Today is.... ink and pencil

the day brings tranquil breezes

with blue, aqua skies

she is waiting, resting

smiling

patience developing

with a knowing glance

she realizes...

today is

..........................

What is today for you? ..................  (fill in the blank!)

I am loving being a part of Art Every Day month...

Getting back into the studio daily has been a challenge... especially at this time of year

the end of the school year fast approaches, 

and the social calendar gets booked up in advance!

..

Christmas sneaks up on me every year, and I'd like to be organised as I know Christmas is coming, whether I'm ready for it or not

So far the plans include lots of pudding, and tea, and maybe, just maybe 

a Turkey on the barbie too!

Hope your Christmas preparations are starting to happen :-)

When you have a spare minute, and a fresh cuppa made,

head over to Paint Party Friday where I will be the featured artist this week

big shout out to Kristin and Eva for hosting this great get together every week ...xo

____

Contact me for: commissions,  custom prints of my work, sale of any artwork

 ____

Other posts this week for Creative Every Day have been: 

offbeat & Quirky

Jeronimo!

Face Play

Organic gardening Week 1

Welcome to my Garden!   This may be the first of many weekly updates on organic vege and fruit growing... So I may as well start by labelling it 'week 1'...

One of my many passions, (Other than art!), organic gardening is very fulfilling. We moved house at the beginning of the year, and sadly left behind a very large and productive garden, and its taken us all year to get settled, and start again... But slowly slowly, we are getting there! 

Location: Brisbane bayside
size: 600 square metre, small suburban block

Fruit trees planted:
3 mangoes
2 apple
lychee
Avocado
Fig
Pomegranate
5 banana
4 pawpaw
Blood orange
Tangelo
Navel orange
Washington dwarf orange
Passion fruit
Mandarin
Existing : lemon (with large thorns!), and  orange which isn't  in a good place,  + a macadamia and olive tree just along the fence on the park side.

Still in pots- 2 dragon fruit

Vege garden beds: 21m, + small existing bed for herbs

In the garden today ...

- Watered fruit trees and vege garden - its been a dry, windy spring and the thick mulch really makes a huge difference.
- sprayed zucchini with Eco fungicide - well really my daughter did, she came out and asked "is there anything you want a hand with Mum?"...hehe well actually yes, you can...anyway, we have been battling powdery mildew for weeks... finally got around to digging out The spray. i thinned out the infected leaves (to go in the bin), but i need to check how long these plants usually live for... maybe they are finishing anyway and i should pull them out?
- harvested cucumbers: I love growing these Lebanese cuc's they are quick, and relatively tidy, for a cucumber that is!
- killed the first 28 spotted lady beetle for the year! Haven't seen one of these critters since Bundy last summer. Mind you the vege garden is only 8 weeks old.  We will have to do a leaf check and squash any larvae we find.

 

To do:
Soak seed for planting i.e. okra, rosella...
Replant empty areas - corn, beans, carrot, 2nd round of zuc and cuc plants for summer harvest
Plant lettuce in shady part for summer
Water with fish emulsion and seaweed for leaf strength against pests

You can see the very, very sad looking zuchinni, and butternut pumpkin along the fence!  Oh, and my washing too! (quick - someone go out and pick up that shirt thats fallen off!)

This small area has 2 beds that are 1.5m x 3m, and 2 that are 1m x 3m.  We ended up choosing to use treated pine, after much conundrum, and research... but decided to paint the inside and top edge with a timber sealer to stop any potential 'leakage' of chemicals into the soil or uptake by plants. 

I tend to plant things close together, and usually end up with no rows.   Currently we have: spinach, egyptian spinach, eggplants, tomatoes, capsicum, cucumbers, lettuce (variety), corriander ( left gone to flower to attract good bugs), spring onion, butternut pumpkin,  those poor zuc's,  and cosmos flowers. 

Just harvested: beetroot, purple carrot.
Produced/ producing this week: daily pickings salad, zucs, cucs, & cherry toms, 3 jars of pickled beetroot, 1 large cucumber salad

There is something very satisfying about growing, picking & eating, pickling, and then drawing  

the same thing!

linking to Art Every Day: Day 15

Face play (AED 14)

This face popped up while playing around...

I don't know her name

Or what she's thinking...

But she is quietly waiting...

Another day of Art Every Day month... I must get around to grabbing a button!

I had a few minutes peace ( hence sketch above)

But not enough... not yet... 

Putting the kettle on, right now!

