Rainbow (☉v☉) and unearthly flowers

Danielle's owl
A friend of mine wants another owl journal (I made one for her last Fabruary), needed urgently. I tried painting some canvas to use as the book cover, but wasn’t happy with the way things were going last night. This morning I put the idea of a painted cover aside, and started making a felt owl for the cover instead.

Danielle's owl
When the owl was done, I realized it wouldn’t look too bad, stitched down to the original piece of painted canvas. So I put the two ho-hum ideas together, and came up with one book cover that I am really happy with.

I’ll be doing all the binding stuff tomorrow, and post pics of the finished journal.

Danielle's owl

* * * * *

Kris went to the Parap Saturday markets this morning, and brought me home a couple of huge, unearthly ornamental ginger blooms. I love the pale pink one, it looks like an exotic form of whorled shellfish.

ornamental ginger
ornamental ginger

That’s all for today! I’m off to see Loop the Loop with friends tonight! On the Darwin Entertainment Center’s website the show is described thus:

Prepare to be violently impressed when master musician Gene Peterson goes head to head with multi instrumentalist Adam Page in this phenomenal musical showdown. In a 100 minute jam-packed performance, the audience will be treated to a plethora of amazing skills, from simultaneously playing keyboards and drums, to Tibetan throat singing, to using a variety of vegetables as musical instruments!! Sometimes quirky, often hilarious, at times unbelievable but always impressive, Loop the Loop offers the ultimate performance package.

I hear they play have composed pieces for squeaky bath toys and flutes made of zucchinis; how have I managed to live without knowing how to turn a zucchini into a musical instrument? “Run, don’t walk!” was the message my friend sent me on Facebook. So I’ve gotta run.

a boudoir chair?

DSCF0430
in the sun

A pink and black stuffed chair? What next? *sigh* I don’t know, I keep trying to lead this painting to a bright and sunny park, and it keeps veering off towards the burlesque theater or cabaret…

To relieve the tedium of looking at this painting all the time (believe me, I’m tired of it, too), I snapped a pic of Mr. Dude for you—he was napping in my old studio chair (the painting that I have spent all the daylight hours working on for the last 7 days does not impress him one smidgen.)

Seeing him from this angle, it becomes quite clear why Kris sometimes calls him ‘Pasha’. I have my own nickname for Dude, too…

pasha

Yeah, Fatty, you know I’m talking about you.

Sunday, lagooned in gold

I’ve hurt my foot somehow. Spent the day hobbling about the boat, and painting a journal. Started this one several months ago—the flowers were yellow, the stalks were green—but decided today to completely revamp the colours. Tried to make the flowers and leaves look as though they had been carved in wood, instead.

Listened to Richard Tognetti playing Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin to get in the mood. Curly music…resinous like amber…it’s that slightly sticky sound of the bow against the strings…as though the strings were slightly furred, and the bow was gummy. Whatever. :) I love the way Tognetti interprets these pieces. More than Yo Yo Ma’s rendition of the same.

Reread parts of Annie Dillard‘s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, and a dozen poems by Yehuda Amichai, while waiting for paint to dry.

This journal isn’t done…still very much a WIP. But I love the honey-coloured light of sunset as it slants through the portholes, this time of year, and just had take a photograph of my desk, “lagooned in gold”, as Edith Wharton put it. ▉