Giant horse sculptures in Scotland- amazing!

 From Arts Hub.

Illumination The art of Philip Wolfhagen

I recently discovered this artist and felt a combination of delight and frustration that he was basically painting my paintings! Or at least the ones I am trying to paint.
I love his work and feel like we are totally on the same page with our ideas about art and life and gardening- just wish I had his place to paint...sigh.

Sunny Winter's Day in my garden.

Inspired by the glorious sunshine today (despite the freezing overnight temperatures) to take some photos.
The birds have been loving our persimmon tree and the Silvereyes are just gorgeous.
Lefty likes the sunshine too.

This seems like a great idea from Alisa- wonder how it washes?

Eastern Spinebill ...I think

Pretty sure I spotted one of these divine little fellows visiting my flowering Salvias this morning. I have never seen one before and I was entranced- what a treat.

So beautiful.

Click on this link to Bored Panda blog see some amazing images.(Thanks Marijka)I can't work out how to show them on here unfortunately but they are well worth it.

Dragonfly remains...

I discovered this amazing dragonfly - dead-  in my garden and couldn't believe the gorgeousness of it's wings.

New hand carved stamps

Been having fun making new stamps and printing them on to calico bags...amongst other things.

Interesting Australian artists..

I've been really enjoying painting versions of my photographs lately- particularly the ones that are already semi-abstracted or distorted in some way, and I was pleased to discover a Queenland artist, Amanda Van Gils doing a similar thing- here's some of her paintings of scenes through a speeding train window.

Amy Rice always delights me...

See her work here http://egg-basket-full-of-hollyhock-dolls.blogspot.com.au/

Abandoned places

 

http://www.trueactivist.com/30-abandoned-places-that-look-truly-beautiful/

True Activist did a great story on abandoned places- this is one of my favourite: El Hotel del Salto, in Colombia at Tequendama Falls (or Salto del Tequendama).

I want to paint these...

But I'm not the only one...

Paint chip paintings

 I saw these gorgeous little paintings on paint chips by Seonna Hong at Jeanniejeannie.I love paint chips and use them a lot in my collages- it's that combination of colour and words that can be surprisingly poetic, so I was delighted to see them used this way.

Another year...

Here we are with January 2013 just about gone, and we have had no rain at all for pretty much the entire month. Ah well- the wet season has arrived with a bang up north so hopefully we'll get a bit of moisture soon. At least my sunflowers have been spectacular this year- such a beautiful silhouette against the moon.
I suppose out new rain reality will be all or nothing... plays havoc with vege growing!