Artists Blog

The Dutch Iris in my garden are rather tardy this year, through no fault of their own. Last summer was a record breaker for extreme heat and drought, so for the first time I lifted the bulbs and stored them in the garden shed. Shrivelled like little balls of brown paper after summer temps in the shed exceeding 50 degrees C (122F), I put them into the outodoor fridge late Autumn. And then totally forgot them.

It wasn’t until I saw other gardens in the neighbourhood with bright blue blooms waving around that I remembered my neglected bulbs shivering away next to bubble water bottles in the drinks fridge. Rescued and then hastily scattered around the garden, I held little hope that they’d survived.

But Nature is a hardy wee thing. Up they sprang, growing with the speed and vigour of triffids. They are blazing blue for all the world to see. 

Spring in Perth is so fleeting. Blink and it’s gone. The mornings where dewdrops collect on petals are numbered. Summer is almost here.

Off on a tangent, it was after this photogrpahy session in the garden that I decided I couldn’t put off new glasses any more. Using my telephoto lense for macro photography means manual focusing. I thought the lense was all fogged up when every photo was blurry, and had to “guess” when things were in focus.

Saw the Optometrist today. New distance glasses in 10 days….

You may recall this watercolour that I’m working on. Progress is slow, with so many other things stealing away my painting time.

One bird down, two to go.

I’m determined to have this piece finished before the weekend, so stay tuned…

A singing visitor returned to greet us the other night. Right up to the kitchen window he came.

You may remember the amusing song he sings from this previous post.

Yes, the Motorbike Frog is BACK!

You may remember my work-in-progress with treasures gathered by the beach. Here is the finished watercolour, finally!

A nice surprise was opening up our local paper to find my name and painting (some of it!) mentioned. The Festival of Joondalup runs all this weekend.

Courtesy Community Newspaper Group

A couple of years back I decided to lend my eyes a helping hand for my finely detailed paintings due to Presbyopia. After all, everyone seems to be in the same boat after age 40 or 50. Even though I don’t use my ”reading” glasses  for reading, I do use them when fine work with a small brush is called for.

However, even my glasses are not enough for a dragonfly’s wings. It was like trying to apply mascara with a broom! Then I remembered that my wonderful investment of a daylight lamp stand came with a magnifyer attachment. What a difference, although I did get that slight queasy “at sea” feel. You can see my tiny brush to the right, the one with 5 bee’s eyelashes…

What I am working on is bounty from my morning beach walk, every find a real treasure.

A kind of madness takes over in Spring. An overload of sunshine and hormones. The bees in our mauve Convolvulus are all doing headstands. They burrow in that hard to get at the pollen they fall over backwards, covered in it.

A different kind of Painted Lady for this blog – the native Australian one.

The Carrion Flower (or Dead Horse plant from this earlier post) has outdone itself with a massive flower bud. The smell will be unbelievably disgusting.

And just when you thought “no-one could be that silly”, here’s a new plant available to buy at the garden nursey.

That price says $3.99 (faded in the sunlight). By my calculations my garden is already worth $319 in those plants alone!

I’ve noticed in the last few weeks that the Dragonflies in our garden have become super territorial. They have always chased away any dragonfly intruders, but now they are telling us, and the cat & dog, that the backyard is THEIR domain and we’d better keep our distance from THEIR chosen spot. (Pretty much anywhere near the pool).

No longer are they happy to sit still on a leaf or twig, now they are constantly on the wing and in your face if you venture too close. I thought I’d try and capture these flying jewels with my camera – much easier said than done!

Look you far square in the eye they do, that glittering head swiveling to follow your every move.

Bling in the backyard – beautiful.

Watercolour study of Dysphania fenestrata  (ACEO size 2.5 x 3.5 inches)

One thing I miss about FNQ are the flamboyant, even gawdy, butterflies and moths that are everywhere. The Four o’Clock Moth was one of my favourites. Named as it usually appears late afternoon, it is one of the very few FNQ moths that flies during daylight hours.

This fellow was in no hurry to leave me – he just didn’t fly anywhere, even though his wings seemed in perfect shape.. He just hung around for days, so in the end I fed him nectar from a little dish which he sucked up with gusto.

The colouring of this moth is just awesome. Tiny scales shimmering and glittering in the late afternoon light kept me fascinated for ages – what do they say about shiny things and small minds….

His wings are translucent in the white patches – letting subdued sunlight shine through onto the leaf below. Just gorgeous!

I think I’ve written about this little guy before on the old blog. I did manage to grab screen shots from the old Bigblog before it was turned off – when I have time I’ll process them all and upload them retrospectively. Could be a long wait – there was a LOT of blogging back then!

For artists who work from a Home Studio, constant distractions are never-ending – the phone ringing, the drop in visitors, school commitments… even the housework can seem like a pleasant diversion when your creativity has hit a brick wall.

Then there is the Studio Muse/Supervisor.

I’ve had my fair share of these creativity companions. I  scanned in some old photos of this ”muse” from waaaay back (must have been the 80′s – look at that typewriter!). She may look sweet but she was an absolute spit fire of a cat – only the dog could get near her without being shredded. I blame the family I rescued her from – a gaggle of kids who threw kittens around like tennis balls, and the fact that they wanted rid of her at just 5 weeks of age.

A Muse can take many forms…

This Male Orchard Swallowtail butterfly was having a lovely drink of watercolour.

Fingers crossed the cobalt wasn’t toxic!

My current puss is a real bugger when it comes to knocking things over, putting paws in wet paint, and generally getting her whiskas in where she shouldn’t. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

My last post was about an image I produced at an illustration workshop I did some time ago. On the weekend I bumped into the artist with whom I did the workshop, what a lovely coincidence!

You may recognise him from the newspapers and telly as the only WA artist left in the running to win the $50,000 Archibald Prize. (Finalists were announced just recently.)

It’s South Perth Artist Peter Kendall (whose book “A sausage went for a walk” still gives me a giggle).

To see some newspaper photos of his massive portrait of boxer Danny Green, click here. Took him 3 long months he said.

Best of luck Peter!

Some unexpected garden bounty over the weekend, pretty much all in miniature.

Salvaging my sweet potato vine from the marauding bandicoot brought this treasue to light.

Not more than a mouthful, so back into the soil he went. Something else that went into the soil was this little sweetie:

A gift from my neighbour, who has an extensive collection of bromeliads. This was just one of 2 crates of beautiful broms he gave me. The smell of this mini pineapple was just like an exotic cocktail. I almost pushed a straw into it.

An explosion of new mini critters in the garden – must be because of all the rain, and there has been a lot of it. This was one of the most inquisitive (and beautiful) jumping spiders I’ve ever encountered. He followed me all around the patio. Not bad for a fellow only a few mm long.

Not to be outdone with curiosity was this baby praying mantis. He turned his head to follow me about the palm tree trunk. He was about 20 mm long.

Oh for a macro lense….*sigh*

Male butterflies were quite aggresive in the backyard – chasing off any newcomers. The 2 species below have females which are very differently coloured.

The Eggfly below was almost luminescent in his purple blackness near dusk.

The Cairns birdwing below was one of the most erratic butterflies I’ve seen. It gave me a headache just trying to follow him. He was only still for a nano second. For every decent shot, there were a dozen blurry useless ones. Thank the lord we’re not using film anymore – it’d cost me a fortune!

I’ve a rather larger “friend” I met yesterday  in the bush that I’ll upload images of tomorrow….