once upon a weekend

A few weekends ago we spent the best part of the day doing artwork together. There was an animal theme going on. Bird with big head by our daughter, Zjahlii.

Our son Navarh's skull woodcut. 

 

The Mr's tree.

Its wasnt long before things got weird.

The next day there was a different sort of medium happening.

Lets say things got a little bit competitive.

This fantastic watercolour is by Zjah for her husband, Riley who's a keen fisherman.

It was the nicest way to spend a weekend.

I really meant it when I asked you all about my dilemma.

a tree for me

I am loving paper cuts right now. This is my recent present to myself.

The frame is a roadside find only three doors down. I have no idea

 how our glass guy is going to cut the glass for it?

The detail is phenominal.

It was odd there were artworks with similar subject on the wall at Davies and Son. 

(see last post)

tuesday makings

I totally forgot it was the Mr's day off today so that means it was our weekend, like our sunday, which completely lets me off the hook for tuesday makings and makes the list obselete, dont you think? Just for today?

I managed a few bits and pieces like baby slippers in between going in and out doing

the stuff he had on his mind to do. No eskimos in sight though and at this point im hoping for a miracle.

I have a pile of mens shirts ready for upcycling tomorrow, which I know is looking very optimistic, especially because I think im coming down with something.

I wish I felt like cutting out some little girls dresses tonight but I dont.

Here is a sneak peek at what weve been up to on our day off, ahem... I mean his day off.

I have been sidetracked working on things for him.

Wood engraving production is covering our rather large dining table and there is no room for my sewing left.

The good news is that now im the proud joint-owner of

the biggest cutting mat available so patchworking here I come!

But hang on, im getting ahead of myself here. I have to wait til thursday...

whats on your wall?

an anniversary gift from the Mr a few years back,

of course I had to have a tree!

I thought id try to have one last 'Whats on Your Wall?' for 2010.

Sorry for not doing any for the month of december. With all the computer problems at first and then the market happenings it just got put in the too hard basket.

So... do you want to play?

You have a whole week to add your link and as usual id love to see

what you have hanging around at your place.

whats on your wall?

Im at my daughters for the weekend so this will be about her amazing artwork this week.
She painted this for her country boy. You may recognise it as the cover for the soundtrack of  'The Man from Snowy River'?
He's a huge fan of the movie since childhood and she gave him this image she had painted for their third wedding anniversary. Shes good.


Do you want to play along this weekend? You know what to do.

whats on your wall?

soon to be on my wall

Heres something ive been thinking of doing for a while.

Its called 'Whats on Your Wall?'

I know....youre thinking it has to be art, right? And you havent got around to hanging that picture in the back of the shed that youve been meaning to since you moved in 5 years ago? Well it doenst have to be art.

It can be a nice family photo you love looking at, a freshly brought home from preschool finger painting, a leaf you admired on your morning walk, a postcard from an overseas friend blu-tacked to the kitchen window frame, you get my drift. So how about it?

Ill make it that every weekend or just before it hits, you can pop in here and add your link. Make sure you post first and copy your url ready to paste to the link below.

After all, I want to see what others have on their walls. Dont you?

market news

The other day I spoke about perhaps paying certain people I live with to help me with my market prep.

It turned out I needed a lot of assistance. They ended up doing it for mother love.

I had a bit of a disaster with some spray paint myself and got rained out

 and wet newspaper stuck badly to half of these. The rubber pieces on the hangers didnt dry at all and remained sticky so had to be forcibly removed. I have a bit of a gouge on my thumb and MrTL complained of thumb ache at the halfway point.

He soon redeemed himself. Everytime he saw me during the day he

seemed to ask me what I needed done.

 What a honey. Gotta love that man. Late last night he painted me a banner.

I love it, but see that bird to the side? Yes. Thats the one. The one that looks like an afterthought?

It was a recycled paint splotch.

Were all about recycling here. Even our dog is recycled from someones leftover.

If you havent seen my giveaway yet its here. Meanwhile ive hit another 10 followers and dont know what to do about that yet, so ill keep you posted.

Hope you had a great weekend.

artworks

Introducing Mrs no lips (she seriously had no lips from where I was standing)

I quite like this portrait and ill frame it for my studio (finally something worth framing).

and Mrs long arms. Her arms were not unaturally long though so no excuses.

Its still a bit unnerving sharing my drawings as I still have no idea what im doing when im 'in the room'.

 I enjoy drawing the face and then I get lost with the rest.

Especially standing alongside MrTL.

Im going to stop there before I go into a bit too much info on my, ahem, colour placement.

my creative space

Today im in my studio fine-tuning the space and hanging artworks that ive started framing. The hardest part is choosing which ones to hang as we have so many from over the years. Also because weve started going to life drawing together our collection grows each week by about four or five!

