A Medley

Over the last 2 weeks, I have been away from home and have not had access to the internet or most of my art materials.  However, I still managed to do some art, as I had my laptop and watercolors and some pencils.

I painted these watercolours from photos of my garden

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 Altered Book

I also took with me, a project that I have been working on - an altered book.  The book is For the Love of a Rose by Antonia Ridge.  A much loved Auntie visited me in Britain and saw my hedge of the Peace Rose in the front of my house.  When she got home she sent me her copy.  It is about how the Peace Rose came about, a love story of the rose and the love story within the two families involved. I saw a copy in a junk shop last year and thought then it would be good for an altered book project. So finally I have started on the project.  I have decided to redo the story in my words and my illustrations.

For the title page I pasted a photo of the peace rose cut out from the book and used the colours of the rose.

The next pages I did waterclour and pencil faces of the founders of the Meilland dynasty – the first love story.

A Dedication

The next project is very dear to my heart.  As some of you may know my mum has Alzheimer’s and she lives with my sister in Perth.  I feel helpless being so far away.  But there is one thing I can do for her and my family.  I have decided to make a book dedicated to her life.  I hope to have it finished so that I can give it to her and my sister when I visited next Christmas.  So over the last two weeks I took the opportunity to get stuck in.  The above is from a photo of her on her sixteenth birthday party.

I am now back in harness, and hope to spend next week working on journal pages and doing a painting I promised two weeks ago.  However, I am mindful of the old adage ‘the best laid plans of mice and men….’

Happy Paint Party Friday everyone.

Proverbs 31 Josephine not Alice

This week, I am going to change tack, and make this a tribute to my Mother. I started the week with continuing the tribute to Proverbs 31 wives with Alice, my grandmother, but, to be honest I don't know much about how she provided I know she did, and did it well, more about that next week.

It been a difficult task this week as my Mother has severe Alzheimer's, and doesn't really know me anymore. I am full of grief for her and the situation and I can not do anything, as well, I am thousands of miles away. The reason I am making this a tribute to her is because of the telephone call from my sister, who nurses at the hospital where my mother is residing, to update me on her condition. Whenever she goes on duty she pops in and has a chat. She always finds shopping lists scattered around her room, of things she has to get when she gets home to Lower Hutt back here in NZ. ( she has not lived in NZ for 25 years). It was like God was saying to me “Look Sharon, honour your Mother, she was a wonderful provider!” And she was!

When we we small, our parents were hard up. But she always made sure that there were special treats for Xmas, birthdays and holidays. She would regularly put special items in a cupboard high up in the kitchen, us kids would sometimes sneak peeks, when she was not around. We would get a chair climb up onto the bench, and rifle through the cupboard trying to guess when they would appear on the table. As things improved financially, she was always searching for the best producer of this and that. When she visited us in later years, she was always loaded up with special treats and enough food to full the freezer. Yes, she was a good provider in the Proverbs 31 tradition.

 

It was hard painting my Mum. First of all I wanted to paint her in her prime, in the photo above she was 28. I remember the day well as it was my 7th birthday, and I was not very pleased as I had wanted a bike and I couldn't understand why my Grandmother Phyllis (left) had given my sister a doll too! But as the painting went on it got too hard, so I had to stop so I decided to do an impressionistic one, actually I think it is more of a self portrait, as it looks very sad. The vine bits are from a glass bowl with silver vines inlaid that she gave me on one of my birthdays. I will finish the other portrait and use it later.

So in all, a tough week painting but in some ways healing. Mum I honour you!

Linked to Paint Party Fridays and Spiritual Sundays