The Searcher for Perfection

Perfection

Paul Keating, former Prime Minister of Australia, has always searched for perfection, whether it was in music, that is classical music, in beauty, in decoration, in the arts. He fell in love with classical music as an early teenager.

He had an ever inquisitive mind and formulated the idea that if you wanted to know something you went to the top person who had the information.

 

The Repositories of Knowledge

As a result of this search for knowledge and wisdom, he searched out older men who were the keepers of the knowledge. He calls these older men 'congealed wisdom'.

I like this idea - congealed wisdom. Older people are so important to society. Older people have learnt so much in their lives, they have learnt the morals of the society they were brought up in, they know how so many things work.

Whatever our journey in life we can all search for perfection whether it is in the way we live our life, the natural beauty around us or the flowers in the garden.

 

Queen of Flowers

The rose is considered the Queen of flowers just as the lion is considered the King of the jungle. We can search for perfection in so many places.

To find perfection we must be prepared to look, listen and learn. Without these three things throughout our life, our search for perfection will fail. This search should go on our entire life.



Each rosebud hold the possibility of the most perfect rose ever.

 

 



Tree Lace

Have you ever looked, really looked, at trees when they have lost all their leaves? I was sixteen when I came out of school one grey wintery day.

The girl's college was on one side of the road and the boy's college was on the other side of the road. The boy's college was a poshy private school and had the buildings, grounds and trees to prove it.

The trees had all lost their leaves and I saw for the first time, while waiting for the bus, the beauty of a tree without leaves. Tree lace.

Patrick White, the great Australian Author and Poet noticed it too and wrote about it in his poem 'The swan flies over the lace corals of the trees'.

John Updike, the American poet, also wrote in his poem 'January' about 'The trees’ black lace.'

Blue Lace

Recently I looked up into the winter sky again to see Blue Lace.

Blue Lace Silver Birch Tree

 

 We are used to seeing bare trees against a grey sky, but here was my lovely silver birch tree giving me a delightful display of blue lace.

Flowers on Pinterest

New-fangled Technology

Last night it was difficult to sleep so I had fun pinning photos of the flowers in my garden on Pinterest.

I'm still working out how to use all these new-fangled internet programs - there's Facebook, Twitter, Pintereset and Blogger. There are business pages on Facebook and different pages of Pinterest.

Then there is the trouble of trying to get your photos to do just what you want them to do and be the size you want them to be,

How would you find my page if you weren't me? Really, I don't know, but I suppose you could put in my name somewhere and I would pop up. Is that how it goes?

Anyway, I put lots of photos of the beautiful flowers in my back garden and a few from my front garden. The front garden still needs a lot of work and is about to get a revamp.

Lily

Here are a couple of flowers from my front garden. Can any one tell me anything about this unusual lily? I have not seen it anywhere else but in my flower garden.



An unusual lily

 

 

Rosebud

Rose buds are always a delight. This one has such a red shade yet when it opens it is a yellow rose. Ahh, the glories of nature.

 

 

Artwork

I also pinned some of my artwork to my board so you might like to see it.

 

Cheers till next time.

Managing Your Photos for Free

 

My Favourite Photo Editor

At the moment my favourite photo editor is PicMonkey. Look at the lovely way you can manage your photos.

I had fun sitting in my backyard the other day. It is filled with spring flowers. My two Silkie bantams were wandering around and came to peck some organic feed mix out of the earthenware mosaic bowl. This bowl took all my attention a while ago as I sat for hours placing the tiny pieces of brightly coloured tiles around the inside of the bowl.

This bowl sat for some time under the tap in the front garden providing a watering place for the local birds. Now it has a new use, that of a place to provide treats for my hens.

Chickens

Our young mother hen and her six chicks are in the photo on the right. Her chickens have grown considerably and have now sprouted wings. The wing feathers are the first real feather a chicken grows. They are now getting feathers on their shoulders.

The chickens have outgrown their first cage and are in a new cage bought especially for them. They live out in the garden with flowers surrounding them. They will be there for a few more weeks until they progress to their next cage.

My Garden Treasures

The central photo is from my web site. There I have more news about the poultry in my garden and all the flowers in it. My Garden Treasures

Musings of a Folk Artist

I have always loved painting ever since I was a little girl. Crafty things and children kept me occupied for many years.

Then along came Folk Art Painting and I really fell in love. Acrylics had arrived and along with them the ease and the colour and the timing.

Acrylic Folk Art Paint

Acrylic paint for folk artists was a blessing. There were plenty of beautiful colours - I'm in love with colour. The paints came in small quantities so you could afford to buy some lovely colours. Artists brushes had become cheaper - yippee! although the first brush I purchased for folk art (sable hair) cast 4 times what brushes cost today.

Time was a Premium

Above all, acrylic paints dried so quickly. Now time was very important for me. I had five children and lived on a farm forty minutes from the nearest town. You could say I was BUSY. I didn't have time to wait around for oil paints to dry or to do all the preparation for water colour painting. I needed something quick to do in my very short bursts of stolen time.

Acrylic paints and folk art were a godsend. It wasn't long before I was squeezing more and more breaks into my day to do a bit of painting. It was easy to do some base coat painting and sanding in between a bit of housework. And the beauty of it all was that the paint was all dry in half an hour and could be put away to make room for the children at the table.

However, it soon became a case of fitting in a bit of housework between the painting.

I started off doing small things

 

and gradually painted larger items.

 

We had lovely old panel doors in our farmhouse.

This is part of a panel I painted on one of the doors.

 

 

And eventually I wrote two books about Bavarian Folk Art.

 

This is part of a project from one of them.

 

 

 

The books can be found at http://www.allergiesandcfs.com/folk-art-books.html or

http://www.mygardentreasures.com.au/folk-art.html. Some more of my painting can be seen here.

Crazy Patchwork Folk Art

One of my favourite sewing pastimes is crazy patchwork. I love all the little bits of different material. different embroidery stitches and beading on it.

 

Beginner's Patchwork Design

I decided to do a patchwork design for Folk Art painting or Tole painting. This is an easy beginner's piece. When you are a beginner at painting you know some easy designs but perhaps they are not large enough to embrace your piece of work all on their own. However, if put together, they look quite stunning.

Patchwork Tray in Folk Art

Here is a design to use all those easy painting skills you have. Full details can be seen in my book
Companion to Getting Started in Bavarian Folk Art.

This book and its partner Getting Started in Bavarian Folk Art can be found at http://www.allergiesandcfs.com/folk-art-books.html or http://www.mygardentreasures.com.au/folk-art.html

Experiment in Photoshop Elements

Use Photoshop Elements to Change the Atmosphere of your Photos

I love experimenting and Photoshop Elements is a good place to do it.

Look at the bar on the right hand side. You will see Edit, Create and Share.

Underneath that you will see Full, Quick and Guided.

Underneath that you will see Effects and Content.

Underneath that you will see Artistic with a little down arrow. This is where all the exciting things are. This gives you the power to change your photos.  

For my photos today, I used Edit, Full, Effects and changed through a couple of Artistic and Sketch items.

Original photo

Change your Photos by Experimenting

 

Select the little white hand from the left hand side of the Photoshop screen.

Use it to grab the element you wish to experiment with. Grab the Chalk and Charcoal or the Halftone and pull it above your photo.

 

The photo will change after a couple of seconds. If you like the result save your photo in File, Save as. Save it as a .jpg and place it in the folder you wish to save it to.

 

If you don't like what you see and wish to try another element, just press Control/Z and you will be back to your original photo.

 

Have fun.