Wednesday, November 13, 2024

Bits and pieces of beauty from the phone

 


I had a lovely walk this morning - cool, birdsong and bits and pieces of beauty. This post simply shares some of the fragments, including some of G's orchids, that have caught my eye and lifted my spirits.







G's orchids - love the one that looks a bit octopus like!!!





I just know that I need to be mindful of the bits of beauty to remind me of love, joy and hope.

Sunday, November 10, 2024

Four on the go

 

On Thursday I managed to get back to the watercolour group with Megan. I had sketched a couple of boats and a couple of building images on watercolour paper before I left the cottage in Scotland so I just hopped in and worked on them. 

The opening image show what I achieved so far. The boat watercolours will most likely be gifted to the group who in pastorship with Strathnaver Museum built the boat. The top boat image was from a photo taken when the boat had been painted in the workshop; and the bottom one is from a photo taken on the day of the launch.

Some process photos follow.






I hope to do a bit more work on the pieces before Thursday next week.


Friday, November 8, 2024

Preparations for exhibition and sale

 

I'm going to have an exhibition and sale of my small watercolours at Deckled Edge Press on 30 November & 1 December 2024. We are also having a 25% sale off studio-gallery stock alongside the exhibition. 

Fiona and I were testing where and how we might place the framed watercolours. In the photo above you can see we were playing with some plinths and stands. Below we tested if the frames could be hung using our hanging system.

As part of the preparation we have taken delivery of quite a few frames and matt boards.

We decided that all of our plinths looked a bit worse for wear so over the last few days I have given them a couple of coats of white paint.


We will be sending out a newsletter soon about the exhibition and sale. It would be grand to see a few folk checking out the works on show and for sale; and of course this will be an opportunity for folk to snap up one of my or Fiona's other art works, jewellery, bowls, poetry publications etc as Christmas gifts.

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.