Painting has had it's ups and downs this last week. I'm still working with the beautiful pumpkins I had found at our little market. The painting from last week I have written off. And learnt from it. The old saying that you learn more from your mistakes is very true. My composition was quite wrong, the large pumpkin at the back was too dominant and I had used paint too strongly. So I began another one, 'a string of pumpkins', the drawing went well, the painting started off well and then....I was too heavy handed with the paint with the second biggest one. The painting sat there for a few days, I worked on the little ones and it was all just OK. Until yesterday when I remembered Daniel Smith and his Watercolour Ground. This is a product which can be painted onto any surface and then used as a watercolour 'paper'. Ideal for mistakes! It is a thick paste that can be brushed on, diluted if necessary. So I used it yesterday and am now waiting to try it out. I have also experimented by putting onto a flat rock! I can imagine the rock sitting on a shelf with a little painting! I will let you know.....of course if it works as I think it will!

TIME....AND PATIENCE!

How often most of us bewail the fact that we haven't enough time, no time for the things that make us happy, inspire us? Today I saw the best quote and felt I had to share it with you....

'Don't say you don't have enough time. You exactly have the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Theresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.'
- H. Jackson Brown Jr., American author!
I'll have to remind myself of this OFTEN!

Daughter no 1 sent us this photo, partly because we have Bear living in our house....he is the golden retriever , not the real bear!
Have a happy weekend doing what you love for at least a little while!

MORE PUMPKINS AND PLAYING

Today seems to have disappeared very quickly...amazing when you are involved in doing something that makes you happy how quickly time can run away from you! I went for a walk early with Bear, our golden retriever who loves to love whatever he does...if it is with either E or me...E being the big one in the house....my husband in other words!
I was determined to paint today so had another go at the pumpkins I bought at the local market a couple of weeks ago. They are great to paint as they last for ages and the colours are so wonderful. I think my pumpkins have improved but there is more I need to do...put some highlights into them, I think it is a matter of lifting some lights on each pumpkin. I've also been very liberal with washes as experiments and will come back to some of these tomorrow, the rose hips are appearing in one of these beginning washes, I am reading, learning from Jean Haines' book ATMOSPHERIC COLOURS http://www.jeanhaines.com/. I absolutely love her work, the freedom with which she works and so I guess some of my washes are inspired by her. The pumpkins are not the way she would have just suggested them but I think I have been 'looser' whilst painting. But not a loose woman I hope!
I've also been wandering in the garden trying to capture the richness of the pelargonium leaves as they change into their Autumn clothes. I don't think the photos are quite as deep in colour as they should be though.
Dinner calls so I'm off to the kitchen!

AUTUMN JOY

I have had my mind elsewhere this week, a painting workshop with Georgia Mansur so had two nights with our daughter in Melbourne. Then a second trip down to the eye specialist and catching up here. So very little painting, and what I did shouldn't have been 'did'! I should have left it alone!
Just a bit too weary to be on the ball.
A walk around the garden lifted me...I absolutely adore Autumn and it's colour. I always say that Autumn feeds my soul. Have a look at daughter/Lucy at http://stonefruitseason.blogspot.com.au/?m=1. She and her family went to Bright yesterday on the spur of the moment to see Autumn there. Her photos are lovely, as always, and Bright, in the north-east of Victoria, is always amazing at this time of the year.

JEAN HAINES AND HER BOOK, ATMOSPHERIC WATERCOLOURS

I have had a lovely day today, a day when I have made a commitment to myself to paint, to experiment, to follow the whim of the moment. And this I have done....and the day isn't over yet!
Recently I discovered Jean Haines and this wonderful book, Atmospheric Conditions. She has amazing use of colour, freedom and excitement in her paintings. I absolutely love her work, her subjects and her hints of more. I have always felt I have needed to loosen up with my paintings and have been endeavouring to do so. Jean adds another dimension for me. Using colours that I can't see, but when she uses them they bring all the excitement and freshness so that I just want to keep looking at them....what else am I able to see!
Jean is coming to Australia soon but her workshops are booked out....by the time I knew about her, the workshops were booked. I'm hoping she will return in the future and it might be possible to be amongst the attendees, here's hoping!
So this is my work today, a long way to go but can already see a freshness that wasn't there...perhaps! Maybe it is wishful thinking!
Also I think I have nearly all my favourite bloggers back on my sidebar. If you can't see your blog and know that it has been please forgive me and let me know. Sometimes my senior's moments take over!

A FEW MINUTES WILL DO!

I've been feeling a bit bedraggled today, not sure what will make me zing, yes, I meant to say zing. So this morning I toddled into the garden, weeded and fed the chooks with some newly pulled green grass, picked some roses and then it was lunch.
I find I have lost my favourite reads from the sidebar which upsets me...and now I am missing all the news from theses lovely people. I'll give it a few days and hopefully the gremlins will sort things out or I will seek some help from one of my helpers.
I didn't feel like painting but went into my studio....my playroom... And began sorting out my paints, putting dollops of paint into my stay wet palette. I'm so often too precious about putting too much paint out, I don't want to waste the paint, making it last and of course it shows, not enough paint being used.
I had picked some lovely Angel Face roses this morning and had these beside me as I worked. Their scent is delicious, quite spicey and so sweet. My brother who died many years ago, had given me this rose for one Christmas and it has come with us each time we have moved house. I now have two, the second from a cutting and this year plan to strike some more. Painting just wasn't for me today but decided to sketch these roses.....the paints were sitting there and a wash just 'happened'. The whole exercise probably took twenty minutes, at the most. It really has shown me that I don't need a lot of time to paint, it only needs to happen!
Back to my roses, I have always loved having flowers of some sort in the house, a tiny bunch or even one special flower. It could be a bunch of something or just the raggletaggle bits in winter when there seems to be nothing in the garden ....when actually there is. I read one day about someone always having fresh flowers in their work space and I love the idea. There are often flowers on my kitchen bench or window sill. Flowers are a wonderful connection for me to nature, to my family including those that aren't with me any more.

EARLY MORNING LIGHT AND A HINT FOR WATERCOLOUR PAPER USERS!

When I am cutting watercolour paper to size with a scalpel and a steel ruler, the ruler often slips as I cut, especially with a full sized sheet. I just can't seem to hold the ruler firmly enough, keep everything in position. One of those occasions three pairs of hands would be helpful...or handy! Then I had a break through...maybe others have been doing this for years but not this little bunny! I put masking tape along the ruler, sticking it to the paper and bingo it worked beautifully! The ruler stayed in place and I was able to cut the full length of the paper.
Masking tape can be a good friend but sometimes a bad enemy. I use it to stick my watercolour paper onto an acrylic board when I am painting. If I leave the masking tape there for too long, it tends to bring some of the surface paper off, ruining the 'mount'. Well, my second hint is to heat the tape with a hair dryer and then carefully peel off the tape while it is warm, it seems to melt the sticky enough to let go, again others may have known this but it is a new idea for me.
I am so enjoying this Autumn, the different light, the cooler nights...and days, and of course the colours appearing in the trees. The morning light photos were taken one morning, padding out into the garden in bare feet and pyjamas to get the best shot. The grass was covered with diamonds....dew.... fairly chilly on the toes but worth it! And seeing the diamond laden grass!