my painting which is a bummer. The title might seem strange to people not from Australia, Smoko is an old school name for a meal break - there's morning smoko and afternoon smoko. I dont know which one this guy is on but it looks like he can't wait for it to finish so he can get back to the sheep :)

Feathers No. 2

Pink and Grey Galah breast feather

'Fairy Dust'

Love these birds, they are so silly and
make great pets. The term Galah has come to mean someone who acts like a goofball in Australia. :)

Feather No. 1

'Fragile'

A very lovely artist friend of mine, who has also exhibited 

at the same venue my exhibition will be at, has kindly 

loaned me a wonderful stand to display small unframed

works. It fits 15 10 x 8 matted pieces. Catherine filled hers 

with exquisite little watercolour and airbrush birds. As I 

am challenged when it comes to painting small, I thought

I would paint feathers. My friend also has a large collection

of feathers, which she very kindly photographed for me, 

and I also have quite a few of my own. The above feather

is a real treasure, found on a dog walk recently. These 

poor birds are suffering very real pressure from habitat loss

and their numbers are dropping alarmingly :( We still have 

a quite healthy population locally but who knows how long

for. Anyway, you can see I took some artistic license with 

this one!

Carnaby's Red Tailed Black Cockatoo
Male Tail Feather

Still Standing

'Still Standing'
50cm x 40cm soft pastel on terracotta colourfix

Around our neighbourhood there are some old relics, still standing (just) from days when this area was more rural. There are some really old houses, old sheds and outdoor dunnies (toilets) and a few old orchards and vineyards that still manage to fruit all by themselves. I'm thinking maybe they wont be here much longer so I am going to paint them while I still can :) I like this old patchwork shed because you can see right through to the other side.

Size Matters

'Gypsy'
soft pastel  15cm x 15cm

'Red Heart'
work in progress - mixed media

The big and the small of it! The top piece is a smaller version of a previous piece titled 'Vanner' and I have done this one for a small paintings exhibition - the max size was 25cm x 15cm but I like the square format so I had to make it even smaller :) The second is a work in progress - acrylic, ink, collage etc. Very textured and quite noisy palette. I have redone this roos eyes about 3 times now and am starting to get frustrated with it. Its a shame because I really enjoyed everything else about painting it. But I don't give up easily so lets try four times shall we?