three months old today

My little grandson is three months old today. It has been a very busy three months.

How quickly they grow and become aware of the world around them. This little guy has perfected a particular type of cooing when he wants me to sing to him and I am so grateful to have had such a close association with him that I am able to tell that is what he is communicating. He enjoys when I sing and i enjoy singing to him. I found a book of 1001 popular tunes in an op shop just recently, the newest tune is from 1967 and the oldest was copyrighted in 1887 and interestingly I know a large proportion of the songs in the book. My grandson is beginning to learn them too. He doesn't like songs in a minor key and he is not keen on slow pieces. He bounces about and smiles, waving his arms and cooing loudly if I sing upbeat bouncy tunes in a major key. Already he is developing his own tastes. These early developmental stages are so incredibly important in setting the foundation for our children and their future. I was especially happy at an announcement by the government that in establishing a national curriculum, music will takes its place again as a foundation subject at the early stages of schooling. Music is such an intrinsic part of our world culture that it seemed almost insane that previous governments and school systems would devalue it and even remove it from the curriculum. Music stimulates the brain as no other activity can. I am doing my little bit and singing to my grandson.

So Inktober continues and here I have days 9 - 14 for your viewing pleasure. One of the difficulties with being away from home is that i can only take a limited amount of my art gear and I am reduced to uploading my art via my mobile phone, which is not idea for many reasons not least of which is my strained eyesight however I am pleased that I have a short amount of time each day to dedicate to producing some art.

 Day 10 theme is Cycle so I drew the water cycle; that old standby of science teachers everywhere. I think I will enjoy doing a colour version of this for grand baby's wall at some time.

 Day 11 Lock, many of the participants drew some magnificent locks including water locks. I used fine tip markers for my lock and key. Unfortunately this picture does not do it justice and I will have to scan it properly.

Day 12 is Fresh. and I decided fresh breath fitted the theme. Once again using fine tip markers. Day 13 was Dragon and I do like my dragon on a turret.

 

Today I am drawing some fern leaves for the day 14 theme, Fern. I am not finished yet and I have some other art to complete for a deadline so I will get that done shortly. 

Portland has been interesting. I found a set of stairs going up a cliff and decided I needed to jog up them. I made it to the first landing after about 25 steps, wheezing and gasping and clinging to the rail. A gentleman passed me at a slow and steady pace and wished me a good morning. I managed to gasp out a response and said I hoped I made it to the next landing and off I went. Eventually I made it to the top of the cliff with the gentleman passing me at his slow and steady pace going up and down. My thighs screamed protest at me as I began my descent. My lungs almost went on strike and as for my pour pounding heart well it put the percussion section of the greatest orchestra to shame. The gentleman suggested slow and steady and build up to jogging. I crawled across the sand of Nun's beach, narrowly avoiding nesting plovers in the small grassy islands and gasping dragged myself into my car vowing never to exercise again. 

 How do plovers survive? They lay their eggs on exposed pieces of ground in the middle of parks, beaches, playgrounds, highway median strips and schools then think some squarking, fake injuries and occasional swooping with deadly intent is going to help them raise a brood of chicks? Crazy birds but they are around so something works for them.

This morning I backed the car out of the drive at 6am, began to drive toward the east and flipped down my visor. This landed in my lap, or its twin did. I hit the brake only it was the accelerator and did some fancy break dancing and hit a note somewhere at c above c above middle c almost shattering the windscreen, found the brake, leaped out of the car doing yet more fancy dance moves and brushed the poor creature onto the bitumen and watched it go into the spider equivalent of the foetal position. I apologised to the spider for the agony its innocent leap landed it in, climbed back into the car and drove on. Irrationally I could not then flip the visor back down, knowing the spider was gone I could not bring myself to flip it again. Totally irrational behaviour but I simply could not do it. 

Interestingly my blood pressure was very high around the time I made it to my doctor appointment. Hmmm I wonder what caused that?

So more art. This week the theme for the 52 week challenge is Black and White and here are my contributions.

This one is titled 'friends' and is inspired by a photograph of two models. I will add the link to the original when I locate it again.

 This is a Gown and is done on bleed proof paper with liquid ink and brush as well as finger smudging. Then I used fine liners and a white ink pen. I didn't like the paper.

 Masque. A mixture of graphite, ink, fine liner, markers and pencil on bleed proof paper again.

 This is the cover of my black sketch pad. Occasionally I like to explore white on black and I was using my white ink pen on the plastic cover of the pad. It was an odd sensation drawing on plastic. This is titled Moonlight.

The happy and sad theatre masks are done in fine liner on cartridge paper.

This week my friend Melissa is having a launch of her book 'Swallow me now' at the Oakleigh library in Melbourne. I would love to be there to support her but I may still be in Portland and not sure if I can do the 7 hour round trip in a day. The book contains a number of pieces of art by me. The girl on the cover, 'Sam', is my creation based on the character in the story.
When: Saturday 25 October, 2014. 1 – 2pm
Where: Oakleigh Library, 148 Drummond Street, Oakeigh, VIC, 3166
Children and adults are very welcome to attend!
 http://melissagijsbers.com/swallow-me-now-invitation-to-a-book-launch/

 So a busy week as usual and of course I managed to come up with an idea for 12 x 12 October picture book. Now I just have to develop it and write it up and do a few drafts and then see if I can send it out into the world. So far this year I have managed about 45 ideas with some research, some rhyme, some prose and some complete drafts. Some of the stories are in their tenth draft, some have gone out to critique groups, some are gathering dust motes and some are just waiting for the right moment to jump out at me.

