Pots for the show

Pots ready for the kiln this weekend, decoration inspired by the found objects in the larger works.

 

Back in the studio

Hello everyone .. I’m back in the studio my arm in a bright green splint … working on my books .. with the wbhd deadline fast approaching ..
Here’s my first finished work. I’ve hinged the small canvasses together with some old fabric and boxed in the back with corrugated card something like the straight pattern of the ploughed cane fields .. the square of fabric on the middle canvas was torn from my brush wipe rag thought it looked like a reddirt stained rug .. added the old handle .. and felt that’s it !

Oh goodness!

Oh goodness, we have had a call for our works from Trudie and Jenny!! I will have to make some decisions now of which pieces to send…..and what to do about having them printed!!! cx

Perry through the lens

   

Lin has sent me some pics from the weekend that she’s happy for me to share. A domestic tribute to Casa del Williams and I always love seeing what emerges from her 40 years of photographing … even with a compact camera. Although, she does point out there’s more computing in her new compact than in her not-very-old DSLR. Click on the goat triptych, it’s delightful and now you all know I have some purple towels.

And perhaps as a counterpoint to my photo, I truly did do something while she primed canvasses… some WBHD bits drying on the wall… are they finished? Ask me next week.

Back to the Pocket

Hello fellow artists and followers. My apologies for the long pause between blogs. Work has taken up a major part of the last few weeks, but I manged to take some time off to concentrate on the project.

Here’s a few images of the Pocket after the floods. The water came within a few metres of my back door. I had to evacuate the chickens to the safety of the back verandah.

My untidy studio.

Above is a photo of my father and his twin sister Alice. Dad lived down the road on the Mary river when he was young man.  He recounted a story where he delivered prescriptions on his bike for a local chemist. The chemist gave dad his collection of specimens in bottles. Dad  kept them under the house. The prized collection was washed away in the 1955  floods.  This event gave me a starting point for the artwork that I am making for the exhibition. Some of my previous works have also been triggered by conversations with my father.

 

Some of the flood destruction.

Below are some of the objects I have collected and have used in the works.

Below are examples of previous works. (Details.)

I will talk about the new work in my next blog.

 

Bundaberg to Las Cruces

Hey, can anyone tell me what is the best way to travel Bundaberg to Las Cruces, via the Grand Canyon and a week or two in NY???

Getting by with a little help from my friends…

Okay, I’ve made it back to the blog … from the dark cave of hibernation.

To be honest, I had about 2 weeks there where I just could not make one of the WBHD paintings work. Instead of being paralysed I kept working and working and working. Taking my own advice, ignoring my own advice, I thought about yelling, I thought about a good howl, but in the end it all came down to the big brush and knocking out the bits that had been quite the struggle. It’s almost there now, and I’ve brought another couple close to the end too. The good end.

Enter stage left, my lovely friend Lin who came to Mt P this weekend to run a ‘What makes a good photo’ workshop for our little town. 12 of us attended and it was a great morning, with her strong messages being about intent, and that you don’t need to get hung up on your equipment to take a good photo. And when we got home I put her to work priming some canvasses … despite the ‘Assistant and the Ass’ photo I did do the stretching while she primed. But basically she brought calm and help to a slightly frazzled friend and sitting with wine at the end of the day, watching the moon rise over the house was lovely.

The other day I stopped and photographed this tree stump I pass regularly. Even though I’m still in the middle of WBHD work I’m thinking about some of the next pieces for another show in October. Maybe the nice new white canvasses help open me up to these thoughts, and getting over the recent blip has gotta help!

 

snakes.jpg

So, we had the first rattlesnake on our property (that we’ve seen) yesterday. A smallish one, only about 28 inches long. Winkler found him and pointed him out to me and it took me about 30 seconds before I could see him…about 4′ away from me! Surprised the heck out of Winkler as he bent down and grabbed a bunch o’bad (too tall) grass to pull. The little guy was sleeping under it. So, no rattling, no bites. We just throw little rocks near him so he will move back up the hill. He slithered under a rock so we let him be. This is NOT a pix of him…but two a pal found on her property earlier and had the sense to take a shot of them.
Not to fret those coming to lunch on the 27th….they seldom come on the deck. haha

Willy Wagtail

I saw the reference to Willy and couldn’t resist posting this photo from an early trip to Straddie, along with our own Painted Redstart, which has similar flitting and wagging insect-catching behaviour.  Evidently my picture of the Redstart is the first photo documentation of this bird in the Organ Mountains….beginner’s luck at twitching!

 

Chi-hua-huas

Hi Peggy, Maybe you could post some more Chi-hua-hua pictures. I find them fascinating. So tiny, yet so strong in character. I call them chi-hua-huas, so that I can remember how to spell their names! If any of the WBHD group know the history of this little breed, I would love to hear about it.

It’s a bit like Wikipedia here at WBHD Central isn’t it? c

PS The other day I saw a Willy Wagtail (for the first time in years), a cormorant and an eagle of some sort. I’m going to go down to the riverside next week to try to photograph them.