Colouring inside the lines

from w
Without a computer and the easy way of exploring colour and texture using computer graphic programs, I just had to use real coloured pens and paper for a few days. So I found some unfinished pages, fiddled with one already half-done and started one new one. One I just got tired and didn't complete! Anyway here they are - photographed because they were near to A3 in size and the scanner is A4. Fyansford and Barwon Edge grounds and Van Loon's Nursery still figure.

Flattening shapes like leadlight

The real drawing, the others are digital and only as computer files.from w
Yesterday afternoon I made another drawing of the Barwon Edge pond, this time using mainly feltpens as I tried to flatten the shapes, remove textures and get an effect more like leadlight or even batik. Then I pushed the picture a bit further and it seems to become 'under the sea'! In between messing around on the computer we fitted in a few church services, kava drinking, yarning with friends in Werribee. playing with nine-month old baby boys who are cousins, and wondering how on earth a Prime Minister came from this kind of suburban landscape!I don't mean my imagined landscapes of the pond, but the near identical housing estates that make up the electorate from the smoke stacks of the Altona refinery to the new estates of Wyndam Vale, Point Cook, and of course the older area of Werribee with its sewerage plant and 12 acre (I think) vegetable farms.Click on any picture to see enlarged.

Messing with pastels

from w
Some Saturdays I join a Craft group where the other women mainly knit but I take a sketchbook. Last week I started a mainly oil pastel pic of the drawing I had made earlier of the pond at the Barwon Edge restaurant grounds. Pastels are so messy I get fingerprints everywhere and I can't do details so use pencil which I guess isn't proper! Anyway here is the result and a few other overlapping creations which some people might find obnoxious and they hurt the eyes.And at last I've worked out how to keep the 'portrait' shape instead of Picasa turning every picture into a kind of 'golden mean' landscape shape!

Drawing of rocks, reeds, water

from w
Yesterday there were a few hours of sunshine and Peceli got out into the garden and potted and planted about twenty large leafy plants. Then he suggested we go out sketching and have lunch somewhere - Balyang Sanctuary, Ocean Grove, Buckleys Falls (probably no water) and I said, well there are rocks and water at Barwon Edge, a newly discovered eating place/receptions. So we walked around the pond, sketched, and then had huge scones, jam and cream with cappucino. Here are some results.
I am constantly surprised by the different shapes, colours, patterns in nature, and also surprised by the way technology can change a simple drawing A3 in size made with an ordinary blue biro, and later with a black biro. How technology even adds colour when I use Photo-edit reverse colours and so on. Okay, all this messing about keeps me away from housework. With Peceli now home, it has been a lovely but busy week including some meetings - Rotary, Diversitat and church tasks.

Barwon Edge

from w
Thinking of the wedding going on in Lautoka, Fiji, I felt a bit flat that I had decided not to go. Anyway a friend, Christine M. phoned to invite me for coffee and cakes at a fairly new cafe, Barwon Edge. What a nice place - near the Barwon River, near where the lads play touch footie. It's a venue for receptions as well as a cafe. The grounds are beautifully landscaped with rocks, grassy slopes and water. Their website is http://www.barwonedge.com.au which has photos etc. Barwon Edge is apparently only four years old and hidden rather than in the main streets of Geelong.