Regent Park Tasmania - lifestyle of artist in country Tasmania

Two new prints - unique, one-of-a-kind, available, float mounted (edges are shown) ready to take to your framer.  #workingeveryday  hellebore1 Updating online art gallery with new monoprints and small collages for sale (with free postage anywhere in the world - small collage series only).   I created a bundle of collages as part of a #freebie #giveaway to my subscribers of  the art gallery.   and kept creating them. hellebore2 I have also updated the look of the site so that artworks can be seen as a whole across the screen with a quick, easy look at the detail. ... let me know what you think

 Its a beautiful Spring day here - intermittent showers with sunny moments in between.  The Camellia which was planted before we came is in full flower again.  Unusually, i think, its turned two-tone - quite lovely. The studio is lovely and clean - V & I mopped the floor a week ago - huge job (18x12 metres in and around tables and benches) and i swept it up this morning in readiness for our workshop.  A small group (as i like it) and a day of making this book and this one. I dont have workshops often as i work a lot on my own projects but i do enjoy when i hold them. Usually they are held in winter or winter's end but i am open to any time of year if groups organise themselves - bring 1 or 2 friends with you and email me your dates if you wish to have a workshop. I have placed the book workshops here. Updated my poetry site a little yesterday - big job - onward with regular updates to post in one place all my (mainly published) poetry but also some of my favour...

The birds, in mobs, are racing around, chasing, being chased, singing and heralding. The creek is high from recent rains, chinese cabbage and brocoli have bolted, the mini nectarine is already in full flower and if there was any doubt at all .....   the wattles are out. and then there is #Snowcone ... such a sweet girl - our dairy cow in retirement  find her on our youtube channel here ... and check out this hilarious one where she got out and i had not a clue what to do ! 

on a recent walk discovered this lovely flowering - Fatsia Japonica - i wrote about it here .  a winter flowering.  look forward to seeing how big it gets - apparently quite large and wide. i took photos of this particular part of the creek, from the bridge and came back at night to take shots of around the same area, from the bridge.   still discovering things along our journey here -the creek has filled a little since we have been getting regular rains - the paddocks have greened over and the wallabies are gathering in large groups during the night to chomp on the grass. check out this video on youtube of blackfish in the creek  and i am doing monthly videos (just started this year) - we have been here 3 years and i began the monthly vids so i can notice the differences and changes each year.

On a walk across the paddock yesterday I found this plant flowering by the creek.  and today it looked like this ! so pretty. This is called fatsia Japonica and is best suited to outdoor growth.  I purchased one last year and have it indoors - it grew so well that i had extras come up in the pot and this one is outdoors growing beautifully by the creek.  The flowers were such a nice surprise - the one indoors is leafy and large-ish but nothing like this one outdoors. Things I learned from Google today. The name. fatsia Japonica . It is better suited outdoors than indoors - i am now planning where to plant the indoor one once we get into spring. The location i put the one outdoors is perfect for it - shady with some sun. it flowers in autumn (although we are winter here just now) and berries will follow !  great. so good for the birds. it will grow 6-10 feet both in height and width!  how fabulous and apparently the new shoots may get eaten but the older ones ar...

On this same day last year these two posts went up heralding our coming into our 3rd year in this place, #countryliving #Tasmania.  And here we are again. So, we are on our 3rd anniversay here (going into our 4th year) and also the anniversary (April) of these little guys coming into our lives - 4. years ago.  Kimba and Archie .... and George just fell in love too ...  the garden is growing exponentially with a few intros over summer  and i walk to the creek every day a few times a day in the hope of catching sight of the platypus, the eel or what fish are around (trout or blackfish) the trumpet flower came out first time in 3 years and it is established the tree is  a  radermachera sinica (China Doll)   and again this year with the rains, the little brown tree frog visited - sticking to our patio glass door in the middle of the night looking back over art activities in the studio this past summer here

 i knew it ! ... it comes around so quickly ! It is hard to believe we have been here for 2 years already and now into our third year. I have a small notebook into which i have been jotting down the plants that grow here (if i can identify them), the birds that visit and when as well as the fish, reptiles etc. The photo i took of the little brown tree frog was when he was stuck to our glass sliding door - so beautiful, really tiny. The (second) slide show below is a collection of the birds i could find online that have visited here with one or two of my own photos included where i could capture them including the little red-breasted robin and a wasp!  I have added a list of the names under the images. where there is a (g) following the name that is my own photo.                    yellow wattle bird                                   li...

