Breeding

Until fairly recently, our family's focus has been solely on breeding cattle. These days, the human breeding programme is escalating beyond any ones expectations.

I was touched when the youngest of our princes - Keelan, and his wife Madi, asked me to take a few pictures of them in the last days of her pregnancy, to commemorate the bump. This picture was one of the last shots, taken while furiously whirling knobs and dials on the camera - adjusting aperture, and shutter speed, and all kind of things to try and catch them in silhouette, with that amazing sky. Thankfully, they took care of conveying the tenderness part that this shot really needed - I could hardly see them through the viewfinder, and was, at that point, laying flat out on the grass in a most bizarre and undignified position. I'm probably not going to tell you how many shots it took to get this one lovely one. Suffice to say there were more than one on the camera that were immediately deleted because they were completely black.

This precious bump will be Grand baby number three for us, and another one, due in a couple of months, will make four, in just over a year. People around us seem to think this is some kind of amazing turn of events - I guess going from no grand kids to four so quickly doesn't happen to everyone!

It's a tremendous joy and privilege to watch our sons make their families... and this grandparent thing is the sweetest gig ever! I have to confess though, that while I adore these little babies, there is a part of me that's itching to paint and draw and create up a storm with these tiny humans... right now though, Payton, who is 14 months is only interested in eating the sidewalk chalk, and Levi, at 4 months is a long way from even being interested in it at all... so I guess I'm going to have to be patient, and make the most of the wonderful photo opportunities in the meantime. Looking at this photo is occurs to me that this would make a fantastic stencil/mask for a journal page. I'll work on that just as soon as I've sung Incy Wincy Spider with Payton (complete with actions)  and snuggled with Levi until he wriggles to a spot with his nose in my armpit... it's his favourite position - go figure!

Try Something New

What does it say about your personality when you have an idea to try something you know bugger all about, and think "I can't do this, but I'm doing it anyway?" I don't know, either, but here are the results! For a long time, I have thought that adding a few videos of works unfolding and techniques in action might be fun for me, and interesting for you. I have a lot to learn, and will possibly need to relocate to an area where I can access a much bigger Internet data quota (apologies to the Aussie Government, but this NBN thing isn't working out so well for us out here), which isn't such a realistic idea. I think there is a lot of research and education in my immediate future if I'm to follow this notion any further. 

However... this was fun for me, and I hope you find the video a little bit interesting. It's a time lapse look at creating a background with tissue paper on canvas for a mixed media work. The background was done without any firm idea of what the focal point might be. That realisation came a little later.

Small Wonders 

©2015 Tracey Hewitt  Watercolour and mixed media on canvas

After the addition of some acrylic paints to introduce a little colour, it occurred to me that this would be the perfect background for another challenge I'd been hankering to take on. A photo of our Granddaughter, Payton, in a rare moment of stillness, had been whispering it's longing to be drawn or painted for a couple of months. For someone who, a few years ago, wouldn't even attempt to draw a face or human form, because "that's not my thing, I just can't do them"; I'm pretty excited to have captured a resemblance to a human being, much less enough of a resemblance to a particular human for her parents to know she was the model!

 Her features were sketched in, with Derwent Graphitint pencils. These babies might be my favourite art supply. (Even as I type that, a hundred other little special art supplies are clamouring in my mind to be named favourites, as well!) These pencils - as the name suggests - are much like a graphite pencil, with the added appeal of a range of beautiful, subtle colours, as well as being water soluble. They're not as intense as some of the other water soluble pencils out there, so the results are soft and delicious. A little watercolour for the pink in her dress and lips, a few touches of inky black for details, and she was done.

That little butterfly she's so intently looking at? That is a perfect example of the glorious serendipity of layering materials and media. It wasn't until after I'd drawn Payton in, that I noticed that little butterfly on an underlying layer of tissue paper, perfectly placed to seem to be sitting on her hand, and the focus of her rapt attention. Sometimes, there are forces at work when we create that simply cannot be explained. Happens to me all the time. And, it's the best feeling. 

New Inspiration - for Pencil Sketching, and all kinds of things!

Payton #1 © 2014 Tracey Hewitt
Pencil 12cm x 12cm

We've had some big news around here.... A granddaughter! This post has been written, rewritten, scrapped and started over a number of times now. Then, I remembered that I wrote a letter to this baby girl the night she was born. Not quite your run of the mill, regular post, but then again, a family's first grand baby is not quite your run of the mill, regular experience is it?

Dear Payton,
 

Today we met you for the first time. New to this world- just hours old - I was captivated at once. Maybe one day, many years from now, I'll remember this letter and give it to you - a memory of one of the most favourite days of my life.
 

It rained! All day. And we had been hoping so hard and needing it for so long, which made it even more wonderful. Much like we hoped so hard for you. I feel as though I have loved you forever already - certainly since I saw you swimming around in your Mums belly at her first scan. And even before that, when you were just a possibility and we hoped so hard you would decide to stay and grow. And today, on the day of  my first baby - your Dads - birthday, you joined us in this mad, happy, crazy, wild, fun, fantastic circus called life, and our hearts are so happy.
 

It's difficult to describe how I feel tonight - excited, happy, content, nervous, pleased, thrilled- a whole lot of emotion all rolled up together, and full, my heart feels full. Thankful, grateful, full. I'm sitting quietly, listening to the rain on the roof - one of my favourite sounds, and thinking of you, of your tiny, perfect face, little bit of soft hair and wee fingers and toes. You had so many visitors today, and you slept and ate and were not the slightest bit amazed by the excitement your entrance into the world had caused.
 

We had a cuddle, you and I, and the world felt perfectly right. 

I know that as you grow and the years pass there'll be times you are sad and unsure, times you doubt yourself - you're human and we all do that. But I hope that through all those times, I can help you remember you are a miracle. You are perfect exactly as you are in any moment and magical in your ability to bring joy just by being in a room (that will never change for me, nor, I expect, anyone else in that room with you today).
 

So, on this ordinary, rainy day, while the newspapers ran headlines about a Malaysian Aeroplane that disappeared without a trace, and our Govenors General, Quentin Bryce (the retiring one) and Peter Cosgrove (the new one) have been announced a Dame and a Sir, and the republicans are getting all worked up about it, and most of the world was going about its business as if it were any other day; we know better. Today was a special day. The day Payton came to live on planet Earth as part of our family. And we are so very happy you are here.
 

Welcome to the world precious girl. I can't wait to get to know you, and the wonderful person you will become.