I am finding my end of the month posts are very long and thought I would seperate each month into two posts.
The first fortnight of June has been art filled with two workshops, two splat and chats and two canvas paintings finished. We have also said Bon Voyage to our son Michael, who has been accepted into a two week summer school at ‘The TU Delft’ for Urban Planning students in July. As I write this, Michael is leaving London and off to Paris tomorrow.
The last weekend of May I took part in a paper making course, which I throughly enjoyed. My Magnolia happened to be flowering and I used some of the paper to recreate the flower in my sketchbook. It was a learning experience finding out that the paper doesn’t like water and disintegrates. I have learnt that I need to gesso the paper so that it can handle paint.
My son Michael brought me flowers which inspired this page. I had so much fun drawing the flowers using masking fluid and then painting over with water colour. When I revisit this page, I am reminded of the surprise and love I felt when Michael got back from his walk and handed me these flowers.
I discovered my Cattleya Orchid had some buds so I brought it inside to sit on the side board in the Dining room. On the morning of the 4th, I was greeted with splashes of Magenta as the flowers began to open. Masking fluid made another appearance as I recorded the first day of these beautiful blooms. Did you know orchids symbolise uniqueness, sensuality, rare. beauty, refinement and enchantment.
Thursday the 5th of June was a messy day as I spent the morning making paper and the afternoon tidying up the garden. My orchids had opened even more and I recorded them, although I am not happy with how they turned out.
The mess I made on Thursday in the garden meant a trip to the dump with the Cattle Egrets having a field day with all the green waste. My lemon and lime trees got some attention, which will hopefully mean a good crop in Spring.
Tim came home from the shops with some beautiful Poppies, that have been a joy to see new flowers each day. It was a cold, windy day and the Poppies were so bright and colourful. Poppies mean ‘you are always in memory’ as well as ‘Continuance and Sacrifice’, which is beautiful.
I love my Friday mornings as it’s my dance class. There is something about moving to music that makes you feel so good and you forget that you are exercising. Friday also happened to be the coldest June day for 16 years in Brisbane. At 7 am it was 4 degrees, felt like -0.1. Winter reminding us what it should feel like!! Friday was Michael’s last night at home before his trip and we went out for dinner to a lovely Italian place. Oh and I did some more gardening and found termites……
Michael had an early flight to Perth on Saturday morning. Tim and I went out for brunch, where I had pancakes and a yummy juice. In the afternoon I went to a ‘Handmade Journal’ workshop with my art teacher and spent a few hours learning to make books and having fun experimenting.
The above video is one of the books I made in the class and I added a pressed pansy to the front when I got home. I am hoping to combine my pressed flowers, paper making and book making.
I posted a post about the Wynnum Foreshore for my unofficial artist residency of Brisbane.
I finished my ‘Ode to Van Gogh’ earlier this month and yesterday finished a ‘Poinciana’ painting. The Poinciana painting was from my workshop I did with David Hinchcliffe in February as I redid as I wasn’t happy with it. Both these painting pushed me out of my comfort zone, but I am happy that I achieved this goal of getting back to canvas painting.
For those who are interested in the meaning of flowers my reference books are ‘Flowerpedia by Cheralyn Darcey’ and ‘Flowers and their meanings by Karen Azoulay’
I hope you enjoyed part 1 of June and I look forward to seeing how the rest of June turns out in my art journey.
Until next time,
Take care,
