Feature Works

A busy last few days. Yesterday and today was a focus on car maintenance….oil change, tire rotation, new brakes and front axle. All good now and nothing but an oil change was urgent. The rest was preventative steps taken before issues occur. It is nice to have people you can depend on to look after things like this.

A few days ago, the walk at the dam.

A beautiful full moon morning.

My other walks after going to the gym were over to the new house. Progress there! Siding is pretty much finished and as of yesterday the roof shingles are all on.

Fireplace delivered.

View of the walk in closet from the dining area, accessible from the master bath.

And a view of that closet’s interior. Plenty of room to put put my Migun massage bed in there.

And a view of my little screen porch. I talked to my yardman the other day and he is willing to put a Japanese garden off my porch and back yard. A small pond with waterfall and some fish would be nice because I will miss the sound of that trickling water.

No sketching or drawing done these past few days…maybe today. But since I have been getting wonderful facetime calls from friends in Australia while they are gathering for workshops in the Grampians, I have pulled out my crushed leaves of lemon myrtle and flavored some gin…..a different creative endeavor.

I set the bag of about two teaspoons leaves in two cups of gin until the color changed and the flavor was altered to something more “lemony”. I know from experience that leaving the herbs in too long will cause it to go too bitter….ie. my bay leaves in vodka. So now I have a pint of this to make myself a refreshing gin and tonic with a twist of lemon when we schedule our next visit. I can sip a bit of Australia and pretend I am there!

Also the weather has been very nice so I am sitting on the porch a bit more. It still feels odd to be there without Lee.

The abundance of wild turkeys make up for it…especially when they come calling.

I have not been interested in having flowers in the house since Lee left. But with the quince and forsythia in bloom, and the encouragement of my house cleaner, I picked an armload between downpours Wednesday.

They did make me smile.

There is not much else that is new, I think I will go and draw some while I wait for a conference call from my financial advisor later. He will want to know how the house is coming along. And I can give him the latest because after the gym this morning I parked my car in town and took a walk down to check it out. The carpenters were getting ready to finish up the studs for the interior walls. It won’t be long now and I will meet with the electrician to set where outlets go. Did you know they have ones now with places to plug in your computers and Iphones? I will put two in the kitchen island, one at each end. And I told my builder that I did not want tile between the cupboards and counter because I will hang artwork there like I have here. He thought that a splendid idea.

I continue to rearrange furniture on the floor plan to get a better idea of what is really necessary. Hopefully Patrick will be down in a few weeks to help me pick out light fixtures and refinish the old dining room table. And we can have the first fancy dinner out in two years or more.

Better get going if I intend getting something done.

Til later….

 

No interior walls yet but windows put in place.

My bathroom window, den window and garage window in my studio space. So fewer windows in this house than what I am used to. But there is not that much to look out on in this subdivision. The roof has been closed in and I notice that several neighbors had those panes put in their windows. I am going for maximum light possible.

And this distorted elephant-like shape is the guest bath and shower combination. I did not peek around to see if it was grey on the good side. Probably not, probably white, probably boring. I will have to count on art work to make that small room interesting.

On the other hand, my shower tiles have been picked out. I love the stone patterned floor that will also be used for a decorative band about eye height. The caramel colored veined tile will be in 12″ x 24″ panels on the walls. I asked the sales woman that it not be put in with seams lined up because it would look too much like the interior of a jail cell. She assured me that they would be offset so I wouldn’t be tempted to make passing time marks on the walls.

I am thinking that since I am taking all my collected round stones from the house and yard, that I place a stack in the shower with me. A friend in Australia did that years ago and the serenity of that has stayed with me. She is the same person who inspired me to turn some of my rocks into a snake slithering along. She lived in a lovely cabin-like home among the Eucalyptus trees in Fern Tree, Tasmania. Her whole place was magic with all her creative additions in and around the house. It was late 90s but I should locate some of the pictures I took to share. Over the years I stayed with her maybe eight times and always drew her lovely turquoise tea pot in my sketchbook. She was one of the best hosts, always ready to take on the challenge of getting me from one place to another.

