time out

gazing at this most delicious of roses i often wonder why David Austin named it 'Jude the Obscure'. despite adoring red roses in my misspent youth this delicate buttercream rose with its rich applebutterrose fragrance is now quite my favourite

if i were the Little Prince this is the one rose that would be blooming on my tiny planet...

it dawned on me too that even though i can make lovely marks on cloth using leaves and plant dyes it would be nice to be able to splatter about with watercolours and make marks on paper resembling what i felt about the rose rather than the cyclopean image that is produced by the camera (nice though that is)

so when a watercolour workshop was advertised by the Art Gallery of South Australia recently i signed up. led by Arthur Phillips  it began at the Gallery (in Adelaide) and then wandered up to The Cedars near Hahndorf in the Mount Lofty Ranges for the second day.

where we pottered about happily on the property now owned by the grandchildren of South Australia's best-loved watercolourist, Hans Heysen. his purpose-built studio is pictured above.

i spent the day happily settled by this lovely pond, puddling watercolours on my page, with Arthur making the odd friendly noise of encouragement. i won't sear your eyeballs with the result. suffice it to say the indulgence of taking a day out from work (which given i work from home isn't easily left behind) to spend four hours observing the light changing across a small pond, watching the zebra finches bathing and hearing the frogs chirpings cease every time they were in danger of becoming a reptilian lunch was truly good for the soul.

and it's good to be a student every now and then...constant teaching is a bit like pumping water out of a dam...sooner or later there's nothing left [unless it rains]

i had a fabulous day but jonniecat didn't give a hoot...