I should be....

Well, the thing is I should be studying for my mid-terms but weally, weally just want to be creative! I've had boys home sick and today everyone is back at school and work and everything feels like it needs freshening up so I started wandering outside on our property in the morning sunshine and found some lovely specimens to bring inside.

It's all about the texture

I also have 3 bags which need to be made for customers in Melbourne. These NEED to be done before we head over there. This first one I started this morning. It's an overnight bag and is very soft and luxurious. I love it and don't want to pass with it. It will make it's journey to Melbourne and then across The Tasman to NZ to a very funky client of mine!

Blob-bi-di blob!

This painting came about all because of the gin and raspberry!

I'd been painting with water colours for two days and had almost finished my landscape when I was lovingly handed a gin and raspberry and could no longer compose myself to be daintily painting with watercolours. I'd had enough of the constraint and the colours of my bevvie inspired me to create this blobbi creation. I was really just having a fabulous time mixing up the paints with a little of Rudy's plaster to thicken and get some texture happening and this is the end result. It's okay..... it was more about the moment and evening in which it was done. I keep threatening to paint over it but Kyland really loves it and has it mounted in his room.

It's quite textured and layered, camera hasn't picked it up very well.

Painting

Recognise this painting from somewhere? I wrote about the beautiful image in the previous blog.

Whenever Grand papaaa HILL comes to stay we love to look through photos or books from the library and set up the paints. This particular year was a cold one in Wanaka, two weeks of constant snow and we were bunkered down inside, even the ski fields were closed with white-out days so it was a great time for me to have some tutoring and Papa to have some fun with the paints. He bought down his special horse hair brushes which were lovely to paint with and we all had an industious time painting (in between the eating and drinking of course!)

Papa Hill's interpretation of The Boat I coveted

I'll post the one that I did tomorrow as the light has faded too much now for me to photogragh.

one of my favourite tramps

Dawn on Lake Sabine, Nelson Lakes

 After dawn we would hop in the boat and head out to the middle of the lake and take the quickest dip. Even though it was summer it was icy cold, not to mention the hugest eels one has ever seen swimming amongst the reeds!

Always a welcome sight to see the hut at the end of a long day's walk

Dusk would see the hunters bring in their kill. We were lucky enough to take some of this home.

Beautiful image on other side of lake

On Friday I started,



Traditional sash window still needs to be dimensioned and subtitled



Pencil lines for next weeks worth of work

Spacing for lettering is usually 3mm

Basic window insert for next weeks project

All work is done on A2 paper, had to do mini windows (middle)

this cross-section of a brick veneer slab. One of my many drawings due in two weeks....I'm not panicking, I'm not panicking! The only thing that has thrown me is the fact that we are heading to Melbourne for "important business" and it happens to be the same week as mid-term exams, so it's a bit of a dilemma but I will have to work something out and just keep plodding along till I get them all finished. Lucky I love what I'm doing!!

Can you feel it in the air?

When we buzz we R.E.A.L.L.Y buzz. This morning I sprung up out of bed at 7am, don't know how as the last 2 nights we have been at cabaret shows (more on that later) but it must have something to do with the warmth in the air and the fact that our daughter has found her genre singing jazz!

 The doors and windows at my place are all open, airing out each room, the sun in streaming in through the windows, all the winter sheets are washed and on the line ready to be put on the beds when I get home tonight. We used to have days like this in winter in Wanaka, NZ when there would be an unusual warmth and within the next 24 hours there would be a dumping of snow. We would pull back the curtains in the morning and everything would be white and as crazy Aussies do, then we would run outside and play until we were too cold and wet to bear it anymore, so my guess is here, in The City of Churches we are in for a southerly blast with some rain.

Oh, does your hubby ever say the funniest things in the morning? The first thing Rudy said to me today was...."I want to play the drums", and when I walked out of the shower I saw him sitting on the lounge practising his drumming moves on make believe drums!!! It was the funniest thing ever as The Hill Boyz all do this random thing with their tongues when concentrating...(sorry, getting sidetracked, it just had me in stitches and it will be an ongoing joke for the rest of the day now!?)

Anyways, I even cleaned out the wood burner, restocked the kindling, vacuumed and spruced up the bathroom. Off to college now. Hope you all have a fabulous where-ever in the world you may be!