IFJM # 13

IFJM #12

IFJM #11

IFJM # 10

IFJM #9

For details about IFJM click on the icon to the right.




Today I had the task of escorting a tourist around because they have noticed I like sketching.
Roz sketching the gee-gawk - so called because of the sort of strangled sound it makes. Awkward except in flight or swimming.

IFJM # 8

They cheered me at breakfst. I am one of them now I have had the planet lurgy.
So now assigned to the small animal enclosures. The director says some one who likes numbers is suited to groups.

DUST BUNNIES give me the creeps. You have to admire their camouflage though. They stealthily surround their prey and then all leap together and smother the creature. - Janika

IFJM # 7

At dusk I can hear the high trumpeting call of the dinklops. (I had to ask though) Very distinctive herald of sunset.

If you are outside, a whirly bug might blunder past, fiskering.
It is early authumn. The only deciduous trees are imports - exotics. - Janika

IFJM # 6

IFJM # 5

IFJM # 4

IFJM # 3

IFJM #2

IFJM #1

IFJM - international fake journal month. From 1 April, i sthe brain child of Roz, a prolific journaller. http://officialinternationalfakejournalblog.blogspot.com/

Hand-made journal 6" x 8", heavy, smooth WC paper, coptic binding. Fake fur pasted over the binding because my coptic always seems a little loose.

rosella

Linda Blin's workshop on-line is concentrating on background colour for pages and getting started on a page. She says if the page has colour on it it is more inviting to hournal in. Also, she says you don't have to finish a page before moving on. We some people do. However, the problem is I now have 8 more pages in colour and only started to finish 3 of them.

The link for the workshops is http://www.strathmoreartist.com/vjworkshop2011.html .

Although the workshop 1 was February, March for Workshop 2 and May for 3, they will be available on-line until August 2011.

So one Idea Linda had was to spray water on a page, drop paint on then squish araound with a credit card. Where the paind drops often stains the paper more and the water softens the scolour so a very random effect - serendipity strikes again.

Page below shows this and of course I embellished a little. Still adding to that page and not even counted in the 8 total under action above.



Then my credit card had a pile of paint so I wiped it on the next page and had a brilliant orange I didn't know what to do with.

Being Sunday I went for a bush walk late afternoon. I found two rosella feathers and when I next looked at the page, there was a saprk. Don't you love that spark of creativity when you have two separate things that are going nowhere by themselves and suddenly they morph into something whole?



Well, I can hear those who know rosellas saying loudly that it looks more like a budgie. But I got the colour and he's a happy fellow. Water soluble crayons on acryllic backgound.

An artists View of the Natural World

ATC's made for a swap through Illustrated ATC's

Pen and couloured pencil.
I used the ideas from the on-line Strahmore Journalling workshop number 1 - shading to help item come forward.

earthquake - broken earth

Journal spread I started wednesday 23 Feb 2011.

trying something new

I was mixing paint the other day and squeezed some Payne's grey out. It was gummed up around the nozzle and came out in a blobby line. I thought 'draw!' and I did.

I had a 4x4" wrapped canvas square I had alredy painted.



I went to a friend's 80th yesterday and she was thrilled to get it as a gift. Ria and I met through doing a writing course at Massey about 10 years ago. with two others we met regulary as a critique group and have remained friends. All of us also do art. The other two also made the long drive down to Sunset Station at Port Waikato - 1.5 hours motorway driving for me and another half hour for them as they live in Puhoi nother of here.

My sister and hubby came up from Whakatane yesterday to visit Mum and we went around to our daughter's for tea so a very social day. I feel a bit more recovered from the disaster news that has been overwhelming.

Christchurch earthquake

22.2.11
So many stories coming from the earthquake.

At work we received the news from our sales staff as they evacuated the building just after 1 pm.
Shock.
All the conversations this week have started with the earthquake - do you know anyone? Are they safe? A reaching outo for human contact.
our NZ flags throughout the coutnry at halfmast. My eyes fill with tears every time I have cross the harbour bridge and seen them there.

