HAPPY SUNDAY PAINTING

I had a lovely morning playing with my paints yesterday, finishing two 'flower' paintings and beginning a larger one with lemons, the latter not being very satisfactory but I will come back to it. The lemons are about to fall off, teetering at the back of the table! why didn't I see this mistake before I went as far! It is glaringly obvious now when I look at it!
I go to NZ on Wednesday for two weeks....to stay with daughter Kate, http://greedyforcolour.blogspot.com.au/. It will be lovely to be there, so good to catch up with the family and see first hand all they are doing. I leave E at home with the dogs so at least he has good company!
I lay on the floor to do a little bit of yoga and instantly had company...very hard to focus on anything however simple when a dog, Bear lies on top of me for a cuddle!

THE PEOPLE YOU SEE AT THE SERVICE CENTRE!

This morning we needed fuel on our way into town. So we stopped at the service centre and there were these lovely girls off for a weekend away, a once a year event. Always a different theme!
I just happened to have the camera so in between laughing I was able to get them to pose. A whole bus load of them! Hilarious!

BEAUTIFUL

A quote....
Anything under the sun is beautiful if you have the vision. It is in the seeing of the thing that makes it so. (Charles Hawthorne)
I have just discovered this wonderful source for quotations, http://quote.robertgenn.com/.
In fact Robert Genn has an amazing art site, full of helpful information for everyone who paints.
.http://www.painterskeys.com/

AND I DID....GET INTO THE STUDIO!

Not for long but long enough to have a go at the pumpkin that had the DS Watercolour Ground on it. I think it has worked quite well. I'll have the painting sit for another few days and then see. The rock had two coats of the Watercolour Ground and the lemon is a five minute paint. Certainly interesting!
I have two panels of timber waiting to be 'treated' with the DS W/C Ground. One was cut from a piece of wood cut up for our fire and the other is a panel made from 3 pieces of old floor boards from a verandah. E has used these boards for many projects, a desk to join onto one he already had, the missing top of a cupboard. The wood polishes up beautifully with E's magic hands....and perseverance! Again we'll see!

SUNDAY LUNCH....PUMPKIN SOUP.

We are only managing here on a few cylinders...E is quite sick with a cold, coughing and generally unwell. I'm OK but just. I thought pumpkin soup would be perfect...and it was!
Between the two of us we chopped up a butternut pumpkin, a good sizes piece of sweet potato...kumera...and cooked it in a litre of bought (tsk, tsk) chicken stock. Then had the idea of putting a handful of Vietnamese mint in at the end as well as about a cup of light Carnation coconut flavoured milk. We whizzed it up with a couple of pinches of salt. It was delicious, just what we needed.
I have turned the heater on in my studio so am determined to get there. I keep on distracting myself...why do I do this?!!
Well, it is Sunday!!

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.