rain's thursday art date

Hi everyone, 

I hope you've been enjoying a lovely week.

I think this may be my first time participating in Rain's Thursday Art Date.  The theme for this week is 'Pink'. I hope the pink Easter egg in my finally completed Easter spread will do. I know Easter was back in April but I've gradually been adding elements to the pages and only completed it last week.

The eggs, chick, and bunny were done with watercolours and ink. I collaged some stamps and the packaging from the vegan chocolate my son and I tried for the first time over Easter — it was delicious! The Carrie's Coconut bars remind me so much of the Bounty bars I used to love — I actually like the vegan ones better which is saying something because I've always been very picky when it comes to chocolate and the English-recipe Cadbury's was always my favourite. 

To see the work of other TAD participants for this week, click HERE.

Temperatures have dropped a bit here with Winter officially arriving on the first of June. I do love our winters despite the fact that the cold, dry air brings on frequent asthma attacks. I have to remember to wear a mask if I go outside in the mornings or evenings. If I forget, like I did the other morning, I suffer with violent fits of coughing followed almost immediately by chest congestion which makes breathing difficult. I end up feeling quite ill and weak for two to three days. Not fun at all especially when I'm still dealing with neck issues from the fall. I'll battle on regardless.

Before I close off this post, I thought you might like to see a picture of my studio muse. If Kya isn't draped across my art desk, she will sometimes lie on the rug directly behind my chair, mostly because I've kept putting her down after her failed attempts to lie on top of my work — while I'm actually trying to work. I'm fine if she lies on the desk right beside me but that isn't always the case. Instead of an art muse, I should call her an art block because she hates me working at my desk and constantly tries to stop me. Crazy cat! 

I hope you enjoy the rest of your week and the upcoming weekend. Stay safe and well. 

Love, Light and Peace

what I've been up to

More catching up to do as it's been a month since my last post...

I had another fall on the 21st. Not kidding...

 

Same reason as my previous fall — slipped in water dripped by Scarlett, Aaron's poodle, after she had a drink.  I swear I'm not clumsy but, unfortunately, water and tiles just don't go well together. We have a mat under the dishes but Scarlett always drips a trail of water as she walks away. My feet went out from under me but, this time, my poor neck and shoulder slammed into the storage box near the easel in the studio ('X' marks the spot in the pic below). Lucky the box is padded but my neck and left shoulder are still on the mend. Needless to say, we are trialling another position for the water dish. Wish me luck.

I hope you all had a lovely Easter. Our Easter was nice, quiet and peaceful. Beau, my son who lives away from home, came down with Covid over the Easter weekend. He was fully vaccinated so his symptoms were fairly mild — sore throat and a fever mostly. He did lose his sense of taste and smell though which he didn't like at all. Apparently, loss of taste and smell happens to about 13% of Omicron sufferers and it can stay that way for months afterwards. Thankfully, Beau's senses are back to normal now.  He isolated at home for 7 days and is already back at work. 

 

On a Easter sweet treat note, Brad and I can vouch for the deliciousness of the NOMO vegan chocolate eggs....so creamy! YUM! 

Another delicious vegan snack/meal we often have is nachos with vegan cheese and vegan sour cream. We like our nachos topped with Sriracha sauce and some cayenne pepper because some like it hot!

 

The past couple of nights, for dinner, we've had vegan Sausage and Potato Madras on brown Basmati rice made by me. We do love Indian-style curries in this house. Vindaloo is my favourite.

All ready for May in my bullet journal — both analogue and digital. 

This is my analogue Month View, then I work daily from there. 

Click on image to view it larger.

I've even managed a bit of sketching here and there since my last post. This page spread is all ready for the journaling/handwriting. LOVED The Hobbit movies! The hobbit is drawn with a BIC ballpoint pen while the plant is inked.

Today, I started this giraffe in graphite pencil. He is just roughly plotted out at this stage so definitely a work-in-progress. Not sure yet if I will end up inking him or giving him splash of watercolour. What do you think?

I'll leave you with a pic of the Queen of the Castle nestled on the back of the couch. 

I'm planning to post frequently in May so stay tuned...

 

P.S. - If anyone is having trouble leaving a comment on my blog would they please let me know via email. searen3 at gmail.com.

Love, Light and Peace

A day trip and a catch up

 Another month has passed so time for a catch up...

