ice blue

Sometimes you've got to go with the idea of 'less is more'. Even though the over-printing on the snow gum print was working out I decided that I wanted to have a single print of this design on linen as well. So I mixed up a nice ice blue this morning as an experiment. Then a printmaker on twitter, @meganjmcpherson, suggested that the coolness of the blue against the warmth of the linen worked because it does in nature. This was the image she used to make her case:

which kind of makes sense to me. So it's listed here in case it takes your fancy.

weeds

In my mind, weeds are pretty special. Meg Keating has a whole exhibition on at the moment focusing on this very specialness. It's called Nature Strip and can be seen at MARS Gallery in Port Melbourne until 5th August. Meg's also doing a floor talk on the 21st July if you'd like to hear more about her work. I'll be going along so come say hello.

When I saw Meg's work it reminded me of my own interest in all things weedy. When I was living in Kyoto (Japan) I made this woodblock print, Wallflowers, based on some weeds I fell in love with in my local neighbourhood. To me they were beautiful.

And then I remembered my recent obsession in photographing one kind of weed I saw everywhere in Greece on my trip there last month. I found a great paddock of them in Crete and went crazy with my camera. Fortunately for you I'm only posting one pic here.

I think the information for Meg's exhibition captures the special quality of weeds:

"In the body of work Nature Strip, weeds are presented as graphic silhouettes that are both beautiful and elusive. The motifs hover through thin veils of pearlescent-layered paint on natural beech grounds. They are delicate in their appearances and at times disappear from view. The wildness presented here is ideal and alludes to utopian gardens and serene vistas while the simple motifs are common and ordinary in their depiction." [MARS Gallery]

linen

This is a beautiful film by Benoit Millot about linen, a fabric I simply love for all kinds of reasons.

"......linen is rather like wood. There's a structure. It's a living material."

I hope you watch it and enjoy it as much as I did. Thanks to Lena for helping me find it.

BE LINEN MOVIE from Benoit MILLOT on Vimeo.

light

Late afternoon light. That first pic is of one of our apricot trees in flower (growing in a pot). A friend grew it from seed!

I just love early spring weather.

Are you doing anything special today?

movement

This morning's sunrise through the bare branches of our neighbour's crazy old wisteria vine.Bright sunny yellow wattle flower. I just love this time of year. The early signs of spring are popping up everywhere. I saw a magnolia tree beginning to flower in my street a couple of days ago. Who doesn't love a magnolia in flower? So sculptural to look at.
Even the camelias (not my favourite plant) are looking good.

black & white

composition 1

composition 2

composition 3

composition 4

I need your help. I'm putting together a composition of my black & white photos to frame and place above our bed. I've made these 4 mock ups in photoshop (got to love photoshop for these little jobs :) to help me get an idea of what might work where. The idea is they'll be framed in frame-less glass frames. Our bedroom wall colour is approximately the colour of background pale green behind the photos. My question is do you have a preference for any particular composition? And if so why? Click on the image to see it much closer.

take a stroll

Allow me to take you on a little tour of what's happening in my back garden. The spring onions flowered. And then we ate them all up.
The succulents are looking quite handsome. Some have flowered. Some are looking very busy and stripey.Others are looking very pretty. Almost edible.
Some are lovely and green. They make me feel cool on a hot day. And ones like these have a lot going on in their homes.Some are looking very soft and gentle.And others all perky and bright.

dry desert places

I've been away in places with lots of red dirt and beautiful coloured sands. It was hot but not too hot because it's autumn and the desert is more bearable at this time of year. Mungo National Park is a long, long way from Melbourne and Sydney but worth it if you have the energy and nerves to navigate a 110km long bumpy dirt road into the park. It was really good to be out in the bush again.

I had no idea Mungo is considered to be one of the world's most significant human cremation sites.

soft light

Isn't the autumn light just wonderful at the moment? So gentle, yet such gorgeous blue skies as well. This leaf fell off the rather vigorous grape vine that hangs over our back fence. I just love it when the leaves change colour.

Happy Easter!

fragments

I really like fragmented artwork, especially prints. And when they're framed well they can look amazing. I've had my 'living things' set (I have 2 different ones actually) for a while but this one above is new. I sold one like it recently so have made another, but each one I make is unique in the design or combination of pieces in the set. Nature is both strong and brittle, whole and fragmented and that's what I was trying to capture with this Japanese style woodblock print. This kind of print looks best when float mounted during framing. This means the pieces are lifted off the back of the matt so they appear to float in the frame. And for this particular print, float mounting emphasizes the fragility of the subject matter in a really nice way.

