Afternoon light.

As I came in from working in my garden this afternoon, the light was catching my geranium at the front door.  What can I say, small things make me happy!

 I got out my little sketchbook and made marks again today.  I'm using my copic markers and admit to either being too lazy to change the thickness of the nib or forgetting to do so..... All done with a 0.3.  Here is today's somewhat eclectic effort.

Yesterday's with added colour.  I ended up using felt pens as I wanted to do it while watching tv in the living room.  Pens are more conducive to that than watercolour.  I think I preferred this page without colour.  What do you think?

I've been back in the studio....

Over the past weeks I've been getting myself back into the studio.  At first I would just walk in there and look around. Perhaps open the windows and doors. Then I started to do a bit of decluttering here, some cleaning there, some rearranging somewhere else.  Short, sporadic little visits.

Then suddenly, without fanfare or planning I found myself in the studio painting some days ago.  I wanted to paint birthday gifts for some special girls in my life who celebrated their birthday over the weekend.  I had been mulling the idea over for awhile and rather agonised over the 'perfect' quote for each one.  They are twins and similar but I wanted the artworks to be personal and celebrating their indivual characters and spirits.

Miss Jade is unique and wild and lives life outside the lines. She is also vibrant and beautiful and fragile and delicate while being resilient.  So for her, I had to do a hodgepodge of wildflowers.  I notice I inadvertantly photographed the front of my black painting apron there....

Miss Lara's looks very simple but getting depth and interest into the night sky was quite the task as I'm so rusty.  I chose the 'stardust' for Lara as she has also has a magical, bright personality while also having a deep calm inside her.

I hope they like them.  Not 'great art' but full of great love.

Today, I pulled out a small A5 sketchbook, my copic markers and just made marks.  My goal is to do this daily and to not get hung up on what I have to do.  If I only get half a page done or one leaf drawn that is fine.  It's also fine to have a day where I do more than one page. I also have no rules about what it is I have to draw.  If I want to draw nature one day and buildings the next that is fine.

I'll add colour to this either later tonight or tomorrow.  Not sure whether I'll use felt pens, watercolours or my pencils.  Maybe a combination..

There you go Don and Viv......I'm slowly coming back.

A Day out With Mum

Today I took my Mum out for a belated Mother's Day jaunt.  We started our day in search of plants for her garden so headed up to Buderim to Manawhee Plant Nursery.

There were a great many plants that we were interested in but none that suited Mum's specific purpose unfotunately so we left empty handed.  I was sorely tempted by the herbs but held myself together.  We've had tradies working on replacing all of our gutters (130m in all) this week so my money has been spent elsewhere....

From the nursery we headed off to have morning tea at my friend Jodi's.  We've been friends since we were children and Jodi considers Mum to be her second mum.  We had a lovely visit and enjoyed tea and snacks on Jodi's lovely verandah - sorry was so busy chatting I forgot to take photos!

Our next stop was the latest Endeavour Prize home at Maleny.  It was very busy both in Maleny and out at the prize home.  I really liked this house.  It is in traditional Queenslander style as was their last one up here.  The views were lovely and the home was sensibly set out and I could imagine myself living here as it was lovely without being too grand as some prize homes can be.  The garden was gorgeous too - sorry forgot to take photos of that too.  Lots of purple in the plantings with tibuchinas, pentas, salvias etc.

Our final stop was the Peachester Hall where oh so many moments of our lives are entwined.  Peachester dances, fetes, birthdays, anniversaries and the like.  The same ladies, the cornerstones of my life, involved there in every celebration and event.   All these ladies are in their 70's and 80's now and are still making cakes and sandwiches and pouring tea from vast pots....They've known me my whole life. What will I do when they are gone? I shall miss them.

Our purpose in being there today was to see the annual quilt show.

 After looking at the quilts we wandered outside for tea and sandwiches and chose a table in the shade. 

 Flowers handpicked from the ladies gardens and arranged in jam jars on all the tables.  This makes me endlessly happy and nostalgic.  I've enjoyed variations of these flowers from the same gardens for nearly 50 years. 

So simple and sweet and comforting.  As were the tea and sandwiches - egg and lettuce; ham, cheese and tomato; ham and sweet mustart pickles....  Oh I love you country ladies.

Today I Painted

After a long time away, today I picked up my brushes and painted.

