Another shirt, spots this time

I wore this shirt to a friend's birthday afternoon tea on the weekend - with my not-skinny jeans that are fast becoming a favourite. Comfortable! That is the priority now. Anyway this is yet another inexpensive rayon. I love rayon, it is cool to wear and drapes nicely. Harder to sew than cotton but not exactly silk charmeuse degree of difficulty. 

This is the Deer and Doe Melilot shirt that I've made a few times before, although I made it a bit wider through the body for room, and made the collar pointy rather than the original round collar. And a short sleeve instead of long, and I didn't put the pockets on. But still totally the same shirt :)

A bust dart, which is nice, and a long curved tail, which is also nice. I might make more of these. I liked the spot very much. I did pre-soak in very hot water and pre-wash completely and the colour ran like crazy and shrank. Sometimes you can just tell.

It reminds me of 1981 when I played a cow in the school end of year production - it was some kind of Christmas show, and the inn in Bethlehem was run by a cow landlady, i.e. me - in fact all the roles were played by animals except the angels, and we all had to sing through large papier mache mask heads. Wearing a brown turtleneck skivvy and brown trackpants. My solo included the lines "No room at the inn for any more horses cows and pigs and sheep and goats - moo neigh oink baa, moo neigh oink baa".

Anyway, the reason it reminds me is because the cow landlady also had to have a red polka dotted apron, which I only told my mother about at the last possible moment, who found some fabric in a drawer, but didn't have enough for a full apron so sewed up a half-apron (hemmed and trimmed, because it wasn't leaving the house unfinished) which I then got in trouble for from the crazed music teacher because it wasn't the exact right big landlady apron ... and even at the age of ten I knew NOT TO MENTION THAT to my mother, who would have taken those apron strings and strangled someone with them. Which I totally understand now. I went on in my half apron and all survived.

Drive in the country

On Sunday we went to look at another couple of houses for sale - we are going off the idea of buying something close enough to commute to, and just focussing on a retirement property. This means a larger search area, so there are a couple of areas we haven't yet explored. Clearly we are not looking at buying anything right at the moment as we aren't going to retire for a few years yet - but it's good to be prepared! 

This is a good example of the sky, the trees and the countryside. Not much going on! We are looking a bit more to the north; nowhere more than two hours from the coast, or more than an hour or so to Canberra. Our search area is a triangle about 200 km on each side, so you would think we would be able to find something when we need to, but we are quite fussy. First stop was this place in Collector, which had three hectares of blank space, which is fine, but too close to the highway. Second stop was this place in Tarago, which was a lovely house, also a hectare of blank space, but too close to the neighbours. The cross-country drive from Collector to Tarago also ruled out a few places in between - not a sealed road the whole way and then past the mine tailings. So no.

We wandered around Tarago (population 426), bought some local jam and had lunch at the old pub, which was lovely. A popular place for Sunday motorcycle groups to ride to for a burger, as we discovered. Gave us some lovely bikes to look at before driving back. A good old-person outing! Neither of us had been through that countryside before, despite living in Canberra for thirty years. I'd happily live out that way, if we could find the right place.

Faces, with science

I was getting frustrated with my pointy-nosed people because I couldn't get them looking in different directions with any degree of accuracy. They just looked mutant, and not staring towards the horizon, or whatever. So I bit the bullet and welcomed some science in, with planes of the face, and lines on spheres, and that sort of nonsense.

Luckily there are many many tutorials on the internet for drawing people with movement; mostly comics or manga or graphic artists. And everyone is completely amazing and skilful and very good at breaking down how to do it for yourself.

Like all of this art malarkey the concept is super simple and the execution is fiendishly complicated. Faces are both very flexible and very susceptible to the uncanny valley of almost-human. They can easily look very wrong indeed. I got fed up after an hour or two (on the sofa, near the fire, not so bad) and retreated to my happy place of doodling. Feathers (quilting patterns!) and swoops and circles and lines.

So then I thought, why not combine the two! This could be my signature move, faces peeping out from feathery doodles.

NO NO WRONG TURN GO BACK ... that is just creepy

Flowery shirt

I've been on a shirt-sewing binge these last couple of months, with mixed success. I've trialled several of my many  many shirt patterns, and mostly they are good. I like a roomy shirt but then if the fabric is too stiff it looks like a clown shirt, or a business shirt. And you don't want your collar too big.

Anyway this is one of the more successful experiments, although I'm not sure about the flowers. It was an inexpensive rayon and I thought it might be cool nana chic, but it's reading more sad nana pyjamas. But I wore it to work today and it was comfortable and I do like the colours.

Terrible photos! Yay! Here is a better one, with the kitten's first vet visit. I didn't take her, my husband did, and she was apparently very relaxed and friendly. Didn't freak out about the strange smells, or the different rooms, or being poked and prodded. Just made some new friends. What a lovely wee cat. Look at her different coloured toe beans, and her fat little tummy.

All over the place

The painting does go in random directions. We learn about different things in the classes, then I get despondent about how dreadful I am, so find comfort in something trashy on Youtube or Tiktok, then go back to the classes, and repeat. I think if I stayed on one style - like botanicals or something - I would get better, and the leaping about isn't helping. But I still do it. So this is a landscape, to learn proper things properly, wet on wet, aerial perspective, skies etc.

Not good. I had to go and do some Tiktok jellyfish after that. 

