Admiring Mosaics

We've been doing quite a bit of travelling of late and have come across some beautiful mosaic mandalas. These mandalas are all from children's playgrounds in Queensland and have been made by Artist Carol Roche.

Peaceful moments

Lately we have been practicing more and more mindfulness. This video was made for International Day of Peace. I invite you to quiet the mind, allow the thoughts to stop, and focus on the breath, just for a few moments.

Intuitive Painting

Flora Bowley in her studio

Last year I took part in Flora Bowley's 'Brave Intuitive You' art class. I love Flora's style and had been looking for this type of art ever since I discovered an artwork of lotus flowers at Opes in Lennox Head by ? (gosh I wish I could remember her name). Here's a little glimpse of what I mean...

Click here to visit Flora's Site

Flora's art is so full of beautiful colour and shapes - I am hoping that working with her style of art will help me to become freer in my own art.

This is the start of one of my intuitive, abstract artworks. The process relies on collecting your own images, colours that stand out to use at the time, and a lot of playing with shapes, brushes and flowing movements.

The idea is to layer and layer and layer paint without becoming attached to creating an image at first, just allowing yourself to play with paint... it's harder than it sounds, the mind seems to want to 'know' or interpret what is going on.

The next steps after layering quite a few times... are to collect shapes that you find pleasing. Some of the shapes I am using come from nature, shapes that I noticed on my beach walk recently. Feathers, stones, the way water has carved into stones or washed away the sand.

There are quite a few layers to go... here is a close up of what is starting to evolve into ocean, light, bird, flight.

I'll keep on with the process I'm quite inspired by Flora's art as well as many of the other students that emerged from her class.

On this style of art, I really enjoy following Tangerine Dream Gallery and Studio at Cowichan Bay and seeing their latest works. I happened to be at a golfing weekend a while ago and was introduced to someone from Canada. In the course of our chitty chat I happened to mention that I had added a picture of Cowichan Bay to my desktop after seeing a picture online from some artists who had a studio there - he replied 'I live in Cowichan Bay and I know that gallery' - I thought he was pulling my leg... but no he wasn't and after a longer conversation hubby and I ended up with offer of a housesit there next year... I so love these six degrees connections that appear. Talk about follow your dreams - Tangerine Dreams in this case!

Tangerine Dream - Paintings for Food

Travelling to dance

Recently we've been all over the country travelling so that we can dance. Our little town has very limited places to dance, so we've upped the anchor that only ever existed in our own minds and been travelling. As the picture says, it's been quite Divine Darling.

We've been down to Melbourne and stayed on Port Phillip Bay, wandered from dance studio to dance studio, cafe to cafe, art gallery to art gallery. On my living list (I don't like the bucket list concept) is Venice, Tango on the Thames and A cruise around Alaska. What is on your living list?

Travelling - the hearth at Helen's

I just noticed that my last blog entry was Christmas... goodness me. Well we decided to do a bit of travelling and that seems like only yesterday, but here it is the middle of the year already. The image above is from my husband's cousin's home, this home is like walking into an artwork - it reminds me of a Margaret Olley painting, it is so beautiful and soulful to to visit. I plan on doing an artwork when I finally get around to painting again.