 An idle thought but i will give it a go - so many projects on the go its difficult to know when to post anything about any particular one especially since 'we' tend to wait until its done and perfect. You should see my reject pile ! So i am going to attempt to post each Sunday a look back on the previous 7 days - just images of things mostly in progress. Hopefully this will capture more (in a kinda diary way) my activities and provide the discipline i lack in posting regularly. Let's see how we go ! (I am already a day late on the very first "Looking Back"). The images reflect my week - birds visiting, creek walks and printmaking (of the creek and) flora in the garden, George on a coffee morning catchup, exploring photographs without using a camera, stitching (this piece is finally completed), monoprinting, painting, books and cooking. A middle of the night dash to the emergency as V had a terrible reaction to a virus. It was an all-nighter but a week late...

 I do think that Spring 2023 suggested an abundance everywhere. The wattles lined the creek back to font and were in full flower .... quite lovely. The seeds of these wattles have covered the blocks and the waratah and bottlebrush were heavy with flora. The turbo chooks have so far had 2 clutches of babies as have the swallows. I have counted 17 turbo chooks on the block with 6 being new seasons babies that survived - we lost 6 to hawks and kookaburras plus a couple of unknown. The wallabies are overrun with babies (joeys) as can be seen from my nightly torchlight check from the deck. So cute - quite the nursery. I spotted a white goshawk, for the first time since moving here, feeding on a dead wallaby one day and we have a resident eel and platypus in the creek. Meanting #Snowcone is living the life having retired from the dairy many years ago. FUN FACT : did you know more people are killed by cows than by snake bite and shark attack combined ! Our abundance continues...

These are just magnificent this year. last year, there were no yellow flowers - i did notice a couple had small bits of yellow 'trying' to come on but it never happened. at the time i thought perhaps it was a variety that didnt flower ... but nope, happily i was wrong. We are surrounded by them ... thankfully i am more allergic to grasses than pollen see more about the wattles here and join our youtube channel Lovely to find these visitors yesterday - went down with a cup of coffee to see if i can see playtpus ... he hasn't been around for weeks ... i am thinking because the creek is running high and fast.

 Although we are still having very cold (-1) overnighters and frost, the wattles are singing of Spring and are looking magnificent - there were no yellow flowers at all last year so I am not sure what the trigger is. and today I saw a welcome swallow, my first fire tail and a fly in the studio ! (Who knew a fly can bring so much pleasure?) the new plantings are looking good - hopefully they take off this Spring/summer. They are Leucospermum , tea tree, leucodendron, a mini pine, and 3 tasmanian pepper berries (1 male 2 female) this little banksia in the turning circle with the tea tree is looking fabulous. have you seen the short videos on our youtube channel ? lots to explore there. this playlist shows a variety of learning to live in the country having moved here a year ago. We live on 25 acres of a mix of bush, forest, cleared land/paddocks with a creek that runs through the whole property. We share with the wildlife and some protected species (wallabies, platypus, blackfis...

Examples of 'lifestyle' include habits in sleeping patterns, physical activity, hydration habits, sleeping patterns. Wikipedia defines a lifestyle "as the way a person lives. This includes patterns related to personal relationships, consumption, entertainment and dress. A lifestyle typically also reflects an individual's attitudes, values or worldview." We 'know' this means tempering things 'bad' and maintaining things 'good'. Bad and good being highly subjective and individual to circumstance, beliefs and choices made. I also want to include a level of privilege. There are many lists on the internet defining 'lifestyle' to include an active lifestyle, a rural lifestyle, a healthy lifestyle, an urban lifestyle, a solo lifestyle etc. Its been a long road to this place in the country, in Tasmania - and what a place it is ... we feel most grateful and look forward to discovering all it has to offer. We have been here for 12 months...