Artists Blog

Sunshine and surprises. It was lovely surprise to see my work in the current edition (Vol 19 No 1) of Fine Art and Decorative Painting magazine. WIth the sun shining so sweetly after days of gales and lashing rain, it was so nice to get the easel out into the garden and paint.

Can you guess what  my new pastel piece will be? I wasn’t the only one to enjoy the deliciously warm sunshine, can you spot the sunbather in the photo below?

Have a great weekend everyone!

A big THANK YOU to the organisers and judges of the Expressions Festival held over the weekend. It was such a lovely surprise to be awarded First Prize in the Open Painting Category for my pastel piece Summer Shadows.

Wild weather still happening all around. More thunderstorms tonight and tomorrow with heavy rain that the garden is soaking up like a sponge. The lemon tree and lemongrass underneath are lapping it all up. I can feel lemon cheesecakes and Thai curries coming up… 

Sanctuary Acrylic on canvas, 100cm x 100cm (40″ x 40″)

I knew I was tempting Fate when I said aloud “What else can go wrong?” after my recent spate of applicance meltdowns.  I thought nothing could beat the washing machine, phone & computer all going belly up together, until the car and computer (x2) went on strike.  When the car made a loud “pop” under the hood, with strangling noises following, I called for the roadside assist mechanic. “Starter motors’ gone luv.” he said in a strong Irish accent. Odd, considering the youthfulness of the car. Next day at the garage/hospital it was revealed that it was nothing mechanical at all – a computer module was to blame. Some Power-Interface-Control-The-World module had told my car that the starter motor was cactus AND that it was out of fuel, and therefore don’t go awyhere. I also think it had a word to my home computer (you know the one that had it’s power pack replaced last week!), who now refused to allow mouse clicks to open anything. Several hundreds of dollars later, fastforward to today and my world is a much happier place. Fate can go jump.

Happy days on the go again, I finished some paintings, the above is for an upcoming exhibiton. The Quackers are back, but we have the pool blanket on, which rather confused them and me, seeing them walk on the rippling surface just like a water bed. The howling winds soon threw back a corner of the blanket, so happy ducks now as well. (Ssshhh, don’t tell Jeff, he’s not fond of all the mess they make…)

A huge storm is brewing tonight, due to hit in the early hours of the morning. Damaging gale force winds, hail, thunderstorms, abnormally high tides & flooding along the coast with beach erosion forecast. From Beaumaris Beach below, it looked very bleak. Time to snuggle up with a mug of something hot with my feet getting toasty in front of the heater. There’s good chocolate hiding somewhere as well…..

Panic has set in with so many exhibition deadlines looming. I always promise myself I’ll be more organised with deadlines but alas it’s not to be. I justify my extreme tardiness with the notion that extra adrenaline is being produced proportionate to painting delivery dates!

This year the Pastel Society has introduced a 9″ x 5″ category – the old cigar box lid proportions, and very popular as an exhibiton size. I raided the marble bowl for inspiration for the above painting – it still needs a little tweaking here and there, but was enormously fun to paint.

Thunder and lightning crashing around tonight. The morning thunderstorms have been impressive – the skies are glowing before the dawn, filling the house with eerie light.

The low clouds look for all the world like a giant Fairy Floss (Cotton Candy) machine.

Hope everyone’s week has been full of creative goodies.

I think the electrical pixies have been partying hard at my house – victims include the washing machine, telephone and my computer. Which would be most annoying to you?

 I finally got my computer back (it’s chewed through 3 power packs!), but I had more fun and games with mouse, keyboard, printer & modem refusing to co-operate. Fingers crossed it’s all sorted now.  But it’s not been all bad, my Calligraphy & Pastel students have been a shining light through the gloom.

Brush lettering with watercolours and gouache was a lot of fun.

Working with size and metallic powders, one student remarked that it was like the writing was appearing by magic. His piece above emerged from beneath a cloud of brilliant blue.

The chocolate and shortbread are essential tools of calligraphic learning.

The Pastel Workshop was a lot of fun and the students really shone on the day.

Some students managed more than one painting, even with no previous pastel experience.

Stained fingers are all part of the initiation, as well as remembering to wear an apron next time!

Thanks to everyone who made the day such fun – happy painting!

I’ve been on the ”loose end mend”, meaning finishing and tidying up the unloved and unfinished, both inside and out.  Going through my studio I found this old demo piece  from the summer waiting patiently.

I had left this months ago as a quick pastel sketch, just blocks of colour.

Refining the tones of the ocean, suggesting the rolling waves with turquoise on top and pthalo blue beneath.

