Long weekend

It was the Reconciliation Day long weekend - it's a new-ish public holiday just in Canberra and always takes people by surprise. I went to the beach of course, with my husband and the cat this time, and it was lovely. Cold but clear and still and sunny. I went for lots of walks.

On Sunday morning I stood at the headland and looked down at these three blokes cooking themselves some bacon and eggs for breakfast. All perfectly fine, except that to get to that spot you have to either scramble down the cliff or bush bash round from the boat ramp. It's not hard - I've done it as part of a walk - but I've never done it with a folding table, chairs, cooker and food. Why have breakfast there? It's not even a good spot for rock fishing. It smelled good though.

Nothing exciting to report otherwise - no sewing was done. I filled the holes left from the removal of the old blinds and sanded and painted. Not perfect but you can't tell unless you are peering at them very very closely.

Abstract April - people

So this is where it all gets a bit unhinged - abstracts of humans. First up we channelled our anger and worry into this charming portrait. It's giving angst, it's giving nobody-understands-me, it's giving Year 8 self-expression. It has also been giving me the creeps so I ended up turning it to the wall. 

On the other end of the scale is this pretty face. A nice bit of watercolour-technique background and strong black lines. I quite like it, although the 'hibiscus' flower is a bit mutant. 

And a peculiar little family, looming out of the multi-colour mist. This was very interesting to do because the people have no distinguishing characteristics, and they're quite small, so every time you added the slightest line or amount of colour to them it would change the way they related to each other, or to the space. Like, far away, then closer, then not friendly, then related, depending on what splotch you added. Luckily I wasn't trying for any particular look, so definitely succeeded. 

And then the brightly coloured nude lady, who is lolling on some surface somewhere. I re-painted that left shoulder and left forearm about four times and it STILL looks like a giant stuffed sausage sitting on her hip. Why? the right arm has even less definition and it looks like it is plausibly curled about her head. How does the left one turn into a sock puppet? Aaaargh. At least she looks happy.

Abstract April - non-representational aka wtf is this

Some of the abstracts are abstracted objects or scenes, and some of them are absolutely not meant to be anything at all. But they still take ages to do, and lots of thinking. As you smack the paint in almost entirely the wrong spot. First up is my favourite - lots of palette knife - I really like this one. I don't know why. I have varnished it which is the first time ever! That means I can't paint over it again, which is what will happen with the other canvases I think. I am going to put a velcro command hook on the back and hang it on the wall.

I don't hate this one - it is meant to be minimalist abstract with a slight hint of mid-century modern. Which I think it has. 

This is meant to be an abstract idea of fire, but it's a bit half-arsed. Again, lots of palette knife which is fun, but I'm not sure it's giving fire. Perhaps controlled explosion?

This was meant to be completely non-representational but ended up being "floating alien pirate sky ships" which is OK. That's the nice thing about abstracts. I like the impasto splodges. Again, it took hours to do this, I don't think you can tell.

And lastly we have an allover kind of abstract, with Posca pen, which I kind of like but it's a bit wimpy. The completely abstract ones are fun to do but a bit unsatisfying.

Stretchy dress

In between walks on the weekend I made a dress - first for a while. I tend to either swim or sew, not often time for both on a short weekend. So it turns into more of a winter thing. I used my christmas scissors again and they were still amazing! The result was a very simple swing dress in a border print knit that I've had for a while.

Terrible photo into the sun but you get the idea. Highly black and work-appropriate.

This is me trying to show that it does swirl a little bit without also stepping on the cat. Who was quite interested.

This is the pattern - N6618 - despite the tech drawings it isn't longer at the back then the front. I think they did that to show the sewn-in ties pull to the front? Maybe? I didn't make the sewn-in ties, just a separate belt, and the length is definitely the same at the front and the back. Anyway there is no shaping, so it was a very easy sew and EXTREMELY easy to wear because it's so loose-fitting. Basically just a bit tshirt with a bit of colour at the hem. Nice.

Cold weekend

Another weekend of icy winds - I went down to the beach which was lovely for about an hour and a half until 10 am ... when the wind got up and it clouded over. So I went for walks nice and early both days. I could have swum because the water is still a reasonable temperature but it's hard to get excited about a swim when it's not warm enough to take your jumper off. There were a lot of surfers but not much surf.

Here is the sun glinting horizontally towards the horizon in the exact artistically approved fashion. Just dry brush a bit of white over your sea and bobs your uncle. Except for me when it would look like someone sneezed cotton wool on a blue blanket.

And this would be super easy too, just scumbling some white on the edge of the water. So it looks like waves. Hah. I have to stop watching people make art on tiktok - anything that can be done in 90 seconds is not a realistic goal. 

Abstract April - flowers and fruit

On the more representational side of abstracts we have flowers and occasional fruit. A bit of Mondrian, a bit of Matisse?  I like my pear, it looks like it is sitting in a bed of chicken feathers, which is not at all what I intended. It is slightly the wrong shape and colour for a pear.

Here we have some poppy type arrangements and a butterfly with too many wings. 

A vase of perhaps roses. Apparently this is very cool if you paint it big - scale is an important part of abstracts apparently - this is 7 x 9 inches. The smoodgy stripes are intentional. 

This one is a bit of a splodgy mess. I am not doing well with solid chunks of colour, I don't have the brush control. And my white Posca pen is too pale. But I'm still having fun.

Last of the autumn leaves

I did my usual big walk on Sunday - the first time for a long time and I was POOPED by the last stage, staggering up the hill. It was a beautiful day for it though, with lots of people out and about for Mother's Day. Picnics and brunches mostly. 

The autumn leaves are just about done but it is still looking lovely. Look at all those Canberrans doing Canberra-like things. Frolicking by the artificial lake, built for the recreation of upright citizens. Like me.

We don't fuss about things like Mother's Day, but one of my children remembered to text, which is nice, and my husband was in Manila all last week for work and had brought me back chocolate. And we then went round to friends for a Eurovision party, so all in all a very good day! I can't believe that weird Swedish lady in a box won. At least the Australian entry didn't disgrace itself (odd, but not too odd, it's all you can hope for). Why is Australia in Eurovision? NO ONE KNOWS