良いお年を

良いお年を everyone! (Yoi otoshi o).
This is the expression people say to each other in Japan as the end of the year approaches but you can't use it after 31st December. From 1st January people then say '明けましておめでとう' (Akemashite omedetou) but I'll leave that til tomorrow :)

These berries are from grasses growing in my front garden. They're extremely purple in colour but this photo makes them look blue for some reason. Anyway, they're quite pretty until they start to fall off and people squish purple coloured mush all over the path. Got to love that about nature.

良いお年を!

fruiting habits and the like

It's funny the kinds of anatomical names for plants that they use in botany. This is part of one of my drawings and according to the botanical information I had on hand it's technically a 'fruiting habit'. Strange looking thing but I'm quite fond of the quirky shapes. Almost pod-like, and I'm a sucker for the cuteness of pods.

And speaking of illustrations and quirky, lovely things, the new Pikaland August Project is up and live. You can also find out about the magical wonder of Pikaland by clicking on that gorgeous little bird holding the sack on the top right hand side of my blog. Amy from Pikaland coordinates the most original international illustration project I've ever come across. Check out the work of all the amazing illustration artists participating in the August Project. You'll even see some of my work there :)

fragile, floating

A new 3-dimensional piece of mine. I've been wanting to make my woodblock printed dragonflies 3-d for a while and today they can finally fly (well, at least float). I love their fragile quality. And I also happen to love 3-d paper art.

Any feedback on this little piece is welcome. And if you like this little one, I've just put it in the shop.

summer

The succulent in one of my big pots is flowering again. I love the gentle orange colour of these flowers.
How can things that survive in such dry conditions produce such loveliness?

Puss still isn't home (see previous blog) but I'm trying to be a bit buddhist about it and accept that we can never really possess an animal and that their time with us is sometimes very fleeting. You know, the non-attachment stuff....but I swear it's harder to do than to say.

I've got to share some beauty from the Grampians National Park. We went there for my birthday just before we moved. This area is just stunning. The wildflowers were out because it was early summer. Check out that Kangaroo Tail (the plant with the tall, black stem). If you want to get a better look at the view and a sense of how high up we were click on the image to zoom in closer. It's pretty amazing.

things that grow in spring

A small digression from creative blogging today. I've been distracted by our plum tree which is now almost in full bloom. Spring is here! Our neighbour's two massive almonds tree have also blossomed and look absolutely gorgeous in her front garden. I especially like the early morning light on our plum blossoms. The tree glows in the dawn light and makes getting up early almost pleasurable at the moment. Almost..... And our friends' sheep, Curly, gave birth to twin lambs 2 weeks ago so we know spring is definitely here when the sheep are lambing. Curly had one male and one female lamb (pictured) and they've been named Larry and Mo (short for Monique I'm told). We got to visit the little ones yesterday and Larry was so kind as to let us pick him up and give him lots of cuddles. They are both so incredibly sweet and almost make me want to move to the country.

snake bean

This incredible-looking curly flower belongs to a beautiful vine growing across the entrance of our front veranda. I've heard someone say it's a snake bean vine but I don't know if that's true or even the botanical name for it. At this time of year it's heavy with flowers like these, so curly and smooth and very sweet smelling. I've been asked many many times about this vine and the flowers by people passing on our street. One woman even asked me for a cutting so she could try growing it in her garden. I don't know if she ever succeeded. Very soon, as autumn decends on us the vine will drop everything - leaves and flowers - and will look half dead and very scraggy when winter comes. Each year in winter I look at it in its sad state and wonder if it will regrow. And each summer, without fail, it does. This year we've let it grow and grow and there were days when I arrived home and parts of the vine had reached out and extended its arms to the house walls, the front doors and windows. Like "The Day of the Triffids". It hides and protects the front of the house from the world like in the wonderful children's book "The Secret Garden". It rained last night (a rare but wonderful thing) and today the flowers on the vine are damp with droplets of water.

The ocean is an amazingly beautiful thing. No wonder artists of all kinds are inspired by it and are drawn to it constantly. It's so alive and vital and fresh. These wonderful rocks (the shapes amazed me) sit on the beautiful Whisky Bay at Wilson's Prom National Park in south-western Victoria, Australia. Otherwise known as the most southern point on the east coast of mainland Australia. It's a breathtakingly beautiful place with divine, pristine beaches and gorgeous wildlife (we spotted emus, wombats, gallahs and many kangaroos). I hope I can work out a way to incororate these lovely, smooth shapes into a print of some sort.