Lilies and Aquatic Predators

A couple of weeks ago I got some balsa wood. Balsa is a very light, soft wood, very easy to work with unless you want something with more weight, or if you want to work against the grain (which makes balsa wood splinter). I cut off some rectangles and squares and sealed some of them. Today I started painting them using acrylic paints and various concentrations of glaze medium for different effects. I mostly used shades of turquoise.

One of them I didn’t seal and carved the wood against the grain (the tree square, in the corner):

WiPs (photo taken on my cat’s favourite chair, as you can probably tell):

WiP shot of an aquatic piece – ocean and what might be a large fish, or perhaps a squid:

And here it is, finished:

Here is the other piece I finished, which reminds me of a lily pond:

I really like these two, and the aquatic one in particular. I might work on more of these using wood shavings!

To course or not to course

Yes – I’m thinking about doing another course, this time a photography one – street photography. It starts in March, and it goes for 5 weeks (one session a week, on Saturday).

I haven’t been doing much in the way of creative stuff lately. I’ve been practicing my crocheting (Miss Nyx taught me how to when I was in Perth late last year), and sealing balsa wood to use for projects. I’ve been reading a lot and trying to sort out my work schedule. I now have Fridays off, so hopefully art/craft stuff will pick up again!

I took some photos at St Albans a couple of weeks ago, some turned out quite well. Nowadays I’m mostly using the D80 plus a lovely lens I got for Christmas – a Sigma 50mm f2.8 macro/portrait lens.

Then a few days ago I went on another photo rampage, in Balmain this time (an inner west Sydney suburb) – photos coming soon!