Just playing around...

I got my new-to-me camera on Saturday, so have been having a wee play with that too. I haven't used a manual camera before, so it's been quite a learning experience. Thought I'd capture a bit of the action and colour going on in my garden at the moment, while learning something new.

Yay! All 3 chickens are now laying.

Loving the aperture setting, just need to figure it all out now!

Books, books, books...

I'd love to say that I've been on a spending spree, but no, we just visited the library this afternoon.

~ I've been looking out for a 2nd hand version of this Ukulele book, but pleased to get to try-before-I-buy. I spent a bit of time yesterday studying up on music theory (a mix of internet and this book). I have never in my life learnt anything musical (although I'm sure I briefly learnt the recorder and ukulele when I was in primary school), so this is all new and quite interesting to me.

~ I grabbed the first book I found on SLR cameras - my mum is giving me her 8yr old camera, so I need to now learn how to use it!

~ I picked out a variety of drawing and painting books to carry on with once I'm done with my course.

~ I saw Dorothy Hall's herbal book on display, so added that to my pile even though I've had it out before.

~ I also saw on the returned shelf this cute book with some neat little crochet projects. The author uses a variety of materials including: jute twine, wool, and leather cord. I don't currently own a book on crochet (I have only self-taught myself off Youtube tutorials), but this one has made it onto my wants list. I've got my eye on these projects...

But first, I've had a job come in that will consume my weekend. I'd love to go on a book buying spree with the $$ from that, but I think getting a plumber in is a bit higher up the list of priorities!

Icy outside, but tucked up inside

That's all the snow that remains on the hills.
They were completely covered in white.

Well, the snow seems to have gone, but the icy weather continues.

The sum total of snow that settled at our house on Tuesday night!
And it was slushy due to all the rain.

Yesterday I was tucked up inside again and decided I needed to do a bit more practicing ... first the ukulele (I've been trying to master strumming along with changing chords) and then some drumming.

Drawing - I really need to make this a bit more regular, but I felt inspired by looking at an aloe vera plant I'd recently moved and realised that I was visualising the negative space within what I saw and that I was mentally drawing it - so out came the sketch book and pencil and off I went.

I've been rearranging! Although our lounge is quite large, we're quite restricted on how to place the furniture. So after a bit of mental planning, I decided at 11.30pm Tuesday night that it *had* to be done right there and then lol. I don't usually like to cover over the window with the couches, but I find that the lounge doesn't seem cosy, or warm enough for my liking because it's so spacious and so much window (there is the same amount of windows/doors right next to this lot). So this way, it creates another area that we can now use as a comfy floor spot.

Kid decluttering - yep, while rearranging furniture I managed to find another bag of games and puzzles that are no longer used.

Crafting - I have been wanting to make one of these recycled woollen blanket buntings for a while now, but didn't have a suitable blanket, and hadn't gone looking for one. I did recall I had a very thin piece of woollen fabric though (apparently it was a very old-skool nappy-wrap back in the day and came from my nana...). Same red pin-stripe down one side and same size as a flannel nappy. So I made this up yesterday afternoon. I'm quite pleased with the results!

The week

The kids have been making board games!

With the lighter evenings, they've been spending some time before dinner outside in the sandpit and working on constructing a "shop". Nathan intends on stocking his shop with swords and bows and arrows.

I went to my ukulele group this morning. Had a great time! I had self-taught myself three chords before going along (and then when booking, the teacher asked if I could learn another three so I was up to speed with the rest of the group) since they have all been going for a couple of months already.

Spring cleaning - I probably blog about it whenever I do more than the basics on housework lol! Well, with all this gorgeous spring-like weather I have been torn on where to spend my time. So yesterday I made my way through the kitchen, laundry, and bathrooms, as well as checking and sorting my stock in my herbal cupboard. Not a lot to toss out, a little rearranging, but mostly deep-cleaning.

The garden has also been calling me - with the herb garden all busy doing its thing, now is the time to start planning the Spring/Summer vegetable garden. I have most seeds I need (I do need to get some carrot seeds though), so it's just a case of planning my timing and placement. I do need to also get down into the lower garden again and clean out the chicken coop to fertilize the beds, dig in the lupen, and weed around my garlic and onions. I have a few buckets of wood ash to dig in too, to raise the pH and alkalinise the soil - I have an abundance of dock and creeping buttercup still down there, which are strong indicators for acid soil conditions. When using wood ash instead of lime, the recommended is to use about twice the amount - I don't really know how much I need, but am going to give a liberal dose to help things along. And strange for this time of the year, but the garden is looking like it might need some water!
I haven't done anymore on the drawing course. I really feel with this lovely weather, that I'd rather be physically doing other things and enjoying the sun - make hay while the sun shines and all that. I'll save the rest of it for a cold, rainy day (I'm sure there will be more of those to come).