I am going to do PiBoIdMo again this year and see if I can come up with 30 more ideas in November along with SkaDaMo(30 sketches) NaNoWriMo (a novel in 50,000 words in a month) and of course RWA 50/30 except this year I will make NaNoWriMo and RWA be the same 50k.

I am going to finish off with some pictures of the curators cottage in the Portland botanic garden.

 This is the entry gate to the gardens.

 The cottage itself is a little museum filled with interesting items donated by locals and cared for by the historical society of Portland (Sorry Gwen and Margaret if I got that wrong) and of course open to the public for a nominal donation to help with upkeep. It is personned by wonderful volunteers who share their wealth of knowledge about the items on display, the cottage and its occupants. Their enthusiasm for preserving this little piece of history is commendable. Thanks to Gwen and Margaret for giving your time. The offset chimneys are noteworthy.

According to the tales, William Allitt and Henry Hedges had no children but Joseph Couch did and according to local legend it is said when he asked where his children were to sleep the local council replied "We are not in the business of housing children". They did however pay to have the cottage extended from one down stairs room to two. Three rooms in all, two downstairs and one upstairs, a narrow flight considered dangerous to the public in today's litigious standards, plus an out house, a camp oven and a woodshed. It makes me appreciate my modern abode. What a garden for the children to play in though, with two croquet lawns and  all the trees they could climb.

On that note my lovlies I shall finish up and drive back to Portland. Farewell and have a wonderful week.

I don't regret That I was Thursday's child

Thursday's Child - David Bowie

 

 Thursday it is...

Today I manages a little art work with oil pastels and some playing with the digital paint program. It is week 19 - Fish in the 52 week challenge.

The top one has some enhancements through the digital program. I am a total newbie when it comes to digital art and very timid with the program. I think I need to find a course or two to find out how I can really make my art gleam in that medium.

The original is done with oil pastels on primed paper. I will need to do more fish before I am happy with the results.


A story a day. Day 8 a very interesting prompt today but you will have to wait for the end results because I am only part way through. So today I give you day 7's. :) 

Day 7 Writing Prompt from Becca Puglisi – Ending Line

Becca Puglisi is passionate about learning and sharing her knowledge with others. This is one of her reasons for writing The Emotion Thesaurus, The Positive Trait Thesaurus, and The Negative Trait Thesaurus. A member of SCBWI, she leads workshops at regional conferences, teaches webinars through WANA International, and can be found online at Writers Helping Writers (formerly known as The Bookshelf Muse).

May 7, 2014 by Julie Duffy

The Prompt

Write the story that accompanies this ending line:

I clicked off the safety, swearing that if she showed her face here today, my room would be the last one she ever entered.

We work in the factory. Her factory. Sixteen hour shifts with two ten minute breaks for the toilet and food. No more than four of us at any time through any exit. Guards, cameras, guns and shock sticks. Thousands of us work here. We don’t get paid, they tell us our families get the wages, we just get tired. If we are late to our station they punish us. If we don’t eat the meager rations they give us they punish us, if we don’t meet quota they punish us, if we get sick – we don’t get sick. She likes to mete out the punishment herself and makes it showy. She reminds us on huge screens that we would starve if not for her generosity and our families would starve and that we can only help our families by doing our best. We have to watch when she punishes one of us as an example. We don’t know where the bodies go.

Every day this same routine of  work interspersed with violence for some infraction, a never ending cycle with no end and no hope and her standing over all of us inflicting her cruelties.
There had to be some way to end the torment.

In repetitious tedium my mind wandered to a solution. Improbable, impossible maybe, a solution that would free us all is worth the risk. I allow only the barest attention for my job and the invisible watchers. I plan and I am patient.

I worked secretly building it one circuit at a time in stolen moments and stolen parts, under cover of her constant surveillance. Except it isn’t constant and I find the gaps.

I build it in the space under my work station. It has to be small to fit there but I can do it

The end of the shift we shuffle to our sleep mats. I share a room with seven others. We rarely talk. What is there to talk about? None of us have been outside since we arrived. I sign up for an extra shift once a week.

When it is ready I smuggle it to my room.

I clicked off the safety, swearing that if she showed her face here today, my room would be the last one she ever entered.  381

I am thoroughly enjoying these little prompts. I also need to do this weeks 500 words for the 38 week challenge. The theme is 'plucky' and I have had a few ideas but nothing solid enough to grab on to.

I am giving the Midweek Blues buster a break this week. Sometimes the songs do not do it for me.

I am having plenty of opportunities to read and write revisions this week. Once the week is over though I really need to make sure my word counts are through the roof as I finish off several novels I have begun especially one with the working title "Goldilocks and the Bear".

 It is well over the 60k mark and needs just a few more chapters to end it but I am having difficulty deciding how it will end. I have three possible scenarios playing around in my head, where they have been doing a slow dance for several years. It is time to pin one down and commit to it.  I am loving this novel. It started out as an idea chewed on over a hot cuppa with my cousin and grew over several years then last November during nanowrimo I put 50,000 words together. The research was so exciting. I learned so much about Australia in the 50s and 60s and how the growth of telephones and ownership of cars skyrocketed. I learned about travel by ship then luxurious aeroplanes and finally more modern transport which is faster but far less luxurious. I learned about work and pollution in London in the fifties and I had to research several jobs including one setting up road houses and petrol stations along the highways in Australia. I even learned when the first motel came into being and why motoring hotel was so quickly diminished to motel. Research is almost as much fun as writing the story. This novel is about two Australian women from two different generations in the same family walking the same path with very different outcomes.