Harrington Waters

I put in an order to Vistaprint recently for a t-shirt with one of my paintings on it. They do such a great job of printing. The colour quality is amazing and I can't wait to receive my new shirt. (This is not an paid endorsement. This is unsolicited praise!)

The painting I've put on the t-shirt is called "Harrington Waters". Harrington Waters is a housing estate on the Mid-North Coast of New South Wales. The land was claimed out of the living mangroves and now has large houses perched on it, each guarded by a standard large dog. The estate is near the original village of Harrington, which is charming and which provides some of the best fish and chips I've ever had. Just north of Harrington is Crowdy Head, whose Santorini-style lighthouse features in some of my artwork.

Here is my painting of Harrington Waters, soon to be star of t-shirt:

Image: Harrington Waters by Alisa Perks. Gouache on paper,

Seminar for "creatives"

Hi Readers

Today I went along to a seminar for "creatives", to a talk about helping artists to be in business. It was very entertaining and I came away feeling more free and inspired than even before! There were lamingtons, too.

A point that the speaker, Monica Davidson, made to us was that it's OK to do artistic things to attempt to make a living. The arts are an increasingly popular occupation in many countries, and it deserves respect.

The high unemployment of the last 20 years had made me think that there's no such thing as a "safe" job any more; something to "fall back on". Who wants to fall back anyway, if you can possibly avoid it?

Surviving: I work one day a week as an admin assistant and that keeps the wolf from the door, as we live very cheaply at home. I make lots of the things we need for our home - food, household things, clothing. That saves us money. The less money you need, the less you need to work.

Today's seminar was run by Arts North West, who are active in encouraging arts practitioners from our region of New South Wales. Thanks to them and to Monica for today!

Image: Green Irises detail, by Alisa Perks. Gouache on paper.

Yarrie Lake

Dear Readers

Yarrie Lake is a magical place near Narrabri and Wee Waa, in New South Wales. It was a chance discovery for us a few years ago. We had just visited the CSIRO Australia Telescope near there (see Blog Post #1) and saw an interesting blue dot on the map which needed investigating.

Yarrie Lake is like the beach but inland; a large, round lake fringed with casuarina trees, beaches and picnic shelters. The belief is that the lake is an old meteor crater.  All we could hear there was the sighing of the breeze through the casuarinas. 

The lake is not always there though. During drought it can disappear, but it comes back when the rain does. It's a beautiful swimming place. I painted the image below from my memories of Yarrie Lake:

Image: Yarrie Lake by Alisa Perks. Gouache on paper.

Motels and hotels

We were staying at a small hotel in Sydney recently. Some of the guests seemed to have strange nocturnal habits. Lying in bed in the early hours of the morning, I was trying to figure out what on earth people could possibly be doing, by piecing together all the noises they were making. I worked out that a young couple staying there were in the habit of taking their pet goose for a drive every two hours throughout the night.

It was incredibly humid in Sydney, as is fairly typical of February. It's always interesting though. We checked out Kinokuniya Bookshop in the city. They have a huge range of art books and great air-conditioning. I bought a book full of Art Nouveau patterns.

Motels are on my mind again as an idea for creating images. I've just finished a repeat pattern painting of motels, inspired by kimono fabrics. The image below shows another of my motel paintings:

Image: The Citysider by Alisa Perks. Gouache on paper.

PS. Check out this link to the Australian Bookplate Design Awards for 2015. My two entries are shown among many other fine bookplates. There were hundreds of entries for this popular competition. One of my entries shown on the site appears in an earlier blog post, and the other features a gentleman wearing a panama hat and trying to read amid cement mixers and barking dogs.

Carpark

I recently had the pleasure of receiving a Special Recognition award for my entry in the Painting section of the "Cityscapes" art competition, at the online art gallery, Light Space & Time. You can click here to view all the entries which received recognition in this competition.

For the "Cityscapes" theme, I chose the image below; a painting of my impression of one of the main carparks in our city. I was learning to drive when I painted this image, and I was beset by the idea of being trapped among all the concrete kerbing that interlaces carparks.

Image: "Carpark", by Alisa Perks. Gouache on paper.

Motels

I love to do paintings of motels. I’ve stayed in lots of motels. The look of them is fascinating, with the carpark and the long, low rows of rooms.

You know it’s a special motel when they give you those little packets of biscuits in your room. And if you’re really lucky, you get a couple of sachets of hot chocolate mix among the tea and coffee makings.

As long as it's a quiet room with a comfortable bed.

The motel below was interesting, because it had a kind of tunnel you drive through to get to the carpark and the rooms.

Image: Motel 3 by Alisa Perks. Gouache on paper.

New buildings and concrete

Hello and I hope your 2016 is good so far!

They're doing a lot of building nearby, with lots of concrete. There's a new supermarket being built, for a "Smarter Shopping" experience. We've already got several supermarkets, so this must be the cluster theory in action.

Down the road are these townhouses (pictured), built a few years ago. You can probably see the driveway from space; it's very white and expansive:

Image: Three Townhouses by Alisa Perks. Gouache on paper.

PS Mr Biscuit was born yesterday (literally). But more about that later.

Best wishes for 2016

Dear Readers

Wishing you all the very best of good fortune, health, happiness and peace
for 2016.

I guess it's obvious what I decided to bake for the festive season: gingerbread! These are deliciously spiced, with that special flavouring from golden syrup, too. They need to soften for a week or so, then they will be ready to eat. Pfeffernüsse are like that, too. They're like rocks when you first bake them, then they soften up beautifully after a week or two sitting in the tin. These are iced using royal icing.

Mr Biscuit and friends are putting their heads together to try and dream up a
peaceful New Year for everyone.

See you again in 2016, with more ideas and fun!

Image: Mr Biscuit and friends are dreaming up a peaceful 2016.

 

Biscuits - some thoughts

At the moment, I'm trying to decide what to bake for the upcoming festive season. We may get a visitor or two (or maybe not?), so I need to have something yummy to offer people with their cup of tea if they visit.

Gingerbread is a possibility. I need to get some different shaped cookie cutters. The second reason for baking gingerbread is to do with inventing a character for a series of adventure pictures that I've started painting.

But more about that in a later post.

The biscuits shown below were delicious jam-filled, bought biscuits. When this painting was displayed in one of my exhibitions, I put the same plate of biscuits on a plinth underneath where the picture was hanging in the gallery, and people could eat one if they wanted.

I'm glad to say that this picture, like most shown in my blog, is now in someone's private collection. I do hope they are enjoying those biscuits as much as I enjoyed painting them!


Image: Biscuits by Alisa Perks. Gouache on paper.

 

Itchy feet!

Sometimes a feeling of restlessness is natural, and the desire to explore other places gives me itchy feet. I feel very lucky to be able to roam around the country, visiting towns, cities, national parks, lots of places, without having to  show documentary evidence of my existence to authorities.
 
It's great fun to decide where to go and explore, and so interesting to arrive in a place where I've never been before but have probably heard about many times.

"Get in the car!" has become the catchcry in the household lately, as those itchy feet make themselves felt. The places we choose to visit are often west of the Great Dividing Range.

When travelling in the car, the dashboard becomes a useful keep-warm facility for meat pies and other hot snacks to be eaten further down the road at a good stopping place. This facility is called the "Dashboard Bain Marie".


Image: To Mungindi by Alisa Perks. Gouache on paper.

I got the inspiration for this painting when we were heading north from Moree to Mungindi. Mungindi is up on the Queensland border with New South Wales. We had been enjoying the hot artesian spa baths in Moree, as we have done many times, and decided to take this side-trip as a bonus. We had a pie in Mungindi.