This technology is amazing - with a bit of fiddling on the computer I can put a link here so if you wished, you could purchase postcards, greeting cards, prints, posters etc of any of my paintings with just a bit of twiddling on your computer. And we might both be sitting at our kitchen tables in our pyjamas at the time! Clever electrons!


To purchase cards, posters, prints etc of any of my paintings, visit me at RedBubble

”The house next door”
(I grew up in the little house with the red roof)

I have just had a lovely week visiting schools for Book Week. It is always fun and interesting meeting lots of kids and teachers and sharing some of what I know and do as an illustrator/author. And it’s quite a novelty, having to commute further than from the kitchen to the study...

Tricky: Talking to a group comprising year 6 and kindergarten only.

Fascinating: Being asked whether I, as a famous person (!), shop at the same shops, like for groceries and books, as people who aren’t famous...

Challenging: Delivering (I use the word loosely) an illustrator presentation to a group including a child who is totally blind.

Most amazing/insightful/profound/unexpected question: If you have to draw a sad picture, does the character have to be drawn sad?

Wow!! Lovely week!!!!!

Today I brought home all of the paintings from my exhibition at Gordon Library. They have been hanging there for three months...the time has gone so quickly! It is a LOT quicker taking them down than putting them up!

I am busy making more paintings because I love painting of course, but also have a good excuse because I will have a stand at the Affordable Art Fair - Art Sydney 2010 from November 11 - 14 at Moore Park, Sydney. If you’re in Sydney then, come and visit me at stand S7!


The most recent paintings have ended up been linked with stories from my childhood and the home where I grew up in Canada. The one at the top of this page is one of them, also...

Sun shower
(we used to walk in a meadow near our house - I used to lie in the grass during the summer holidays, looking at the clouds and thinking; funny to think now that painting the painting of the meadow is part of the future I wondered about then in the meadow)

Kettle Island
(One time as kids four of us got stranded on the island, which is half way across the Ottawa River, when the wind came up and was too strong for our putt putt boat - that’s Quebec on the other side, and on the Ottawa side there’s a particularly magnificent maple which turns brilliant scarlet every fall )

Spring officially starts tomorrow and already the fresias are out smelling wonderful. I have some cerise witchhazel out too with massed ribbon-like blossoms - fabulous!

P.S. Another KThoKMill (my Twitter name) tweet (tweets are restricted to 140 characters)...

If Shakespeare were on twitter then his plays would be more terse: “2B or not 2B, quoth he. The end.” ...but all in verse.

Latest paintings include a night painting which was VERY hard to photograph but the darker it got as I painted, the more exciting it became (there are birds roosting and glints of last light here and there - and there is actually dark on dark detail in the very dark part which doesn’t really show up), a painting of Tenby harbour in Wales which turned into a seascape once the clouds at the top were painted (they wanted sea beneath - some day I’ll paint Tenby), and a gully where my family walked for the forty years we lived in the house in Canada where I did most of my growing up. I walked through this gully many times with my Mother, and in my turn have walked there with my kids. After Mum died I walked there once more.


Mum and I walked here




Night song




I was painting a harbour but the clouds wanted sea

Weswal Gallery in Tamworth has invited me to have an exhibition there in 2012! I said YES, thanks!!!! How wonderful to have an excuse to paint for the next two years!

Tweeting twit, crossing Pitt, taxi hit and that was it. Driver didn’t know he’d hit her, he was reading tweeter’s twitter. KThompson TwitPoet

So...I noticed a cockatoo alighting on my roof (as opposed to alighting from a train - one of the very few other situations in which one can alight - see notices at Woolstonecraft station) and beginning to nibble on my grey plastic gutterguard. This mesh keeps leaves out of the gutters (eavestroughs) which is handy when you have a rather loose schedule for cleaning out whatever is up there and a rainwater tank which collects it. Before I had the gutterguard put on, I even had a tree growing in one of the gutters at the front. With gutterguard, if there is a tree growing up there, it’s having to crawl along on its knees under the mesh so I don’t see it which is the same as it not being there. And I can assume there’s water in my rainwater tank as opposed to seedlings, frogs, leaves, twigs, worms, (fat ones) and the local newspaper (the delivery guy drives down the road with all of his windows open and pelts the rolled paper out either side of the car...my house is downhill).

But I digress.

So...I waved my arms through the window but it ignored me, after throwing a brief sardonic glance in my direction. Of course, I could be mistaken. It is notoriously easy to confuse the sardonic cockatoo with the ironic. And the glance was brief. Actually, have you ever noticed how descriptions of birds in field guides include the colour of their eyebrows? True. Check it out yourself at the library. I mean, I’m sure I’ve never even noticed a bird’s eyebrows as it flits past...

