Wednesday, November 6, 2024

Birds and blossoms

 


What a wonderful welcome home to our Maleny home - so much bird life in action; and trees raining blossoms down on the roads and paths.

Fiona and I saw the above Spangled Drongo in action - weaving its nest - what a beautiful sight - on the end of a branch - over the Obi Obi and so close to the boardwalk.

As I have gone on walks over the last few days the birds featured below are but a few that were able to be photographed.






I was saying how the Jacaranda, Kapok (at least I think the yellow blossom is from this species) and Coral tree are releasing a rain of blossoms onto the road - see below.



Such beauty to uplift us in these challenging times.

Sunday, November 3, 2024

Commission and connections

 

Many of us carry bits and pieces with us as we go through life - including stones. I carried one such stone for probably 60 plus years. My memory of it was that it was found by my prospector grandfather and given to me as a young one probably because I had shown interest in it. Over the years I gave it a clean, ground rough edges off it and wonder if there was anything else I might do with it apart from carry it forward because it connected me with my grandfather. It was not a precious stone in monetary terms; and had flaws in it. I understood it was a piece of Chrysoprase.

Last year Fiona and I commissioned Lindsey Gallacher to make a pendant for Fiona from a flake of Scottish stone that we thought connected us to a place and events. If you check out Lindsey's site you will see she does beautiful work with stones that connect people to place and people.

Fiona and I decided to take the Chrysoprase stone to Scotland this year and commission Lindsey to make a pendant from the stone so that I could gift it to my niece to make another connection - to my grandfather and myself. As you can see from the opening photo Lindsey did a great job making the pendant - 20mm in diameter - with flaws and all. I love the swirls and almost green moonlike image that has emerged.

After cutting the stone there were four corners left. Fiona suggested that we might ask Lindsey to make four small pendants or charms (1cm diameter) for my four young grand nieces. The resulting four pendants are in the photos below. The group of three are for three sisters.


All that is left of the original stone are small fragments - below. These will be gifted with the five pendants.

Lindsey's skilful work has enabled me to pass this stone on with the links to a  my prospecting grandfather. Maybe the pendants will continue to carry forward family connections for another 60 plus years!!!!


Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Rounding off this trip

 

Random fragments from the iphone to end off this trip to the cottage. The photo above is of burnt bushes on the hillside above the cottage - moody moonlight and through a misty window pane; and the last photo is of the cottage at dawn. 












Hopefully there will be a next time next year.

Sunday, October 27, 2024

Eight completed

 

I had no goal regarding the number of postcard sized watercolours I would do at the cottage - I just wanted to continue to be inspired by the buildings and to enjoy capturing some of their individuality. As you can see I have completed 8 watercolours - roughly one for each week.

Images of the individual watercolours follow - from last to first.








I'm hoping some of these will make their way into the small exhibition I'm having in Deckled Edge Press Studio Gallery at the end of November.

Friday, October 25, 2024

The beauty of silver and stone

 

I have made as many stones with inlaid solid silver that I can on this trip. All stones except the cross for Graham are in the opening photo. Following are some process photos including shiny stones where I have added a coat of oil to bring out the colour. I wipe the excess oil off and the stone tends to retain the deepened colour.



The two pairs of stones following are going to new homes.


The four below will go into our studio gallery shop when we reach our Maleny home.

I am pleased with what I have achieved.

Thursday, October 24, 2024

So much beautiful light.

 


The order of the photos in this blog post is a bit random - in the post I simply share but a few fragments of beauty that Fiona and I have experienced over the past week. In the photo above it looks like the water in Armadale Bay is on fire.









The moonlight was so clear and bright one morning that we were casting the strongest moon shadows.

Such beauty simply makes one's spirit sing.