Some journal pages

Hi, I've done a few journal pages from prompts I found called oxygen mask hopefully you can track them down at jenaferjoy.com. They are tiny little 3 minute videos, with an idea that you can do quickly with minimum materials. Thay have been good to play with this week inbetween the xmas stuff, office parties, shopping, digging out the tree and decorations.

A found poem

I hope you will find some little pockets of time for art over the next busy days.

Sitting on the verandah I can hear rosellas (parrots) next door going crazy over a tree that's in flower. Thunder rumbles in the distance, we just had a week of monsoon rain, and now a little break, I have sheets and towels on the line, and I'm keeping an eye out for that storm. The tv chatters away in side the house, my kids are watching documentaries on rock climbing of all things. A small bird perches on the pool fence and every so often flits down to skim the surface of the pool and then back to the fence. I'm not sure if it's washing or catching insects!

So Happy Christmas from the tropics!!  xx Kate xx

The build up garden

It's the build up... hot and humid with occasional thunderstorms, the monsoon doesn't usually arrive until after xmas - last year it didn't arrive properly at all... Inspite of the heat, and thanks to some decent downpours, some things in my garden are thriving.

Coleus thriving in the shade with amazing flower spikes.

I don't really have a garden plan, I like to grow some food and I've been learning by trial and error what can survive my not very green thumb! I grow a lot of things in pots because of the poor soil, and so that I  can move things in and out of the sun depending on how stressed they're getting.

Hard to make them out but here are basil, thai basil, 

mint, parsley, sweet leaf, lemon grass

pineapple and cherry tomatoes.

I grow a few flowers to attract bees and other pollinators, and so that I can paint them in still-lives!

I only tend about a quarter of the garden - the rest is established palms that fend for themselves (except for piling the palm fronds on the compost heap), and lawn, which my partner mows.

Some of the flowers at the front fence, and lots of

mulch, newspaper and palm fronds to try to

keep the weeds under control.

Lately we have eaten a beautiful pineapple, and another one is ripening. Now and again I fry up some sweet leaf and parsley in an omlette, a treat for me as the kids are not that keen on my garden greens. I  would love to be growing more and cooking more from the garden, but at least it's a start!

It's all happening next weekend!

That little bit of sewing I showed you last month is for the Constellations theme members show, it opens this Friday at 5.30 at Tactile Arts. I made two little star theme pin cushions, and put in two of my recent flower paintings retitled - a constellation of begonias 1 and 2 - to fit the theme (a bit of a cheat).

Next weekend will be busy as it's the craft fair at the waterfront on Sunday 9am to 1pm. It will be bigger than ever, spread over more of the lawns, I'll be with Ingrid over at the wave pool side under a shady tree, I hope to see you there :)

I mentioned back in September that I'd started on an altered book. It's been progressing slowly, when I have my acrylics out I lay down a base coat, the next week I might add a bit of collage, another week do some painting.... so it can take a month for a page to be completed. Some pages I'm not happy with might need lots more layers!!! It's a really fun process and so different to the way I usually paint - on small canvases so that the painting can be completed in one sitting.

I have treated myself to an early xmas present and have signed up for Lifebook 2017. Now I'm so excited for Jan 1st to come, and a year full of art inspiration. You can find out more about it on willowing.org.

The weather is so hot and humid.... it makes me go even slower than usual ! I hope you're having a creative day, thanks for visiting.

Things that have been making me happy in October!!

1) Photos by Geoff Whalan on flickr. I haven't met Geoff but discovered his wonderful photos of Darwin on flickr. He takes photos of my haunts around Nightcliff and it's so wonderful to see my world through his eyes. He has a series called 'the nightcliff sunset ritual' - of the sunset over the sea and people watching the sunset!! I usually do my walks in the morning but he's inspired me to do a few evening walks, the colours of the sky and sea are so glorious and the sea breeze makes it more pleasant (bearable) than in the morning at this humid time of year.

Dogs at the beach high tide and full moon

2) Walking! My workplace has had a 10,000 steps a day challenge through October. It was interesting to clip on the pedometer and find out how many steps I do. I was very pleased to discover I do around 8,000 to 10,000 on a normal day, and really surprised that while my walk to work and back is around 4,000 steps altogether, the rest was made up of all that incidental walking - around the house with piles of washing, putting out the rubbish or watering the garden, even walking round the kitchen cooking a meal. A few times I have topped up my steps with a little walk in the evening (as above) and it's been a real treat!!

