Melissa and my new vegie garden

It's spring here and I've joined the many who are new to growing their own vegies this year. I'm a little bit proud of the progress my darlings have made so far and we harvest daily our Asian greens and red lettuce which is a pick and go perennial. I hope you like the home grown touch to your book Melissa. Clare, it is already in the mail to you! Sorry again for the delay. And if I don't get to say so again beforehand, Happy Christmas!!!

Lucky second last!

Clare's Moly is all but done! Only her own entry to go in and it will be complete. Now this IS exciting!
Following on the theme of the moly "a few of my favourite things" I added a little bit of stitching, collage, ink and paint, some of my favourite mediums.
Some more of my favourite things are making things, pattern, gentle rain, sleeping and old books.

Tracy's Moly and The Williams

Finally I have something to show for myself! Thank you all for your patience!!!
In Tracy's Moly I've made my tribute to William Kentridge, William Morris and anyone named William in a Boys Own Journal!

Jan's finished in Kerry's book - finally!!!

I was really daunted by following on from Alison's botanic garden pages in Kerry's book. In fact I put it right out of my mind - as I don't enjoy feeling daunted! Then the next Moly from Alison turned up this week! Eek! Must do it! I think I can!
I needed to visit my mum this morning and new I'd be there a while so I packed several art 'options' for things to do. As I looked at Kerry's gorgeous book again it came to me! *bing*! I would walk down to my favourite spot on my favourite beach and draw that!
There used to be a twisted stunted pandanus tree that grew on top of this rock. I drew it and it was actually the subject of my first painting after leaving school. It's been missing for about 10 years now and it made me sad not to see it there, so I didn't look at this beach much, in order to avoid feeling sad about it. (Gee, there are a lot of suppressed emotions surfacing here!) I think drawing it again has been fantastic. I got to enjoy 'my' beach and 'my' rock again. I don't feel sad anymore! When it's fully dry I'm going to put my little Valla-Beach-life-story on the back. Seeing as it IS 'my' rock, I feel it's necessary. (Pitt pens at the beach and watercolour when I got home.)

Another better view

Here is a spread shot. (That sounds bad, doesn't it.)

Alison's Moly

This is not quite all of it but I think you get the idea. It's also not really the colours so use your imagination.

Kerry's Moly's getting big!

Coffs Harbour has two main tourist attractions. One is the Pet Porpoise Pool which is an excellent spot to kiss seals and pat dolphins and even have a swim with them. It is always a great day at the Pet Porpoise Pool. The other is The Big Banana.

There is a little artistic license in this sketch. I left out the gift shop, the snack bar and the History of Bananas building. From this perspective you can't see the lolly (sweets) factory, the puzzle shop, the toboggan ride, the snow slope, the ice rink or the water park, so it was easy to leave them out.

There is a fine tradition of Australian artists sketching and painting Luna Park in Melbourne. I love these works. They capture the essence of the conflict between fun, fear and sleaze in Luna Park and other attractions like it. When I look at them I wish I lived in Melbourne to be able to paint it too. Then I realised - we have the Big Banana right here! I could paint it. That idea was firmly implanted into my 'one day' basket right up until Clare drew Luna Park in Kerry's moly and posted it off to me to follow on. Too good an opportunity!

But it's not the same when it is a conflict of fun and sleaze only, without the fear. I'm left thinking 'it's just a big banana.'

Melissa's Moly - Jan's page

My addition to Melissa's Moly was chosen because of those watery little dots Clare left me. I began the pattern and wanted to keep the local flavour Clare had started so I chose to go beach.
In the original woodblock print by Hokusai. He included Mt Fuji in the background. In mine I've put South Solitary Island and it's lighthouse. The beautiful coast at Coffs Harbour is protected by the Solitary Islands Marine Park. From Coffs we look out over these islands. It is truly beautiful.
I'm not sure how long this limited colour phase I'm going through will last. But I'm really enjoying it and I pushed myself to add just a touch of colour to the island itself. The rest is silver, white and black. Oh, and a touch of blue pencil. I will post it off on Monday to Alison.

Done & Confused

On the cusp of being late getting this done (Alison I haven't posted it yet but I WILL tomorrow!) I've added my drawing to Clares moly. See the folds in the scan? See that one right in the middle? Well, that fold is the mountain fold that separates the opening in the Japanese Moleskine. That means that everything to the right of that is what you see when you turn the 'page' to see my drawing. The next fold to the right is through Roly's back and just next to his legs, Roly is on the lefthand side page of the opening. There is more than you can see (it didn't all fit on the scanner) so most of the righthand page of the opening is blank. Once I finished it major confusion set in. Where should my 2 and a half pages have been? It seemed to me that each persons drawing should cover an opening (both R & L pages of an opening) so it can be seen easily when you flip though. At least that is what I would want for my book.

I can see I've not done enough and I'm sorry about that. I won't be adding more - this is my first Moly x and I just can't imagine doing more now, this is a whole new experience for me. It is the whole 2 & a half pages thing that has confused me (I can't believe I'm saying that!). Am I right in assuming it is actually 2 pages (an opening) and just a bit on the next page which will become the 2 pages for the next person?

I can't believe how pedantic and vague I sound!

Clare's Moly has a theme of "a few of my favourite things" and I drew my dog Roly, my coffee, my books and pattern - I love pattern. It is a bit hard to scan. It is done with pencil, chinagraph, gesso, acyrlic and paint marker. Some of the acrylic is silver which hasn't showed up really well. I hope you like it!

Jan's page completed

Yes, I had a spot of bother doing this page... I've written about it on my blog. but it is finished and I'm happy with it.
It ended up being a tribute to William Morris, who I love and have several books on. I made a bit of a mess doing it, folds in the wrong place, my half page extension is three pages! because I started on the wrong pages... I hope you can all cope with a less than perfect book! Ah, but it IS me!