 

Hopefully, I will do better than one post a month but it's a start to getting back to my blog on a regular basis. 

 

Covid news - It looks like masks are here to stay for quite a while yet but I don't mind. If they help even a little, I'm happy to wear them despite Brad and I being asthmatics. That said, it's always a relief to get back to the car and remove the masks.

 

Queensland continues to do well as far as Covid stats go. We haven't had a serious outbreak since the Delta variant hit and daily cases are less that 5, mostly 1 or 0. I hope it remains that way. My heart goes out to New South Wales and Victoria which aren't doing so well but, hopefully, they will get it under control soon.

 

Bradley (son) is now fully vaccinated and I get my second Astra-Zeneca early October. My other sons are also part-vaccinated and due to get their second jabs in a month or so. Some employers are already adding 'Covid Vaccination Required' on their job criteria. The vaccinated are also going to be given extra privileges that unvaccinated won't have. Only this past week, a couple of top Cardiologists in one of our southern states had to go into 2 weeks isolation because an unvaccinated theatre nurse was diagnosed with Covid. Some heart patients were awaiting critical surgeries that had to be postponed. I really feel for them. One of the reasons why vaccination is so important. Covid has brought about a new way of life which will be here to stay for a while yet. 

Speaking of heart surgeries, my youngest brother Wayne had open heart surgery a couple of weeks back and is now at home recovering. The first 48 hours after surgery were horrible for him...immense pain. He is doing well now although had an erratic pulse a couple of times that needed medical attention. Apparently this can be expected after heart surgery. It will take 12 weeks for him to be fully recovered.

 

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I was very saddened recently to hear that a long-time art friend, Tracey Fletcher King, lost her 8 year battle with breast cancer on August 21st.  Tracey lived at the bay-side and, although we never did get around to meeting in person, we followed each other via our blog posts, Instagram, and occasional emails. She had a great sense of humour and never failed to make me laugh. I loved her art too. She will be dearly missed and my heart goes out to her family. xx

 

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Kya is not a fan of me sitting at my art/work desk. Here she is sitting on top of my bullet journal as if to try and stop me from focusing on things other than her. lol I don't know how this will work when I get serious about painting again. 

 

In the older photo below she is not asking for a belly scratch but more daring me to try. Cunning little Miss.

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A couple of weeks back, we had another family outing. 

This time to Wellington Point at the bay-side. 

I love the bay-side!

It was a glorious day! 

And I got to see pelicans....which I LOVE!     

We found a lovely spot with dappled shade

Part of the view from our spot. 

Ibis came to visit.

I really love the play of lights and darks in this pic.

Bradley (eldest son)

Aaron (youngest son) with his doggies

I must remember to get a group selfie next time. 

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I recently watched a Netflix documentary on Bob Ross. Have you seen it? I know Bob Ross was huge in the art world over in the States but I have to say that I'd barely heard of him here in Australia. I knew of him mostly through American art magazines. Those Kowalskis seem like a nasty piece of work, don't they?!  Yes, they helped Bob Ross to become famous in the art world but they pretty much controlled him, even pushing him to work when he was sick and dying of cancer. They then bullied people into signing over the Bob Ross name to them after he died...not what he wanted at all. They pretty much stole all rights away from Bob Ross' son when it was clear that Bob wanted his son to have his name, rights, and money. Such a sad story of greed and betrayal.  

 

On a happier note, the Plovers are nesting and, this year, I hope their babies survive. Ever hopeful. 

The warmer weather is here to stay now. Not looking forward to the summer heat and humidity. 

Stay tuned for another post soon...

Love, Light and Peace

rose drawing and happenings

Another week has flown by. This winter has not been kind to me as far as my asthma goes. Cold, winter air is a big trigger for my asthma and I had another bout of Asthmatic Bronchitis, though not quite as bad as the previous one. Poor Aaron has been sick with flu and his brother Beau was also sick with flu...negative on the Covid test. Phew! 

I thought I might have been getting their flu too but was spared a severe dose, probably thanks to the annual flu shot and taking cold medication as soon as the first sniffle appeared. 'Nip it in the bud' as my ex used to say.

This is another graphite drawing I did in January, back when I was on a roll. I used charcoal for the background. 

 

 

And below was the graphite drawing I did before adding the background and a bit more detailing.  I love how the dark background made the rose pop. 