(For anyone who's interested I used: col erase pencil (brown), watercolour washes, neo colour crayons - metallic blue, metallic yellow, and a neutral browney colour)

AED 13, watercolour mermaid

Faced with a decided lack of inspiration this afternoon, I drew the first thing I could see on my desk - a small line drawing of a fish... 

Now don't ask me what type of fish as i have no idea! 

But once I had the fish, then what ? And so a mermaid and some coral. 

 I'm not really a mermaid kind of person and this my first ever mermaid, 

but I had a whole hour of uninterrupted drawing and that's all that matters - right? 

 

This is how she looked part the way through...

whew... love the challenge of Art Every Day... 

apologies for not getting around to everyone, but intend on catching up!  

Birthdays are out of the way, and once groceries are re-stocked (otherwise the troops will be revolting, revolt)... then I can grab a cuppa and have some relaxing time visiting y'all!

AED #12 or 13!

A quick post today. Spent the day in the studio : finishing, tagging and wrapping my art 

and items for sale at Reverse Garbage. 

All done and dusted just needs posting now and will be sent with a mix of pride, fear, and hope... 

I feel like pooh here jumping off into the unknown...

and a little shy like this little sketch tonight... 

But know at the end I need to follow my own advise and Be Still...

 

Christmas cards, bookmarks, small and medium works, encaustic, and badges...And THEN... I can start thinking about Christmas! ( hehe Artist Playroom challenge is Christmas, but seriously I can't think about that for at least a week!)

Offbeat quirky & sourdough Waffles!

lazy sundays...

brunch with friends

great conversation

birthday afternoon tea to die for: sourdough waffles, marscapone, maple syrup, caramelised bananas, mango, blueberries, & organic bacon

= rolling around as full as a goog!

(Australian slag: If you're "full as a goog," you're completely full. Goog is an Aussie term for "egg".)

After all that food - the Cleaning Fairy visited the studio

yay!

A small re-ordering of furniture, a dust and tidy, and vac.

All looks good now - well at least 1/2 the room... will have to wait for the next visit from the cleaning Fairy for the other 1/2!

And time for a quick sketch - revisiting my little owl friend...

Sneak peak... this is one of the finished items going to Reverse Garbage this week... it's around  A4 size, with monotype on vintage ephemera, and bird cut from vintage book cover

"Armfull"

I like offbeat and quirky!  Happy Sunday Sketching :-) and Art Every Day !!
edit: my daughters birthday!

Encaustic Eucalypts

eucalypt leaves

greeny, brown, the smell of the bush

 

picked up from walks

crunched on by feet

eaten by koalas

flapped by crested cockatoos

 

provide 

inspiration for poets and artists

welcomed shade

Eucalypts. Mixed media  on board, with original monotype, ephemera, encaustic, acrylic, pastel

Ending procrastination in the studio = requires a certain amount of self will!

Could have easily done any of the following this afternoon:

1. gone for a nap

2. pretended to read a book, and then nap

3. drank tea with #2 above

4. gone to the gym... well think about going to the gym... then nap instead!

Instead, I got into my paint clothes (I have specific clothes to wear as I tend to make a mess!)

 turned on the fan, and JUST STARTED.

result: the completion of three WIP... wowie!  I could be on a roll here!!

Now all I have to do is get these ready for shipping to Reverse Garbage, for the Christmas Exhibition...no more procrastinating!

Here's the mess on my desk... Do you think a cleaning fairy will come and put 

everything away for me? Hmmm I thought not!

Being Inspired by: Art Every Day Month challenge, and looming deadlines!

Happy Paint Party Friday!

Art Every Day!

Apples, Travel Art Kit, and sunsets

"It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree 

is connected with that of man."

Henry David Thoreau

Wherever we go we plant a fruit tree, and I love that.  A walk through the garden this afternoon, and I stopped to admire our apples.  Considering this tree was planted in Bundaberg 2 years ago, then transplanted and spent 6 months in a pot, and was only planted in the ground this July - I think it's doing remarkably well!  Covered in cute little Tropical apples, we are just waiting for them to grow bigger and ripen.

My Peerless Watercolour Palette... This is what I used on my recent travels to sketch while on the move.  I essentially followed the instructions using this youtube clip, but I used the whole width of the card, and wrote the name of the colour lightly in pencil.  I also have a second page by adding a 'flap' of watercolour paper into the middle using the washi tape.    As a lucky accident it was the perfect size for my small watercolour landscape moleskin journal, and it tucked beautifully inside ready for travel!

So - my travel kit, that I used on the Marvelous Melbourne Holiday...

of course I sketched it too...