Drawing...

Well, I've been right into the drawing lessons and have spent a few hours each day working on them. I bought myself a proper sketch pad and pencil yesterday before carrying on with the pictures below.

I was just thinking about the timeliness of reading this lesson book and how it is really quite perfect for the winter season, and has given me some direction and purpose I was needing. I had started to feel unsettled with the days whiling away just reading books (which is very nice to do, but also a bit of a time-filler) and doing housework. So here I am tucked up in the house with the fire roaring, in the quiet where I have the time to do the pictures and let time run away on me, no guilt about thinking I should be outside in the garden ... and just being.

Yesterday I did another upside-down drawing (was quite happy with it aside from a few things out of proportion).

I then made my first attempt at a Modified Contour drawing. So where previously I had to draw my hand without looking at my actual drawing, this time the instructions said to look at your hand for 90% of the time, and the other 10% at the picture just to get a gauge on where the pencil is in relation to the drawing. The idea with the contour drawings is to let your eye/mind only see the lines/angles/spaces/shapes for what they are. By allowing your right-brain to kick in you are no longer seeing the picture as fingernails, fingers, wrinkles, knuckles as this is when the left-brain starts to try and draw on its logic and we continue to draw as we always have done (typically at a 10yr old level).

The first picture here was done as a preinstruction drawing - just to see where my skills lay prior to reading/doing the lessons. The 2nd is my contour drawing.

A week in our house...

~ Hmpf! We really are having a winter of sickness! Not all at once, and not even the same thing! So, we're all well again, but I feel like I lost a week looking after Danielle with some random vomity-viral thing that covered her in a red rash from head to toe. Onwards and upwards!
~ Good news on the chicken front - my very sporadic layers look like they're in for a change. Over summer I had a few broody ones sitting on the nest, then they all moulted, and now finally, one of them is back laying. Nathan came into the house a few weeks ago all excited that he could tell that Caramel was going to start laying soon. He'd noticed her comb had gone bright red and nice and plump-looking. Danielle discovered the first egg yesterday! The other two still have pale pink combs, but I'm hoping they'll be coming onto the lay too.

~ I got together with several friends on Thursday evening for a knitting/crochet session. I offered to make a friend a pair of the fingerless-gloves I made myself a wee while back, so made a start that night and then finished them off the next day.

~ I have a set of seedlings ready to pop into the garden tomorrow (yay for some lovely weather).

~ I bought a 2nd-hand square coffee table off Trade Me during the week. We haven't had a coffee table in the lounge since Nathan was a baby; just seemed to be a bit of a hazard and unnecessary. Now that all the kids toys have been removed from the lounge, the large space was no longer required for spreading out on. I have been wanting a large, square, low table that can be used when sitting on the floor - doing jigsaws on, eating at, playing card games, drawing, etc. I found the perfect table - 90cmx90cm and we chopped length off the legs so it is now only 30cm high. I intend on sanding it back and staining it a darker colour to modernise it. So that's my project for this week.

~ I've been drawing! An online friend recommended a book that sounded really interesting. I have always been one to think that I am very uncreative, can't draw, wouldn't know where to start, and told myself I wasn't really interested ... so wrote myself off as ever being able to. Well, this book basically told me that everyone can draw, and that it was really just in the way you "see". I amazed myself by drawing my first picture ever (that wasn't just a "kid" picture with lines). Now, I look forward to learning some skills to take the vision from inside my head and putting it onto paper, rather than just copying an item. So, here's my first picture (after being told that I can in fact draw - strange that it was all in  my perception). This is a sample before any instruction, and I'll keep it so I can do a comparison as I go through the lessons.

~ I've been drumming! Yes, I'm all about creativity this year! I am still practicing the rhythms that I learnt at my workshop last weekend (on my tiny little drum lol).

~ I've finished reading Nineteen Eighty Four (it all keeps playing through my mind), and fitting in another library book (along with the drawing book), before I make a start on the 3rd Earth's Children book.

~ The kids have got all creative yesterday - both had ideas for constructing, building, and creating - was great to see!