Artists Blog

My little kingfishers have made it into next year’s calender, supporting the Whitfords Volunteer Sea Rescue. And they herald my birthday month of March – I’m so pleased. The original painting was 41cm x 51cm (16″ x 20″), and when I saw it reduced to such a tiny image, I thought I’d give a real miniature drawing a go.

This is approx 2″ x 1.5 ” in size, drawn with pencils and a smidge of white ink. The kingfisher still towers Godzilla-like over the kangaroo & emu on the 50c piece. The colours are a bit off with night photography, the yellow is nowhere near as bright. I learnt that you need VERY sharp pencils to make this work, and a good pair of eyes. I always vow to draw during daylight hours, but here I am again almost midnight…

Carrying on from my last post about the pastel students, here are some pieces from the watercolour bird students. Some of these students had never used watercolour and gouache before, so the results are quite something.

Above are Deb’s birds, the one on the left is on Illustration board, the other is on Claybord.

Vera’s just about finished her portrait of a cheeky bird she met on an overseas holiday.

And Thea’s not got long to go with her Gang Gang Cockatoos.

Great work by all!

The work produced on Saturday’s pastel workshop was just wonderful. The students are really spreading their wings with their paintings. Above is Thea working on Mogo Crater Creek rainforest in the Atherton Tablelands.

Albert proudly shows off his first pastel painting in many many years.

Heather shows us her vision of Quinns Beach, her 2nd painting ever!

Cathy is working in a very fresh and loose style on happy sunflowers from The Continent.

Lil is re-creating a stunning waterlily form Port Douglas.

We all share laughs, stories, tips and chocolate on Workshop days.

With finished paintings at the end to share with a wider audience. Thanks to everyone for sharing their work.

So impressive is the calibre of the students work, we are going to hold an exhibition on the first weekend in Decemeber. Stay tuned for details!

There was an extra guest during Saturday’s pastel workshop. This Southern Old Lady Moth was quite happy to crawl about my pastel stained fingers.

I took her outside and off she flew. Even though her colours were not as brilliant as the moths and butterflies of our last home, her patterns and wing “eyes” were just as captivating as the Ulysses below.

Word has spread about our backyard bounty…..

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…..

You may remember my recent painting of Forest Kingfishers. I’m thrilled the team behind the “And it was very good” art exhibiton have chosen it for March  2012, in a calender they will be producing.

The Forest Kingfisher is my favourite bird to paint – I can’t get enough of those electric blues. Until living in FNQ I had never imagined birds so blue would visit me almost every day in my garden.

They were a constant source of delight and inspiration. And they were q u i e t. Very unlike all the other racket making birds up there – Noisyness ratings as follows – (Nightime) nothing beats the wailing Bush Stone Curlews, a close second were the Orange Footed Scrub Fowl – these guys went ALL night long. (Daytime) Sulphur Crested Cockatoos with young ones begging – sounds like an electricity substation approaching meltdown. Then Scaly Breasted Lorikeets, Kookaburras, and that Singing Assasin the Butcher Bird. All let you know full well they were around. Not the wee Forest Kingfisher. You’d look up and there he’d be, looking you straight in the eye a few feet away.

Sometimes with dinner in his beak – showing it off to you.

I truly miss them.

This post inspired by Tyto Tony’s blogpost on these beautiful birds.

Over Lake Joondalup – Acrylic on Canvas 100cm x 100cm (40 ” x 40″)

It’s always a little sad when I finish a painting, pack it gently in the car and then deliver it to be hung. It’s like sending a child off into the world – will I see it again? This was sent out into the world this evening in preparation for the City Of Wanneroo Art Awards – opening Friday night at the City’s Cultural Centre.

Detail

I’ve known this lake area ever since I moved to Perth over 25 years ago. It has certainly changed, but in good ways. The birds reckon they’re onto a good thing – so cheeky that they not only feed out of your hand, but will only select sunflower seeds and thumb their nose at lesser seeds!

It’s quite funny to see people’s reaction the the Long Billed Corella (below) digging around their open palm with that very imposing beak!

Hope everyone is off to a great start to the week!

Here are just some of the many birds I saw down the south west corner of Western Australia. Some were shy, some were noisy, some were downright cheeky!

These 28′s (Australian Ringnecks or Port Lincoln parrots) were at my door in the morning ready for breakfast. I’ve so many photos I’ll be happily painting birds for years!

Once back at home, we were alarmed to hear a clatter, clatter BANG on our roof tiles and guttering. Not once, but three times. Running outside and looking up to the roof we saw the culprits. A quick climb up the ladder revealed this:

Apparently ravens find “toys” like this interesting. There have been $000′s damage to glass awnings when they drop their “toys” onto them. There is a large flock of adults and juveniles around here currently. The teenagers will be off soon to establish their own territories. Till then it’s one eye on the sky!

The adults have white eyes, the juvies black. Here they are in my back garden playing King of the Hill. Or water feature.

“Nature’s Jewels”  Watercolour on Illustration Board 28cm x 36cm (11 ” x 14″)

Finally finished! This last piece was one of five that was required for the selection process for entry into the Watercolour Society of WA. I’m happy to say I was accepted and take this opportunity to say “Thank you” to all who were involved.

I’ve used Winsor and Newton paints exclusively on this piece, as I’ve modified my paintbox to take an extra ten halfpans. When working on a colour limited bird piece, I find it easier to use the paintbox than my large many, many coloured flat palette.

Click on image for a larger view and names of paint colours

I’ve listed my Cotman Colous (student quality) in the far right column. There is not much difference in pigment density I’ve found (click this previous post when I first started my testing). The main difference is that some Cotman colours are hues, not the naturally occuring pigment which is used in the artist quality. I always recommend a colour chart on sturdy paper when you first start out with a new assortment of paints.

At sunset yeterday we went down to Hillarys Marina for dinner and drinks. A delicious way to end the day.

Progress on this painting has been alarmingly slow, considering it is to be framed tomorrow! Distracted though I have been, they have been very pleasant diversions - unexpected visitors, harbourside dinners, and long distance phone calls from those close in heart. It just means my studio light will be burning late tonight. I’ve finished 2 of the Kingfishers, and have made a start on the branches. The third Kingfisher is currently just blobs of colour.

Above is how I use my watercolours somewhat unconventionally. The 2nd finished kingfisher is shown  in the first photo, but is a little overexposed due to my night time lighting.

Below is an example of more progress – in the world of shopping trolleys.

Whoever designed these new trolleys have finally got the essentials of grocery shopping just right!