More beauty from my walks

 It has been good to get back into morning and afternoon walks: and how fortunate to be back in Maleny after rain and with warmth to make many flowers bloom.

I share a few bits of beauty photographed in portrait mode - allowing the blossoms to pop.

May we all have the opportunity to see and be uplifted by fragments of beauty.

Finishing

 

I started some pierced (hand sawn) pendants and earrings whilst at the cottage in Scotland. In preparation for the Pop Up Art Show at The Little Red Cottage on 28-29 November I took myself to my Maleny workshop to finish grinding and polishing the pieces.

The pieces were then brought over to our home so that I could use some of Fiona's jump rings, earring hooks and necklaces to make the pieces ready for sale at the Pop Up Art Show. 

The opening photo shows the pendants with the dandelion and grasses motifs. I'm afraid the bronze colour was caused by poor light and reflections. The photo below shows the two negative space cottage pendants and the poured metal pendant.

Then below are the earrings.

For the record the following images are of the progress-process in the workshop.

This pierced-handsaw jewellery is made from solid salvaged, melted and rolled silver. The silver is not pure as one aspect of the salvaging and melting process is that one cannot identify the quality of much of the vintage silver as the pieces in days gone by were often not stamped. It is likely that the silver is about 600-800 in purity. I do like the organic nature of the rolled melted metal and the hand sawing.

Back to my Thursday group

 

We are getting back into our regular commitments. Yesterday I returned to my Thursday morning art group with Megan B. 

As you can see from the opening photo I'm adding something new into the mix. So, as well as doing watercolours of building such as the one you can see in the image below, F suggested I might try painting blossoms I have photographed with the portraits setting on my iPhone. This setting tends to blur out the background. 

As you can see from the opening photo I have started on two blossoms I photographed soon after returning home. A few more process-progress photos follow.

I have never painted flowers before so we will see how this goes. Still I like the idea that  the paintings will highlight the flower images!!!

Welcomed by the blossoms of Maleny - white, purple & red

 

We are back in our Maleny home and gradually getting in the groove. In this Wednesday blog post I share a mixture of standard photos and others taken with portrait mode. There will be three sets of beauty - white, purple and then red. The opening photo though is white and purple.

Here are a few of the purple images.

And rounding it off with reds.

So much beauty to behold and be uplifted by in the spring.

Farewelling the beauty of flowers in the cottage.

 

As much as possible Fiona ensures that we have fresh flowers in our Maleny home and our Scottish cottage. Where possible the flowers come from the garden.

We have been very fortunate this trip that the montbrecias, hydrangeas and various other wee flowers have graced our yard - so some were harvested regularly to up lift our home; and a rose and bouquet gifted by a friends.

I set myself the challenge to photograph quite a few of F's installations using the portrait setting on the iPhone. F taught me this trick - it tends to blur the background and make the subject a bit mysterious.

The opening and following photos simply celebrates the beauty of simple flowers.

As always simple beauty can uplift the spirit. This blog will publish as we start the flight home - farewell dear cottage and highlands.

Finessing and finishing

 Between periods of bad weather I managed to get out into the Wee Workshop, aka garden shed, to grind and sand four of my cupped stones. One was given away a couple of days ago; and the rest will head back to our Maleny home. 

Whilst I have cupped mainly roundish stones I wanted to have a go at a square piece of stone I have had in the yard for a few years. I love the layers in the stone. As you can see from the opening and following photo the cupping process has highlighted the beauty of the layers.

The four finished stones.

The three that will head home with us.

And the one that was gifted - oiled with vegetable oil so that it brought out the dark colour and can be used for salt etc once the surplus oil has been polished off.

Stone work has now been finished for this trip.