Bird of Paradise – Watercolour completed
The Bird of Paradise – Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea has over 30 species of the Bird of Paradise. I am currently painting this study of the male Lesser Bird of Paradise.
Painting the white feathers is simply not painting the watercolour paper with any pigment. It is not easy to add backwash to enhance the white feathers without completely covering the white paper. I didn’t want to tape or mask it out to add extra challenge…
I think my next one would be better. What do you think?
A sleepless walker strides by dusk
The Brisbane River glassed
Beyond the vanishing point, houses blackened
A large orangey pink blanket covered the sky
It reflected on the river glass
Under the trees, an egret beamed
Its milky white feathers lit the roots
The walker disturbed the egret
The bird flew towards the orangey – pinkie sky
Looking to where the bird landed in the tree
The walker spots an odd couple – he tall and large
She is tiny and frail
They stand, side by side, arm’s length apart
Their arms are each folded; awkward
They stare into the river
Maybe they were speaking about the glassy river
Or the orange sky, the sleepless walker or the egret
There is a promise of love beyond the vanishing point
The walker smiles. Maybe sleep is coming tonight
Fatoumata Diawara is a favourite from the World Music scene. Those of you that are new to my blog, I like to post some of the music I listen to from across the world. If you have guessed it, you are right, I don’t always understand what they are singing about, but musicians all over the world share one universal language which my heart understands. I’m sure you can too.
Born on Ivory Coast to Malian parents, Fatoumata Diawara moved to France to pursue her music. The guitarist became critically acclaimed not only for singing, but song-writing and performing in movies. I love her music, so I hope you will enjoy it too.
Mother
JK.Leahy – Poem, Memoir
A wrinkled dusky pink sheet cradles a flowered meri blouse, a laplap and a bible – a word or two in the bible is for me, she echoes…
Room scented with sea, woods, coconut oil, eucalyptus and basil
A lotto ticket to set me up for life (her farewell and a surprise gift)
“If I won,” she always said, “I would let you decide what to do with the money”
We had laughed and discussed the possibilities
On the bed, an italic old-style farewell, handwritten in a very neat prose, mixing pidgin and dialect –
“Pawi – my child, I will miss being here…”
My mother was in a plane and gone
Twelve months threaded colourful bilums, gardens, and stories,
bringing me back to the first ten years of my life.
An assortment of brown hue – sculptured gum branches stacked for winter’s fires
Through the window, her many familiar artwork marked my surroundings, reminding me of her even bossy ways
-purple and green kaukau leaves sitting neatly on mounds
“You have sweet potatoes for winter”, her voice reminds me.
The large elephant leaves of pumpkin spreads and sprout golden flowers – a promise for more food.
But, I miss her telling me her stories.
See below some of my mother’s creations. All her bilums featured here were sold before she left Brisbane for Papua New Guinea. If anyone is interested to purchase my mother’s bags – please write to: joycelinleahy@gmail.com
Art experiment in progress. My apologies for ignoring this blog, but I’ve been learning as well as teaching myself new things. I’ve been side-tracked from blog writing. It has been an interesting time of working out and documenting what works with natural pigments and what to avoid when I make art.
This test work of a Trobriand (PNG) grass skirt has been painted and (poured on) with tea, coffee, turmeric, David Smith watercolours, watercolour ground on watercolour canvas. I’ve not used watercolour canvas before; it is quite soft and drinks less water than paper. I hope you like it.
We started our Creative Writing Workshop three weeks ago and this week tutor Isabel D’ Avila Winter gave us a fun exercise. Basically it teaches the technique of how to write a story by making connections. Class members chose and exchanged two words, a noun and an abstract noun and in ten minutes we free wrote whatever story that came into our heads in connection with those two words. Try it with your friends or a pal sometimes. You just don’t know what you can come up with. I had the words “happiness” and “feather” – which has probably led me to painting a grass skirt. For those of you that understand Papua New Guinea culture, you’ll know what I’m talking about – singsing. You can find more on singsing and related subjects in my previous posts and once I clean up the copy from the two-noun exercise, I’ll post it here.
The Passion of Autumn – Passion fruit flowers with fruits
After the recent rains, we have a high yield of passion fruit, both flowers and fruit arriving rapidly this season, and just before we go into winter. When the fruit of passion arrives, there is always a party in my backyard for many living things. The vines have completely taken over a pepper tree and all insects and animals are helping themselves to the nectar of the intoxicating beautiful flowers and green fruits. Hopefully there will be some left to ripen for the bats, possums and my family to enjoy in winter.
Hanuabada Outskirts watercolour is completed. I have decided not to put in any more houses. It was interesting when painting and looking at the original reference picture below (taken by My Place Allen) that I discovered people inside some of the houses. Apart from the lady in the foreground, I captured a man sitting under the clothesline in the background, but I left out a few people in the middle houses. Yes…this could be a story.
All the my art shown on this blog are for sale. We offer both originals and limited edition prints. I also paint commissions. If you are interested, email joycelinleahy@gmail.com
Hanuabada Village outskirts, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.
I have been wanting to paint these houses on stilts for a long time. Several villages in PNG have houses on stilts including Hanuabada, the largest village in the capital.
Although the area I am studying is quite large, I singled out a few houses on the outskirts that villagers painted with some of my favourite colours.
I hope to finish the painting this weekend.
Tell me of you like these work in progress shots.
Tribalmystic Stories 