Painting with Carol

I have some photos I would like to share with you. My dear friends Ted and Collin sent them to me this week. They bought an old school less than three years ago in a place called Brewster, about 20 minutes out of Ballarat in Victoria, Australia. I just love to go  to Victoria for my workshops - I not only run my workshops at their gallery, I also use their home as my base. I call it my R&R as no one looks after me like they do.

Can you imagine how hard the ground must have been, having had all those children running, skipping, jumping on it for all those years? It must have been like concrete. It just amazes me that anything would grow in it, however if you could only see it now, the gardens are just wonderful. Each time I visit they have done so much more to the gardens. The garden is open to the public and it is certainly worth a visit, especially in the spring when the variety of iris will take your breath away.

Ted and Collin have made the old school house itself in to a gallery-cum-coffee shop, but it is more than just a coffee shop -it is a meeting place for all the local sheep station owners who stop off and have a coffee or even a glass of wine on their way to wherever they going. I have seen them arrive on their tractors! It is wonderful to be there, so much fun and laughter. Every month Ted and Collin put on a breakfast for the locals and the coffee shop is full every time. I have just read what I have written and it reads as if I am running an ad for them, but it is such a pleasure to be there I just can’t help myself. If you are in the area or on the road to Adelaide, it is a good stop over for the best cup of coffee around just look out for the signs along the main road.

Wardlin Craft and Garden
344 Kayleys Lane
Brewster, Victoria
Ph (03)53440641

It looks as though I might have to put my travel teaching aside for a while and behave like a good wife and mother as Linden is still not well enough to be left alone. I thought I might get in to the Christmas spirit and start to finish some of the projects I have started to paint and never finished - in fact I pulled out a Christmas box this morning that I started 10 years ago! I add something to it each year; you never know I might even finish it this time. It is amazing, though, how my style of painting has changed over the years. I just love Christmas and all the glitter that goes with it. Because of my travelling, I have been able to accumulate some wonderful Christmas objects to paint from the various studios I have taught at all over Australia. So now is the time to finish them. Why don’t you join me? Finish those unfinished objects. Send me some photos when you do, I would love to see them (and if you’re OK with it, we can post them here too).

Linden is still not well but he is certainly a lot better. I haven’t picked up a brush in so long and I am starting to have withdrawals. I still don’t have time to paint but I feel I have to do something so I have been sorting out my paints, washing brushes, and filing pattern packs - things that should have been done months ago.

I still have all my paintings that I had packed ready to go on the trip piled up in my lounge room, however. What am I going to do with them? I just don’t know where I am going to put them. The older I get, the more stuff I seem to accumulate. I would like to be able to start again - I would like those people that you see on TV to come in and throw things away for me because I don’t seem to be able to do that. Maybe I should have a garage sale. When I am painting, none of the mess worries me.

Oh well. Now that I have got that off my chest I will get back to trying to be a housekeeper and a nurse. YUK.