Just a piece of bunting to add to my collection.  I worked on something else too but it is for a birthday gift so I can't share it today or it may spoil the surprise.....  It was nice to be back.

A Quiet Weekend at Home

We've had a pottery, sleepy weekend.  Jeff has been working monster hours in the city for a couple of weeks so he caught up on some sleep this weekend.  On Saturday, our niece Miss R, came over to make a Mother's Day gift for her mum (my sister).  One gift grew to two......R began by making  bath salts for her mum.  To scent the salts, lavender, ylang ylang or bergamot (can't recall which) and a tiny bit of Australian Sandalwood was used.  Miss R even very seriously and diligently decorated the bottle with flowers and a dragonfly from my stash. She was very proud of the end result.  So cute.

Bath salts done, I was informed that some caramel fudge would be a good present so we looked up a recipe and checked to see that we had the ingredients.  We did so the cooking began.

After 10 minutes or so Miss R lost interest so I was left to stand and do the stirring and stirring and stirring that is involved. :)  I hope Susan enjoyed her gifts as her girl was very proud.

I had planned to show you some of the progress we have made in the garden but I've run out of energy.  So I'll leave you with a picture of our African Tulip towering in full bloom over our roof.  The sun was catching it as we arrived home and I thought it looked lovely - a break from all the green.

I'll share our garden progress with you tomorrow.

The Gift of Fog

On Sunday evening I was on my way home from dropping my niece off when I came upon this scene.

I had to stop and take a photo as I rarely have the gift of seeing fog.  Perhaps because it is a rarity for me it always seems precious and special.

The city of York in England will always be entwined in my memories with the magical, mystical presence of fog.  It was January, incredibly cold and shrouded with thick, pea soup fog.  I walked down the shambles and felt like I'd inexplicably travelled back in time.  I remember dark coated figures materialising before us, becoming clearer and more whole with each step. It felt to me, perhaps fancifully, that the past and present all existed simultaneously in that time and place.

I took my photo then stood, savouring the moment as the light faded.  The air was blissfully cool after such a long hot summer.  I have passed this paddock surely a million times in my life and I opened myself to the memories it holds and the gift of fog.  I returned to the car, heartfilled and grateful for a life filled with such gifts.

Planning to Reclaim the Wilds.

We have a large property (1.3acres) and much of it is gardens.  With Jeff working long hours in the city, and not being a natural gardener, and my capricious health, the garden has just carried on in it's own wild way.  I rather like the natural, wild look BUT it's a bit too wild at present.  I love gardening but have struggled to manage it with my compromised energy and pain issues.  I realise that Flylady has helped me to manage the house with ease no matter how I feel so have decided to attempt to apply her principles to the garden.  I've roughly drawn a picture of our yard and am trying to work out how to allocate Flylady's zone system to it.  I'm being very indecisive and keep changing my mind about how to approach making a plan....

I'm leaving out the 1/4 acre of 'bush' behind the fence where our dam is and I think I'll ignore the large treed gardens that run along the fenceline on either side of the backyard (light green).

Here is what I am thinking.....

Mornings - front gardens
Zone 1 - driveway gardens (dark green stripe)
Zone 2 - Light green stripe
Zone 3 - Blue stripe triangular shape
Zone 4 - Blue green stripe
Zone 5 - Blue green x side boundary at front.

Afternoon  - back gardens
Zone 1 - Gardens along back verandah - near tank, entertaining area...
Zone 2 - Pool Garden and yard
Zone 3 - Area under poinciana
Zone 4 - Side boundary garden between house and garden shed
Zone 5 - Shade garden and Orchard (big but I can take turns between them)

As much as I'd love to spend long hours in the garden each day that is not realistic.  My plan is to do 15 minutes each morning and 15 minutes each afternoon. If I'm not having a great day or am pushed for time I can do 5 or 10 minutes. Flylady allocates a zone per week of each month which would mean that I would work in each garden once per month.  I'm not sure if this is the best way to go or if I should do one zone per weekday (Monday = Zone 1, Tuesday = Zone 2 etc).  Weekends we can work on whatever we fancy.

Other Flylady adaptations:

Morning Routine - water potplants, pick up palm fronds and branches/twigs and throw on fire pile, clean up after dogs

27 Fling Boogie - dead head flowers, pull weeds, etc

Well, that gives me a bit of a plan to start with and to try and make some positive progress in the garden.  Wish me luck and if you have any better ideas - like hiring a sexy gardener! - let me know.