This just arrived in the mail out of the blue...
taken out of the protective bag all the way from the US...
loved the wrapping and the tape... just wonderful.... and the beautiful paper from dressmaking patterns.
It was a good thing my mother was about because I had by that time realised what was inside the package ... an exquisite collaged image that I noticed awhile back on the blog belonging to...
a delightful blogger from the northern hemisphere... bella Caterina
look at all those details
well... my warmest thanks to Ms Caterina of 'la Dolce Vita' blog... I seem to remember making remarks about how this would look amazing in a certain someone's room that I happened to be renovating... well... that is indeed where it will go once its framed! And there are appreciative sounds coming from the one who will be graced by the presence of this lovely art piece. What a special surprise! Bella!!!
Gracias Caterina! Gracias!
Its been a busy time... hard to keep up with all the different tangents. I claimed space on the veranda on Tuesday for a large collapsable table I recently bought to paint on. I was inspired after a recent painting project I've been involved in.
An interesting recent collaboration is this Mural project below being organised and co-ordinated by Karen Cipressi whose made it a dream to work here with a few other artists in tow. Its the Community Resource and Environmental Education Centre that belongs to a local inner-city Brisbane Catchment Committee at Norman Creek. I found this image form the time of last years floods below... the creek is highlighted due to flooding and I love the way it snakes around like that! One can pnly imagine what a wonderful place it must have been pre-colonial settlement.
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| Norman Creek breaks its banks in the January floods. Photo: nearmap.com |
Over 15 years ago the nearby creek was completely engineered out of existence to become a concrete canal for some miles. At either end there is still natural habitat and wildlife...but the patch where this building is operating is said to the the most urbanised waterway in the state. In fact... the damage done when this engineering job took place (supposedly to avert flooding, which it hasn't!) to the natural eco-system was so severe that theis community group formed to oversee all other potential sites in the city and to lobby to make sure this mistake was not repeated again.
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| As you can see from this photo the certainly concreted the creek... it doesn't look this pleasant where we have been working! |
An older style house surrounded by wonderful trees is where the Mural is being painted ... it wraps around the entire building. To the left of the building is a quite spacious seed nursery presently unused... so the thought is to create some renewed energy about this place and get it running again of there is genuine interest from a few in the community. I live on the other side of the river... 30 mins away or longer when its busy so its unfortunely not in my neighbourhood.
Downstairs looks like it may end up being used for artists projects...the building needs a slight spruce up downstairs but is ideal for various initiatives.
This is what we started with... undercoated concrete bessa bricks.
The blue has been drawn up by Karen to wrap around the building to symbolise the creek and importance of water. As I was getting into the painting the question of how to link themes & the other side of the doorway with imagery of seeds bursting forth into life was a key question.
I found it necessary to simply paint and then think about modifying and changing things later.
At the end of the first day... the work is beginning to unfold.
I loved being able to plaint up large and quite loosely after feeling quite restricted by my available working space in recent studio scions at home.
The down pipe wan in interesting addition here...
I didnt havemuch time on Monday to work into it, a few hours in the afternoon! Decided the yellow line over the window needs changing and of course more details yet to be added! It certainly pays to stand back and rethink.
The others have painted the three sides of the building with the under layers to their design.
I'm responsible for that small area on the left at the front of the building... the seeds ... so fitting the seed nursery is next door! The others concentrated on the wrap-around design into which various images and details will be added to feature various stories. Then there will be more seeds floating up here and there.
Its was the first long day of painting here that got me thinking large again. Ive no plans to hunt down a large studio at this time.. too much else to focus on... so will have to see what happens about that new found urge to break out!!
I'll let you know how they go with the entire project... some rainy weather around.. but soon...!
