WORKSHOPS

VOICES ON THE COAST was terrific, i was tired when i got here and really wanted to stay home and work in the new studio but once i was here, in great accommodation with author/illustrator gabrielle wang, it was great. we've been bussed to the venue everyday and looked after by students from Immanuel College. it's been great to catch up with isobelle too. Because we finish at 1.00 there's the whole afternoon free and we spent one afternoon in the spa outside until we became prunes!  

my helpers abbie and brooke

MAROOCHYDORE

ACCOMMODATION is great, we have a two bedroom apartment, spacious and with a fourth floor view across to the sea, a view interrupted by some pretty ordinary and inappropriate high buildings on the waterline.  i can't believe places still allow this bad planning.

NOW IN THE FAR NORTH

MAROOCHYDORE - i'm at Voices on the Coast literature festival - did a session at Cooroy Library yesterday, about 10 kids and their parents drawing in charcoal.  it's the first time i've worked with swan lake and after the usual hairraising failure of the tech equipment to read my photo files, the IT guy got it going and the session was fine.

good accommodation on 4th floor looking out onto the sea, a shame about the buildings :0(

BACK FROM THE DEEP SOUTH

AFTER A GREAT FEW DAYS in melbourne catching up with friends it was our annual family weekend in the grampians.   absolutely freezing mornings and bright sunny days, perfect for walking, using the firepit, indoors with food, wine and movies.   it's beautiful in winter

CLOUDS

GREAT CLOUDS TODAY

MARA IN THE BIKESHOP

i love this pic of mara on the move       

GO GO GO

IT'S GREAT to have time to sort the house and studio with no work on the go. nothing in the diary, just time to puddle from one thing to the next.  I'm having a lovely time.
Yesterday was 23 deg here, so balmy - i was outside most of the day. i headed off for a walk at 10 and was almost to town when i got a call from Essential energy, they had arrived to trim the rubber tree  -  eek.
i had asked that i be there so i said 'don't do anything till 11'  and hightailed it back home.  they cut quite a bit out, but also evened it up where i asked for it so it's actually much lighter and better.

 i have new airbnb people, really nice, bright and chatty. we had a drink on the back verandah as the sun went down then the bunnings delivery man arrived with my glass benchtops!!  WHOO HOO

Beautiful 12mm glass with sanded off edged and rounded corners,  gorgeous!

I've hung a wedding dress on the wall, it's starting to feel
like home.  nearly ready to start working - nearly.  getting there

GETTING THERE

Last night

another lovely sunset - cool nights (freezing
really) and sunny still
days. great for outdoor
work

RAKING, sorting piles of rubble into wood, metal, tip stuff, dealing with the plumber, having the septic tank pumped (pew!!) more raking - that's been my day,  seven trolley loads of lovely fallen claret ash leaves from next door's nature strip are now mulching my garden,  i've created the beginnings of a small bed of potplants outside the studio too :o)  a satisfying day

and bunnings has just rung to say my super thick glass has arrived for my printmaking benchtop - a beautiful work surface 12mm thick :0)

what a job, getting 

rid of all of this.

but - slowly slowly 

a new little garden,
i'll decorate that
unused door,
maybe hang a
bamboo blind

my little sample of fresco on a paver, it's hopefully
going to withstand the weather

tonight's sunset went on and on, just got more and more gorgeous

    the camera couldn't really handle the brightness of this

THE MOON

I LOVE BEING ABLE to see the full moon just about every night it appears, the skies here are so clear and big.