Anyway, back to the house…

Here they are working on the soffits at the back. I hope to incorporate that tree into a Japanese garden out back for me to enjoy from my small porch. The gym where I go is that brick building in the background…just a few minutes’ walk.

Speaking of walks. The dam over two days. The first a very frosty morning and then just the shore yesterday.

I love those colors. Something about them remind me of the works by Anselm Kiefer.

I started to commit myself to writing the story of Burke and Wills. Being such a visual person, I found it necessary to pick the right font and size to write it in. How odd. A children’s story does not become real to me unless it is presented contextually. And then there are the illustrations. I kept thinking they would be small additions in lower left of the text. But now with so many words going on visually, maybe the illustration should fill a whole page with background of trees, sky, and other things that visually set the stage for the action taking place.

Yesterday I thought it a good idea that Burk’s mother not just abandon her boy altogether, but look after him in any way she could. She plucks socks from a clothes line for the boys to use as sleeping bags. I needed to draw that.

And maybe there should be a patterned border around the page of illustration. Say, oak leaves and acorns…dandelions….whatever fits. It all adds to the time it will take. But this book is just for me and however many I feel like printing and binding.

Sketching, writing is simply a means of distraction for me living in a once shared space. It was never so true, the expression, “the presence of absence”. I always appreciated that expression when used in artwork where you can visually interpret what is missing and why. But actually living in the absence is an altogether different emotion.

I spent the last half hour searching out these pictures. The earlier ones from Tasmania and Barbara’s house in Fern Tree were taken with a slides or print camera. Pre-digital. But her snake and shower rocks were there when she moved to Melbourne.

And my most favorite tree ever that she introduced me to in Tasmania. Very much a visual interpretation of “presence of absence”.

One could hide in here and never, never come out.

Enough pondering for today. Time for lunch. I have a lobster red pepper bisque I brought home from take out yesterday.

Til later…..

 

The other day I walked over to the Indian mound near the gym and then over to see the progress on the house. My place as seen from the mound. I has the red roofing.

While walking by the creek I found the perfect tree to use as a model for the Burke and Wills house.

Then at the house…..

My tiny 8′ x 10′ screen porch slab…just off the dining room.

And the tree out back is right in the middle of the three windows in the living room. I will try to extend my landscaping to it.

Another bird in the bird book….a phoebe.

And a few more drawings for Burke and Wills story.

Their tree house using the photo above. And the reason they can move in is because Robby Robin told them that Boris and Belinda, a river rat couple are going further south in search of warmer weather and leaving their house. (Robby Robin helps Burke find food.)

I am thinking simpler lines for the drawings…we’ll see how I go.

Signs of Spring at the dam yesterday.

This morning’s walk along the river….

And more drawings in the house building book.

These extra tabs between signatures are perfect for adding in bits and pieces I find in the construction materials and papers from the builder.

My lot is the circled one.

The folded up truss layout plan and papers from materials used. Views of different sides of the house.

A fork lift parked beside the house seemed like a fun thing to draw. Hopefully when I go back on Monday the interior walls will be in. I saw the builder yesterday and I need to pick out tile for the master shower. I am glad to use the same local flooring company that Lee and I used for every house we built here. I will see them Monday when I go back into town and pick up the three finished framed wood block prints.

A bit of snow is forecast for tomorrow morning. I will do laundry and draw in my books all day.

Yesterday I had the most delightful chat with a friend in Australia. We did it on our Iphones where we could see each other. She was having coffee while I was having wine. We will do it again when they are all together in the large house we rented when I finished teaching the workshops with them. I will get to see what they have done in their class and what they are working on while together. They will hopefully send pictures of the kangaroos and pesky cockatoos. …maybe even a live chat over their flat whites in our favorite morning cafe while I have an Aussie red here at home. Their workshop instructor is in for such a treat having this group of five in her class.

Not much else new here…trying to think of what I might fix for dinner. It is boring cooking for one.  Oh, I know…shrimp with spinach and pasta in a light tomato/cream sauce and parmesan. Sounds good and a breeze to fix. I ordered Milk Street’s new cookbook, Cookish. It sounds just what I need to keep it simple and tasty…six ingredients max with all sorts of substitutions.

That’s it for now…

Til later…