Walking by the park at dusk

3) Bon Iver. We have the car radio tuned to Triple J - my kid are teenagers, it's their choice. Now and again I hear something interesting - I check what time it's playing and leater search it up on the triple J website for another listen and to see if I like anything else they've recorded. Well I hit the jackpot with Bon Iver. I heard a sample from their new album, it sounded like a symphony, like choir music, like jazz with a saxophone like Keith Jarrett...I've listened to the whole album about 10 times now on youtube, and I keep coming back to it. It's pretty experimental, not pop songs! There's something 80's about the sound and if you journey on to the end you're rewarded, the last 3 or 4 pieces are gorgeous.

4) Embroidery. Happy to be doing some sewing :)

You're a star - pincushion

Thanks for visiting, and have a great week.

September paintings

I'm glad to say I seem to have got back into the routine of painting on Friday mornings. I felt that I'd come to a bit of a dead end with the work I had been doing - working from memory and the imagination had become stale, repeating the same motifs. So I have gone back to basics working from life, some of the pot plants from my garden. I don't think this is the end of my old way of working but hopefully I  will go back to it revitalised when I do.

These are all acrylics on canvas 5x7 inch except for the little square one which is 4x4 inch.

We have a big thunderstorm coming over so I'll post this now incase we lose power or internet !!

Podcasts and other stuff I like

I'm probably very late discovering the world of podcasts, but now I've found some I like, they are great to listen to while I paint or sew, and make a change from the radio.

The one I discovered first was Magic Lessons by Elizabeth Gilbert. She interviews people who are stuck or struggling to get started with their creative work, and give advice 'nudges to get them unstuck', she seeks advice from special guests and a few months later checks back in to see how they are going. There are now 2 seasons to listen to - I've only listened to the first of the new season. I love anything about the creative process and always get something inspiring or useful from these.

After that I tracked down Happier with Gretchen Rubin - I'd been reading her blog for years and finally worked out how to get to the podcast! The content could be described as - how to make the best of modern life - some of it I don't find that relevant, but it's lovely to hear the relationship between Gretchen and her sister Elizabeth who present the podcasts - the little trials and triumphs of their lives, it's like having a cuppa and a chat with friends. I haven't listened to them all but my favourite episode so far is #69 An interview with the musician Moby.

Just in the last month I discovered an Australian podcast Brilliant Misfits with Aesha Kennedy, these are interviews with women who are artists, creatives, and on the business side of it too. The first one I came across was with Wendy Sharpe an artist whose work I love, and now I'm slowly catching up with some of the other episodes.

I'd also like to shout out for a few sites/blogs I've been hanging out at lately - Julie Fei-Fan Balzer has been blogging for a long time and has a huge archive on art journalling that I've been dipping into.

Andrea Schroeder has a blog called Creative Dream Incubator, she has heaps of free resources and videos about journalling and getting to the bottom of what you really want to do.

iHanna has a cute blog including a great post about starting an altered book journal which helped me get started with my new project...there is almost nothing to show you yet but here are a couple of pages with more than just a base coat on them!

I hope all is well wherever you are. We've had early rains which have caught us by surprise!!

August paintings

So better late than never, here's a look at what I've been doing in the studio in August.

I wanted to try to keep up the momentum of the ICAD challenge, but also to change things up a bit. So I decided to work on some index card dividers using acrylics, and trying to work in a non-representational way playing with colour and mark making. I certainly haven't done one a day, but have worked on 2 or 3 at a time, once or twice a week, often going back over them with more layers (painting over things I don't like). I have maybe a dozen done. It has been great to get the paints out and play even if I'm not thrilled with the results!

Once there's paint on the palette I hate to waste it, so I'll base coat some journal pages, or get a little canvas out and start painting...

These little 4x4 inch canvas boards are both of begonia plants I have in pots in the garden - could be an excuse to go shopping for some new plants if I'll get some paintings out of them!!!

This one (actually painted in September not August) is of an agave baby, I've potted up a few that were sprouting from two big ones we have in the front yard. So gardening and painting are going hand in hand which makes me happy!!

And a bonus, 2 haiku after a long, long drought of no poetry.

High tide is splashing
the sea wall, seagulls perch on
the tips of mangroves.


My yoga mat spread
on the verandah, geese cross
the sky honking.

 Best wishes, and thanks for dropping by my blog, have a great September.