unidentified bird

Will have to drag out the 'what bird is that' book to find out what this one is called. It's probably the white throated, yellow breasted branch sitter.

pergola again

The perola's finished, but the colours aren't anything like the ones we chose from the swatches. That bright blue is supposed to be a teal green - so we'll probably go back to the place we bought the paint from and get something a little more like what we wanted in the first place.

fruit of our ...

We planted some passionfruit vines back in November 2008. They've gone 'great guns', growing very quickly and providing a softening effect and welcome shade for the walkway between the house and the studio. It's only just now started to flower and fruit. There are 3 vines - a normal purple passionfruit and two more exotic varieties. I hope they ripen up before the winter frosts arrive.

Jackville again

Pete, Greg and Jack have been hard at it finishing off the pergola. The central part were the roof is hipped has an an iron roof so the entrances to the two cabins stay dry.

more mushrooms

It's been a very humid and wet March and mushrooms of all shapes and sizes are popping up everywhere. Here's another little forest of bright yellow ones:

jacksville

We're hoping that the pergola frame with a hipped roof in the middle will take away that 'World War II training camp' feel that the building has. The building is very wide and squat with a flat roof, painted 'bone', and quite devoid of interest. At least now that big horizontal mass is broken by the pergola roof. We'll be planting some kind of vines that will trail over the pergola to soften it off and painting it a more interesting colour.

beginning art class for 2009

I look forward to Sunday's oil painting class. We've had 2 lessons this year. We have just finished putting in the darks and lights. I overdid the grey bit above the model's ears! Next week we start on colour.