What I used:
1 small, cute kitten pencil case ( the cute kitten part is optional)
1 small, landscape watercolour Moleskin journal
pilot V pen (runs with water which I like to add a little more atmosphere to sketches)
Artist Pitt pen, medium, black
prismacolour pencil, in a earthy red
Charcoal pencil
2 aquabrushes
copic marker, medium
mechanical pencil
My Peerless Watercolour Palette
A bit of eraser
A small piece of flannel cloth ( not pictured, used to clean brushes, dab up excess etc)
A small watercolour set - optional, but I like to take it

This was pretty perfect set-up.  Most days I took with me in my handbag  the journal, a pencil or pen, the watercolour palette, and an aqua brush - so easy for a quick sketch at the cafe!  When we got back to the apartment,  I did a little journalling or sketching from photos I'd taken that day, or what I could see around me.  If I was going to change anything I would leave out one of the black markers, but otherwise I'm really happy with this set-up. 

Artist Playroom challenge this week is Sunsets!   One of my favourite things - Sunsets here in sunny Queensland, Australia are often rather spectacular... so I can't help but share a few photos...

And how fortunate for me, I already had this work in progress!   Acrylic taken from the view from our local bay, at sunset, 

with the reflections on the water...

Wishing you all a colourful, sunsetty, applely kind of day! :-)

Watercolour Travel kit

It's been a relatively quiet week since coming home from holidays. Just as we'll really as I've done nothing all week except cough, splutter, drink tea, watch Offspring, whine a little, and cough some more... but I do it with grace and charm of course!

I think I'm getting pretty good at this actually - but really I could do better , after all I've had the masters (my teens) to learn from... I havn't yet asked for a blankie, or tomato soup for every meal, or negged on all my chores and responsibility, or given vivid descriptions on the colour and consistency of my snot on an hourly basis, etc etc.

So I confess Painting has been minimal this week... but I can share this watetcolour sketch of a terrace cottage in Carlton, Melbourne.    I took some time to get the SHADOWS (for Artist Playroom!) right under the awning, and under the chair, and plants.  In looking at it now I could even go deeper in some areas to add depth.

Traveling, with the expectation of doing some art is relatively new to me. Usually I end up being so preoccupied by what's happening I never do anything... Or I take too much and it gets left behind in the apartment! So this time I was determined to take just enough and as little as possible so that I would sketch straight from my handbag.

The solution was using the watetcolour palette booklet I made, aqua brush pens, and an artist Pitt pen, and small landscape sketch book... More details to follow :-)

Happy paint party Friday!

Quick fixes & Proteas

Aimee at Artsyville's List It Tuesday suggested topic this week is:  "quick fixes": stuff you know you need to do (and could do in a flash), but for whatever reason, it remains undone.

My, oh my... what could I put on such a list?

My Quick Fix list:

1.  Clean out the fridge... it really only takes a minute every week... but somehow, maybe because it's never that bad, it gets left, and then another week goes by, and before you know it you have a full blown science experiment happening in the back, and it takes you 30 mins to pull everything out to find out, 'Where IS that smell coming from?"...

2.  Decluttering The kitchen drawers: They are a disaster zone all by themselves... we only moved 10 months ago, how did they get so full of STUFF?



3. Filing The Pile: of papers, bills, and other important paperwork that needs to be kept... but which always seems to start as a "I'll put that away tomorrow"... but which ends up as a 6 month humungous pile of every piece of paper ever  deemed 'important' at some stage

4. Culling the Dead Underwear:   Maybe it's just me, but by the time I break in a bra so that it's all comfy, and fits MY shape... I want to hold onto it at least into the next decade...  even though they start to loose their 'oomph', and I know I really, truly need to say goodbye...and it is such a quick, no-brainer type of job, it's far easier to hold onto the old favourites than go out shopping for new!





5. Looking up online to find the nearest insulation installer... as we head into summer I have recently discovered the ONLY room without ceiling insulation is our main bedroom, what the?? 

Some watercolour sketches I did on my death bed, sick bed, comfy chair, while recuperating yesterday, using photos I took at the Melbourne Zoo for inspiration.  I have it on expert advice ( my mother) that the large flower is a protea and not a native of Australia.

If you missed travelling with us on our recent Marvelous Melbourne Mother Daughter Holiday -  the links are here!

Day 1 Marvelous Melbourne Mother Daughter Holiday 2012
Day 2 Arcades and alleys
Day 3 Things overheard
Day 4 The Zoo and pairs!
Day 5 Greek Speaking dogs, illness & Movies
Day 6 Trams and starbucks
Day 7 Markets, owls and home!