New York City..... where dreams are made of!

Our trip to the USA brought new ideas and wonder to my art world. This painting of Conservatory Waters nestled in Central Park NY was alive with wonderful inspiration and beautiful settings for any artist. I would have been happy to have sat there all day just sketching all the sights and scenery, but we had limited time and were constantly on the move to try and get the most of this concrete jungle.

This painting is a late afternoon view as we approached Conservatory Waters on the south east side of Central Park. Most of you will recognise it from a few movies which were shot there such as 'Home Alone 2', 'Stuart Little', 'Breakfast at Tiffany's', Kramer vs Kramer to name a few. I loved the way the sun was catching the sides of the buildings and casting wonderful orange reflections in the water of the pond.

Happy Anniversary !

Well, I'm still around and happy to report that I'm now slowly getting back into painting again after what seems like an age. The last few months have been quite exhausting and busy to say the least and I have really missed my painting. The World Cup Soccer has long passed and visitors have all safely returned home. My stepdaughter's wedding  in the USA went off wonderfully and I can safely say we are over our jet lag and ready for the final haul of 2010.

As I type, spring is about to pounce on us and have already noticed that some trees in my garden have started shooting. Sadly, I missed a few little Daffodils in my garden that came into bloom when I was away. Does this mark my 1st year anniversary of my blog? I remember my very first post on my blog, it was a photo of my first Daffodil of the year. Gosh how time flies!  It seems like it was yesterday! May I take this opportunity in thanking all my wonderful blogger friends who have so diligently popped in and left me inspiration and goodwill comments on my work over the past year. You guys are great, and I appreciate your time. THANK YOU!

I have the WSSA (Watercolour Society of South Africa) 84th National exhibition coming up in September and I need to get some paintings done to submit for it. Unfortunately, I have hit a blank wall for ideas at the moment so will have to really channel my energies into that over the next day or so. Wish me luck!

Lastly, What's a blog without an image.......? This painting I leave you with was a little bit of playing just before I left for the States. I have never tried this before and had so much fun creating it. I laid tissue paper in strips onto 300gsm watercolour paper with Gesso and washed watercolour pigments over the dried paper. The textures it made were quite inspiring. What came from it looks like crags and crevices with  foothills in the foreground. What do you say? Could this be somewhere in the Drakensberg mountain range in KwaZulu Natal? Anyway, wherever this painting takes you -  hope you enjoy it.

Have a wonderful week, what's left of it!