Blows cobwebs off blog

This spring has hit hard. We lost around 8000 gallons of water just before the rains stopped so things are a little desperate on the water front.
We have put on now summer veg and are now just trying to keep the fruit alive. The raspberries are basically on their own this year, they will survive I am sure, even if we get no fruit. The strawberries are a bit pathetic, so I can't see us getting much from them, which is a shame because the rodents got all the fruit last year.
The blackberries, bramble berries and currants have exploded with fruit this year and I have put in a bucket watering system, thanks to my mum. It seems to be working a treat so far and we will get the rest up and running tomorrow. With that and the mulch, hopefully we will get something edible from our garden this year.

The new watering system uses 72 Liter bucket, with lines attached to dripper hose, that is looped around each plant.

Completed Another Picture.

This one was to learn how to do cross hatching to a face. I used a picture of one of my sims for this.

Thomas.

Finally Finished The Fish

It took a long time but it's finally done.
The black grout made all the difference to this piece, really made it pop.

Winter Is Finally Here

It's been really mild here over Autumn and the plants are really showing it. We have only had to light the fire a few times so far and the days have mostly still been comfortable with just a jumper.

The berry patch is looking good. We are hoping to add blueberries next spring and hopefully get the rodents under control so we actually get some strawberries. I am also hoping to get some black currants next year.

The blackberries have gone a bit wacky, one of the canes has started flowering, which just shows how warm it has been.

Next years canes are huge and we are thinking of making and arbor out of them.

Herb garden is going strong, just needs a bit of a tidy.

The raspberries are going nuts and putting out a big Autumn crop, which makes up for there pathetic summer crop we had.

The pineapple sage is putting on a lovely show this year.

We have feral borage coming up all over the place and the bees are loving the blue flowers, they should help with soil condition too, in the berry patch.

And finally, Winnie put some wires up for me for my bramble berries. Boysenberry and Loganberry.

Face Anatomy

This is just an exercise I did last night to lean the shape of the face and the different planes of the face. Both are very rough sketches, as they are more for the purpose of learning than for the purpose of looking nice.
They were very interesting to do and I really like the raw look of them and I did learn a lot, I am eager to apply what I have learned to my next project.


This one was done with the help of a tutorial by 87tors

This one was by Paul Abrams and there was a part 2 to it HERE.

Trying out different things on one drawn face.

Basically what I am doing with my drawing at the moment is playing, trying out new things and having some fun. Not everything works out the way I want but I am not to disappointed with the results because I am leaning new stuff all the time.

We did an exercise in measuring a face and drawing it in my drawing class, so I took that and applied it to a picture to see how I would do.

This is a sim character from a friend of mine, Nellas. He has an interesting face with an anime look to him, so I thought I would make him my subject.

I got a picture of Aoi.

The next step was to measure him up and get a pencil sketch going.

Not totally accurate but I was pleased with the result. The next thing I thought I would do is ink in the drawing and see what that would look like.

 

He turned out quite nice but very stark without shading. I was going to do some graphite pencil shading, but I found a tutorial on colored pencils and thought this would be a great picture to practice on. 

 

I found the pencils less dificult than I thought and really had fun with the blending and shading, the face has about five to six different colors in it to make up the skin tones. I was really pleased with the final result. The final picture look a little different because it was scanned and not photographed.

 

So thanks again to Nellas for her lovely character, Aoi, he was a lot of fun to draw.

Drawings that I have been doing.

Here are just some of the drawings that I have done in the last few weeks. Nothing special, just practicing and getting my eye in, trying different things and having some fun.

A Mark Crilley tutorial, which you can find here HERE.

One of the characters from my sim game, Jay Condiment.

A Mark Crilley tutorial, which you can find HERE.

A Mark Crilley tutorial. Which you can find  HERE.

A perspective exercise from my drawing class.

 A fish I drew from a photograph.

Another character from my sim game, Pepper Condiment.

Wolf Finished

Well as finished as he will be. I am pleased with the final result of this and it was a lot of fun and really encouraging as a first project, which worked way better than I could have hoped for.

Mine looks more like a malamute I think.
If you want to see the original tutorial by Mark Crilley, you can find it HERE.

The Thermomix Is Here!!!

Winnie has wanted one of these appliances for a while. A customer of his give him a demo about a year ago and he was very impressed. There was a stall at the Mt Barker show and when he saw it he dragged me along to have a look. We booked a demo and as of last Tuesday we are now the proud owners of a new Thermomix.
Is it worth it? Yes, for us I say it is, with our style of cooking and all that it can do we will definitely get our moneys worth out of it. I would suggest to anyone who likes kitchen gadgets, who likes the idea of milling their own grain, making their own caster sugar and icing sugar. It chops, kneads, cooks, blends, all sorts of wonderful things.
It would be a great way to set up a kitchen if you are just starting out, or like us, have old appliances that needed replacing all at once.
We haven't stopped using it yet and pretty much make every meal in it.

