Yesterday my four year old picked up a piece of chalk and started doodling on the chalk board. This is what she drew:

I’m fairly sure I haven’t shown her how to draw petals like that but I’m so impressed at her perspective. The person next to the flower is me apparently!

Then this morning she rubbed it out (so glad I snapped a photo) and drew this one:

She said this was herself and she drew it for her sister. Notice that it has knees and a lovely big smile. Very sweet.

I am always amazed at how well she draws as I have always assumed that most of our drawing talent is learnt not inherited. Maybe I’m wrong about that one (anyone know?). I always felt like my own drawing skills were learnt and yet when I think about it there is an awful lot of artist ability in my family, on both sides. My Mum oil paints, my Dad can draw and was a graphic designer of sorts for a long time, my brother is brilliant at photography. One uncle has beautiful hand writing, calligraphic even, another uncle can water-paint, a cousin has an art teaching degree, another cousin is good at charcoal sketching and another cousin is another brilliant photographer and another one is a trained graphic designer. I once found some notebooks from my Nanna’s school days and her sketches were pretty good too.

So, the odds are against me, artistic ability just may be inherited. I’d love to read some articles on that.

I managed to remember to take a couple of shots of the other paintings I did the other night so here they are.

I singled one of the pods out for this one. The white part is the shininess from the oil which is not dry. Red takes ages to dry!

The burnt sienna painting ready for layer two.

This is to show the size difference. The smaller one is 4″ x 4″.

Sometime this week I will get the paints out again and continue with these. I am loving that bright red!

I got the oil paints out again last night and set up a little study to practice on. These are seed pods I gathered in New Norcia last year and they were a vibrant yellow when I first got them. The yellow has dulled but I still painted them as their bright original colour.

This time I had a few rules for myself.

1. Treat it as a study not a finished painting
2. Use a limited palette
3. Do more than one

I did three in total, one of them has no colour at the moment because I’m using the method of under-painting using burnt sienna. When its dry I will paint over it and share it. The other study I did I forgot to take photos of, mainly because it only started to work when I was nearly finished for the night.

I have been more of a painter of people and portraits in the past but am finding these studies a good way to get my painting hands back again. This one is still quite tiny, 4″ x 4″.

This is the still life setup

The painting area

The study so far

Found these funky paintbrushes at Riot Art the other day and K finally had the chance to have a go at using them yesterday. She made all sorts of swirls and patterns in the paint and got quite mucky in the process. She enjoyed herself a lot even though the photo above makes her look like she’s going to cry!

She told me those were cupcakes and by the time they dried they actually did look like cupcakes.

I really enjoy making canes. If you want to know what a cane is, pop over to my other blog where I wrote a post explaining them. Knowing how amazing some caners are I know that I’m not brilliant at it but I do get a buzz out of slicing off the end and seeing what I’ve got. I also like to make random canes using up scrap clay.

Yesterday I lined them all up to see what I’ve got and here’s the photos:

This morning the three of us (K was in Kindy) went off to Cottesloe Beach to look at the Sculpture By the Sea exhibition. This is its 6th year here in Perth and this was our first visit. I’ve always meant to go but never seemed to find out about it until after it had finished. Hubby spotted it in the paper yesterday so this time we didn’t miss out.

What an amazing range of artwork! From the whimsical and funny to the more traditional, reflective work. The variety of mediums used was interesting too. Perspex, recycled materials, iron, timber and even grape vines.

Little L loved the sculptures but she loved the water more. She had a much better response to our visit to the beach when we were in Sydney. The first thing she said when we arrived was ‘water!’ and the last thing she said was ‘bye bye water’. Very sweet.

So, here are some of my favourite works but you can see all the photos over on my flickr if you want to.

The artist was stating that this is what our trees would look like in the future (I hope not).

This had beautiful lines and contrasted really well with the horizon line behind it.

An iron rusted horse. Really amazing work.

Fabulous work, beautiful!

The contrast of the yellow against the ocean colours along with the movement of the lines was perfect.

The artist mentioned that each ring represents an action made by a person and how it ripples out to effect the next person.

The sculptures like this that you could see through were the most successful I thought.

These bottle tops have been used to make what the artist called a slug but I saw an ocean floor with coral and sea weed. You have to go to the flickr pics to see how huge this was. Would have taken hours.

And of course the photo I have as my photo of the day showed another favourite using brickies straps. Amazing what people can do and the colour was perfect for the environment.

I would recommend going down to see the exhibition. It’s free although you can purchase guide books for $10 and kids guide books for $6.

Today we went to see the 6th Annual Sculpture By the Sea at Cottesloe Beach. I’m going to do a separate post about some of my favourites but this is my shot of the day. I loved seeing little L interacting with the artwork. She had so much fun! Miss K was elsewhere so this time she didn’t get to see the artwork.

Today I’m tired. I had a great day with a friend though so I’m in one of those tired but relaxed moods. The photo of the day is of the latest bangles I’ve produced for the Red Feather’s shop in Melville. Today I sanded and buffed these so they are ready to go. I think thats going to be the extent of the creativity for today, unless the berocca kicks in.

Close up to see the pattern.

So, after getting the paints out after a very long time I laid them all out today to have a good look at what I’ve got. Looks like I’ve got a decent amount until you look very closely.

I laid them out in their brand groupings to see what was there. I’m having trouble remembering what the really good quality brands are so I’ll have to look that up. I know for example that this lot are all cheap and nasty paints. Brands that are made for cheap selling and not for long lasting paintings:

Due to my lack of actual good paint, these will have to be used by mixing in with better paints for now, while I’m getting used to it again.

This lot of Windsor and Newton are pretty old, some have started to dry out, the same goes for this lot, the silver tube is the oldest I think:

and this one is so old that its rusting! Dare I keep it or should I just throw it away. Not sure.

These are Holbein brand paints and I’m pretty sure they are a good brand. I’m really going to have to do some research.

I know nothing about this brand, I don’t even remember buying them. Must have inherited them in a bulk buy or something.

Anyway, I haven’t really paid a whole lot of attention to my oil paints for around 4 or 5 years now so its high time I got reacquainted and figure out what to use. Time to get researching methinks!

So, this afternoon I got the oil paints out (post coming about them after this) again and spent three hours on my peacock feather. Seems like a long time for a small painting but its taking a while for things to click back into place with oils. I am enjoying it though and I suppose thats the main thing. I put my ipod onto shuffle and got to work. Now, I’m not sure that this is really finished but its getting closer. I might leave it for a while and come back to it again after doing a second painting.

I have decided that peacock feathers are really hard to paint. They change colour when you move them and its very hard to get a true colour interpretation. Still, I think its recognisable!