I can and will do art!

Fri 30 December 2011
23C/73f and 88% humidity. Torrential rain and gales last night. Now it's just hot and sticky. With the sun glaring thru the clouds. Fish tank is cleaned, dishwasher is on, almost enough clothes in the washing machine to do ANOTHER wash.

Dad decided he needed human company, and spent about 40 minutes in the studio with me. Showed him my encaustic and acrylic stuff - blinded him with 'science' I think - 'it all looks very complicated'. Um, no, not really. Frustrating not being able to do anything with him underfoot. His visit with the physio on Friday was very promising - he's got a whole heap of exercises, and has been told he should be able to walk into the specialists' office at the end of Jan with no crutches!

Black dog has the itchies - took him for a walk a couple of days ago and he's had an allergic reaction to the tradescantia/wandering jew in the watermeadow. He keeps trying to hide inside/under things - like desks. Bathed him again, and blowdried him - hopefully that will help.

Got a cold cup of coffee sitting beside me from dad's visit. ugh.

Time to go get some fresh 'eye candy'? Every so often I treat myself to somewhere really interesting, like a junk or craft shop, or a trip to the hardware, or a walk thru the trees. I think sometimes we forget to feed ourselves, and give ourselves a break. Who me? a control freak and perfectionist??? Um ... well ... yeah.

Ok. Enough procrastinating. Time to get some fresh coffee, see if Lesson 4 of Texture Town (Colour Palettes) is close to finishing downloading (we're on dial-up speed broadband at the moment for some reason) ...

Sunday 1 January
Good grief. We managed to stay up late enough to see the New Year in last night – Becca had started a WASGIG puzzle, (because the Fairy Procession was too hard) then abandoned it. Started having a play with it about 10.30pm ... just one more piece ... and suddenly it was 0120!!! Various neighbours let off fireworks and partied down. Kama tried to climb in, under and on various things to escape the noise.

Woke up relatively early, and took Alex to work. Found out why we've been suffering from dial-up speed broadband - the kids have topped out our cap playing an on-line tank game, and Telecom pulled the plug on us with no warning! Broadband and a 20gb cap return in 24 hours - hooray!

Basically didn't achieve anything today, spending all afternoon visiting mum. Picked up a nice ‘picnic afternoon tea’ of strawberries n dipping sauce, cheese, almond finger biscuits, and sliced smoked Chicken (which of course had an ingredient list!) Sat in the staff smoko area, out in the wet. Typical bossy, not listening dad, eagle-eared bolshi mum. Had to have a nana-nap to recover from the frustration of BOTH parents.

Tuesday 3 January:

Happy Anniversary to us - 16 years together! Not bad going.

Oh dear. I had to laugh. The ladies on Painting Friends were talking about their palettes – mostly for watercolour – and whether to wash them or not. Some even put them in the dishwasher.

A couple of years ago, when I first became a Christian, and made friends with Deb, our Pastor's wife, who is an acrylic artist (and even sells some of her paintings), she promised to teach me to paint in acrylics. Now while Deb is a very accomplished artist, as a teacher it just didn’t happen.

Anyway, last month I signed up for an on-line painting course called Texture Town. I bought the paints I needed (7 + Acrylic Glazing Liquid - $100!!!) This meant that I could actually paint! (This doesn't of course count all the other acrylic paints n stuff I've collected over the years, in the vain hope I'd learn by osmosis).
Here’s the finished? Implied Texture painting. (I need to finish the sides, but I think the top is done):














So ... here's my 'painting corner', with painting and palette:










My 'palette' is the plastic guide from under the lid of a photocopier. Every so often I scrub the dried-out patches off. I don't think David would be too happy if it went in the dishwasher. There is a big blob of 'Sullivans Night Sky' there - not a 'class' colour - will see if I can revive it for the stencils I put on the edges of the canvas last night.

My work surface is the glass platen of a photocopier. The remains of breakfast (vogels toast with yeast flakes and strawberry jam) are to the left (coffee cup just out of shot). Water is in a plastic pasta sauce container. Curtains are closed because of the sun (now gone, replaced by rain) Out of shot to the right is a plastic box which has my 'class paints' in it, and there's a home-made paint-covered stencil sitting on top.

Talk about low-tech!

Got out with Becca and we went and did the Dam road stoat line together. I think it's been 3 months since I've been up there. The eggs had 3/09 on them! No bodies, and a couple of sprung traps. Dogs and us enjoyed the walk. Lots and lots of water, overflowing the dam down the spillways, and down over the cliff.

Wednesday 4:
The ladies on painting friends have been commenting on how much energy I seem to have, that comes thru in my writing. I try hard - some say I'm very trying!

It's nice being back to the bouncy tigger me - I lost me for a while with the B12 deficiency - and then of course the depression comes thundering down, and plays with those peri-menopausal hormones. But I'm back! Bounce Bounce Bounce.

I checked out two links that had been posted on PF:
30 Challenges for 30 Days
75 Day Sketch Challenge

Of the 30 challenges for 30 days, I picked these ones:

* Use words that encourage happiness.
* Dedicate an hour a day to something you’re passionate about - art/Christ
* Treat everyone nicely, even those who are rude to you - especially Dad
* Every morning, watch or read something that inspires you.
* Do something every day after lunch that makes you laugh.
* Document every day with one photograph and one paragraph.

Brenda Swenson's 75 day sketch challenge scares the daylights out of me - 'you can't draw' my left brain hollers! That could be the one thing I do daily that makes me laugh. I think LOL Cats would be better.

I'll do the documenting on my blog, I think.

Of course, all this may fly out the door quicker than the dogs if real life gets in the way.

Well, that brings me up to date to today. I need to come back and drop a couple of piccies in.