 

The reference image credit goes to Karsten Paulick on Pixabay. A direct link to his photograph can be seen HERE. Thank you, Karsten...much appreciated. 

 

You may remember this Sumi ink painting of daisies I did back in 2017 for INKtober. I think I might try painting the rose above in Sumi ink also.

 

 

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Over the past few months, I've been hearing a lot of buzzing/whirring from the sky...kinda like a remote controlled car.  Earlier today, I snapped a rather fuzzy pic of the culprit. It was some distance away. A commercial drone!

 

 

After further investigation, I discovered that our area now uses commercial drone delivery! Cool! Apparently, commercial drone deliveries are only active in our area (Logan) and Canberra, as far as Australia is concerned. Do you get drone deliveries in your area? The company hopes to expand which could well happen as it seems to be quite popular around here. You can order coffee/tea/hot chocolate drinks, snacks, hardware, hair products, clothing, pet products, and even some grocery items, etc...as long as it weighs 1.2kg (2lb 10oz) or less. You can learn more about commercial drone deliveries HERE. I wonder what the delivery costs are?

Another thing I saw in the sky recently was a cloud funnel. I get a kick out of seeing stuff like that so ran for my phone to take a pic.

Apparently, a cloud funnel is made up of condensed water droplets, associated with a rotating column of wind and extending from the base of a cloud but not reaching the ground or a water surface. Interesting!

To end this post, here is a pic of sleepy Kya wondering what that thing is that I'm always pointing at her.

Her look makes me think of the following meme that circulated around social media ages ago. So true...in Kya's case anyway. lol To be fair, she is the perfect cat 99.5% of the time.

 

Will post again soon, 

Serena x

handicraft and sketches

Thank you all so much for the caring comments you left on my last post. I am so grateful to you all. Thanks for bearing with me. 

During my blogging break, I did manage to do some sketching and even some crochet. With the colder weather approaching, my son wanted me to crochet some doggy coats for Scarlett and Violet. We officially started our Winter on June 1st. 

Not an easy feat considering I have advanced Osteoarthritis in my hands causing chronic hand pain. I was just getting over a nasty arthritic flare but I do think working my hands helped a little.

Anyway, Violet is a tiny Chihuahua size and even the Extra Small winter coats in the shops were way too big for her.  So I made the girls 2 coats each, Scarlett has 2 different shades of pink coats, while Violet has 2 different shades of purple coats. I looked for a pattern online and had to make my own adjustments but you can check out the original pattern I used HERE. I mostly used the pattern for the neck, the rest I just winged it as I went, fitting them against the girls at different stages.

 Violet below

Scarlett below

Out for a morning walk. I even made hole area for the harness to fit through, something the shop-bought coats don't allow for. 

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't include a pic of precious Miss Kya doing what she does best...sleeping.

As for sketching —

I've had a pocket (14.5cm x10.5cm) sketchbook waiting to be finished so I did some daily Sketchnote-style entries of daily happenings. Just a few more pages left to finish it. I started this sketchbook in 2017. That's my problem — I always have more than one sketchbook on the go and, sometimes, one may be put on the back burner for longer than I'd like. Different sizes and paper. Some of the most recent pages, shown below..sorry if they're a bit blurry, must have moved when I snapped the pic. They may be rough, free-hand ink sketches but they capture the memories for me. I love looking back over my sketchbooks at a later date.

I've not long got over a pretty bad bout of Asthmatic Bronchitis. Cold, wintry air is one of my main triggers. Sometimes, a severe bout of asthma can turn into bronchitis....not fun at all....but I did get to rest and watch some series and movies on Prime/Netflix.

On that note, I will finish this post here. 

Wishing you all a beautiful, happy week! 

Serena x

Sunday Sketches - Buddha and cockatiel

Hi everyone, 

I haven't had a lot of time for sketching this past fortnight. 

My eyes have been feeling very strained of late.

When I wake up in the mornings, 

they feel so sore and very dry. 

It actually hurts to open them.

I use eye moisture drops 

but they only give temporary relief. 

It could be the change in the weather as 

we're getting some cooler mornings. 

I do love the cooler months of the year. 

I'm definitely a winter gal at heart. 

My sketch this week is of 

the Buddha that sits on my bedside table 

I have sketched this Buddha in the past too. 

