ART OF NEIGHBORS

So here we are, living in the ‘Burbs’, remarkably it is not as difficult a situation as I thought to get used to, although I do miss having my art studio detached from the house.

One of the things I was most worried about was to have neighbors.

When you have been living on a farm and the nearest house is kilometers away this was a daunting idea. No more running around the yard starkers-well not that I made that a big habit of that but just the fact that we could when and if we wanted to.

We are making the backyard into our own little Balinese sanctuary here with high bamboo fence, lots of palms, elephant ears and ferns, a Bali hut and comfy day bed and decking around one side of the pool with paving and some feature stones on the other.

We do love water features too and have a natural rock pond in a corner setting and a Balinese head sculpture on the patio and two big white fish sculptures spitting into the pool (emm..well that did not sound very nice did it, lol but it is really, I assure you.)

It is starting to take shape and hopefully will make up for the lack of space and open fields we are used to and at least we can pretend we are in the jungle somewhere far away from civilization.

ART & ANIMATION

The animation above is a combination of several of my paintings put together; The “Balloon Wedding” ( Giclee print) combined with “Shake Rattle and Roll” (acrylic painting) as well as the stars from “You can walk your own ferret” which is an artwork in ceramic and mosaic and the animation was actually made by one of my new neighbors Suzie.

So far we have been very lucky with the neighbors they all seem very friendly and nice and I even went out to lunch with Suzie, the other day.  She is American and I had a little laugh to myself when I got to the restaurant as it looked just like an American diner.

We had a very lovely time at “Fresh Choice” and it was too, with all you could eat.  I refrained from making a total pig of myself and did not even spill a drop of my lunch on my clothes, which if you have been following my art blogs is something of a miracle.

Suzie is a bit of a whizz kid on the computer and has given me valuable advice on my art website and also has two websites of her own.

ART & ANIMATION WEBSITES

This link will take you to her Christmas Animations and you can use any of these animations with the money going to charity.  On her other site she has book marks and I am very happy that she photographed the orchid that has been officially named after moi: the” Marie Jonsson-Harrison orchid” (written about in another blog) and then she made it into a book mark.

There are lots of other bookmarks on this sight too with many Australian animals and funny quotes, so click here Flashman Bookmarks to have a little look.   Use this link to see my page with more of my artwork animated too;MARIES ANIMATIONS

So I had a nice day and it gave me joy, so here are some wise words from E.B White (writer).

“We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry.”

Till next time happy painting and sculpting and also animating to you!

Love Marie xxx            (c)

Why not come and have a look at Marie Jonsson-Harrison’s PAINTINGS FOR SALE, GICLEE PRINTS FOR SALE and SCULPTURES for sale or WALLBASED SCULPTURES.  Enjoy an original artwork on your walls or perhaps one on your bed ARTnBED.

So you know the drill, you have a special occasion coming up, something romantic like an anniversary maybe, lol and you want to celebrate in style and make it special.  Well that’s what we have done with nearly all of our wedding anniversaries, bar a few when the kids were little and we could not bear to leave them or money was short.

(In this painting “Rub a dub dub, there is a woman in my tub!” I was having a somewhat better time that what evolved, oh and there seems to be some Romeo peeking in too, I’m sure that’s not Bryan.)

Otherwise a night or two in a fancy hotel is in order, room service, champagne, best bottle of red we can afford, romantic dinner by candlelight, room with a view and a spa of course.  Now as it happened this year we had just had 2 weeks with all of the above in Bali and then come home to a very very hectic move into the new house and we thought mmm… new house, kids away for the weekend, let’s just stay home- we now have the view, 2 spas to choose from, hubby had bought ingredients for a lovely dinner set the table with candle lights etc., everything was planned.

So it should have been perfect then right?  WRONG  – Silly us – instead of taking the day off, we decided that we would each work until 3pm when we would meet on the patio for drinks and nibbles.

You see with the new house and all and it’s renovation time, the laundry needed an overhaul, so hubby is busy doing that whilst I am in the art studio.

Both of us tearing our hair out as it happens, as everything that could go wrong did go wrong!  At hubby’s end the newly bought cupboards are the too small, shelves are for a pantry and not a laundry, wrong hoses and fittings that doesn’t match and to top that off he drops the bench top on his leg and at first thinks it’s broken (lucky it is not but looks nasty). Oh and the new tiles are the wrong shade of white and will have to be returned.

ART GALLERY

In the studio I am fearing no better, I have just received a $400 dollar cheque for a painting which should have sold for $1500!  So I am trying to find out what went wrong there, is the mistake our end or gallery end?  Then the emails decide that they won’t send, not even one email, they just go into cyberspace somewhere.  Where do all this emails go anyway- is there some sort of catchment area for stray emails?  I cannot reach anyone by phone either as our new number is playing up, topped up with the iphone that now is refusing to send messages too!  Oh and did I forget to tell you the ART website was having issues too!

So there were two cranky people that met up not at 3pm but by now 5pm for a bottle of Champagne!   Ok so hubby has now got the spa going and has lined the entire bathroom with candle lights, very romantic.

He goes off and checks the water level and adds a bit more bubbles to the water and then rather sheepishly calls for me to join him.

NEW PAINTING IDEAS

Well you should have seen it – he had somehow upended the bottle of soapsuds and now we had a ‘white soapsud monster’ growing in the spa, it grew and grew and covered half way up the walls and put all the candles out, filled up the wineglasses and then proceeded to travel over the spa itself till the whole bathroom was covered.  Well as if that was not enough, why should that be enough I ask you- let’s bring it on! – and it did, because now the ‘white soapsud monster’ was starting to travel down the carpet covered hallway, as I am alternatively laughing and screaming at hubby to hop out of the spa and help me save the carpet and furniture!  You get the picture!

I know now why he did nothing to help as by the time I finally hopped into the spa I understood entirely- the temperature of the spa was that hot-you actually cooked upon getting in and any rational thoughts, never mind the romantic ones simply vanished!

So in the end when the water cooled down a bit I ended up having a lovely spa with our two dogs, whilst hubby called the local Indian take away delivery service, as by this stage it was really late and he was not in the mood to cook.  We did finally have a rather nice night, exchanged presents, laughed and said let’s just get DRUNK!

I think this saying fits rather nicely here by Martin Luther (Theologian)

“He who does not like wine, song, and wife, Remains a fool for the whole of his life.”

Till next time happy painting and sculpting to you all,

Love Marie  xx

Why not come and have a look at Marie Jonsson-Harrison’s PAINTINGS FOR SALE, GICLEE PRINTS FOR SALE and SCULPTURES for sale or WALLBASED SCULPTURES.  Enjoy an original artwork on your walls or perhaps one on your bed ARTnBED.