Month: January 2024

I have found myself stuck into not only my short story about Joey, the librarian, but Scrabble trying to stay alive after his shipwreck. He has now landed on the shore of Tasmania in 1792 and is being cared for by five Tasmanian animals. A Wallaby, Echidna, Bushy Tail Possum, Native Hen and Wombat. Here are the latest practice drawings of these characters.

His wine crate/raft has been turned into his house under a fig tree. Now he has fashioned some tools to keep in a pouch that the Wallaby helped to assemble (who else?)

So far I have written the story just so far putting the word ILLUS in where I want to put a picture. It is fun to write and draw stories. Speaking of stories, a soon to be new neighbor here on my street told me she was watching Snowy River, the MacGregor Saga….or something like that. I had seen the movie starring Kirk Douglas many, many years ago (The Man from Snowy River) and had no idea there was a long running series that followed. I found it and watched the whole first season already. It was free and it was cold outside, so why not!

Anyway, to see the next season, I had to pay Amazon Prime $9.99. So I did. And as the credits, etc. are rolling by, I notice that at least some episodes are written by Tony Morphett, husband to old Australian friend, Inga Hunter until his death in 2018. He wrote many stories for Australian television and I met him a couple of times at Inga’s in Katoomba. So with the memories brought back and even though the stories are quite dated, and there are almost no Australian accents, at least you can see actor Guy Pierce as a very young man, lots of horses racing through a bush full of Eucalyptus trees and feel you got your money’s worth.

Pulling out a new legal pad to write Scrabble’s story, I found this paper tucked inside. It is what I wrote in 2019 that went on a long scroll of paper with drawings of things in my studio. When I got to Australia that year, I rolled it tight and shoved it into a wine bottle that I sealed up tight and asked a friend to toss into the sea for me.  I never knew if she did and it really doesn’t matter anymore….but here is what I wrote….

These are the things that lay around my studio.

I am older and do not rely on them so much anymore

to inspire, assist, and fill my hands with desires to give

them a voice in my work.

So I leave them for you in the only way I can –

Listen to what they can tell you.

S. Webster 2019

Isn’t that an interesting thing to do? Say goodbye to things that mattered so much and yet give them a voice to inspire someone else. I do some really nutty things sometimes!

I am getting old….here is the poem I read to the poetry group this week….

No One Is Listening

So her voice lowers and slows

to the pace of a recollection

taking its time to arrive.

 

Something she was saying

called out to a memory now returning

to comfort an old woman no longer heard.

 

Closing her book she walks through

their conversations, past her seat

and out the door to wait.

S. Webster

 

There was dead silence when I finished reading it.  And I will interpret that as a good thing.

Not much else new…still going to the gym, still having wine with a neighbor, still going to tai chi, still trying to do what I expect of myself.

Til later….

 

 

I found these old watercolor sketches from six years ago and thought they would be nice to use in a children’s story. Some small character needing to make boats. They were assembled with spare bits of Nature in my studio and then a bit of imagination to get them into active, floating positions.

So I came up with a ship wrecked rat named Scrabble. It is, or will be a story of how he survives and makes a new home on the shores of Tasmania in 1792. All he wants to do is build a boat and go back out to sea. Some of these boats will be ideas for what he builds with the help of new friends on shore.

So first the sketching…how does one draw a rat in distress!

Naturally my rat will be saved by a floating bit of wine (port) box. With some perilous encounters he will make it to shore….but just barely.

He will meet new friends there…among them, a wallaby, an echidna, a wombat, a native hen and a brushtail possum. So far I have been playing with sketching some of them.

Do you have any idea how long you can spend adding fur to an animal? Anyway, my inspiration is, of course, Beatrix Potter. She had to draw and paint her characters for her stories in the sizes they would appear in her very small books. I won’t have to be so fussy with each hair but it is a good idea to understand how it grows and shadows on the body of such animals.

Beatrix Potter used only pencil, watercolor and pen. The latter mostly to help separate her characters from the backgrounds. I have very little practice with using a pen….it is so permanent once it hits the page!

Anyway I am going to see this idea through and will post pictures when I have something worth seeing.

I am still working on the short story about Joey, the librarian. And will get back to him and his new friend while sitting with my Manhattan and legal pad at the bar in about two hours.

The holidays were wonderful. Such lovely gifts…thank you Claudia for the amazing scarf you picked out on your recent trip to Australia and to Madeleine for sending those lovely Eucalyptus coasters all the way from there. You have been very kind over the last few years since I left Australia. A country always in the back of my mind…always with me….as are my students who continue to inspire me.

The poetry meeting is this week and I have a couple of new ones to try out on them.

More later…I need to go to the store to pick up some ingredients for a winter sangria. If it is any good, I will share the recipe.

Til later…