Check out Kootoyoo for crafty goodness.

artworks

Through these colder months weve been attending life drawing classes together on Monday evenings. It is enjoyable even if it is a bit of a challenge. For me, not him. The challenge I mean. For him its as simple as breathing.

Mr TL has been producing some fantastic works worthy of framing.

This one is my favourite... until tomorrow evening, when he will probably do an even more amazing piece.

My attempt at the same pose, (a very awkward one at that, where the model had his arms in stirrups), I wont be putting it anywhere near a wall as I have given it to a friend. Not really what I would call a gift as I wasnt happy with it and told her so.

Maybe ill have something that I like, to show to you one day soon...

On a craftier note I have been sewing new curtains for Spring. Spotlight had a sale so I grabbed me a whole lot of simple textured fabric at under $5 a metre. I had a re-shuffle of existing curtains and switched rooms around in my tidy-ups lately. Here are some old curtains that were from an op-shop and were too short after I chopped the old shabby tops off. I have sewn a length of velvet to the base to lengthen them. They are nice and drapey now. I think all curtains should hit the floor so as not to look skimpy and perfectly fitted. But thats just me!

its finished!

My husband is an artist and he started this deer painting loosely based on the old well known 'A Highland Stag' for our daughters wedding gift. I suppose its that time old adage of 'a builders house is never finished' etc. dont quite remember how it goes.

Well. Its finished!

 He finally finished the long overdue painting on the weekend. She came down and demanded it. She and hubby have celebrated their second anniversary and had a baby since he started this.

My favourite part. I dont know how well you know me yet but I simply love trees and plants and leafy things, hence my blog name. Love is an understatement. Obsession fits.

His favourite part. Remind you of someone?

 

A certain dog by the name of Rustico? He loves that dog.

where ive been

before and after of the lounge, (kind of)

This is where ive been. 

Hopefully this wont be too boring a post for some of you but im kind of astonished that

this kind of thing is achievable in less than a week.

Mum had settlement on Monday last week and we started work that same day. We planned to get the floor coverings removed and walls and ceilings sugar soaped and painted by the end of the week. Has anybody else done this? Its really exhausting. She had ordered the carpets ahead of time and they were being delivered by Friday and were to await installment for the following/this week. The floor sanding guys had a tentative booking for this Tuesday (yesterday).

We were as organised as we could be. 

And we did it!

Just. 

With an hour to spare!

before and after of the kitchen, the cupboards will have to wait for some attention

before and after of a bedroom. It was dark but the curtains were making it seem so gloomy and they now lie in the front yard along with the rest of the carpets and rubble.

 

Its was grotty but mum was happy to have her new place, she got stuck into the cleaning.

Zja and Dan finally able to start painting after two days of cleaning and preparing. They got the fun jobs while mum and I tackled the floors until late into the night. The old lino was stuck down so hard it took us three hours to pull up and we woke up sore the next day from that alone.

But they definitely had to come up, dont you think?

 a corner of the kitchen with all of its tiled, jigsaw-cut lino glory

 

 cobwebbed curtains and the more beautious real spidery sculptures.

 Did I ever tell you that I housed spiders in my childhood and fed them flies? This amazing story may have to wait for another time .... I named him Sultan. He was fast. And black and beautiful. Probably your average garden variety but he was my friend.

the tiles that are no more because the grout was non existent and I know how to tile thanks to my hubby and therefore they didnt need to stay one moment longer

The toilet had to come out to get rid of the smell and the tiles just fell off the wall.

That'll be a job for next week, now. Oh! and we had to take out the walls in the lounge because the wallpaper was going to take so long to remove it wasnt funny.

 We did a two foot square in half an hour, for example. As in two of us.

 Theres no way we wanted to spend two days just doing that.

Mums darling, Dan, (mum got married last November at 73). They have so much fun together. Im told they giggle into the wee hours of the morning. Nice hey?

In the time its taken me to post this ( is there a new format for the upload photos or have I pressed the wrong button by mistake?)  ive done dinner, had extra teenagers here doing homework, dropped dvd's back, done some tidying (pointless), welcomed hubby home from work and the AGDIdeas conferences and we're now in a deep conversation about all things artistic. Also his recently revisited life-drawing classes with a best friend that he's enjoying so much.

Wait! Im being given a present.

He brought this home tonight.

I didnt know anything about this. He never said a thing.

He started painting this a year ago. For me.

He chose to bring it home tonight.

I cried.

I feel as if it is he and I rolled into one image.

I dont think even he knows what this means to me.

He and I will decipher it in years to come.

There are no words worthy of this image . Yet.

Only a feeling.