Soulsong Art - Australian Wildflowers & Wildlife Art Studio Diary

Eat Chocolate and Cry – Australian Flute Music – CD Cover

Lyn Weir — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:25:35 +0000

One of my designs – Paperbark – was recently used on the cover for a new CD by musicians Christine Draeger, Lamorna Nightingale and Jocelyn Edey-Fazzone. It is called Eat Chocolate and Cry – Australian Flute Music 199-2009 featuring Australian contemporary composers. As part of the HSC Music course students must study this content and so this CD is designed a a resource as well as for highlighting contemporary composers and musicians.

The CD was launched at the Australian Music Centre in The Rocks Sydney at the end of September – more information about the cd can be found here.

Apart from all of that I do like the concept of listening to beautiful music, eating chocolate and crying!!

Kookaburra Illustration Drawing

Lyn Weir — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 02:15:00 +0000

I have just finished this drawing of a Kookaburra.

Again it is drawn using light washed of watercolour and many many dots made with a fine nib rotring pen.

It is a drawing I started last year and is part of my mission to complete unfinished projects.

I am still carving one of the unfinished projects in my linocut work but am still keeping it low profile until it is completed. But it is exciting and I am hoping to get it completed in the next couple of weeks.

I am also designing a few new things. I have to take regular breaks from carving lino and so am mixing it up a bit with the illustration work, new designs for linocuts, some extension design work in relation to more commercial projects like cards and drawing. It sort of suits me to work this way in many respects I just need to be careful to aim to complete work as well as look at all the new possibilities!!

Waratah Illustration – just finished!

Lyn Weir — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 04:29:47 +0000

I have just finished this illustration of a Waratah – Telopia speciosissima. I know back to waratahs again! But the two local plants have put on a real show again this spring and I just couldn’t resist.

In this particular illustration I have used a very light wash of watercolour and use fine dots (many many many fine dots) with a Rotring pen to build up the image.

For those that may be interested in papers I have used an antique white rag based acid free watercolour paper. I like this paper with its slightly rough texture – it is cold pressed watercolour paper and so has a ‘bite’ on its surface. The hot pressed papers I mainly use for the linocuts has a smooth surface.

On the RSI/arm/shoulder/neck pain front – I am carving lino again but the advice from the physio is ‘pace yourself’ which is incredibly frustrating but I guess not as frustrating as 2 months without carving and not doing much else. Just need to keep up the exercises, pilates, anti-inflammatory meds, posture correction and warm wheat bags!! But still some progress forward is something to be grateful for.

Now onto a bit of carving this afternoon I think….can’t say what yet…but it is getting there albeit slowly….

Update to website – Tawny Frogmouth Linocut

Lyn Weir — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 04:15:05 +0000

I have finally started to get back to work – although slowly – and have just updated my website with the final version of the ‘Tawny Expressions’ linocut which I have called ‘Evry Move You Make…Watching YOU’.

The local ‘tawnies’ as they are affectionately known are back of an evening hunting under the street lights and sending out their thrumming oom-oom. Each year I hope they will find the trees in our yard to nest in but so far no such luck! But I look forward to thei summertime visits and hopefully they will bring a young one or two around again for a visit.

Still here…

Lyn Weir — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 04:12:20 +0000

Yes I am still here…I haven’t actually fallen off the face of the planet…well not yet at least!!

I have been busy with some family/life matters for the past few weeks which has put the artwork on the back burner…again…
I have struggled with issues around neck/shoulder RSI type things for a while now and this has been flaring up in recent weeks. It doesn’t help that my work involves lots of looking down so my posture needs severe attention as well!

I have completed one major project recently – well almost – and will post about that when it is finalised. I am also hoping to finish another major linocut project over the next few weeks if I can get my neck etc to co-operate!

In the meantime I have started back on some botanical illustration work as a break from carving and printing and will post about that asap!

It doesn’t help now that I currently have all my children at home, they have managed to use ALL the broadband allowance for the past month up and we are currently on dial up speed – not impressed. However, I am still stubbornly refusing to purchase extra in the valiant hope that they will all learn…maybe…to curb their usage. So uploading images is pretty slow but just a couple more days!

Visual Arts Teaching – Textbook and Curriculum Resource

Lyn Weir — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 23:35:57 +0000

Last year I was contacted by Lynda Kuntyj and asked to contribute to a resource textbook to help support the new Western Australian Visual Arts Curriculum for Primary/Secondary students.