My husband's brother lives there and Alan was able to contact them within minutes afterwards because i emailed immediately. Our sister-in-law had gone into the city sentre and just got out of her car when it struck. The car in front of her was crushed. Hers only had a bumber dislodged.

Several cousins are safe. Friends, and wrok colleagues - all people we know are safe.

Currently over 100 dead and over 200 still missing and hope fading.

The whole of the central business area looks like it will need to be demolished.

So many lives dirupted.

House prices in Timaru goin gup as people exit Christchurch.

The after shocks still continue.

And they were barely recovering from the September quake that was bigger, but less devestating . This one was shallower and more more destructive.

recent art

In wetcanvas.com I did the November challenge of a page a day in the Art Journal forum. In December it is the 12 days of Chritsmas - I'm 1/3 of the way through that.

Here are some of the November pages.


Coloured pencil leaves


graphite sketch from my photo of someone's happy dog on the beach



Horses - Backgroud in acrylic then I pick out shape swith ink and acrylic. I like doing these 'found horses'. A bit like the scribble patterns we used do as kids.


coloured pencil - kiwi ornaments


Totara tree in coloured pencil from memory


graphite - HB and 4B


nanny goat pen and graphite


vase in Coloured pencil


more found horses acrylic and pen


my car




Form a shot I got of a wax eye in our garden - coloured pencil


coloured pencil. Although the moleskine notebook is good I did not push this to take the maximum layers but left sketchy


ink Macrocarpa trunk. I love these trees so full of character. The lines of them bordering farmers' field are thining. The silhouettes of their stately shapes are still eye-catching


Acrylic from my own photo

life drawing workshop 2

I did this one in pastels. About 2.5 hours as I had a bit of a funny tummy with the antibiotics I was on so I left early.

Interesting to look at it later and see what could be done better. The RHS end of the mouth. Close, more blending in some part. But is is threeD and was fun.

Last weeks' one looks a little stif, but he wasn't IRL

portrait workshop

The local art shop is run by two artists. They have just started portrait workshops, no tutor, on Saturday afternoons for 4 hours. At $20 it's a great opportunity to sketch, paint from live models.

The first weekend I just used graphite to try and get my eye in again.
The second weekend I used pastels. Messy fun.

Writing Group

I have been a member of a writing group for 9 years or so. Members have come and gone and recently we have looked for, and found, more writers as we were down to three and that's not as good for creating energy.

A writing group, meetin gin person rather than on-line, is great for discussion. On-line you have the feedback but it is harder for a discussion. We email our submissions once a month and meet up the following weekend to discuss and give our critues of each others work.

Amazing how often writers seem to ahve an interest, or have had an interest or done some other form of creative enterprise such as art or music.

I used to follow two artists' blogs on line - Maggies Stiefvater and Wendy Prior - because they both worked in couloured pencil and wrote very entertaining blogs. Now both of them are concentrating on writing and Maggie has published two books with a third coming.

Me - I'm still dithering between art and writing LOL.

I brought a painting on-line last week and it has arrived! Even better IRL - Edgar's Horse by John McNelley. His paintings often tell a story and have amazing colour . His website -
http://web.me.com/john.mcnelley/catalogue/1.html
Sorry. Not sure how to do a hyper link.

The painting I have bought is currently on the third page - A vibrant landscape with Edgar's horse on the top of the hill/rock to the right.

Edgas Degas paiting a picture of a horse galloping away and the jockey on the graound. Someone made a chance remark, 'What happened to Edgar's horse?'. And the idea for the painting presented itself to John.

Question; writers also interested in other creative enterprises? If there is a group of artists, how often do they also write? Maggie and Wendy do. Is that a common thing?

Mum

Finished Mum's Portrait. She had her 94th birthday last month and I took the photo fo rher portrait a few weeks prior to that.

Mixture of pastels on Cnason Mi-teintes paper.

I went to a pastel workshop in March with Lyn Diefenbach. She used the paper so I did. It's the first time I have really got to grips with paper and managed to fill all the indentations in the paper. I had just not been bold enough before.

NZ Spec-fic Blogging week

Here is a link to the main page.
http://pterodaustrodreams.org/drupal-6.8/node/100

Why?
Because speculative fiction still doesn't get the recognition it deserves in New Zealand and because there are so many people out there doing so many exciting things - and so often they don't know about each other.

