On 12 November 2023, ambitiously, I attempted to paint a watercolour of a cloud formation in the shape of Airhead against a pale blue sky. I had not considered the overall objective of the work. Being unhappy with the result, I set it side.
A couple of weeks ago, the prospect of running out of paper and a relatively successful painting of airhead in repose two months’ later led me to add to the cloud picture.
I am pleased with the result, Airhead uploading to the cloud.
Holding a window
My right hand takes the lead.
Left index, middle, and ring fingers hold it up,
Pinkie stops it slipping,
Thumb is free: to scroll, to type, to tap, and to swipe.
Supplied as safe for use
Yet in the wrong hands, untold havoc can be wreaked.
Window to World’s wonders,
To humankind’s horrors, to heaven, and to hell.
Reeled in by digital
Words, numbers, pictures, sounds, games, networking, selling.
Steals you from the moment;
A portal to the past, future, and the unreal.
Sleek stylish case contains
Rare earth elements; poor harvesters’ lives snuffed out.
A battery fuelled time bomb
To become an environmental pollutant.
Without technology
Would we be ….. more or ….. less?
This morning, I was feeling a mixture of trepidation and excitement. My new block of A3, three hundred gram, textured watercolour paper was delivered by Amazon on Wednesday.
Just before I went to sleep the other night, I thought of broad black seaweed like bands containing bright orange ovoids. Over the following days I doodled with chains of circles bounding the shapes.
I started with seven reduced to five, today, I decided to paint three. This is the first time I have conceptualised a painting with inked shapes being integral. To date I have added the rings after the watercolour has dried. Shapes evolved as I went along.
I wondered whether to follow my usual practice of not positioning the ovoids in pencil first. I decided to sketch the path the chains would follow.
During the voyage of discovery, I added four more ovoids.
Curiosity is one of my traits.
The following self observations led me to take an online Obsessive Compulsive Disorder quiz; I have possible signs of OCD.
Yesterday, I was having more trouble than usual in making a decision. I decided not to paint as I did not believe the result would be any good.
Snatching a few moments after lunch and before going in the spa, I used green ink to sketch bubble chains with knife or claw like weapons plus eight and ten pronged star shapes ending with more prongs or spikes.
I imagine microscopic strings of metal snaking and undulating as they meander through the cosmos. The armament is used to defend, attack, and infiltrate asteroids, comets, and anything else that can assist its survival and reproduction.
The serpentine forms protect the dandelion clock like heads as they disperse and germinates more seeds of destruction.
What do you think they could be named?
Even with the air conditioning on twenty five degrees centigrade on Wednesday night, I was sweaty and had a restless night. I awoke too many times to count. I went to sleep seeking inspiration for my next painting, perhaps featuring airhead or more ovoids.
The dream
One of the dreams included a back garden of the house we are living in. Noticing a fallen orchid branch, I stuck it into the soft earth below a tree whose trunk was too wide to get my hands to meet while hugging it.
I assumed the tree was very old. The gnarled serpentine roots appeared to be breaking ground as far as the eye could see. I wondered if this was the reason the concrete pad next to the carport was lifting.
Noticing an avocado on the ground, split open to expose the green flesh and stone, I looked up. Whole fruit hanging tantalisingly from the branches above. Feeling hungry and needing to prepare breakfast, I went to get a dark honey finished high, backed bar stool, setting it below one of the lower branches.
Upon climbing onto the stool, it wobbled frightfully, backwards and forewords. Gaining balance, extending to my full five feet and seven inches, I could not reach the prize. I grabbed the nearest branch, giving it a vigorous shake, I imagined a deluge of heavy thuds.
Nothing happened.
They are not ready to fall, I thought. The vendors of the house must have harvested before we moved in this time last year. Excitedly, I rushed towards the house to tell husband, M. about the bountiful tree.
The reality
We do not have a high, backed bar stool in our household. We do not have an avacado tree growing in our garden. I have only seen and walked under an avocado tree while holidaying in Port Douglas, Far North Queensland. I remarked the other day it is coming up to ten years since we last visited. I miss it.
The avo stone is an ovoid within the flesh ovoid within the skin ovoid; Russian doll springs to mind.
The loops in this picture are each three colours in pencil plus ink on top. As I was completing them, I thought, why did I start this? Later on I thought of Faberge styled avocados.
I trained in hospitality. Our practical cookery lecturer, Edwin Fellows was a stickler for mis en place and clean as you go. Over forty years later I employ both ethe when creating food and art.
Perhaps it has taken on the flavour a of ritual, getting everything ready before starting and keeping the workplace clean and tidy. I can appear a bit of a headless chook, during the process.
Morning commutes and stilling my mind before Morpheus leads me away brought forth the inspiration for this week’s picture.
Ovoids of citrus lemon and orange paired with turquoise from the sea. The black ink pen is running out and I have not sought out my fountain pen and 1980s black Quink ink from the shed. The bubbles are drawn in coloured pencil.
Today, I have taken a bank day from work. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the day we moved into our new home.
My husband, M. Took these photographs around the back garden, last week.
Living in a regional area has enabled us to tick off a number of requirements from our house wish list. This in turn has led to an improved standard of living for us and Stan:
Over the past year, we have lived frugally without a credit card. We have learned to notice and appreciate the activity of crows, magpies, lorikeets, and miner birds. Also, we understand the significance of severe weather warnings and the levels of flood alerts.
Unfortunately, we are further away from friends. They know they are always welcome to visit and they do.
I will brazenly prostitute myself for the chance of being rewarded with free stuff. I am delighted if a free cloth bag contains paper and pens. And boy do I hoard them.
Around a decade ago in Sydney, the local office supply company, Office Works were giving customers a bag weighed down with pencils, pens, pencil case, and bookmarks.
The pink, green, and purple ink pens used in today’s mixed media abstract picture are from that boon. I used the pens to outline the ovoids, washed over with watercolour and drew the shapes again on top.
The stamped circles were outlined in Lipton’s decaffeinated tea with paint added while wet.
theINFP 