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Love of Nature

Love of art and love of nature seem to me to go hand in hand.
I create in the garden and I create in my studio. I create my paintings not to copy or imitate but as a homage to nature.
This autumn I was entranced by the Persimmon tree’s vibrant leaf colour.
Where I live, in Queensland, there is very little in the way of autumn colour but when it does present, the contrast with the green foliage, we are so used to seeing, is intense.
In my local area there are a plethora of native Persimmon trees and this past autumn their display of vivid red and orange leaves was so striking I had to interpret it on my canvas in paint. Here are a couple of those images.
Happy painting!

Wake-up garden, it is raining ; For the past four months I have been waiting patiently for it to rain. For most of that time I have also been waiting for the builder to construct the rustic bridge to connect the garden’s newly opened pathway through the rainforest. Last Saturday, in drizzling rain, the bridge came to fruition over the dry creek-bed. I was very excited to finally link my pathways from one bridge to another. Then the rains came. I held my breath as a trickle started then grew and grew until my little dry creek came alive and began to flow freely. The garden that I have nurtured through the drought is now freshly washed with green shoots sprouting everywhere. The garden has come alive. Thank you rain.

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Garden art

Garden art without the cost

I love to garden and I love making art. I have discovered a way to do both with a little thought and ingenuity and not much cost.
Finding a large vacant ants nest in the middle of my garden, recently, made me think of ways to use it as a feature and I decided an artwork was what I needed.
As I didn’t want to spend much, I started searching all the local council tips for inspiration.
I was looking for some interesting piece of metal work to reuse when I came across some old bicycle wheels for $7.00. Two were the same size and one was smaller so I bought them, not knowing what I would do with them but knowing they would somehow enhance my garden.
I played with the smaller one and attached it to the rim of the larger one by a bolt that allowed movement. Each of these cycle rims had no spokes. The third cycle was intact and I balanced the two onto its’ centre. Here I did get some help as a friend kindly welded a bracket to hold it all together.
This is my new garden sculpture that I call “Life Cycle”
I find adding artwork to the garden gives it more personality.

Garden and art

I am an artist. I work in my studio painting and creating but I also create in my garden. I like to work in the two places almost simultaneously. When I have an artistic block in the studio I go to the garden to refresh my mind and literally work the block out of my body.

Exercise is good for that, as when I am physically labouring and breathing in fresh air and listening to birdsong it clears my mind and I find I can overcome the block that was stopping me from seeing the solution to my artwork.

At the moment I have expanded our native rainforest acreage and have opened up pathways into the overgrown bush. There is a little creek running through the area that was taken over by years of native growth. I have had the pleasure of discovering  beautiful peaceful spots that were unseen and unappreciated before my labours.

I have been inspired by Wendy Whiteley’s Secret Garden in Sydney and have cuttings of the beautiful Datura, given to me from there, growing happily in their new home, my garden.

I am not the painter of flowers that you might think because of this love of garden, but the colours of nature do inspire my work.