Anyway,...

...I burst out through the back door which startled it into the tree maybe three metres away, it alighted (alit?), turned to face me, and settled down infuriatingly unperturbed in the face of my flailing arms and assertive body language. I picked up a (tiny) twig (OK, so I haven’t swept the back verandah for awhile) and threw it, knowing that the cockatoo would be startled at my throwing actions and the projectile and would rapidly decide against chilling at my place. It yawned. OK buster, so now I’ll pull out the big guns. A gumnut. By throwing gumnuts I’m deterring a hooligan and reforesting the bush at the same time. Two birds with...

So I pelted the gumnut, and as we both watched, it bell curved balletically skywards towards the next door neighbour’s house, then ran out of gas and plipped to the ground somewhere amongst the violets short of its target by about 2 metres.

The cockatoo looked at me. I’m positive I saw it lift an eyebrow.

How humiliating. As I did my scary stuff and pelted projectiles, at no point had it indicated that it took me in the least seriously. I wasn’t trying to hit it you understand, just be respected as a potential threat.

I withdrew.

It sat there all afternoon. I’m guessing it was thinking things over and perhaps even coming to an appreciation of my angst. However, it is notoriously easy to confuse the contrite cockatoo with one who is laughing.

Jelly deep

Today I decided to finally change a burned out (if that’s what they do) long life (yeah, right!) light globe outside. But I had to prune back some branches to get at it. So...I trimmed off a few limbs...which pulled down some vines...which pulled down the TV antenna......I used WD-40 to unrust the bolts, climbed up onto the (luckily flat) roof and down 12 times getting tools, getting other tools, getting the right tools, screwing up the bolts, reattaching wires, checking reception, swapping wires, checking TV reception, adjusting antenna, checking reception, giving up, changing the light globe and deciding to let the “snow” on channel 9 remind me of Canada.

I also decided to find out what Twitter is all about having attended two business seminars this week which spoke of the value of social networking. Interesting. Have signed up and twirped three tweets (there’s a button on this page you can use to find me) ...but so far am just singing to myself. It will be an interesting experiment.

Here is the latest painting...a treeline spotted in Tasmania.

Latest painting - City ditty
May have to do a bit more to it - wanted the dark at the top to be water with a boat in it, but it could look like sky with a moon in it. Will decide which I prefer...or may leave it ambiguous!

I had an interesting email from a chap in Prague wanting to buy three paintings...although he said I’d have to use a specific carrier to transport them - ASSESS AIR LOGISTIC. I looked them up (it seemed suspicious) and discovered it is a scam. Unsuspecting people take “his” credit card details and ship the goods, then discover the credit card is fake.

Too bad the internet is a new way for people to steal from other people, although it also provides ways of checking up. I prefer to trust, but at the same time do my homework.

Off topic, I was on the train the other day and spotted (so to speak) a poster of a little girl admiring two giraffes at Dubbo Zoo. Looking at their splotchy patterns, I began to wonder, why is it that giraffes need camouflage? I mean, if you’re that big...who isn’t going to see you?...

Ah...life’s big questions...

A recent ”Watch this space...” part of my exhibition hanging currently in Gordon.
___________________________________________________
The Emperor’s
New
Clothes

(with cutting edge jaunty royal blue glomesh hat, diamond encrusted, complete with Poppycock feather)

Caution - highly ephemeral

Material not to be handled
No smoking
No food or drink within 97.2315m
Don’t swim immediately after a large meal

On loan as part of celebrations for

World Emperor Couturier
High Achievement Awards Recognition Day

and

World If Only The Kid Had Kept Quiet Day

____________________________________________



Windy August - will toast my toes by the fire tonight.

I mostly have my painter hat on at the moment - but next month is Book Week so I’ll be visiting a few schools to talk about illustrating and writing which will be fun!



Two of my paintings have gone out into the world and are with Gallery 41 in Woolloomooloo - inner Sydney in a gallery district - not far from the Art Gallery of New South Wales. I’ve just become a member of the Art Gallery Society and so I will be going to a free (to members) viewing of the Paths to Abstraction exhibition which is running at the moment. It should be fantastic.



And the Gallery person who had to cancel our planned exhibition is back on deck and has asked if I’d like to give her a small collection of paintings to hang...so I said YES!!!! Exciting! A gallery in Tamworth would be happy to take a couple, as would one in Canberra, although the person at the latter called my work “decorative”. My back went up AND my nose out of joint. To me “decorative” means that its only purpose and value is in matching the curtains. Then I thought - hmmm...I suppose when it comes down to it, ALL paintings could be called decorative, because they all hang on walls! Anyway, she said that being the nation’s capital there are always politicians moving in and wanting to furnish houses. Come to think of it, we DO have an unexpected new Prime Minister since I last wrote, and there WILL probably be an election within the next few months, with possibly a few politicians involved...like I said, hmmm... I wonder what colours go with red hair...???