The flowers from the good lessons were a bit better, although this is about the third version of the painting I did, the others were quite strange. Definitely 'fantasy flowers' i.e. not found in nature, although I think a resemblance to a hibiscus? Perhaps?

I then did a one-colour blurry landscape to make myself feel better. It didn't need so much brush control. 

Back with the proper lessons

After my diversion down the by-ways of pointy-nosed illustration, I am back with the proper lessons. My husband gave me some lovely brushes for my birthday, which don't make my art any better, but I like using them. So in the classes we painted some pegs, as an exercise in shadows, and light.

We also had a bash at clouds. Less is definitely more with clouds, I am not sure if this is very realistic.

There are certainly a lot of real life examples to look at this week. It has been raining, windy, cloudy and cold. I love it! Still enjoying having a fire, and I really don't want summer to start. But there is not much I can do about it. This one looks more like an explosion than a cloud.

In real estate news, we haven't looked at any more places to buy but number one has been touring around places to rent :) We will be funding this new adventure but I couldn't say no to something as exciting as going off into a share house with friends. And of course massively keen for someone to discover the joys of doing one's own cooking, cleaning, laundry and bill paying. Hah. 

Ate a lot, exercised

Friday night we went out to dinner with friends, then had an 8-hour lunch on Saturday with other friends, so Sunday I went for a Very Long Walk. The lunch was a Greek-themed Christmas in July, to which we contributed roast chicken (it is Greek, if you marinate it in garlic, lemon and olive oil) and it was all extremely delicious. The wine was not Greek, which is just as well.

Here is wintry gusty Canberra. Some of the daffodils and blossoms think it might be spring but I don't know about that. I had no urge to take my jacket off.

These dining domes are popping up at fancy restaurants at the moment. I quite like the idea, but it seems a bit exposed. I am a fully grown 50-something woman and if I saw people dining in there I would want to press my face up against the outside of the plastic with my tongue out and make gestures. Is that just me? How would you resist? If I'd had a few wines I don't think I would be able to stop myself.

Pointy-nosed me

The last part of the course was a self-portrait doing things you like to do. I had myself in my sewing room of course, sewing away. It is naïve and silly and badly drawn ... and I really like it. Look at me go, sewing on my strange yellow shirt. 

I did one sitting by the fire reading a book as well, but it's not as good. I should have put more in the background. But clearly me, in my green jumper and my grey velour trackpants, wearing my slippers. A portrait for the ages.

Speedy weekend

After two full-on sitting weeks I had a weekend at the beach - it was very lovely but went unbelievably quickly. I sewed two shirts, went for a walk, read a book, ate cauliflower cheese and that was it! Done. It was sunny but cold and a bit windy. Nice weather for walking and for the keen surfers (and toddlers).

The annual hard waste collection is happening this week - is that an Australian thing? I don't remember anything like it when I was growing up in NZ. Once a year the council will collect up to two cubic metres per household of hard rubbish from the roadside; so everyone clears out the big things that won't fit in the wheelie bin. It is also the opportunity to cruise along the street and basically furnish your house for free if you're not too fussy, with plenty of surfboards and the occasional bike. I thought about grabbing these chairs but we don't really need them. 

I put out various things myself, including the trusty cane hutch that we purchased for $5 from the previous owners ... the list of furniture we bought had a few $5 items although they might have charged $20 for the fridge. Love it. Anyway between me putting out the hutch at midday and leaving to go home at 2.30 it had vanished - off to delight another family. It was a solid unit so happy it has another life! No-one wanted my old speakers or the broken boogy boards from Kmart. 

Pointy-nosed people doing things

More from the Sarah van Dongen course - these are all line-for-line copies of her illustrations, so no creative input from me, just trying to grapple with the ideas.

Mixed media is rather fun. I can do backgrounds, add in the detail with colour pencils, then smoosh it up with watercolours (or watercolour pencils), and marker pens add harder edges if that is what I feel like. It gives options when you don't have control over any of your media properly ... looking at you watercolour. 

I like this lady by the pond. I like the face - yes, I know it's two dots and a line, but still - and the body has the right shape for what it is doing, for once.

Ordinary people, everyday things. I quite like it. The next step is to do self-portraits of us doing things we do ... hmmmm. I think these four probably cover the entire spectrum of my activity.

Wintry weekend

Saturday was cold and clear and Sunday was cold and rainy! Luckily I got my walk in on Saturday, and it was very pleasant. The poplars always look very wintry and stark ... but the skies were blue. On Sunday we went to the bus depot markets and bought some unnecessary Turkish bread and zucchini balls, then basically sat by the fire for the rest of the day. And played with the kitten. 

I wore my new wide leg jeans that I wasn't sure about to the markets, as a test, and they were very comfortable. I felt a bit odd and flappy after a decade in skinny jeans but the comfort outweighed it and my husband said I didn't look stupid at all (he is very unreliable on appearance, thinks everything looks good, which is lovely but not helpful). Gee my sewing room is even messier than usual.

We put some bird seed on the ground for the little birds, who can't fight off the big parrots on the feeder. 

The kitten LOVED it. She stayed still with that fixated stare, just watching them hop about. They are about her size, so god only knows what she would do with one if she caught it. But high in entertainment value (for her and us).

And then the rest of the day was like this. She has discovered the chair closest to the fire, and likes it.