November - Lush Hydrangeas

These hydrangeas are really old fashioned waxy ones originally from a cutting taken about 20 years ago from my nana’s house in Ballina. They thrive in the shaded side of the house and I am putting cuttings all over our garden because they always seem to thrive (except when hit by the whippersnipper accidently)! I just love the colour tones of the lime green and blue and the lovely textures.

This month is my finishing date as a psychologist (29th November). It has been very emotional finishing with many of my beautiful long term clients but I am excited about seeing what I can learn and achieve trying something completely new over the coming months.

November has seen lots of beautiful shades of soft pink and the sweet peas are STILL going. I picked this bouquet on the left. I like to use beautifully crafted porcelain vases from Mudd Australia for flowers and they do such beautiful colour tones.

My grounding or mindfulness ritual is simply to wander around the garden collecting flowers and noticing all the little daily changes and developments. I also love burning incense (nice stuff not the $2 shop variety!) and most japanese incense is really lovely. I include both of these in my painting routines before I start in my studio and always play music too that connects to a state of flow (my compiled playlist on Spotify is called Lumiere 2 by Cedarcreek).

This month I did a 3.5 day workshop with Brisbane artist Anita West. We had to come up with an image or photograph to inspire an abstract starting point for a work. I took lots of images of our garden (below) attempting to capture the ethereal light of the blooms and leaves and the eerie darkness of the bush in parts. In the final abstract painting through the darkness refused to stick and the painting ended up being called Seeking the Light (right). To me it looks like there is a birds nest but this is what emerged from the canvas from abstract colours and shapes applied randomly rather than being painted on from a pre determined design.

Right - Seeking the Light - Acrylic on Linen

Below - The Rose Moon - Oil on Linen and right at the bottom

Nomenclature - Acrylic on Linen

Pear Composition -Oil on Canvas (Art school practice - I’ve not completed both Bienarte oils courses!)