domestic...laundry

Just dropping by to show that I'm still keeping up with the sketchbook challenge. This month's theme is 'spilling over' and eventually I came up with this -


I also did a colour version with gouache which you can see over on my flickr page.

Flower Gardens

The last couple of weeks I've been painting flowers. When I think about it lots of flowers grow her - frangipani, hibiscus, bougainvillea, just for starters. Not to mention all those gorgeous helliconias and gingers. But I haven't been painting any of them, I've been painting sunflowers (I think, they're not very realistic!) I was inspired by a lovely photo on flickr by Dalbhat - if you've never been on flickr take a look around it's vast and inspiring!!


In my Mum's garden in England I imagine the snowdrops and crocuses are up, and the daffodils soon to come. Here the seasons are all upside down - it still feels that way after 20 years. And in the tropics it's even more confusing - this is summer but it feels like winter, not because of the temperature but because of the rain. Soon will come winter that feels like summer with blue skies and sunshine everyday. We're about three quarters of the way through the wettest wet season on record. Maybe the flower paintings are just to cheer myself up mid-deluge.


I'm re-reading Barbara Kingsolver's 'Animal Vegetable Miracle', and thinking about another attempt at veggie gardening when the dry comes, maybe I'll plant some flowers too.

Deadlines...

Everytime I say I'll be back in a day or two with something, it never happens. Once a week at best seems to be all I can manage with blog posts - sometimes blogger is so slow I start and then give up. Today it seems to be behaving so here are the sketch book pages I wanted to share.


Drawings of a tea cosy I was given for xmas, the colours are brighter even than my acrylic sketch...I think I prefer the charcoal drawing though. Being part of the sketchbook challenge is keeping me inspired to keep drawing and playing. I've also been enjoying dropping by their blog, especially the interviews with artists.



It looks like being a busy couple of weeks I seem to have a few deadlines looming, most of them are optional things but I really want to have a go, I will maybe say more as I leap through the hoops!
Best wishes to all!!

Bus blues

Here's my effort for the big tent poetry, it didn't come so easy this week!

An antidote for the blues

On Monday
someone will flip the switch
the bus driver will be smiling,
passengers will embrace
like long lost friends
the security guy and the office worker
the chef and the shoplady
will clasp hands
and meet the other's eye.

Serene as a cruise ship
we will glide in and out
of bus stops
no one will have to run
no one will be left behind
and at the terminus
a round of applause
for the driver
a brass band playing and fireworks
for a safe trip on schedule.



I'll be back in the next day or two with more sketchbook pages.

A Few Things Poetical...

On my wanderings around the internet I came across Big Tent Poetry, a poetry site that posts a prompt on Monday, then you can post your poem inspired by the prompt on Friday and over the weekend.
This week's prompt was a wordle (I'd never heard of this - it's a group of words) you could include one or as many of the words as you like in your poem - I think I managed to use about half:-

Skatepark

Not exactly fearless
but determined,
gripping the handle bars
poised at the lip of the ramp
alert to other riders
timing his launch
into the flow.

His scooter is
an aluminium blade
slicing the air, down the ramp
across the flat, left foot pumping hard
to make it up the slope
get air, rotate 180
maybe.

And repeat
until his shirt
is drenched with sweat
and the sky is darkening
storm clouds banking up
and we run
at the first drops.


For xmas I treated myself to a book of poetry by Adrienne Rich with essays and criticism. I think I'll be dipping into it all year, there's so much to get my teeth into! I was attracted to some of her poems I read in anthologies. I've been trying to work out what it is that hooked me, and I think it's the imagery, the way she describes things is striking and beautiful, also the feeling that there's a lot more going on in her poems, they're full of emotion which made me curious about the underlying themes or meanings - the essays are really helping with unravelling these. About being a woman, and a woman in relation to a man/men, and being a creative woman. I'll point you to - Storm Warnings, The Roof Walker, Diving Into the Wreck and Integrity, as a taster!! I think I'll be back to talk about these more another time!!...


The paintings in this post are the ones I did a week ago. Yesterday I did some monoprints which you can see on my flickr page, I also finished carving a wood-cut that's been on the go since September...hopefully I'll print that next week.

I hope you've had a productive week.
Best wishes xx

Sketchbook again

Just a quick hello, and to share a few more of the sketchbook drawings I've been doing over the xmas break. I don't do much drawing from real life - I have a friend who will sit down anywhere and find something in the scene to draw, she's a fabulous sketcher and I'm so jealous of her sketchbooks, it's something I'll try to spend a little time on this year. My drawings are usually from the imagination, but based on things I've seen or done, that stick in my brain!



In early December I wrote this in my notebook-
For some reason I just don't want to draw at the moment, I can't force myself to do it even. I don't seem to have any ideas that I'm desperate to express - it's a really strange place to be.

Thank goodness, slow days hanging out with the kids has relaxed me and let me see moments to draw, like the bird reflected in the puddle! Now the kids are back at school and I'm back at work I hope I'll beable to hang onto some of that slowness and openness. I've done a bit of painting this morning and hope to share photos of those soon.

Finches

Do you have a subject that won't go away? Mine seems to be birds, in particular double-barred finches at the moment. Tiny little birds that I see in other people's gardens when I'm out walking. Recently I did see a pair very briefly in my garden and it felt like a gift or a blessing! I did a painting of them a couple of months ago.

By co-incidence I picked up a back copy of the journal Meanjin at a 2nd hand book shop and there's a poem about double-barred finches in it, by Martin Langford. (unfortunately I can't find a link to the poem) I've been working on my own poem in response and some sketchbook pages that I'm using as the design for a lino-cut.


This is my poem in progress so far - I'll be taking it away for reworking in a couple of weeks.

Finches

You might only see them as a movement
from the corner of your eye
you have to look in the right way, focus
on something small, like a thimble.

Pale faced with a dark bonnet
common, from the Kimberley's
to Groote Eylandt, from Darwin's suburbs
to Sydney's, an ornithologist might not
look twice.

I've seen them on neglected nature strips
taking off in a wave at my approach.
Today at the backdoor, I looked to
where the palm tree was cut down, now
perfectly overgrown.

There a pair of finches flit and perch
make the long grass bow, peck a seed
and flit again to the chain link fence
and go.