I strategically placed an empty box once filled with my favourite tea, on the bench top so the message would be clear (buy more please!). But as I poured my final cup, I glanced over and experienced the emotion of it sitting on the bare granite, alone in the dim evening kitchen light. A wave of need came over me to express its situation a little more.

With only seconds to spare between work, I clipped a near by post it note into appropriate fashion.

Sometimes you really need to know what your priorities are in life.

Make art!

then do some work...

[current mood] I can't think tonight. I'm moodless.

To update you on where my design went for the Mosman Park Art Awards, I bring YOU the final design result.

I spent 24 hours trying to work the other idea up based on the feedback of it being preferred by most people, but got so frustrated and went back to this design. I just knew how it was going to look... you just can't deny what your heart wants. And admittedly this was the design most liked by other artists/designers.

Artists and photographers in Perth, enter the awards!

[current mood] Lover, You Should Have Come Over & Pork Belly with Scallops

Alas! The drawing has come to a close.

However, I did my best ever drawing a few days ago.

I could look at it forever and not quite understand how I did it.
I am definitely starting to believe in 'zones'... states of being you can enter when creating great art.

I'm pretty sure it's anything BUT the mind.
I'd done a few average sketches before this, and subsequently let go of my attachment to the drawing. And this is what happened next...

And so it shall be framed because Pete said you should celebrate one piece and give it the respect it deserves. So I wil frame it and hope that my folks will hang it somewhere. (Knowing them it will be the laundry and soon after the shed) but I will try to get their 'approval' yet again....

Do we ever grow out of that?

And now I'm moving on to watercolours - I need some lessons but I am happy to play with the Pisces-loving delicate coloured water....  and here are todays, and my last for now.

I think the best art is expressive, not realistic. Some people I've met would disagree, those types that think good art is if 'it really looks like the thing'. Uh, hellooooo boooooring.
I think an artist should take the subject and show it to us in a way that we haven't seen it, although perhaps felt it. Mood laden, moving, energetic. This would be my true aim with art.

[current mood] Coconut water (good for an intravenous drip) & Giggles in the villages

These are the two reasons I have come to Ubud, Bali.
I can feast on my favourite food (the mango), and indulge in life drawing!

Much Bali black tea and much pastel all over my face and clothes.

I was invited to join Peter Efford's life drawing retreat and stay at Pondok Saraswati (the goddess of artistic pursuit!)

This is the entrance that greets you into the compound.

The staff make offerings every morning in many a nook.

Orchids just grow and dazzle in sunlight.

This is the view from my room on to rice paddies accompanied with harhooing women scaring birds and a tapping windmill.

The drawing retreat is just me and two old blokes. I like our odd little posse. It's more intensive learning! We draw in the morning and spend the afternoon eating our way through Bali. We've imagined our experience as a movie and decided the underlying theme would be the pursuit of the best coconut icecream in Bali - and that would have to be the final scene but as the credits role we all end up in minor hilarious disasters contrary to the conclusions we had come to on the retreat.

Peter said to me a few days ago 'you can draw, you know that right?' and I thought, hmmm, Mr Positive Reinforcement understands how the mind works. Mine quietly glowed with this thought and the words repeat repeat and the belief generates. In the brain, the neural pathway of "I can draw" - simply - is strengthened. And that ugly barbed pathway that says "I cant draw" begins to fade. And soon enough I think I might just be good at this drawing thing.

I have improved a lot in a week. Even in one day I'll jump in leaps and bounds. Here are my first and second sketch of Gusti.

The first one had me enraged with it's horridness. I always see 'highschool' in my work. But the second, ooh, is that mine?
Then I did a third and worked it up in colour. It really looks like Gusti.

And yes, he may look like he's "watching his house burn down" (Pete!) but it's my first experiment with colour and I like to play.

We've been studying anatomy of the human figure. Using both conti pencils (made from blood did you know?) and also learning how to use pastels. Here are some studies.

I like the word 'studies' as it sounds so art-professional as well as taking the pressure off the work. It's just a little study...

We have gone to a popular life drawing studio called 'Pranoto's'. He's a Java man, an incredible life drawer. A group of ex pats and Indo art students sit around the edges of a room drawing/painting/watercolouring/texta-ing a model. I love walking around the room to see the individual styles of the artists. It could almost be better to not look and develop your style. To attempt to emulate others is to neglect the YOU that you can only be. However I like to analyse and play with others techniques to add to my palette of options. Here is my favourite drawing from the first session...

It was a 15 minute sketch that I did after working on the same pose for an hour and hating that drawing!!

And I love my drawing from the second session...

I got so excited after seeing others in the group paint the model that I went out and bought some paint! I had to use gladwrap for my palette because when I got home at 9pm there were no appropriate palette options.

and I had to paint the only thing in front of me. A mango! Under a lamp...

I visited a temple and was washed over with the realisation that I just want to be a full time artist. I have been denying myself the opportunities to explore the many artistic things I want to play with. The list is endless, from glazing clay, weaving baskets, crafting silver, painting like a fauvist....

And Pete's parting words have been 'trust yourself and keep exploring'...

Let's see if I can survive the thought.

[current mood] The sound of Squeeky Clean Hair & Fruit with Coconut and Palm Sugar

Check out my Strand earrings.

I have begun my silver smithing journey and this is my first piece.
They are designed to integrate with my hair - one of the great things about making jewellery for yourself is that you can make them just for yourself!
Although I may create a range to suit different hair strand types - curlies and ringlets for example!

I have discovered a new passion and I can't get enough of the shaping, sawing, filing, soldering, hammering, that is working with metal. Its earth-work. It's like tasting God.

I have, however, had a couple of incidents (to be expected by anyone aware of my extreme accident prone ways) so it's not all shiny beauty in the silver smithing world.

Here are two illustrations of things that ACTUALLY happened to me. I kid not. I exaggerate not!

[current mood] Live Walnuts & Under The Milky Way Tonight

Latest print work off the press. My work for Country Arts WA.

I conceptualised a way for the organisation to engage with their clients as they explore their rebranding this year. How to not scare people with the dreaded 'change' - why not take them for the ride?

So my idea was to pose questions, in a fun way! To get contributions from all over WA from people that love and utilise the arts in their communities.

So every 3 months they'll be mailed a postcard that they can rip the back off and send to Country Arts WA with their scribbles/ideas/adjectives.

To get the mood across, I thought up the slogan - Country + Arts + WA =
So what do you get when you add Country with Arts with WA? Some pretty funny little 'worlds' I discovered!

I treasure my little collages...

I also had the privilege of applying a gloss foil to the recycled stock to give some coloured bits some PUNCH. It's hard to photograph - but all those coloured parts glint in the light!

See below?

We discussed how boring Annual Reports are and how they should be seen as a gift of a year's work. So we turned it into a gift, complete with faux wrapping, tears and sexy mint ribbon. One card will be placed under the tie when they are sent out.

I don't know if I've seen such a fun Annual Report. And as much as it's crazy, it's definitely going to get more read than any other one I've seen lately.
I did love one of the board member's expression as he picked it up. His eyebrows were raising, his eyes were darting, but surely enough I caught him in a chair having a good old read five minutes later. And talking about it for a long while after too. So there you go!

I love this work.

But I'm going to try not to call it work anymore. I'm just 'doing design fun' each day.

Ps: Here is how the design ended up becoming real life in the office of Country Arts WA.

[current mood] Gram Parsans & Apple Crumble