That great moment

My Tarot series took decades to actually come to fruition.
The next series is "uppity women": in chronological order (but not in the order I'll create them): Hildegard of Bingen, Joan of Arc, Elizabeth I, Catherine the Great.
I expect this series will not take quite as long because I'd be in my nineties!
I made a start on Joan of Arc, but got a major block caused by a lack of knowledge of materials and techniques. I created a collaged background and then painted a portrait of Joan over that. Later on I wanted to add flames and a lily. But the result was pretty awful: the collages were too dark, where the portrait covered some of the collages, those papers soaked up the paint creating a hard edges corner in the middle of Joan's face!

But today I suddenly had this great moment: a feeling of absolute clarity of where I want to go with this after a long period of indecisiveness, prevarication, frustration and uncertainty.
I was re-reading the Ann Baldwin book I mentioned earlier and I really like her style, so I decided to follow her instructions. It means starting from scratch, I don't think I can fix the earlier work, but I might go a bit larger as well. I will not paint the portrait, I will not paint the lily but work with paper collages. Even to the extend where I will scan in the lily I did in my visual diary last december and use that, rather than actually painting it on the canvas. I will however paint the flames, even maybe using a modelling paste.
When I think back of all the technical errors I made, I really did learn a lot from my mistakes.
I don't think I will use my newly acquired drawing skills (basic as they still are...) that may be for another time.

My art in general

Deb's new classes started last Tuesday and we're doing textures. I chose leather this week, she had a picture of a leather boot and I am having a go at that and then I may go back to my earlier "boots and hat" subject. I started the drawing at class and will work on it through the week.
I have stopped going to the Friday class, at present it doesn't seem to suit me. I have joined the newly formed Somerset Art Society. We're having an exhibition tomorrow to coincide with the Multicultural Festival and I've put in "The Chariot" and "Wheel of Fortune".
I didn't take a job. This is a bit unusual for me as I always enjoyed being part of making something happen. But right now I am enjoying my freedom of commitments just too much! Those who did take on jobs seem full of energy and enthusiasm which holds great promise. The ultimate goal is for Esk to have its own Art Gallery.

Back from New Caledonia

We had a fantastic time in New Caledonia. I even did write a travel report with photos and if you are interested in this just ask me for the pdf file.
Re the french language: hubby reckon I was pretty good: I ended up being able to read signs and be polite. I could understand very short sentences. We bought the Les Nouvelles newspaper a couple of times and I could read the weather report and some other articles and reports. When listening to conversations, I could understand some words but not the meaning.
Was it worth spending all that time on it? Absolutely! It is a beautiful language and I enjoyed having a bit of a go at it.

Re Dorrie's coat: I made one, it wasn't great and I hadn't quite finished it off when I tried it on her. She wanted nothing to do with it! LOL Oh well, meant I didn't have to finish that particular job!

The Dodecahedron

Click on the image to enlarge.
Yesterday I dropped this piece into the Fernvale Futures Centre for their craft show.
It really is a gorgeous piece of work! Even if I do say so myself and the photos don't do it justice.
Next time I need to enter something and need something new, I might do another one. The hardest bit will be to decide on the theme: it has to be something that I can do 11 panels for. (Panel # 12 is the base and is just calico with the details written on.

It's french, french, french....

It really is an experiment: I am spending lots of time on the french study. Not only www.frenchpod.com , but there are so many other (free) sites to practice.
Phonetique voyelles is full of hearing exercises, you hear 2 words and you tick whether they are the same or different. You do not need to know what they mean, you just train you ear.
Mission Europe is a kind of game/story and it is set up by the EU, Languages Online is really fun too and importer - Dictionnaire Français-Anglais WordReference.com is a fantastic dictionary except it has an anti-animal-cruelty ad in the banner which I try to avoid having to look at because it upsets me.
RFI - Langue française - apprendre is a french radio station that has "learn french" sections.
I only spend minimal time trying to memorising lists of words or conjugations of verbs, it is all learning things in context. I find french songs: some in kids programs, others on youtube.
The experiment is to see how this kind of study will work out in practice.
My niece said to me: "Oh well, as long as you can understand what they say" but that is a lot harder than reading it, because of the rhythms of the speech and the "liasons" the way words are strung together.
Because there are so many different sites I can use, it does not get boring at all.
Of course, no drawing....

Pastels? Maybe not for me....

Friday's art class was disappointing. We had a choice of 2 still lives and acrylic or pastel. I chose pastel but I found I was totally out of my depth. I don't quite know where to go with pastels from here, what I need is a specific pastel course, like Deb's drawing course. Actually I did do a 3 hour class with Helen and that was good, but there don't seem to be other classes planned.

Ah well, I am busy with french lessons and I am having a go at making a coat for our dog Dorrie. When we are in Noumea, she will have to go into the kennel and sleep outside, right in the middle of winter! She hasn't got a thick coat and is used to sleep inside.

French lessons

Our 45th wedding annniversary is coming up and a reason for celebration! A family party is, at present, out of the question and a week ago hubby said "Why don't we go to Noumea for our wedding anniversary!" So now we've booked to go in a matter of weeks and I am frantically using online French lessons. I am using Frenchpod
Definitely a fun way to learn french and of course, I did french at school, grew up in an environment where I was more exposed to french and french culture than if I had grown up in Australia: living in Holland where we had as many french songs on the hit parade as english ones, seeing french movies ( with dutch subtitles) having a Belgian mother who had lived in Paris, spending holidays in Belgium which is bilingual.
I download the lessons to my MP3 player and wear it while walking, while doing the housework, etc.
Mind you, it may all mean nothing when it comes to understanding spoken French, but hey, I learned how to ask where the toilets are..that just HAS to be useful as long as I can understand the reply! As I said: these lessons are fun!