Deepening the dune shadows with Ultramarine and Prussian Blues. Plants and grasses taking shape.

Morning sunlight shining on leaves.

And here is the afternoon sunlight shining through the leaves on my Chinese Tallow Tree outside my kitchen.

Most of them have ended up in the fish pond over the weekend with the storms. Beautiful leaf boats on the water, with the fish in Hide-and-Seek heaven. Autumn has finally given over to Winter, with huge drifts of mulberry, manchurian pear, and frangipani leaves all through the garden.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week of “doing”.

Saturday, on our way to the airport, we hear on the radio that there is a possibilty that flights may be cancelled due to the Volcanic ash cloud reaching our coast from Chile. Not what you want to hear when your flight is due to leave in less than an hour. I managed to take some some quick snaps of the very odd clouds from the car. The thin beams of sunlight were piercing them here and there and refracting off particles almost all the way to the ground.

Very beautiful, but very disruptive. All week ariports have been forced to close, with flight schedules in chaos.

The ash cloud on Saturday was 7kms (about 4.5 miles) above the city. A new cloud is due to reach Perth from the south tomorrow. Some airlines are operating by flying below or around the clouds. Some deem it too risky to be in the air at all. A friend is due to arrive tomorrow, maybe….

ADDENDUM: Have just had a phone call from our friend whose flight has been indefinately cancelled by the very airline that had thought it safe to fly around or below the ash cloud….Second ashcloud due to arrive over Perth later today.

Sunday was sunshine and painting – a lovely afternoon spent with Northern artists sharing inspiration, knowledge and a few laughs. We get together once a month, all welcome!

“The Lake that Glistens” 100cm x 100cm (39.5 ” x 39.5″)

It’s been a long week with coughs, colds and general unwellnes in my home. And it’s not even past the first week of winter yet! Add to that an intensive weekend workshop in calligraphy, deadlines with exhibitions, and the result is frantic chaos, but in a good way. I delivered the above painting (with a WHOLE 6 minutes to spare!) for the City of Joondalup Art Awards. The word Joondalup is an aboriginal word meaing “place of glistening”. In the heart of the city is a great lake which I chose for this canvas. It’s quite a move away from how I normally work, and I had such fun with the process. The above photo is a bit washed out along the top – my own fault for photographing with so little light left, varnish drying, and 20 minutes left to get it in the car and to the exhibiton venue!

I worked with a REALLY wet canvas – so outdoors became the studio. At one stage I even considered using the garden hose as a tool.

Lots of Raw Sienna was allowed to run where it would.

Watery Brown Earth formed rivulets which I directed around the canvas by tilting.

Burnt Sienna (my favourite brown), dripped off the canvas and onto the paving (and outdoor table, chair etc). Jeff was looking at me and my mess, but to his credit said nothing! I had the hose at the ready to wash away the paint puddles before they dried.

Once dry (took a while in this chilly weather), it created the most amazing landscape features.

It was then painting sitting on the floor as it was still a well saturated process – “wet in wet” doesn’t even begin to describe it! I now have a very sore behind and knees from hours on cold hard floor tiles.

Bottom RHS detail.

I have so many images in my head for other paintings in this style…I need a cushion for my bum I think! Exhibiton opens this thursday in the Great Space, Lakeside, Joondalup.

Late this afternoon I opened a box of treats. It was a lot like a box of chocolates, unwrapping each “flavour” of colour. I had only a few minutes to play with them before I was off to a new beach to “move my bones a bit.”

Just north of me is Mindarie Beach, a long unspoilt stretch of sand. The beach was pretty much deserted, so just right for a bit of sand jogging in between photos.

Dusk gives great colouring to the sand shadows, going from that cool blue to purple. Footprint shadows have great colours when you look closely.

Sunset saw me huffing and puffing, but I panted my way to the top of the stairs without stopping. I can’t remember the last time I exercised – high time I think!

Waves in pastel, from a recent painting.

Bunker Bay, south of Perth, had the most amazing turquoise sets of waves.

 Even though they were breaking close to shore and dumping swimmers in a most unceremonious way, everyone was having fun.

Beautifully formed waves is one reason why Yallingup, just round the Cape from BB,  is so popular.

A bodyboarder enjoying “The Green Room”.

Surfers come here for the long, rolling sets.

They’re certainly a brave bunch, considering the size of the waves.

And that’s not the only thing to take into account when you enter the water.

This fellow was swimming around the ankles of children right at the shoreline.

It was a Wobbegong or Carpet Shark, and was about 1.3 mtrs long.

The kids and the shark crossed paths, he went casually on his way up the beach, the kids ran onto the beach squealing!

You never know what you’ll find in a wave…