Rainbow awesomeness

So my new keyboard decals arrived in the mail today… I’d fully forgotten I had asked d to order them off Etsy, so was a pretty cool surprise to open up.  Go fun colour!   Its def. an incentive to jump on my computer and hopefully add a few more posts than I have of late!

Read Full Post »

Orchid geek

Made it out to the Melbourne Orchid Spectacular today. A bit of a mission in itself without a car, but fully worth it. An hour and three quarters of walking, tram, train, bus and a bit more walking got us out to Keysborough – With the same on the return journey… Though accompanied by two gorgeous new Cymbidiums and 745 photos which should give me well enough reference for all the painting I may wish to do for the next year or so.  I must say I’m liking the chance to play with D’s camera, though I really wish we has a macro lens now.

So. A few highlights from the show –  Enjoy!

Read Full Post »

Paper garden

I love our new apartment, but it doesn’t come with a lot of outside area. Apart from the balconies there is only this teeny tiny courtyard right down the bottom – Its pretty gloomy because of the brick wall which reaches all the way up to outside our kitchen window on the second level. So only low light plants would do well there… Unless of course your garden is made out of paper.So here are the new paste ups I’ve been making over the past week in the evenings, I finally got a chance to put them up this afternoon – I thought they’d be a good way to add a bit of colour and interest to our little brick space.We just had our half yearly flat inspection, so I figure I get six months to enjoy these before we have to clean the space back to blank… They’ll probably have deteriorated and started peeling by then – I love that in the meantime I can watch this decay process outside paste-ups go through up close.

On the subject of deterioration Here is a small piece of mine I put up last October that I only just found in a blog by thefitzroyflasher about embracing imperfection… Though I must confess its not actually as time worn as it looks – I deliberately aged this small series with thick layers of Shellac. The handwriting is in vivid pen, so it blurred out and obscured when it came in contact with the methylated spirits used to dissolve the Shellac shards. Some pieces were more readable than others – I wanted the viewer to have to pause if they wanted to take in what was actually said.Anyways back to the orchids.  The Melbourne orchid spectacular is coming up on the 26th- 28th of August, so the timing is right for these new paste-ups.  I’d expect to see a whole lot more work running with this theme in the weeks to come… Now its so close I’m fully geeking out about it – Hey. Whatever turns you on right!?!

Read Full Post »

Out the window

We have a pair of Myna birds that frequent the tree directly outside our kitchen window.  I love their colouring.  At this time of year the tree is just bare branches, An interesting silhouette against the sky… Perfect for a simple block colour painting.This is the first of the pair I’m painting… Just got to finish the line work and feather detailing on the second Myna bird.  Its funny, back in New Zealand these little birds are quite bossy – But over here they’re so not when compared with the noisy parrots and massive black crows.

Read Full Post »

Waiting for spring to arrive

So I started this last year back when we were in South Yarra, with the other Darling street cherry blossom painting – They were originally supposed to be a pair.Well its been sitting in my ‘To finish’ pile of work ever since, thanks to one of our many trips back to Nz which are so good at interrupting my train of painting.

Ended up being a nice little project for my Friday afternoon… And just as the new blossom for this year has started appearing on the trees on our surrounding streets too.  Think I need to take the camera out in the next day or two to catch the Magnolias in bloom before they’re gone.

Read Full Post »