:: blink and maybe you'd miss this ::

 there's a Hindu folk tale about time summed up by Lord Vishnu telling Lord Brahma how so many incredibly huge number of eons occur not even in "the time I take to blink my eye"

 and I feel as though metaphorically, this was the intense amount of growth our garden did this past week or so...

blossoms unfolding fully...bees busily making the most of the sporadic sunshine...

petals fully outstretched...

 ...delicate quince blossoms fading fast...

...the turnover in the floral department running at a tremendous pace...

...more thoughtfully slow in the case of the furry apple leaves...

...while the grape sprout was astonishing to me - even a tiny, tight bunch of ...grapes!

 and this climbing rose had me utterly perplexed as to which leaf stem I'd snapped last week - I'm fairly sure it was this one...

a dramatic burst of growth - like hands reaching up to the warmth of the sun...

another surprise was hiding under the now-thick cover of leaves on this plum-bough...

and here blackcurrants swell...

hoping it's not too late to have mulched and fed the seemingly-voracious strawberry patches this weekend past...

...it really all appears to be growing so urgently right now - blink and I think I'd miss this!

How is your garden growing this Spring?

:: earnest crafting ::

my creations

Visiting a friend and fellow-Taruna student recently, Phoebe spied some magical little people nestled into her 'Seasonal Table' - it was a Winter Family, a Father, a Mother and a babe in a crib..."Can we make some, puleeeeease?" came the request almost as we walked back in the door at home.

I truly thought I'd done pretty well at 1) remembering how to make these wondrous wool felt dolls and 2) the creating of them.  We were taught how to make them while on the Course in Rudolf Steiner Education, last year at Taruna College.  I'd made about three at the time and thought that was a skill embedded in my cranium and finger tips forever, however time passes...

Phoebe's creations

What was remarkable was Phoebe's effort she put into making the same figures - these above and below are all of her own making. 

also Phoebe's creations - with fine detail - baskets, aprons with flowers on, wrapped braids...

I was fairly taken aback at her persistence to learn how to make them in totality and the rapid expression of her newly learned skill - in total she made 8 figures and at the beginning I showed her every single step, until on the final few she made them each, entirely herself.

And then, there is the hot water bottle cover -she was inspired to make her own, after I'd set out to make us a family set...one of the cut covers just disappeared, along with the child,to her bedroom for a portion of the day...listening to something Roald Dahl, I believe...

Again, more "Mother-incredulousness" as I witnessed her stitch away completely free-form - she had a picture she liked and just began embroidering as if drawing - wonderful!

Lady Vermillion

Those small hands are capable of very crafty business! 

:: rainbow weaving ::

Slowly, slowly, we are weaving a wonderful rhythm into our days together, home-educating in an anthrophosophically-inspired manner.

a foot measure? hmmm....

Phoebe has been working away at a beautifully-coloured and textured piece of weaving - making her very own cloth by weaving.  Here she is measuring the fringing, to make sure both ends are even - I like how 'bodilly-involved' she is able to get - feet, too!

trimming very carefully - using Mamas 'special sewing shears'

Jo - Phoebe said you'd want her to come and show you what she made using her pack of 'hand painted wool fleece' - so here it is, minus the face-to-face contact!  Jo at indigo inspirations magics up the most beautiful, luscious combinations of hand-painted wool and yarn and fleece - to name just a tiny handful of all the goodness that emanates from her 'hive'.

dark, fluffy blob is the sublime 'Rosie'

After previously struggling our way together through another (much more complicated and unnecessary) method of weaving, we struck upon this beautifully simple, handcrafted weaving kit made by Paula Cordeiro of eco textile studio. It's called a backstrap weaving kit. We chose to use the wool fleece, which we split more thinly, instead of using yarn, which we tried before.  I have learnt through this experience how much Phoebe likes to have a result showing quickly for her motivation and enthusiasm to remain ignited. 

my hands made this

I have been learning about temperaments and I believe she is a combination of two I had not really previously thought were 'her', until I've done so much reading now and observing her whilst thinking about this - very interesting stuff. (Oh - and not to mention the enlightening moments I've been having in regards to my own unique and peculiar behaviours!!!)

What have your hands been busy making lately?

:: small offerings ::

often a small one arrives at the door, panting breathlessly from running about, grinning widely and thrusting a small and grubby hand filled with colour toward me

sometimes the small, colourful treasure arrives minus any stems and I feel sad that it's not so easy to put them into even a tiny vase

mutabilis rose and quince blossom

this day I looked down in front of me at the kitchen bench and instantly saw a solution in the form of two recently-evacuated pale blue-green eggshells...and I beamed...!

I love the fragile nature of both items...I nearly posted this over here...

