Almost autumn but beauty still in abundance

 

I'm amazed just by how many fragments of beauty have popped up on my walks. I particularly enjoy seeing the early morning sunlight settling on blossoms as can be seen in the opening image.

A cornucopia of shapes and colours follow.

A simple autumnal leaf and fallen blossoms on a car bonnet in the sunshine is like an art still life. Can you see the tiny beetle on the fallen flower bud on the leaf??? Many times I don't see the insects until I take a macro photo.

Even if we only see one fragment of beauty in a day, even if it is a common dandelion, may it lift us and give us hope.

Still standing strong in the landscape

 

In 2017 my sculpture Buttress Root was installed on the banks of Little Yabba Creek. The sculpture was selected to provide a canvass for poems about the landscape including the few remaining large trees with buttress roots. The piece is 2m high and 4m long and made from 10mm thick aluminium. The poems were CNC routed into the flat sheets before they were rolled into the trunk and sinuous root forms. The concrete foundations ate buried 1.5m into the ground!!! 

On Friday Fiona and her dad had to return home to Maleny from Noosa via Kenilworth because of the closure of the highway when a bridge was damaged. The trip home meant Fiona would cross Little Yabba Creek so I asked if she would stop and take a few photos of the sculpture as I wanted to see how it was holding up. Because the sculpture is installed on the flat near the creek it can be subjected to flooding as well as dealing with folk climbing on it etc.

As you can see from Fiona's photos Buttress Root is standing strong and still shining on after 9 years in the open.

Following are a series of images of the work from a few different angles 

Some of the signage informing the public about the sculpture.

We think a bird has found an alternate use for the brochure holder.

Looking towards the Mary River; and the canopy of trees. Little Yabba Creek feeds into the Mary River.

Behind the scene - making Daily Leaf Words sets.

 

Some folk ask how long it takes me to make different metal items. I mostly;y wander that I don't know because I don't time it. But what I do know that to make sets of Daily Leaf Words, as pictured in the images above and below, involves many steps over 4-5 sessions in the  workshop.

Some images of some steps involved follow. From the top down - from finished leaves at the top and the starting point of cut rectangular metal blanks: 

leaf forms ground and polished on the wheel; bowls hammered into shape with nylon and wooden hammers; disks of silver-plated metal annealed before hammering; leaf forms given a twist; tools used to open leaf forms in three stages; stash of folded leaf forms cut on the guillotine; leaf form being cut on the guillotine - watch your fingers; rectangular leaf blanks cut, stamped and folded.

The Daily Leaf Word sets shown in this blog are heading into my revamped online shop at as part of my Mindful Metal shop category.

In search of white

 

Seeing a white gardenia (see below) in the bush at the side of our home prompted me to look for other white flowers on my walk this morning. Whilst I saw 18 different flowers on the walk I share a few images here including the butterfly flower with what looks like a translucent cricket - opening image. Maybe the cricket didn't know it was a flower on a butterfly bush??

A few of the other images follow. Can you see the wee spider in the curl of the magnolia flower?

And whilst this is not a white flower I like the way the cheeky orange flower was peeking out from behind the white leaf.

Of course frangipanis are not necessarily pure white but they are delightful - and comes with its very own wee spider!!!.

Love the white beauty.

Two buildings and two boats

 

I have four more small postcard sized watercolour-pen paintings on the go. As it says in the heading two are of buildings  - one in Sherray and one in Armadale Scotland. The Skerray building is above and the stone cottage ruin in Armadale is below.

The two boats are both abandoned wrecked boats at Skerray Harbour.

Some images of my process-progress follow.

I hope to finish these four next week.

IIn the meantime I'm loading a few matted watercolours into my online shop. Fiona and I will be launching our updated websites and shops in a newsletter in the near future.