drawing

‘Canned’, this was a hard one. Tried two /three different things but eventually went with canned sardines. I saw  chocolate sardines in the local deli the other day and thought that would be an interesting thing to buy, but didn’t. We have many cans of real  sardines in our pantry as we mix half a can in the dog’s dried food each day, as the vet said that it was good for her coat. I know she is one very spoilt dog; who is the ‘dog house’ tonight as she stole the sausages.

I found this topic hard but saying them we have been having a lot of fogs this winter. Driving to school through the fog makes the journey a little more interesting. It usually closes down the airport for a few hours as well. The fogs don’t hang around and are usually gone by eight o’clock. I remember as a child growing up in Wagga Wagga we use to have very thick fogs (pea-soupers), that would not clear until lunch time. It used to be great fun playing at morning tea time and not being able to see the end of the playground. I love the effect that fogs have on the world, everything seems detached not real.

I am stretching the point this week. We have a lot of crows around, in fact we have a lot of crows around all the time. You see them eating all the time. I don’t know if they would attack ‘lemons’ or not. They hang around where ever there is food, like picnic grounds, school yards and paddocks.Hence the crow, picnic pattern and plate of lemon.

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I went to bed last night thinking about the topic ‘fierce’. Lots of ideas passed through my mind. Then an idea came to me, we had been talking about the fierceness of the sun in Queensland during the week. It is four times hotter and stronger here than it is in Melbourne. We have changed the children’s lunch hour at school to 11 0′clock and their second break to 1.30 so that limits the time that they are in the dangerous part of the day. We have also put up huge sails across the play area so that they can play safely. All schools that I have taught in in the last couple of years have the rule ‘no hat, no play’. So in my drawing my little lady looks unhappy…… why? Because I image as the years go on and with the effects of climate change, making ’sand castles’ will happen less and less. Sorry to be so gloomy.

It is a great topic for this week’s Illustration Friday, it is ‘hoard’. I don’t hoard much, in fact I throw too much away, as I really don’t like clutter although you wouldn’t think this is you saw my desk right now. I do have a hoard of buttons, I have my collection that I have gathered over a many years of sewing and as well I have my mother’s collection. I have them in glass jars and they give me a great deal of joy in just looking at them.

Just a post to share some embroidery that I did on Denise’s bag. Denise was my swap partner for the bag swap organised by the ladies from Rhonda’s ‘Down-to-Earth’ blog. I am dreadfully behind on my swap and Denise has been good enough not to get too annoyed with me.

Also wanted to share a drawing that Jess did for her assignment at school. The houses in our area are called ‘Ashgrovians’ because of their very distinctive style.

We often do the inland drive from Sydney to Brisbane or Canberra to Brisbane and it is amazing drive you see the vastness of the Australian landscape. After we came back from living in the US we were blown by the broadness of the sky and how blue the sky was. So it was an easy topic to choose for ‘wide’…..I did ‘wide open space’.

Hoping that you had a lovely mothers day. A wake-up kiss from my daughter, a yummy breakfast at a local restaurant, time to read and watch ‘Death at a Funeral’ (an extremely funny movie); a quiet and beautiful day. My eldest daughter moves to Cambodia this week with her partner and daughter. Over the last ten years or so, I seem to be saying ‘good-bye’ to my children a lot, looking at this in the ‘glass half-full’ way……. they are really doing things that they are passionate about; that we have wonderful places to visit; we see lots of exciting photos (did you hear that Pen and Ses); we hear about a lot if adventures, like Pen taking fourty-eight hours to travel from Sudan to Cairo and it makes them the brautiful, caring people that they are.

The topic of IF this week was ‘electricity’, I really could not think of anything, so having at look at some of the contributions this week has been great. Love this one and this one (love the story attached to this one what a great thing to do with a class, have them finished the story)and this (had to put the link to this one in as this is exactly what Molly would say, trying to please everyone.) Just found this blog, I love all her illustrations. Now I will stop looking and go I to bed.

photo credit: James KhooJames Khoo

A few weks since I have done an illustration for IF. I loved the topic of ’seed’, my original idea was to have someone planting in the background and seed packets on sticks in the foreground. However, sometimes a drawing takes on a life of it owns and in this case this is what happened. Thank you for looking.