Do you receive treasures minus their stems, too?

:: here we are 2012 ::

well, I've promised myself I'll turn in for an early night reading in bed tonight and here I am writing a little post!
This must be going to be more compelling than "Full Bloom, the art and life of Georgia O'Keefe", which I am intending starting in a very short time...
We have now been 'home' for six weeks-ish and today feels like the first day of being in rhythm for me.  Why? Well, it's the first day I've been out in the weather doing the work I love doing - digging and planting and beautifying - and the first time I feel I've been able to 'hear' my inner voice ALL DAY LONG - I love that. All sorts of exciting and inspiring ideas have flowed - ideas for art, for the garden, insights and generally feeling the calm of a mind relaxing and perhaps a very large, day-long exhale?!
As well, we have now got the first primer coat of paint on the kitchen walls and cabinetry, in preparation, eventually (as in the next few days! LOL!) for the floor to be painted.  There has been some highly-focussed work going on all of the past six weeks inside and out as we re-settle and make those adjustments and refinements that make our place feel like our place again.  And, today I finished the third coat on all the kitchen cupboard doors and drawer-faces today - they are now a thoroughly joyous rich egg-yolky-yellow from Resene, called 'wild thing', and I intend that there shall always be a feeling of a warm Summer day in the centre of our home...YES!
The digging and planting and beautifying part came in the form of wrenching out (carefully!) about 10 or more clumps of dwarf flax bushes of various tones of red/brown/pink from the front garden and then beginning to divide and replant them to cover our 'berm' (big hump of weed and grass-covered dirt in a sort of crescent shape down by the river!). This felt most satisfying as I managed to work up a decent 'glow' (girls only ever glow!) and probably made at least 20 times the number of new (smaller) plants from what I began with as well as seeing something take shape before my eyes.
Well, as I say - an early night is what I've promised myself, so will now sign off.  Pictures will begin to follow soon.
My thought for today: life is precious and sometimes very short...what did you do today to make it count?

:: Days 9, 10, 11 + 12 of 120 Days of Making a Drawing ::

9/120

I'm still here and still doing this challenge! [just in case anyone is wondering...could've looked like I just gave up!] In truth, Day 9 was a toughie - the come-down after spending so long describing Nana Joy, perhaps - or maybe I'd psyched myself into thinking I had to achieve the same level of depth and detail...so I was a touch grumpy...ok - I was behaving in a fairly savage manner to those dearest and closest...and obviously feeling out of sorts...not finding inspiration in anything around me...oh, DEAR!
And then Aaron brought home a gorgeous pair of Oriental Lily stems - et voila - my muse for the following days...

10a/120

10b/120

 this drawing may look more than a little odd...it's called a 'Blind Contour Drawing' and it is literally made without looking at the page at all and all in one continuous line (which helps with the sense of feeling like one knows where the pencil is on the page). It is a way of training the eyes to really notice what they are seeing, so drawing as slowly as possible also helps this experience.  The concept was popularised by Kimon Nicolaides, who also thought drinking caffeine before drawing wouldn't really enhance the experience!! ooops!

11/120

These I drew using a hard-ish charcoal pencil - which gives a lot more control and a darker impression...liked using the pencil - much less messy...did I just write that?

12a/120

took me awhile yesterday to get into it - so tried another blind contour, this time just looking at the external lines of the whole subject before me...quite freeing and fun - no attachment!

12b/120

And this drawing also had a sense of freedom - this time very unexpected - as I often am so intent on interpreting what I see as the real thing, that I get a little too busy with the rubber (eraser - for non-rubber-understanding people), perfecting a line - and getting very 'caught-up' in this.  Whilst immersed in this drawing, I felt a switch and decided that if my proportions weren't going exactly true to the lilies I was looking at, that I would honour the mark in the position it was and just continue on...without the rubber and it's little petty tyrant commentary that went with it..."that isn't right, get rid of that!", etc As I progressed I sensed a strong improvement in the confidence of my mark-making...YES!!! And the drawing just is as it is...a drawing.

:: Day 8 - 120 Days of Making a Drawing ::

Nana Joy

The holidays...aaahhh! Day one - and as Jo over at Indigo Inspirations quite rightly says: "time to breathe out!".  Just a little more space is so welcome in these hectic times.  And when I have a little more space I can get all absorbed in something like this.  This drawing of my Nana Joy - who is almost 95, by the way - I have been wanting to use as a practise piece for my portrait-drawing for a while.  I took the photo last October on the evening of her 94th birthday and I think it is the nicest photo (if I do say so myself!!) of my Nana, who usually has to be sneaked up on to get any photo of her - she doesn't much like having photos taken.  She looked radiant at dinner that night.
I spent over 3 hours today on this drawing...so easy to become engaged in a subject like Nana.  There is so much interesting detail to discover on such a wise face - and much compassion to learn as well - the person being drawn is almost under a microscope - so all their little vulnerabilities are there for inspection and interpretation.  I had a most intriguing experience drawing today - thank you Nana Joy!