And what I've been doing - writing more and getting feedback from Critters - an on-line critique forum for writers of science fiction and fantasy. http://www.critters.org/

I particular, the useful tips I have had recently: - think about the whole ecosystem in the workd you create - how did it get an atmosphere if there is just one life form?
Be specific in explanations - my 'biologist' should be an exo-biologist or xeno-biologist. These specifics also create the different world.
Like any good fiction, the characters should drive the story. Make them rounded, have a back ground, some foible, family or associates?

How did I get into writing speculative fiction? Well to start with I didn't set out to write that specifically. I've always loved words, quirky plays on them but only started writing a little when I was into my fifties having always read. A lot. To start with, I wrote a bit of life writing, shrot stories did a fiction course extramurally through Massey University here in New Zealand - excellent!! - www.massey.ac.nz .

I joined a writing group. This was another very fortuitous happening, around the same time as I did the Massey course. And I did that course by default almost. I had been doing a BA by drip feed - one or two papers a year - and started with German. BY stage three it was a bit too time-consuming without being in contact with German speakers. My interest in short stories and the relationship between life, country and the stories of an era had been awakened with some of the German writing we studied. So as an alternative major I looked to English. I did a literature and a writng course. Then they brought in the fiction writing course. Wonderful. I have now done most of the fiction writing papers they offer.

Then I found my stories often had a quirkiness. Not what I thought of as science fiction, nor as fantasy. Actually, truth be told, I didn't really describe them at all. Until people asked - well, what do you write?

Speculative fiction sounds more learned than quirky stories.

So, that's what I write. Mostly.

As I said, I didn't choose to write it but I think my muse is a gremlin. Something alien anyway. Something happens and a little voice says, that's what Thorians do.

Or I start to describe a scene and find it is an alternative life-style. Then I find just how alternative it is as I watch the characters interact or the characters tell me about just what does go on there.

One of my best moments is where I had two characters meet for the first time. I had had to invent a second character to give the first one some information about what had been happening. And both were going to go the direction the main character had aimed to go all along.

I was sitting there typing away, copying down their conversation and suddenly they decided to go where the secondary character wanted. A whole plot turn. Exciting. I was in the zone where I had to go back to the computer to find our what was going to happen next.

Well, to anyone reading, I wish you happy and exciting writing. And reading. There's lots of great NZ fiction out there, some published, some just waiting to be.

Ent Wife Waiting

Gosh. Is it that long since i updated? I have been busy with work :( , visiting Mum on the way home after work , plus she had a week in hospital. Nothing serious, she's 93 and still living by herself and hadn't been eating enough although there was food there. We now have two caregivers, one for an hour in the morning, another in the afternoon, and the meals on wheels still comes at lunchtime.

Recently I went to the Science Fiction fantasy convention in Auckland. - Conscription.

There was a 3-day writing course with Julie Czernada from Canada - absolutely terrific. Then the three days of the Con. I stayed at the hotel there for the last three nights and it was worth it.

In conjunction with the Con were some competitions. I entered the writing one and the 30D model one. I spent a month of weekends doing my model - not the whole weekend but a lot of time. Neither my story nor the model were placed but I loved doing it.




Close-up of base showing papier mache on top of the wire support



Half done before the addition of leaves, paint, surrounds.



Finished - note Pukeko, fantail, lichen for hair, paper leaves on actual twigs.



Rabbit behind Ent wife




Side view - 'toadstools' are the cores of kauri cones.

ATC demo final pics

#1 Added some red/orange colour pencil to trees and top field.
#2 Added orange and green colour pencil to grass and some orange to the trees. Not sure if you can see it or not.

ATC Demo Part 3

#1 Thought it need more interest so with mixture of blue, red and sepia added brambles, fence and lines on closer field
#2 Added sepia ink in trees and touch on hill, then green while still wet with sepia
#3 Thought it needed more colour so did sepia wash over trees and red and yellow in patches on near field. The red in far field is what separated out of the purplish mixture.
#4 Touch of green on hill and purplish mixture in foreground.