And even more beach....

 Two weekends in a row! I'm not sick of the drive yet, although two days is barely enough. Saturday was a bit windy and cold, so no swimming, but Sunday was beautiful and a very decent swell! I stayed in for ages, caught lots of waves.

Here is a photo of the public toilets / change rooms at the beach, they have some very cool murals. This was on Saturday when it was still a bit blowy.

Little portraits

The second lesson in portrait painting is doing a smaller half-sheet one - useful as a study for larger portraits apparently. For when people pay you many thousands of dollars to do their likeness. I am not holding my breath. So we copied a self-portrait by Anders Zorn - hence the colour palette - in small. Here is my version:

In the lessons we only did one but I thought I better get some more practice in and did another wee Zorn copy. I absolutely did her no favours, she has very strange cow eyes. But the skin tones are better and the mouth is OK.

And another Zorn, again I make my subjects much uglier than the originals. I do not think I could parlay this into a lucrative career. I am happy with the neck bow, that's about it.

Here are the originals! Comparisons are odious (to me) but I am definitely improving. Mine always look a bit sadder and more worried ... 

More glorious beach

I took Monday off and had a long weekend at the beach - it was magical. Swam in the mornings, sewed in the afternoons and watched trash TV with a glass of wine in the evenings. 

The water is still absolutely freezing but there was a decent swell so I managed fine with a wetsuit on. My overlocker is doing beautifully after its service so I sewed a few tshirts and things with stretch fabric. Nothing exciting at all, but quite satisfying.

More portraits

So I think Will Kemp is earning his money for these tutorials - very clear explanations and some really solid information on colour theory. Skin tones are hard, it's not just me! He had us starting off with a Zorn palette of colours - this is all done with yellow ochre, cadmium red, black and white. Very interesting - especially how muted you have to be for skin tones, they really don't have much saturation at all.

Then off we went with portrait exercise number one. It is manifestly not very good, but also light years better than the last lot, so I'll take the win.

Hobart

Oh my goodness it's Thursday already - work has been crazy busy since I got back and the good vibes of our little holiday have completely worn off! In fact I think I might need another holiday about now, I had to come into work both days of the weekend and that is not at all my preferred method of operating. So I'll put some pictures of Tasmania up, even though it seems like a million years ago already.

We had great weather - not too hot and only a few spots of rain on the first day. Just as well, because we walked for miles and miles and miles - averaging about 18 km a day. Luckily we stuffed ourselves with all kinds of delicious food as well, so no chance of wasting away. We stayed in a little old stone cottage in Battery Point - which is central and historical - very cute and very convenient. 

We loved the Botanic Gardens - colder climate gardens are always beautiful, and we got lots of highly unrealistic plans for the retirement house. Unrealistic because of needing decades to grow (we don't have decades, despite how we might delude ourselves) and also the sheer amount of water you'd have to pour into it. I didn't take photos but there was an excellent cactus garden that might be more suitable.

We went to the Salamanca markets, and the farmer's markets, and had a nine-course degustation dinner. Whisky and gin are big things here - micro-distilleries - but neither of us are spirit drinkers so we didn't do any tastings. Well, we did do lots of tastings but they were bao and dumplings and scones and sourdough crumpets (AMAZING). We went to a cat cafe - this was a super cute picture until the cat moved at the last possible moment. Cats are contrary.

I carefully pre-booked tickets for Mona - including the ferry ride up - for what I thought was Tuesday, but was actually Monday. We went to leave on Tuesday for the wharf and the tickets were saying 'expired' - you know that sinking feeling of dawning realisation that you've just stuffed something up quite monumentally? I was so cross with myself because I'd been looking forward to it for literally months (and it was about $150). What an idiot! They were non-refundable of course but I emailed pathetically and Mona very nicely will give me a credit that has to be used in 12 months. We will have to go back ... silver lining I guess. 

So we hired a car instead and drove into the countryside. This is the oldest bridge in Australia still in use ... 1820s I think. And we also did a tour of one of the original jails which was pretty grim. Tasmania of course is all convicts, genocide of the Aboriginal people, misery, slave labour and general 19th century nastiness. Flogging for insubordination, public drunkenness and weevilly bread.

And for something different, this is a derelict mental hospital. Or possibly lunatic asylum, when it was built. Definitely not the kind of thing you see in Canberra.

So much travelling

It's been planes trains and automobiles for me for the past ten days - actually no trains now I think about it but I did go inside an army tank :) First up was a trip to Adelaide last week for work - or a day in Adelaide and then a day in the wide open South Australian spaces. We saw another snake! It had settled in quietly on a hilltop rock and four utes filled with people drove up and got out, poor thing. So much nothing in every direction.

It was excellent to go somewhere else I've never been, not that there was much to see, just the Australian scenery. Red dirt and salt bush.

We had to take a tiny little plane, this is a selfie of me in what appears to be the cargo hold, but I did actually have a seat, it was quite comfortable. 

And only about 40 minutes flying back to Adelaide, in time to get the last plane back to Canberra on Thursday night, to get up at five the next morning to catch a flight to Hobart! But this one was for a holiday, a long weekend for our silver wedding anniversary. I'll post pictures separately because we had such a lovely time, it was great, but here are a couple from 25 years ago...

Prepare your eyeballs

So.... I thought I would like to be able to paint portraits. Super easy right? A few youtube videos and away I go ... well I did the youtube videos and the results are baaaaaaad. I am always honest about my disasters with my loyal readers (hi Dad and Pam) but you need to prepare yourself for these.

Ooooo first attempt not good. So I thought - clearly I can't quite master skin tones yet, how about I try a monochromatic portrait? Surely that would look more human.

Nup. Avatar meets the Uncanny Valley. I decided to try youtube tutorial number three.

Marginally better, but not exactly very good. All three of these are copies of online headshots and they look NOTHING like the originals. I am trying to do the thing of finding one piece of a work that is satisfactory but I am struggling. So I have decided - most uncharacteristically - to purchase an art course and I've spent many Great British pounds on the portraits in acrylics course by Will Kemp. I will keep you posted.

Very spring-like

My walk on the weekend had all the parts of spring - wind, sunshine and fluff! The silver birches are in full float, making everyone's eyes itch. Pretty, but impractical, and much cursed by people who suffer from hay fever. Which is not me generally, but this kind of nonsense will make me a bit sneezy.

And the other spring event was a snake on the path! Twenty years of Canberra walking and I've never seen a brown snake out and about, but there was one happily crossing the path at the Jerrabomberra wetlands. Scared the pants off the cyclist coming the other way, who warned me, so I hung back and watched it meander its way into the bush and vanish. Highly venomous but unlikely to bite you if you don't piss it off.

More pictures of fluff. Absolutely no pictures of snakes.