Painting with Carol

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).

As I will be leaving Sydney for my Queensland painting tour on the 19th. of August, I thought I had better let you know how it is all going. In one word: terrible. I am so behind with everything - my poor husband, Linden, has been very ill and is in hospital, but thank God he is now on the way to recovery. Consequentally, I am behind.

It’s not all bad, though.  I am back on track and today I have already achieved quite a lot. It is amazing what you can fit into your life when you have to. My daughter has created a picture gallery of some of my paintings and I hope everyone will have a look and comment on them. Unless I get feedback on my blog I am not sure if you are enjoying it! I thought I would take pictures on my trek to Queensland as I go and post them here - that way you can travel  with me. What do you think?

I must get back to work. Nice talking to you. Regards, Cas

I have been asked to exhibit my camel paintings in Hughenden, Queensland at the Arid Lands Australia Festival  on August 22nd, 23rd, and the 24th, 2008. Because of this I am going to be running a series of workshops in Queensland. At this moment I am unsure of the dates but they will be the end of August and in to September. I will let everyone know as soon as they’re finalised.

I will go from Hughenden to Innisfail where I will teach “THE DOLPHINS” and “THE GOLDFISH”. From there I will go to the Atherton Tablelands, then back to Innisfail again to teach “THE DAYS AWAKENING” and “THE CHOOK YARD”.

Then I’m off to Townsville although I am not sure how long I will be there yet. Brisbane will be my next destination, where I am lucky enough to have my dear friends Margaret and Charles. Margaret also is a wonderful painter so I am looking forward to seeing what she has done through the year. Margaret and I are like little girls when we get together with our show and tell - one thing is for sure we can always have a good laugh together, think about how many of your friends you can do that with.

I am so looking forward to the trip, as I will be seeing parts of Queensland I have never seen before, I will also get to see the camels I have been painting and visit the friends that I have been lucky enough to make through painting.

It has taken a while, but here is the promised free pattern packet of the gum blossoms watercolour. This is a beginner pattern so it’s a good starting point. There are two parts to the pattern packet:

• The tracing. Download the file here. It’s currently A4 size, so you will need to enlarge it to A3 and print it out onto tracing paper. If your printer doesn’t do sizes larger than A4, take it to a print and copy centre such as Kinkos - they should be able to enlarge it and print it onto tracing paper.
• A step-by-step instruction guide.

Both are PDF documents so you will need a reader such as Adobe Reader in order to view them.

Click on any of the thumbnail pictures above to see the paintings. I hope you like them.

You gotta laugh

Hello all! I am sorry I haven’t updated for a while but I have been very busy painting camels and I haven’t had much time for anything else.

I thought I should let you know that I will be away teaching in Victoria for 12 days. I leave on Wednesday June 4 and return Monday June 16 2008. Originally, I was travelling to Victoria for the Avoca Camel Cup because that is where my camel exhibition was to be held. However, I received a phone call on Saturday saying that the Camel Cup had been cancelled. I was very disappointed at first, of course - disappointed for myself but very disappointed for the people that were involved in the organisation of it all as I know how much work has been put in to it. But I have always been a believer in one door closing and another one opening and by the looks of things that is what has happened.

I won’t say much more about it at until things are definite but, as they say: “watch this space”. In the meantime, I will be displaying a few of the camel paintings here so you can see some of my hard work. They are for sale if anybody is interested.

And here are the dates and locations of my workshops:

• Saturday: 7/6/2008 “THE SHEEP STATION HOMESTEAD” ROUGHING I will also be teaching, “NOVEMBER LILLIES” with watercolours in the same workshop
  Where? Wardlin Craft and Garden, 344 Kayleys Lane Brewster
  Phone 0353440641
• Tuesday 10/6/2008 “CHOOKS ON THE RUN” watercolours
  Where: Leony Hoekstra Phone: 0352419866 22 Waurnvale Drive Belmont Geelong
• Saturday 14/6/2008 “CHOOKS ON THE RUN” watercolours
  Where:Gone Barney, Rosewood, on the way to Tumbarumba.
  Phone 0269488380

A camel.

More pics of camels. The reason for my seeming obsession with camels at the moment is that I’m exhibiting at the Avoca Camel Cup Country Wool & Wine Festival on Sunday, 8th June.

A group of camels.

Here’s my latest watercolour of camels. I am working on another at the moment.

Camels in oils.

A new painting I have been working on. It isn’t finished yet - it’s still a work in progress.

I’m working on uploading a pattern packet of this design so that you can try it out for yourself. Stay tuned.