This time, I used a BIC Cristal ballpoint pen 

and my LAMY Joy fountain pen
for a little emphasis here and there.
See the date written in the lower left side?
I was going to stop the sketch there
and have it just fade into nothing at the base
but my pen had other ideas. 

I'm linking up with Sunday Sketches this week. 

You can check out the other participants HERE.

I almost forgot to show you the finished calendar month 

filled with daily sketches. 

I'm very pleased with it.

I finished the month off with a sketch of my cockatiel, Phoenix. 

He's such a clever boy! 

I taught him part of our choir song last year 

which he picked up very quickly. 

He gets all happy and excited when he sees me.

He loves to chirp in a very high, ear-piercing tone, 

particularly in the mornings around 7 o'clock.

This can drive my sons crazy but I love him to bits!

Earlier in the week, 

Bradley (son) and I went to see Eddie, the Eagle at the cinema. 

We loved it! 

See preview below -
Direct link HERE.

I hope you've all had a lovely weekend. 

Stay tuned for some pics of my travel palettes in my next post...

Sketches and new fountain pens!

Aaron, my baby, reluctantly went on his first ever school camp.  The camp was mandatory and it was a case of GO, or don't get graded for Biology. It was only an overnight camp but I still worried about him nonetheless and we missed him. They weren't allowed to take mobile phones or electronic devices so there was no communication at all.  I was very glad when he arrived back, safe and sound. Did I mention that Aaron is now in Year 11 at high school? hehe  My other four range in age from 26 to 31. I can't help it...I worry about them too. 

Sitting in the car, awaiting the return of the Biology students from camp,

I sketched my thermo-coffee-mug.

The next day I sketched the shoes I bought to wear to my daughter's wedding. 

I walked her down the aisle in these babies back in 2010.

The finished sketch

Poor Mister Jack has had a terrible time of it with severe skin allergies over the past four months. I've had him to the vet numerous times.  They even took a blood sample to check for hormonal imbalances.  The results were clear, thankfully.  

The vet and I did a Sherlock Holmes and have narrowed it down to the neighbourhood cats.  You see, we have lived here for eight years without incident and I've never seen a flea on our dogs because I treat them regularly.   However, over the past four or five months, we've had a few new people move into the area bringing their cats with them. The problem is that their cats seem to love our yard and the vet feels that the cats may be dropping fleas.  It only takes one flea bite for a flea-allergic dog to have a severe reaction. Even though the flea/s will die and drop off because I treat Cody and Jack, it doesn't stop the allergic reaction.  Jack's body develops clusters of pimple-like lumps and pustules that look so red and sore.  They cause a lot of pain and itching which naturally he will scratch and bite at.  I feel so bad for him.

Don't get me wrong, I love ALL animals but I'm not too keen on irresponsible cat owners who allow their cats to roam freely, to not only wreak havoc on our native wildlife but also, to poop and drop fleas in other people's yards.  Early one evening at dusk, I looked out my window to see THREE cats lounging in our yard.  Another morning, one was stalking a bird in our yard which I promptly stopped. We are constantly shooing cats out of our yard! Not happy, Jan!! It's not fair and I make no apology for my rant!  I have spent a lot of money trying to rectify the ongoing damage their cats are causing my dog.  Poor Jack has been miserable and has suffered horribly.  He has scratched and bitten himself raw in areas to the point of bleeding and causing secondary infections.  He has lost large areas of fur and his overall body hair has thinned dramatically. He has been on three rounds of antibiotics and cortisone treatments which have given temporary relief only.  I hate to see him in so much discomfort.  At the vet's advice, I have now started him on Comfortis which is a monthly oral treatment recommended for dogs with flea allergy.  I pray it makes a difference.

Poor Jack is not amused either!
Lucky for you, he is showing off his good side,
the other side of his body and his rump look ghastly, poor thing.

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On a happier note, my fountain pen collection is GROWING!!! 
From the top:
White LAMY Joy with EF nib; contains permanent black ink
Neon Coral LAMY Safari with 1.1 Italic nib; contains permanent black ink
Yellow LAMY Safari with EF nib; contains blue water soluble ink
Platinum Carbon Pen - very fine nib - contains permanent black ink
Aren't they BEAUTIFUL?!!!  

This week, I'm linking up with Sunday Sketches HERE.