Four on the go

 

As you can see from the image above I indeed have four small watercolours on the go. Three are of the same building but from different angles because the owner commissioned three works for herself and relatives; and the fourth is a historic ruin that was also commissioned.

One advantage of doing the three of the building concurrently is that I get to use some of the same or similar colours from the pallet.

The images below show the sketches for the works.

The following image show my experiments with ink and pens to see what worked for creating the fine lines of the window frames.

Some more progress-process images follow.

I'm hoping that I get these four finished over the next couple of weeks amongst other tasks and other creative bits. When these are done I will have completed all the watercolour commissions.

Orchid beauty to lift one's spirit.

 

Fiona and I are fortunate that we can wander into G's orchid house and soak up the beauty Orchid beauty. Such beauty is particularly welcome on mornings like this morning which was grey and raining.

But first let us enjoy the beauty of some of the orchids on show at the moment.

And as promised a few photos of a dismal morning. I did an inside walk!!!

It is grand that even in grey and dismal times if we look hard enough we can find bits of beauty to lift one's spirit.

Rearranging-refreshing

 

Fiona and I spent some of our creative time moving and rearranging some of our garden sculptural pieces. We did this because we want to see and appreciate some pieces more out the front of our home; and because by rearranging we see the pieces with new eyes.

The opening photo with early morning sunlight shows the arrangement we have achieved so far - I say so far because we will be adding to what is there and maybe achieving a different balance.

The following photos simply show some of the pieces in morning light.

I took a photo of the trio of posts across from our front door; but took it from behind as we rarely take the time to see things from different angles.

Functional pieces - ladles

 

Given I only had one small (4.5 cm) ladle left in my stock I decided to make a few more ladles of different sizes. To start with I have made 4 medium (6-7.5 cm) sized ladles - see opening photo.

The ladles are made from silver-plated brass cut from salvaged placemats and serving trays. I start by cutting circles of metal; then roughly forming them into shallow bowls; then planishing the back of the bowls to set the finished shape; and finally grinding and polishing them. See some bowl form process photos follow.

Once the bowl forms are finished, handles are made out of brass rod or hardened thick brass wire; and the formed handles are drilled in preparation for riveting the handles to the bowl forms. See some process photos below.

The ladles are then given a final grind and polish to create the shiny functional pieces shown in the opening and closing photos of this blog post.

Resilient wallabies, birds and blossoms

 

We have a whole lot of heavy earthworks taking place below our home. The ground is being cleared for new housing. The downside is the grassed area where the local wallabies visited and grazed is now gone. The good news is that at dusk yesterday the wallabies ( three) still came up from the creek at the back and crossed the scorched earth (photo above and below) and made their way the slope and through the fence to the hospital grounds next door to graze. This morning on my walk I saw one at the front of our village happily grazing - hence my title resilient wallabies. 

We often hear the small brown honey eaters at dawn; and on my walk I managed to photograph one of these shy birds feed on a grevillea in rather dim light.

The blossoms in the house, in the village and on the road verges defy winter.

The early morning winter light is still dark and a little foreboding.

Such variety of beauty to remind me of hope.

Shine, cut, test and melt

 

As the title suggests over the last couple of days I have been doing chores that either follow on from making (shining metal); or in preparation for making (cutting paper, testing colours and cutting, melting and forming metal).

The opening photo and those below show some of the outcomes and processes of shining Daily Word sets.

I have finished cutting the paper offcuts separated out as part of our recent paper inventory and sale. The pieces have been cut into sizes for mini posters and business card size inspiration cards.

Instead of just looking into the various paint boxes I am using I finally got around to doing colour tests on a couple of postcard size pieces of watercolour paper.

Today I cut up some salvaged discarded pewter objects and poured some stars and hearts. The stars will be gifted as is; and the hearts will be stamped with words and then gifted.

It often fascinates me that as artists we progress small things on many fronts to finish and facilitate the actual making.

Good progress on watercolour and ink pieces.

 

I like where the two versions of the mill wheels are going - see progress to date above. Quite a bit more ink work in these pieces as they require more detailed definition. Worked with Megan on the blueish reflection on parts of the face of the wheel. Liking the outcome.

Some progress-process images follow.

I have also tested the two versions of the Syre church and the two Lednagullin watercolours in the frame I will be using. Like the way the frame defines and bring the work and colours to like.

So all in all - good progress on 6 commission pieces.