For some reason the drawing for the Blue Turtle painting is not happening easily. The initial vision was to create an x-ray style of design inspired by Aboriginal Art.

The next idea was a progression of that one. The people who did X-ray and tribal designs across the world drew things they had experienced and interpreted them through the window of their imagination. I will take a slant on their idea by interpreting creatures I know and have experienced and placing them on a background of textures inspired by the rock walls and caves.

Acrylic mediums give me new colors and surfaces, new depth and opportunities. Textured and worn surfaces will give the impression of time and wear while being in materials and colors of this time and place.

The people who made rock and cave art used the materials they had on hand to create a language for parts of their lives.  It is an amazing and wonderful part of being human that allows us to look at a few shadows or clouds or scratches on a wall and see humans and animals lifting themselves off a rock wall and becoming moments thousands of years back in time.

I fell in love  the a vision of them sitting about in firelight watching the moving shadows and seeing  images among the shadows.

The Blue Turtle has changed. The image is now based on a larger than full-sized Eastern Long-necked Turtle and I am having problems with the dimensions of the drawing. It is firstly being drawn on a cheap sheet of paper clipped to a drawing board so the silhouette can be transferred to the surface of the painting in one go without damaging it..

I have done a lot of research on these turtles including having images available to get dimensions. For some reason I cannot focus long enough to get more than a few marks on the paper. I have a shell and and a neck and a head drawn. The legs will not come right and are making me crazy

Like the people who did the cave and rock art I have chosen a local animal. The idea of making an image using one of these creatures has been rattling about in the back of my mind since I first rescued one walking across a road at Chittaway Bay.

I did not start this canvas with the idea of working on this image.

Also the canvas from Purple Patch among Flowers is being recycled. Now I have a second canvas with the same style of under painting and color range so I am excited that finally things are moving into a place where I can develop ideas and images across a number of canvasses. I was despairing that I might never get there.

Meeces

The mice are starting to over run the kitchen. I can put up with their presence until they climb in the cutlery drawer and crap in every section. There are amazing amounts of little mousey turds in the under-sink cupboards.

It seems a couple of humane mouse traps might be a good idea so I have ordered one that will capture up to seven without being emptied. That will be from ebay and then there is a little plastic tilt-trap from the maker in Melbourne. I will see how that goes. I am not sure that being nice and setting them free somewhere up the road is a good option either. I will write the story of the traps when I have tried them out

Earlier thoughts about mice and stuff

The image upper right is an unfinished mural I did on a wall in a house I was renting at The Entrance (it was due to be demolished) and is interpreted from aboriginal rock art and almost indistinguishable from the art which inspired it. This image and style are something I am almost being driven to revisit and I will revisit this if I can set up to make larger works.

Only the bottom left and middle were getting towards their finished state

The mural was about 3m high x 2m wide in the parts shown in the photograph and I would have to made one far wider. It was great to working on that mural and having it as part of my living space. I miss making large works!

Should there be some guilt when I do work inspired by aboriginal styles? I have been exposed to these images since childhood and they are a part of my personal culture in some strange abstract way.