:: 120 days of making a drawing Day 7 ::

...hmmmm...we had a big day today...it began with a breakfast out at House of Gabriel, on the Tweed River, at Tumbulgum (I just love the sound of that little town - sounds like it ought to be in a fairy story...about mischievious gnomes, or gum-nut babies...?). Very entertaining breakfast - as all and sundry of the surrounding male gender were all out on show on the river in and on their various 'toys' - parading it up and down, using their very clean and flash automotive toys to deliver and receive back again said aquatic toys...very entertaining...all boys...and their toys...no - I'm not jealous! At all.
We'd thought we were achieving clever geographic-planning by choosing this little gem of a cafe for our special breakfast out, as we were then heading to the Tweed River Aquatic Centre for a fun birthday party involving waterslides!
Alas, technology let the day down and our festivities were relocated to...Ballina...only about 80km's SOUTH of where we'd so...cleverly (as we'd thought!) placed ourselves...with plenty of time to reach our party...we thought!
We hoofed it back down the highway and...would you believe...driving at the speed limit or less...were the first to arrive for the relocated party.

Big day on the water slides, which ended very dramatically as Ballina was literally bombed by a seriously heavy hailstorm which arrived after about an hour's ominous thunder and lightening grumbling foreplay...truly looked like it had snowed in Ballina this afternoon.
So today's drawing comes in the form of a fantasy sketch/doodle done in the car... : )

:: 120 days of making a drawing Day 6 ::

feet

there are so many body-bits I'd like to practise...so...why not feet today? I found a pretty basic reference  book: The Human Figure A Photographic Reference by Erik A. Ruby at the Brunswick Heads Old + Gold Festival this year for the bargain price of $1! Basic and very seventies...but still has just what I need for my kind of drawing practise at the moment.

:: 120 Days of Making a Drawing Day 5 ::

we have an old Kombi back bench-seat - salvaged from a van being converted into a travelling abode - residing on our back deck, facing West...perfect for slumping into, to watch the last rays washing everything golden, so all appears magical...and perfect!

And from that very comfortable spot I sat late yesterday afternoon, with drawing book and chalk and wondered what the heck I would draw...at the end of another very full and wonderfully-inspiring day at school...my eyes first focused on the cactus - so that was it - couldn't even think enough to make a choice further afield...so, the cactus on the ledge it was!!

Lady with an Ermine (left)

 And this is the inspiring stuff we co-created at school yesterday!  We were each asked to choose 13 tiny (4cm x 3cm) rectangles randomly from a paper bag, each of which were one of 90 rectangles, which together were a da Vinci masterpiece...although we did not know what we were creating - we were not allowed to see the print of the painting!
We then received 13 pieces of painting card - each 20cm high x 15cm wide and set about painting each piece as best we could represent what we saw.  We used acrylic paint and each mixed all the colours we 'saw'. The group worked feverishly to complete this within the day - seven of us, including the tutor, Michelle Dawson, since we were a small group on Friday. Once the pieces began to be placed onto the grid, it suddenly became thrilling to watch our image materialise...very exciting!!

The course we are taking is run in two groups - a Mon/Tues group and our group is the Thurs/Fri group.  The Mon/Tues group created the painting on the right and ours is the beauty on the left...Lady with an Ermine...and on the wall she hangs proudly at 2 metres tall by 1.35 metres wide!

What do you think about that?







 

:: 120 Days of Making a Drawing Day 4 ::

Here she is...day four...not much to say really, other than - I fitted it into a busy day and pleased I did - maybe suffice to say I was well-supported by husband to make the effort and get it done!  Looking forward to the weekend and days with a little more breathing space in them.

:: 120 days of making a drawing DAY 3 ::

I appear to be on a roll.  So I will just go with it.  As I chattered my way to sleep late last night after tumbling into bed closer to eleven than ten, I vaguely remember annoying poor husband with some notion that there was a life-drawing class on every Wednesday morning right here in Mullumbimby, just a long the road.  And I think I remember Aaron asking me "was I going to go?" and then thinking that I didn't really have a good reason to not go....
...so I went. To the Dynamic Drawing class at the Drill Hall in Mullum with Ron Curran.
LOVED it!  Apparently we had just a small class today, which meant extra help when required.  I managed 26 drawings in the 2 + hours of drawing...lots of 1-2 minute poses to get us loosened up and then into some longer ones.
Again, a most refreshing experience and one I'll definitely repeat.  By the end I was beginning to feel really confident to just make marks on the paper.  I found myself less in the rush which I've associated with life-drawing for myself in the past and more relaxed in my approach.  Also, to see what everyone else had produced in the session was enlightening and inspiring!
...here's a couple I feel brave enough to expose...how funny is that - who do you reckon was really the more exposed???