I am very interested in promoting the visual arts and in teaching/tutoring, having a degree in art education. After speaking to Lynda, who is obviously passionate about teaching, I contributed some of my images, working arts practice methodology and tutorial text.

Impact Publishing released this book early this year and you can find out more about this book here. There is a pdf file with sample pages from this book that you can download – this includes 2 of the pages with some of the information that I contributed.

This is one of the textbooks from of a series of three. They all look quite helpful as resources for art teachers and students even though it is the WA syllabus the information looks like it would be useful generally.

Birds @ Bellingen NSW

Lyn Weir — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:34:02 +0000

We spent some time in Bellingen NSW yesterday.
A lovely warm winter’s day – and I managed to photograph just a few of the local birds. Think I have identified them correctly but any corrections welcome!

This Lewin’s Honeyeater – Meliphaga lewinii – was one of many flitting around feeding on nectar from a Eucalypt flowers. It has a strong repetitive call.

Catching the corner of my eye was this flash of yellow from the brilliantly coloured breast of this Eastern Yellow Robin – Eopsaltria australis. It has the prettiest call.

Continuously on the move and very hard to photograph was this Grey Fantail – Rhipidura fuliginosa. It’s call is a bit more shrill. It was a challenge as it constantly was moving and despite trying I was unable to capture it actually ‘fanning’ it’s tail. All a bit blurry I’m afraid.

Kookaburras – Dacelo novaeguineae – were laughing in the distance.

…and Welcome Swallows Hirundo neoxena were swinging on the wires…

Old tree…and memories

Lyn Weir — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:40:57 +0000

There is an old tree – part of a long ago area of mangroves – that stubbornly is still clinging on. It is on the way into Yamba from the highway at a place called Oyster Channel.

I remember this place from my childhood – the much awaited last section of road on the long drive to visiting my grandparents. Every holidays my dad got, we as a family went to visit them from our home in Sydney. For my father it was always a home coming – to his beloved Clarence River and his favourite pastime – fishing. For us it was swimming, the beach, ‘the pictures’, walks to the shops, reading, general lazy days, wandering days around town and a sense of freedom.

Of course there was always nearly every day – the fishing and the getting of the bait for fishing – yabbying in low tide on the mud flats in stingray holes with yabby pumps and worming and pippying on the beach. As you can see in the photo below we started fishing young!

Going fishing often began with the 4am rise time – just so that we could make sure that we got ‘our spot’. I still have visions of my short, quite round grandma, demanding of anyone who happened to have the audacity to get to her best fishing spot before her, ‘get off my rock’. She was not keen on going out much but she loved fishing and would set out with grim determination and a basket of sandwiches and freshly baked ‘grandma’s cake’ for everyone, to make sure she got ‘her spot’. We caught lots of fish and had lots of fun but there were some parts that were less than impressive – the 4 am starts and lets not forget to mention the large buzzing and ravenous scotch grey mosquitoes that also seemed to inhabit in huge numbers ‘the best spots’ – obviously just knowing the humans with the warm blood would be here in ‘their spot’!

Oyster Channel and Romiaka were one of the best winter ‘blackfish spots’ with memories of fishing with green weed on the ends of bobbing floats waiting for the fish to grab the line and take the float under water.

Both my grandparents are no longer here but the memory of this roadway into town with its low lying roads that in flood times cut the town off (and still does) and the final bridge into town still evokes memories of happy family times. Their house was in River Street opposite the old Public School which has now been moved out of town to make way for the Bowling Club extensions. Their house is still standing – well over 100yrs old but like the old tree still hanging on – just. Yamba is not the same as in my childhood. It is no longer the quiet backwater of my childhood and I suspect the next owner of my grandparents old house will be the last before this prime position is ‘redeveloped’.

We probably won’t go fishing there again but there are the memories and this tree – battered and worn but still there hanging on – just.

Air NZ ‘nothing to hide’ advertising…made me smile

Lyn Weir — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 02:10:12 +0000

I love the new Air NZ ‘nothing to hide’ advertisements – very clever. It is a good example of positive quirky advertising that makes you smile and actually remember the product.

This series of videos also include a safety one – now I would remember this one – even with the blind and irrational complete panic that grips me everytime I have to fly.

This is a video of the Air NZ staff background to the video – looks like they had a lot of fun!

Stavros Flatley – to brighten your day!

Lyn Weir — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:58:58 +0000

Thought I’d post this – even though it has been around for a while. I must say it is great entertainment and certainly made me giggle!