Spring colours

Went for a drive this weekend to Matakana, (40mins north of Auckland) and discovered that spring is truly alive in the village.

Beginning of the month

I always look forward to the beginning of each month because artist Geninne Zlatkis creates a beautiful desktop calendar image for your computer. 

Click here to access the image from Geninne's blog.

But I don’t use the image for my desktop, instead I print it out and create a calendar for my kitchen. 

I create my calendar by using the layout program Pages on my imac computer. I print the main image on Canon A4 Photo Plus Glossy II (260gms) paper and the calendar part on Canon A4 Matte Photo Paper (170gsm). 

Tiritiri Matangi

Last week I mentioned that I was working on a new painting and I can now proudly say it is finished. I was inspired from my photos I had taken on a excursion to Tiritiri Matangi Island last year. 

Tiritiri Matangi is situated just north of Auckland, you have take a ferry to get there. It is a wildlife sanctuary and visitors come here to explore the island and to admire the wonderful bird life. I was totally captivated by the birds and wanted to photograph there beauty. But as you can imagine birds don’t stay in the one place for long, so photographing them does require a bit of patience. Dotted around the island there are a few bird feeding stations, it is here you get a chance to get a few images. 

I'm still here

I have been absent from my blog for a while, in fact since last May. One minute I was all enthused about starting up my blog and facebook page and then suddenly I stopped and became quite overwhelmed by it all. I am a very private person and writing about myself can be a bit daunting at times. But the truth was I felt I had nothing to share because I had stopped painting. 

In the past when I didn’t feel inspired to paint I used to worry that perhaps I wasn’t meant to be an artist. I thought surely when you are an artist all you want to do is paint all the time. But for me sometimes I go through periods (weeks or months) where painting is the last thing I want to do. The inspiration stops and I get frustrated and being frustrated does not help the situation. Yoga is my best friend in helping me get back on track, it calms my mind and I start to think more clearly again. 

Good news is that about a month ago I started to paint again. Monday is my day off and I am making it a regularly habit to paint on this day. So when everyone else dreads Monday morning I’m now looking forward to it. I am close to finishing a painting that I am working on and will write about it soon. But for now it is good to be back.

PS: Spring is slowly arriving in the Southern Hemisphere, the flower is from my garden.

New painting

The season is slowly starting to change here in Auckland. The days are getting cooler and shorter and I am now finding myself wanting to spend some more time in the studio, where it is cosy and warm. Ah bliss! My husband and I converted one of the spare bedrooms for my space to be creative. Here are a few pics for you.

Such a tidy desk, but it doesn't stay like that for long!

My favourite book at the moment.

I had an excellent week last week, I finished my triptych painting called ‘Morning Light’.

Here are the individual canvases that make-up the triptych.

Also I finally set-up my facebook business page. Please go over there and have a look. I’m not quite sure why I didn’t do this sooner as it was so easy to do. But I think it is just getting used to the idea of everyone seeing my artwork, as I am very private person. Having a blog and business page is quite an achievement for me. My next step is to set up my ETSY shop so that I can start selling my prints. 

And for my May Flower Challenge. I have some photos that I took at the Wintergardens in the Auckland Domain. This has to be one of my favourite places to visit as it is such a visual delight for me. I take far too many photos but here are just a few.

Its funny after uploading my photos I realise I have an obsession with pink. People who know me know that I don’t even like the colour pink! But I just love these flowers no matter what colour they are.

2nd Canvas

2nd canvas

As you might of guessed from my lack of posts I will be doing the May Flower Challenge now and then. I’ve been busy at my part-time job and busy painting. I have to be honest I don’t wake up everyday feeling creative. Some days I don’t do anything remotely creative and then on the days when I’m in the mood I feel like I could paint forever. And this is what has been happening to me for the last week. 

I finally finished my second painting from the Flora Bowley e-course. It hung on my wall in the studio for ages. It was ok but I knew deep down it wasn’t finished.Then one day I just took the canvas off the wall and it went from this.....

 ...... to this.

What a transformation. I couldn’t believe myself. I really love how it turned out. It now hangs proudly in our living room. That has been one of the valuable lessons I took away from the Flora Bowley e-course is that you don’t have to worry if a painting isn’t finished straight away. Just be patient and trust your intuition and eventually your lovely painting will reveal itself.

So it is my painting today I am contributing to the May Flower Challenge.

It is called "Lost in the moment".

May Flower challenge

This month I am doing the May Flower Challenge organised by fellow blogger, photographer and jewellry artisan, Lori Moon. Just like Lori I totally love flowers perhaps having my second name Fleur might of helped me with my appreciation for them. As I mentioned in my previous post I love photographing flowers with my macro lens, getting up really close, capturing the colours and patterns of the flowers. I just went out into my garden to take a photo of a flower and my batteries in my camera died! So whilst my batteries are re-charing I have posted a photo of a Hibiscus flower (from my garden) that I took a couple of weeks ago. Normally I always take the front of a flower but I was amazed by the patterns on the back of this Hibiscus flower. 

So if you like flowers as much as me head on over to the May Flower Challenge , join in or just see what the other artists have posted who are also doing this challenge.

Nature

Nature is the main source of inspiration for my art. I especially love photographing flowers with my 

macro lens capturing details that might go un-noticed. I am intrigued by the intricacies of colours and 

patterns that nature produces. I am not always drawn to the prettiest flower as it might just be a weed 

or a dying plant that has captured my eye, always keeping my mind open for possibilities.

The photographs above we taken early this morning in my garden just as the sun was rising. Dawn 

is my favourite part of the day, listening to all the birds singing their morning chorus and the hum of 

the city as it slowly starts to wake up.

You have to start somewhere

Welcome to my blog and thank you for stopping by. I have recently finished the ‘Bloom True: e-course’ by Flora Bowley (www.braveintuitiveyou.com) and I have been inspired to be brave and write my first post. To ‘create a blog’ has been on my to-do-list since I completed the ‘Flying Lesson: e-course’ by Kelly Rae Roberts (www.kellyraeroberts.com) last year. Creating a blog is quite a scary thing to do as you are putting yourself out there to the virtual world. But today I am facing that fear so here I go!

Four years ago I quit my professional career as a graphic designer because my creative soul was burnt out and my health suffered. I couldn’t face another deisgn job so I took up a part-time role as a postie with NZ Post and it was during this time my health improved and my stress levels dropped dramatically. It was Kelly Rae Robert’s inspirational book Taking Flight that slowly ignited my creative soul and I started to paint. I hadn’t painted since high school so it has been a journey of taking art courses to get me experimenting with acrylics, mixed media and photography.

The Bloom True: e-course came at a perfect time for me as I am still discovering my true voice with my art. This course is all about believing in your own intuition and being relaxed and free when you paint. Below is one of my paintings that I painted on the course. I called it ‘Awakening’ as that is how I felt when I painted it. The Bloom True: e-course has awakened my intuitive creative soul. I can’t wait to paint some more art and to discover my own style. 

Let the journey begin.