Happy Autumn!

Watercolour , "Autumn leaves and berries".

Peach boy, the three little pigs and a surprise in a gumtree

 Since we hadn't been to Carrick Hill for a long time it was decreed that today was the day.Carrick Hill is an old period home built by Edward Hayward and his wife Ursual Barr Smith after their marriage in 1935. It is very much inspired by 16th, 17th and 18th century fixtures they had bought on their travels and which they commissioned their architect to incorporate into the building. It was a little piece of high living in the suburb of Springfield, Adelaide It is filled with antiques and has a huge William Morriscollection. It is just the place to go to have time out from the suburbs but still remain in Adelaide.

 This time although the scaffolding was up  the gardens were still lovely.

Mr McGregor still did not want bunnies in his garden,

and the scarecrow was still scarey!

Momotaro, (Peach Boy) was still there with his dog and his monkey.

The fairies still watch over the garden

 .

The dirt was so dried up it was no wonder the wolf from The Three Little Pigs was howling!

*Note to self ask Santa for one of these houses for a studio for Christmas*

But the piece de resistance was not this,

or this....although it was amazing!

But this...............

can you see it yet? 

Yep, it was Blinky Bill!

A good day!

If you want to know more about Carrick Hill click here

Thanks to Holly Clarke for the koala pics.

Robins in Autumn??

It is autumn here in Australia right now, warm and pleasant days followed by cold nights. In fact our clock went back one hour last night giving us a delicious extra hours sleep.  So why you may well ask am I drawing robins with all their winter connotations? I think it is a throw back to my recent winter holiday in Ireland where I was inspired by the sights and sounds of winter.

 I have been continuing to explore the oil pastel medium where I scratch the image onto the paper through several layers of pastel. It feels really intuitive for me to use this technique so I would like to see how far I can go with it. It is challenging to place colours where I want them to be when I scratch through the surface. It is  also challenging to have a top layer that isn't black so that is what this little experiment has been about.

 I love the velvety texture of the oil pastels which gives a mellow bloom to the surface of the paper.

Sorry that the pics are not very sharp but I photographed them rather than scanned them as I am waiting for a new scanner.

Little Aussie Bees

Today was a glorious autumn day, too nice to stay inside so I went for a walk to local park to see if I could find some inspiration for my drawing. I was hoping to see some autumnal colours but no, it all looked very green. I guess all the trees in the park are natives, non deciduous which is a good thing! Anyway I saw a beautiful gum tree and asked my daughter (who was acting as photographer) to take some pictures of the beautiful delicate pink blossoms... and then I saw them, the cute little Aussie bees working their little socks off gathering pollen to make their honey. I don't think I would have seen them if I hadn't expressly gone out to look through eyes that were seeking the small things that we normally pass by.

Photo credit, Holly Clarke.