A Lovely Day

Hello there,
A bit of a mixed bag for this post, but I've had my head down and brushes up for a while now.
Time to post something and to pay a few visits.

The other day started off with some painting... by the time MD had coffee ready, I'd roughed out a little acrylic.  Have a new fad to paint at the moment - vases of flowers.  The one in the photo below is of some pink nameless kind of flowers but I'm going to intermingle branches of the lovely silver grey eucalyptus leaves.  You can see I've got one of my photos showing on my laptop and I'm using that as a reference.  I'll post a photo when its finished.

We decided on a walk after brekky, so down we went to the lake.  Saw this lone Australian White Ibis (I think that's the right name) having a feed way off in the distance.  It was beaut because we don't often see them here.
(Sorry to not have joined in with Stewart's Wild Bird Wednesday but I can't seem to be organised properly these days ... blame the painting and swimming!!)

I'd wanted to do some sketching after we'd walked.  Got it into my head that I could do some boats and so we set the chairs up and I had a go.  Lol, I think that'll be as far as I go with trying to draw boats somehow... lost patience pretty quick - back to flowers and other such things!!

It was a lovely spot though:

After a little while, we noticed this fellow paddling along towards us.

"Hello" he seemed to say !!!!  "Got anything to eat?"

He soon got bored waiting for us to break out the snacks, so a bit of preening took place:

.... then a stretch.  Oh, what a beautiful sight, just a couple of feet away from us:

Wings down and feathers settled:

obviously time for a walk.  Up he came, right up close to MD.  Totally friendly, but really, really hungry apparently !!

Nothing doing, no food from us (we didn't come prepared), so he ambled on down alongside the road.

I'd been meaning to take some closeups of the swans' feathers when I next had an opportunity and this was as good as any.  Aren't they gorgeous!

Back home I played around with the photo editor, applied a filter and enhanced the colour... I didn't change the colour to mauve purposely, it happened as I applied more contrast and saturation. (I'm not technically minded but I love experimenting... can always hit the 'Undo' button!).

Last of all, here's one of my paintings that I've recently finished.  It's an acrylic that had been sitting on the easel (or near it) for the past 6 months.  Finally, I got stuck in and completed it.  "Kelp Forest Fantasy"... I enjoy painting the fishies.  There's a little mermaid in there as well.

That's about it for this post.  Thanks for taking the time to visit.
I hope life is treating all of you really well.
Cheerio and I'll see you over at yours :D)

Blowing in the wind ...

It's a wee bit windy over here today ... I managed to keep my glamorous lipstick on though (phew!) :D)

Wild Bird indeed... unwanted visitor!

We had a visitor the other day... and we weren't the only ones who noticed:

The hawk wheeled and swooped over all it surveyed:

After about 5 minutes, one of our resident Magpies had had enough and decided it was time for Hawk to be on its way....

It took a bit of convincing:

In  fact, it needed a thoroughly good piece of the Magpie's mind before it decided to head off:

"... and stay away !!"

Job done, Maggie resumed her position on the tv aerial.


A chance encounter which I'd have missed except for the keen eyes of MD - he'd seen the Hawk briefly the previous day and had been keeping an eye out, knowing how much I'd love to photograph it.

My photo quality leaves a lot to be desired (shaking hands, too excited and forgot to fully extend lens) but, as we've all agreed on previous occasions, sometimes the thrill of the encounter trumps the quality of the shot!

Cheers now, and thanks for having a look at our birds.  Pop over to Stewart's blogspot [click on the image below] to see lots of other birdie offerings!!

Goosey Goosey

It's 10.00 am and I'm sitting at the table, coffee finished...

You can see how painting has taken over my life... this is my side of the table!!!

... and I'm saying to M(y) D(arling) that I want to paint but can't think of anything.

He looks across to the kitchen area and points, saying - "there, paint that ... a still life".

So I did.

 

It was quick (but that's the best kind ... no time to fiddle) and by the time he'd pottered in the kitchen for a bit and had his shower I had it on his side of the table for show and tell.

Good fun indeed, and more practice.  Thanks my darling!!

11.00 am ... preparing a post for my blog.

Cheers everyone, have a great week :D)

Swimmingly

Hi there, 

As always, I love to take photos of what my current interests are for posting on my blog. However, cameras aren't allowed in the local swimming pool so I decided to do a little sketch. 

Over the last few months, I'd found that all the walking we were doing was aggravating some bone problems I have.  So, I did a bit of research and found that hydrotherapy exercises were highly recommended.  Being lucky enough to have a heated pool in our town - I started going several times a week and haven't looked back!!  

It's nothing short of bliss actually, and gave immediate relief.   

Should say that I've taken great liberties with the depiction of myself in this sketch, lol !

I don't wear my earrings into the pool, my lips aren't as luscious, my nails aren't so glamorous and not a wrinkle can be seen. 

I do love to take huge lashings of artistic licence, you've obviously realised by now!

However, what is spot on is that look of sheer relaxation and happiness as I lie back on my yellow noodle.

Have a really great weekend -  cheers now :D)