:: 120 days of making a drawing DAY 2 ::

It was quite simply the largest near-naked derriere I have ever seen and it was perched high above a pair of sky-scrapingly-high, glittering, platform court shoes, holding up not only the bottom, but the very substantial limbs, also.  Very refreshing - so large and so very feminine and so very out there.  I came away feeling humbled by the boldness and the courage of the soul in that luscious female body. And realised how narrow, indeed, our common media-driven concept of the parameters within which we females generally are supposed to fit, is. And...corsets do WONDERFUL things to form...

Right - well - back to the drawing...the lights were dim-ish, I scuttled in, alone, hurried to a corner seat, where I hoped no-one else would be able to overlook my shoulder and settled in...not knowing what to expect.   And...it was outrageous...ly good fun!!  I have not enjoyed myself so much in a very long time...and I got in my drawing practise for day TWO of my challenge as well...so here are just a couple of pieces of evidence of my foray into dr.Sketchy's burlesque life-drawing...

...bring on day three...I'm off to Dynamic Drawing for my third day of the challenge...

:: the 120 Day Do What You Love Challenge ::

ok, so I was feeling like I needed a little something extra to motivate my own artistic practise generally, of a day, type of thing...  Sure - I attend the visual arts course and attend to the homework, etc and I also want to be able to just draw everyday as an independent thing I love doing...
...and then I heard about the "120-day do what you love" challenge on the lighthouse lounge on Bay-FM yesterday morning and I thought: "that's it! Make a drawing everyday."  And, so I have begun...
...and it is brave to make the posting here, showing you what I'm doing...and I think it's important for me, too, as it will be another little check-point along my path to motivation.

Here she is, number 1.  Guess who, at nearly one?  Now, there is PLENTY I can see that needs improvement just from the distance of a day, etc - it's a start, though! YES!!!
And, number two will be something from tonight's attendance at Dr Sketchy in Byron...nervous... wish me luck!!

:: sculpture results ::

... so here are some of the pieces I've been busy creating to meet the requirements of the course I'm studying this year.  It is Certificate III in Visual Arts and Contemporary Crafts.

Tree of Life

The Tree of Life is a needle-felted piece sculpted around a wire armature...it has two outfits so far...these Summery leaves with fruit and a limey Spring canopy of leaves with pink blossoms...Phoebe, as you probably can tell from the 'accessories' had quite a long wish-list of things I really ought to create to complete the setting...for the moment, I'm planning on making a set of 'Autumn Leaves' as adornment for...well, Autumn, when that time comes!  I'm going to be brave and enter it into the Ocean Shores Art Expo - first time for everything, they say....well, I shall suck it up and enter...soon.

Arnhem Land style coiled basket

There was tremendous satisfaction in making my first basket that looked like a basket...this one is made from raffia, as opposed to the spinifex grass that is the natural, organic choice in the desert of Central Australia, where this style of coiled basket-weaving originated in the hands and hearts of the beautiful Arnhem land original people.  For some variation, the green is strips of a green silk dress that never did fit me very well...it looks pretty in the basket, I think.

Organic glazed coiled vessels

Green, being a theme running along here...is the celadon glaze in the interior of these little ceramic vessels. "Make something organic using the coil-work" was the brief on day two of our first ceramics experience ever...frozen at the thought of having to turn a squidgy grey square lump of wet clay body into something 'organic' (other than the shape in front of me), I went for the rounded rectangle of an anchovy tin in my 'creative' room at home...and this is the product that emerged...a glazing workshop several weeks down the track at our tutor's studio in the rainforest led to the delicate colour on the insides...they are glazed plain white on the other faces.

funny little houses for the season table?

 These funny little houses are just a crack-up to me...another 'frozen', "what the hell am I going to make?" moment...brief = architechtonic [specifically with angles] and habitat had me petrified and finally I went very angular...tealight shades, perhaps?  they've made a visit to our Season Table as gnome abodes...hmmm

Dodecahedron Family

And these guys...the Dodecahedron Family.  Paper, Scissors, Rock.  The Rock was the clay part.  Here's what I did with paper and scissors for the Assemblage part of our 3D/ Sculpture learnings...I just had to know whether I could make internal cones fit inside a dodecahedron, and then make another...somehow they're the parents and they made an extraordinary...baby! With external cones...our tutor liked it...hmmm.
...so there you are...a progress report!