Yay! Schools back!

I don't mean to be awful, but what a relief to have school back. I have to say that Jarren has been wonderful during the holidays and on the whole I have enjoyed his company, BUT! I haven't managed to get a moment to myself let alone complete any art. Gone are the kind of holidays we had as kids where you ran out the door in the morning, only coming back home to get food or drink. Exploring and long bike rides are a thing of the past for this generation of kids. There were no kids around for the whole holidays because their parents worked and they were all 'in care'. Usually grandparents who didn't want another stranger's kid to look after as well their own grandkid. I even (desperate measures!) offered to look after kids, but "No, arrangements were already made". So it was a lonely old time for poor Jarren. He went out on patrol with Tim while I worked and the rest of the time either helped me in the garden or at the shop, or hung out inside. I felt very sorry for him.

Anyway, he is happy as a sandboy back at school. Despite the haircut Tim gave him where he lost 90% of hiis curls. There were a few tantrums about that and he decided we would just have to home-school him because he couldn't be seen out in public! Not likely! He got frog-marched to school and dumped and I gather forgot about it all soon after with the joy of having other kids around again. Phew!
Life in the garden has picked up a bit this week. Tim got 3 trailer loads of topsoil and we spread it all over the vegie gardens to try and nullify the effects of the bought compost I had used and also in preparation for planting this week. He is going to get more for the front gardens. The gardens are now suffering badly from lack of water and the blazing sun day after day. I am hand-watering every night and it takes ages. It is the prolific time according to my moon calendar so I have planted seed - carrot and parsnip - and seedlings - beetroot, cauliflower and sprouting broccoli. I also planted out some lettuce that had seeded themselves and pulled out some tomatoes which didn't last the distance. Quite busy really. I think my work will be cut out making sure they all survive this hot weather though.

I have actually managed to keep up my journal on the garden. This pleases me immensely because for once I am up to date whereas my friend Annette, who is doing this with me and I usually struggle to keep up with, IS NOT! This is a first. Here are the sketches I have completed for it - flowering dill above (went to seed the week I planted it, so I am pretending that's okay because I want to collect the seed); flowering chives, which I don't mind quite so much about because there is still part of the plant you can use; and corn. My corn in the garden doesn't look as if it is coming to much but I could be wrong. Sort of small, but maybe it will get better.




I sold a large watercolour at the art exhibition last week so I needed to replace it with something. I had decided last year that I wanted to do a series of paintings in acrylics of individual vegies so I whipped up a couple of paintings (see what I can do at home when I have some time?). So far I have done an aubergine and a beetroot. I was sitting waiting for the paint to dry and got all overcome with the beauty of being able to grow such wonderful things myself. I began to think about how much I liked to eat them and my favourite ways of preparing them and next thing I knew I was writing it all down over the top of the paintings in pen! I think Tim was appalled when he came out to find me in the middle of desecrating them, but actually, I liked that, so that is what they are. That is why the first one is called 'Ode to aubergine'. I took them down and hung them in the exhibition, where everyone has been very polite about them! They are VERY different than anything else that is there and stick out like 'you-know-what'. The exhibition finishes this Saturday so if they haven't sold, they will be perfect to go into the shop. I'm a bit short on stock there at the moment.

And talking about the shop, I made good sales last month and was able to finish paying off my membership, so I am now a fully paid up partner in an art gallery! One of 6 owners. It feels very good. Now all I have to do is make it work for me. That means making a lot more art to sell. I used what money I had left over to restock with new pens and paper and canvases and card today. I think I can finally say that my art is paying for itself now. Now I just have to get it to the stage where it pays me too!

My latest project is making comics and putting them onto board. Weird I know, but I am fascinated by it. Couldn't downlaod pictures to use and wanted to try it out quickly, so drawing was out of the question, so I ended up getting Tim to pose as a model and also used myself on photobooth. Then I 'doctored' it a bit, printed it off and then coloured it in. And the result is below. I hope you can read it. I thought it was funny.

On that note, I'd better go to bed. Tim is snoring his head off so I don't know how I am meant to get to sleep though. It will be one of those mornings tomorrow where he wakes up complaining that his body feels as if he has been in a fight! Love to you all, Annette XX