Tuesday 30 December 2008

Altered book and flowers in our garden

These are some pages for the altered book I am working on at present. I have never attempted one of these before, but I am having fun. I have finished colouring the pages and am now waiting for everything to dry out thoroughly before I add bits and pieces - also gives me more time to think and try to work out what I am really going to do!





This page is quite different from the others. I painted it first with pthalo green acrylic paint, then overpainted it with Opulence interference gold. I love those paints, I'm gradually building up a collection of them.

I love the colours that have turned out on these pages - it is always a bit serendipitous as I spray it on while the gesso is still wet and then wait to see what I have got.



This gangly tree in our front garden is a Euodia, native to North Queensland and a host for the beautiful Ulysses butterfly - which I am never in the right position to take a photo of.

These are the flowers which are really lovely. The lorikeets love them as well so we have a tree full of screaming parrots all day long. I don't know why birds which are really gorgeous to look at should have such raucous voices, perhaps it is not so in other parts of the world, but certainly in Australia, the beautiful singers are nearly all nondescript in colour. There are some exceptions of course, our pied butcherbird has a beautiful song and is quite a handsome bird. The Australian magpie is also a handsome bird with a lovely song, not despised as the English magpie seemed to be when we were there.


We have had some rain at long last, wonderful soaking rain, nearly 5 inches of it. Thank goodness, so far we have managed to avoid the damaging storms they have been having in southeast Queensland. I heard on the news that the storms which went through there last night produced over 18,000 lightning strikes - 3 every 2 seconds - which would be quite frightening I imagine.

The downside of having rain is the dreadful humidity in between the showers, up to 80%. I just want to hide in the air conditioning for as much of the day and night as possible, my workroom is in the airconditioned part of the house, so that is a good excuse to play isn't it? I received a couple of parcels of goodies for Christmas so I am trying them all out.


Happy New Year to you all.



















7 comments:

  1. Love the colours you are using here Robin. I'm going to try to steer myself away from my usual 'rusty' palette and go for something a bit more eye catching in '09. :)

    Happy New Year to you too.

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  2. Love the pages Robin---I have finally started mine.
    Happy new year to you also and lets hope that it is even more creative than this year if that is possible.

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  3. Me too. Love the pages. It is surprising isn't it the end result sometime.I agree about the birds. We get Rainbows in our trees
    Heather Mc

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  4. Your pages are lovely - I must look out for those paints. Some of my pages are a bit bright and I think I shall try to tone them down. I am trying to work slowly so I don't get carried away with enthusiasm. It's just as well we have to wait for things to dry! Those Euodia blossoms are gorgeous as are the lorikeets. Our magpies are very handsome birds but they do have rather nasty habits like taking eggs from other bird's nests and sometimes even fledglings. I think I am happy to stay with our zero degrees at present - humidity at that level would finish me off.

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  5. Hi Robin. Your altered book is look wonderful. I always love your blend of colours. All The Very Best for The New Year. Hugs xx

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  6. Happy New Year Robin. Love the look of the tree flowers. Know what you mean about screeching parrots.
    so glad you have had some rain at last, I am rather worried that our trip in mid March will not be comfortable, here we are having cooler weather with sprinkles of rain but not enough to wet the ground.
    Your book is looking interesting, I am now trying to do the covers of mine and then it will sort of be finished, although I still call it a work in progress.

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  7. I have a half finished altered book. I really should make an attempt to finish that up.

    I love the bird photo.

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