Watercolour in progress… possibly finished!

I tried to write to you yesterday and had to scrap that letter. It was too depressing. Too filled with the sadness that has been lately. Lots of things that are too personal to put into a letter but in general I just felt flat. This morning I walked with J and it always helps me to feel more buoyant. We talked about art we love, artists we love the work of and just general life stuff. Always feels good to discuss the intricacies of parenting and working for one’s self. So good to have those friends that help you to generate a healthy perspective in these things.

Today is beautiful weather. Spring is really springing here and the garden is coming alive in a way I always forget that it will. Often at the end of winter I look around the farm and feel overwhelmed by the grey, the bare trees, the not much to it grass, the weeds starting before everything else- and then the Wattle starts to pop, then the Jonquils, the Daffodils, Bluebells, and the Viburnum explodes with white fireworks of delicious scent and blooms. We have a few different varieties of Viburnum and they seem to time their blooms in perfect succession. And then the perennials in the garden bed emerge and populate the bare earth, at this point I start to weed the beds and sigh relief, all is not lost! It is back breaking pulling weeds out and spreading mulch etc. but it is satisfying to see the progress. Slowly slowly as my Permaculture aligned heart whispers.

I have been in the studio today and I deleted social media off my phone and only listened to music because all the chatter has been getting me down lately. Comparison being the thief of joy and all that, I feel that creep in of self doubt so I turn off the tap and it helps. I had cups of tea out in the sun and then pushed on through the afternoon lull. I have a project I am working on at the moment that I can’t mention yet, but it feels good to have a deadline to push me along and a clear brief. After I worked on that I got back to my heart’s work and it is like the time away from it has given it a freshness that I am enjoying. I have been learning more about colour in the shop where I have been working and it is greatly informing my painting. The decisions I have been making about colours and pairing of pigments is really exciting. Maybe to the viewer of my work it won’t change anything but there is a lovely synergy in the work now which I can see. The way colours speak to each other and work alongside. Strangely I have been really drawn to green and red. I don’t even normally like that combination but with Rose of Ultramarine mixed with Zinc White it seems to beautifully compliment the Pyroll Red, Caput Mortum and Green Gold. Do you get stuck on colours too?

I am enjoying working in the art shop. That has been a lovely highlight of my weeks. I meet interesting people and get to talk about painting and paints. I also love playing with the stock and making neat piles of it. Its very satisfying in a way that my non linear life is. I feel defeated by housework at home- Kids trail my cleaning with their joyful mess so it is nice to pile sketchbooks neatly together and know they will likely stay like that until they sell one by one!

You asked me in a message my experience of recording the Podcast I was a guest on recently and I will say it was wonderful but I was sooo nervous that I giggled the whole way through it and found myself saying the oddest things. I think I am better at writing that speaking on the spot about things. Do you find that too? I like to pause and consider what it is I am writing. Speaking, my mouth just runs away from me in an anxious tumult of words!

I just made myself a new sketchbook. I accidentally bought some 185gsm Arches paper and I find it too thin for general watercolour work so I decided to rip it up and bind it into a book. I got some scrap box-board from work and I have a little stash of book binding cloth and I haphazardly bound it together. I used to apprentice for a printer and book-binder so I have the principles in the back of my mind but the precision often holds me back, so it is nice to just smash out a journal and not worry about it being perfect. Good to use things up in the studio too! Have you ever made your own sketchbooks. We should do it together one day!

Speaking of printmaking, I finished a small Linoprint during the school holidays for the Impressions Exhibition which will be held at the Australian Print Workshop in November. I hope you can make it! I’ll pop the details in below.

What are you reading? Knitting? I just started our October bookclub book by The Tea Girl Of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See and I am knitting a few things, a cables sweater pattern by Sandnes Garn and for myself a Nordic Bloom Vest, all in stash yarns I am trying to use up!

All my love to you,

Lizzie x