Thermomix

Easter Already!

This year already seems to be zipping by. Summer has not been kind to the garden but it's survived despite the baking conditions and looks quite good at the moment as it heads towards winter.
After the loss of our little cat, Kitty, last March, we have been having an outdoor rodent problem. Our existing elderly cat is too old to be bothered. This means we had not strawberries over summer, each and every one of them was taken but rats or mice. I have recently seen a naughbour's cat in our garden and we have had a few strawberries ripen, so I am hoping this cat keeps visiting our garden at night.
I am in a bit of a dilemma about getting another cat for outside. First we do not want to upset our dear old girl, she deserves a nice quiet life as she gets on towards 19, and also we have has a colony of blue wrens in the garden, as well as a number of other birds that we have not seen here before. If the rodent problem persists I might have to get some traps.

Work is going well. Both Winnie and I are getting fitter and it's nice to have some money coming in. I don't much like folding the catalogs but delivering them is fun. I have good wet weather gear and new boots to keep the wet out, so I am set for winter.

Big projects for this year will be to finish the drainage around the back of the house, get a winter garden going and finish off house renovations.

Fishy!

Okay it's been a while since I started my glass mosaic class and we have been learning a lot.
I drew my fish design trying to keep things simple and fun and to degree it has been, but there have been challenges on the way too.
I had know clear picture in my head how I was going to tackle the original design, apart from that I wanted it to be colourful and fun, and not orange. Choosing the colours was more difficult than I thought, I wanted I wanted them different but to still compliment each other and bring life to the piece. I am happy with the results so far.
Here is how things have progressed.

I thought the smaller pieces would be the hardest, but it turned out to be the fins, because of the variation of color in them caused the glass to be more fragile.
Hopefully next week I will be filling the background and then it's just a matter of grouting!

Back In The Drawing Saddle.

Okay, this is nowhere near finished, still a lot of shading to do and since I am doing most of it in pen I am being very careful, and have called it quits for the night.
I haven't tried anything remotely like this for about 20 years and it's thanks to, Mark Crilley's ,wonderful tutorial on, how to draw a wolf, that has help me get into back into the mechanics of drawing.

In the next few weeks I am hoping to start a drawing course with, Bruce Long, at The Studio Of Mosaic Art but I wanted to see if this was still something that grabbed me and that I could actually do.
One of the things I am looking forward to learn is angle and perspective, something I have always struggled with in art.
I am also looking forward to trying more of Mark's tutorials, now that I have gotten back on the bike, so to speak.
I think my wolf looks okay, kind of wistful and happy. Possibly he is on drugs. >.<  Lets hope he improve as I finish off the project.

Plinth Progress

I did promise myself that I would not start too many mosaic projects at once this time and try to keep things simple. So far so good. My plinths had gone on hold over Christmas and the last month because of the heat and time, but I am hoping to start up on them again in the coming weeks.
I did start on the filling work before the break, it's the most tedious part of the project but I am hoping it runs smooth and I will have them finished in good time.

Glass Mosaic

I started a glass mosaic course last night. I did one a few years back but never went on with it.
Glass is a beautiful medium to play with and can give some very stunning results.
I have been a good girl this time and am firstly, making something for myself and also, something fairly small.
Another first for me is working on the back of a large floor tile. This gives a very solid base to work on and very straight and accurate angles.
Last night was spent practicing cutting/breaking a lot of glass and getting a feel for it. Most importantly learning how to handle it safely.
I have gone with a fishy theme, always wanted to make fish mosaics. I came up with this little guy and am really pleased with the design I came up with.

 

Next week I will be choosing colors, cutting them out and starting to bet them glued.

The Veiled Garden

It is hot. It is stinking hot! Five days now of extreme heat, crippling heat. Adelaide was named on of the hottest cities in the world. We have had about a week of 40c and above and it's not been a pleasant time at all!
One of the hardest things is keeping the garden from literally cooking. Winnie and I went around last week covering everything we could with some form of shade. So now our garden looks like this.

Thankfully it's worked too and with nightly watering the garden is holding in there.
One of my main concerns were the blackberries, they were just coming on to getting ripe and I didn't want all that lovely fruit to fry to nothing.  Some of it still shows signs of withering but they are not the dessicated husks that would have been left if we didn't cover them.