Artists Blog

Leaving the back gate open provides an open invitation to arguably the noisiest night birds IN EXSISTENCE to wander around as if they own the place.

I do apologise for the “murkiness” of the photos. It’s so humid now that the lense fogs up as soon as I take it oudoors!

Bush Stone Curlew Pair (with chicks stashed by the gate) see what’s around my patio. One fell asleep by the sliding door.

Orange Footed Scrub Hens dig up my re-planted chilli plants if they can. That damn bandicoot digs them up each night and tosses them on the lawn. He performed that endearing trick on the passionfruit vine each night until I built a brick pyramid around it’s base. If I have to do that with each new plant I may as well concrete the garden beds!

Gotta run, that’s more lightening and thunder heading my way. Fingers crossed for buckets of rain - all on that bandicoot!

I recently completed my final assignment in Photoshop. Manipulating pixels can be fun, frustrating and damn hard work! Here’s a small sample from that final folio.

Back in first semester I composed a still life for photography. Using this image I played with lots of brushes to give it the look of  a still life painting.

Also back in Semester One (Gawd but that seems like years ago), I did a lino cut of a barra. Having no press, it turned out dismally. (see  original post & linocut here)

Using the brain draining wizardy of Photoshop I tiled the original linocut to produce a print like piece, still showing the tile edges as a real print would.

A composite image that gave me a HUGE headache for days was this image:

You do not know how glad I am that Uni is over……

I’m still recovering from a weekend of teenage sleepovers…..pizza boxes, 1000’s of empty soft drink cans, empty lolly packets  and a pile of DVDs decorated their “cave”.

Still, there was a purpose for the sleepover. Jez had an art assignment to complete. He had chosen Hands in Henna Dye, and needed a willing victim.

He’s smiling now…..

Everyone was happy with the result, even Victim Max’s dad. Where the dye had been left on for a longer amount of time it was quite dark.

At school the next day all the kids thought he had some dreadful terminal disease. He thought that was pretty cool.

When we moved into this house at the end of last summer, we were told the massive tree in the backyard was a Lychee. “Wait till next summer”, everyone told us, “You’ll have bucketloads.”

Spring brought masses of nectar filled blossoms, with the whole tree canopy covered in birds and bees all wanting a share of the sweet smorgasboard. Weeks later the tree was covered with lots of  pea sized little ovals. Looked very promising.

Then one morning I walked out to inspect my ripening bounty to find it   a l l   g o n e.

To where? What had happened? Surely bats would find the small hard green lumps sour and unappetising? Or had the tree itself jettisoned the crop? It has been very brutally “pruned” over the years, with suckering growth forming most of it’s branches.

With nothing to do now but wait for next year, I set about lopping off all the lower branches, which had been sweeping the ground. Just making sure I can see what’s under that big dark tree before I step on it (thinking slithery friends here).

And then today I saw it.

ONE last lychee.

Only one.

Will it make it?

Whilst visiting another lovely blog by Doda, I found myself getting that adrenlin rush from 2 loves of mine - collections and their boxes. I am a Hopeless Beachcomber. I can wander for hours with my eyes fixed on the minutae in the sand. Others dash into the sea and surf, watch the skies, sunbathe. I fill my pockets and hands with sandy (often smelly) treasures.

The absolute best time to beachcomb in Perth was after a wild winter storm - what bounty was thrown up on shore! Each beach along the coast had it’s own special secrets to throw up - the beach north of Hillarys Marina speacialised in sea urchin tests of all colours ad sizes. Mullaloo, Ram’s Horn spirals. North Cottesloe has violet shells, which in ancient times was the only source of the colour purple for royalty.

I once completed a Calligraphy piece for the Royal Show which was centered on my beachcombing expeditions. It allowed me to “use” up some of my huge collection.

The finished piece was many, many metres long, but came to an untimely and soggy end whilst I was photographing it late last year. I think there’s a whole other post that needs to be devoted to it’s demise….

Anyway, getting back to my other love/addiction are the boxes that houses these collections. Wooden display/museum boxes. I go weak at the knees when I see them. I have a secret desire to be a Natural History Museum Curator I’m sure. I have quite a few of these wooden boxes. And some Perspex ones as well. They are filled with all sorts of treasures - nests, skeletons, seeds, shells, fossils, feathers, skins, eggshells, nuts, bark. You name it, if it’s been on the ground, fallen off a creature, or just plain smelly, I’ve got it in a box.

Getting back to Doda, she has some exquisite paintings of Collection Boxes. Hailing form Scotland, I told her of my beachcombing finds on a shoally beach at St Andrews that now reside in one of my boxes.

Jez entertained Moss and Jem (Border Collies that couldn’t get enough of the frigid waters) whilst I searched the shoreline. Apart from the beautiful sea glass, tiny crabs and unusual northen hemisphere shells, I found a piece of old china that made my heart skip a beat. Rubbing away the grime from the crest, I read my family name printed there. Amazes me to this day.

One thing I miss living up here in the tropics are the long, lanquid twilight times. And sunsets over the ocean.

Blink, and twilight is over up here - once that sun dips behinds the mountains it draws the curtains immediately and it’s dark.

When I used to walk in the evenings along the ocean path in Perth, I would always make it a habit to stop and watch that glorious golden orb sink into the waves. Lots of others did the same, with loud “oohs” and “aaahs” as the last rays spiked up over the horizon.

Feeling melancholic as I flick through digital memories. That’s a pic of my once local beach, Beaumaris. Endings and beginnings always make me wistful.

2 friends visited yesterday. As we sat on my couch, one asked” So what are you going to do now that uni is over?” Hmmm.

“Well”, I began. “At 5 pm Friday I took off the Full time Uni Student’s hat”. As from 8am this morning, I put on my Artist’s hat.” So it’s offically my new occupation. Sounds strange.Feels weirder.

This was an entry originally posted 2 weeks ago. I had to delay it’s publication until now due to media committments.

If you’ve been following this blog, you may remember my recent painting, the very first I’ve sold - of the birds eating the snake.

Even the journalist said it was an amazing karmic coincidence.

In this internet age, it is simply astounding how this news has travelled the globe, proving it’s just not Far North Tropical Queensland that holds a fascination for such things. According to London newspapers, I live “in the jungle”. That’s inside the house I reckon!

On a sadder note, the departed cocky has left behind a lonely mate, who sits in the same spot in the bouganvillea all day, looking a little lost. Thankfully the python won’t be hungry for quite some time…

17 November 2008

Unfortunately my last sentence above proved horribly incorrect. Or maybe it was another python. But he was taken also. This one we tried to save. (I had only hours earlier removed a paralysis tick from above it’s eye). I hosed that python with a full strength hose, but he wasn’t giving up his catch.

There are a lot of images, and I think everyone’s seen most of them around the internet sites and newspapers, so I’m not sure if you would want to see them again on this blog?

Let me know what you think.

A new evening job is to make sure there are no guests sleeping over in the The Tree of Death….

There was a gigantic spotlight blazing into my bedroom at 5 this morning. Of course I had to go outside and watch her sail across the sky. Naturally the camera came too.

Each month the full moon shows a different face, a different colour even. New craters, new mares (the flat “seas”), new mountains to look at. If you’d like to know the names and details of these features, click here. It’s amazing to think that all those bumps and craters have been named.

I feel so light.  Free at last from uni pressures.

Thank you all for your words of encouragement during my last few  s t r e s s f u l  weeks. They meant a lot to me.

Expect me to be back to full posting strength by Monday.

If you get a chance, go outside and catch a glimpse of the gorgeous girl herself - she’s out there right now doing her thing.