Coffee with a friend :)

Zen Garden

Aah, back to my old friends, pastels, it's been quite a while since I got them out and I really enjoyed it. I filmed this small piece for you tube as a demo on adding texture to pastel paintings. Sometimes, if you are new to pastels, they can seem a bit limited when it comes to texture, but as you can see from the close-ups, you just need a few tricks up your sleeve. This is a small, longish piece on scrap paper. This is a Karri Forest, these trees grow straight and TALL, really tall! The bark at the bottom 10 metres or so is stringy and dark, the upper trunks are fairly smooth and beautiful shades of cream, grey, blue and peach, in fact the scientific name for them is Eucalyptus Diversicolor. Hopefully the video will be up in a few days...cheers!

Mr Owl Work in Progress and some random thoughts

On the weekend I had to wait at my daughters Uni while she did an exam so I thought I might as well take advantage of some quiet time and do some drawing. I had already put in the pencil outline and inked some of his face on this one so I spent what could have been a boring 3 1/2 hours in the canteen into something constructive. Of course the time flew by and I didn't finish inking him, but...almost. While I was scribbling away it occurred to me how the different mediums I work in affect me differently. For instance, if I am doing a big mixed media painting, it kind of feels like I'm having a bit of a party, it's fast and energetic and I am moving around a lot, and afterwards there is a huge mess to clean up...and I get tired after about 2 hours and really need a break. If I'm painting with pastels, it's like having a coffee with an old friend, you don't have to have an in depth conversation, but you can still say a lot in a short amount of time, and when you're finished you wish it went longer. When I'm drawing, it's just me and a pencil or pen and it's like meditation, the whole world disappears around me and I'm absorbed by the process, when I look up, hours can have passed and it feels like nothing. So there you go, more ramblings...cheers!

The Entomologist

Hi everyone, it's me the bad blogger :) Yay, I am picking my daughter up from hospital this afternoon and I may actually get a coat of varnish on this one with one day to spare before it goes to Canning Art Award! My poor daughter got out of hospital on Saturday and was promptly readmitted through emergency on Sunday so it has been a yucky few days (especially for her), but everything is ok now :) Hopefully things will settle down in our house for a while and I can get some of the work done that is piling up. The problem is, its hard to get inspired when things are going nuts around you!

This one is 1m square, gold leaf, ink, pen and gold embossing, also some real insect wings on her eyelids and under her chin. The writing down the side is Hindi and translates (hopefully!) to 'no creature is insignificant, no matter how small'. This is preceded by 'The Ornithologist' and I hope to continue with this thread for a while. It was inspired by the idea that bees and other insects play such an important role in the ecosystem and how stuffed we would be without them. Ants can be annoying when they take over the pantry and flies are a pain in the bum etc but at the end of the day we need all this stuff and they are there to do a job so best try and live alongside them :) I hope you enjoy the closeups. I am hoping to film a new youtube video this week so that always fun trying to edit with my pitiful skills, cheers!