…She’s back in New Zealand.
My apologies for the radio silence from me all year. 2019 has started off with a bang!
It started with our engagement at the end of last year. Mark proposed at our favourite sailing spot - Charteris Bay in Lyttelton Harbour. Down by the waters edge at the boat ramp, the love of my life asked me to marry him, and of course I said YES! This made for an extra happy New Years Eve!
We wanted to celebrate our engagement with family and friends at our home, but needed to do alterations to our deck first. There’s nothing like a deadline to get things done! So all of January saw us demolishing and completely re-building half of the deck! The party was on a perfect Summer’s day so everyone got to enjoy our handiwork.
Mark and I building the deck.
Mark and I at our engagement party standing on the deck.
Japan adventures
In March we flew to Japan for 2 1/2 weeks of adventure, culture, history and craziness. Highlights included: tree skiing at Kiroro ( in Hokkaido), a cooking lesson in Osaka, singing Karaoke with the locals till 3am, dressing up in a kimono in Kyoto, and the madness of the robot restaurant in Tokyo.
If you are visiting Japan I highly recommend the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum and teamLab Borderless Tokyo (Digital Art Museum) - this exhibition was full of colourful interactive projections, lights, lanterns and fun. An exhibition you can easily get lost in!
While in Japan I decided to treat myself with a visit to Pigment - the most stunning, well designed art store I have ever seen. The Japanese have an effortlessly elegant approach of presentation, and Pigment was no exception. I treated myself to some beautiful traditional sumi brushes, bamboo paper and a gold leaf kit. I am looking forward to trying these out!
What’s on the easel?
I have been busy working on the Nasbey landscape oil painting. I am now in the final stages. My list of things left to do is getting smaller and smaller which makes it very exciting. These final details are sometimes subtle and the colour is critical to get right. Therefore I can no longer paint at night as the fake light plays with the colours. So I have a policy to only paint during daylight hours, which means I have to wait to the weekends. I am looking forward to the Easter break to get some day light hours on the piece. Here is it now on the easel. Not far to go! Stay tuned. Thanks for stopping by.
Working in progress, Naseby oil painting, 1620x760mm.