A few weeks ago I went for a bushwalk with my daughter. We have very similar navigational skills.

It’s chilly and I have the wood stove on. Cosy! I wonder how much longer we’ll be allowed to burn wood for heating? I love that in this modern day and age some of us still use the same source of heat as earliest humans. And I was reading “African Genesis” by Robert Ardrey and came to the bit about insects clustering together to form a flower that doesn’t actually exist in nature. I emailed a zoology professor of mine at the University of Toronto from 1975 and asked if they could be mimicking a flower which itself died out millions of years ago - he answered!!! He remembered me (red hair and pigtails) and said yes! Isn’t that thought exciting?!! They could be a living fossil in the most literal sense of the term!!!! I love this planet!!!!!

.Something in the air or maybe It’s a bit bouncy out today...yup I think that’s it.

The exhibition is hung, the opening has been had as of last Sunday, it was a lovely afternoon with some very special bush tucker food, and several paintings will be going to new homes. The exhibition is a solo show of 49 works at Gordon Library running from June 3 to August 30 2010. I paint under my non nom de plume so it is called “Kerry Thompson - And now for something completely different...”

At the top of this page is a new little painting which I did today - first time I’ve had the chance to paint for weeks..apart from one which I did yesterday but which doesn’t photograph very well because there’s a lot of silver and opalescent paint on it. I had a bit of stage fright at first - what to paint - can I still paint - how to start - then just put colours I love on the palette, switched on the radio to music, and let the painting go where it wanted without trying to make it turn into anything. VERY fun and happy-making!!

It is cooling down as we move into winter, and I toast my toes by the wood stove every evening.



......I took my dog to the dog beach (Bayview) and was delighted by the house boat with a dog house. I guess it’s a doggy house boat with a boaty dog house. Or something.

I went for a bushwalk and found wonderful lichens, aboriginal rock carvings, and a tiny insect-catching sundew.







One item in the exhibition is called “Watch this space...” and I put new things up on an irregular basis. So far there has been this cartoon:



then I hung a little pink hat with a feather on it and this:


Hermit crab


Hermit crabs are known for their habit of living in second hand shells. It is not always good to be known for your habits. Luckily it isn’t something worse.

As it grows in size, the hermit crab has to abandon its old home and find something more up to date. As the hermit crab doesn’t get out much it can be a little hazy about what’s up to date.

Occasionally, a rare hermit crab will throw caution to the wind and move into something bold, possibly with feathers, which it always wanted to wear and which it thinks looks quite fetching, while at the same time, deep down, being a little worried that it just looks silly.




Pome:

I know a little hermit crab
She hides inside a shell.
I think she smiles when I go by,
It’s kind of hard to tell.

K.T.



A couple of days ago I changed “Watch this space...” again and hung an odd sock with this:



This is my favourite sock.

It used to be a pair but the other one has gone missing.

Where DO odd socks GO?

I think this one’s partner has gone to Perth.

Which makes me wonder, WHY do socks disappear?

We treat them as a pair, but when you come to think of it, only because they LOOK the same.

Maybe below the surface they are quite different and crave individuality.

Or maybe they both prefer the same foot and one gets tired of sharing.

Or maybe one finds a solemate in a sporty little anklet.

Or runs off with a shoe.




Hmmm...all food for thought.

Which makes me wonder about knives and forks...






Stay tuned...

I’ve been busy over the past few weeks getting everything ready for my upcoming exhibition of paintings (as Kerry Thompson) at Gordon Library which will be called “And now for something completely different...”. A dear friend is making some surprise nibbles for the opening (can’t tell you what they are until afterwards) and I’m busy making sure all of the paintings are signed, tidied up, varnished, and have wire and title on the back.

Some of the paintings were done on paper when I was in Western Australia over Christmas, and they’ve been framed with white mounts and frames and look fabulous!!!! I’ll try and get some photos over the next few days to show you.

One recent painting is called The tip
- a place where you can find pathos in the things we have left behind - a record of our progress and changing fashions and changing sense of values, and at the same time there’s something inherently funny seeing objects completely out of context - like a fridge or a bed on a hillside...



I’ve also been making up invitations and information cards for the exhibition........





There’s a great website for looking at photographs and paintings and writings by a worldwide group of people - it’s called RedBubble (www.RedBubble.com) and I’ve put work there under KerryThompson. Take a peek if you’d like an amazing way of seeing a whole spectrum of works from a whole spectrum of people!

It has cooled down in Sydney and I’m toasting my toes by the fire as we speak. Time for a cuppa!