The Botanical Gardens

Hi all and Happy Easter!
 I hope you have a wonderful relaxing Easter with family and friends. As tradition we are heading to Great Grandma's house for lunch and the traditional breaking of the eggs. Our extended family is Polish and every Easter we have boiled coloured eggs dyed with brown onion skins. Each member of the family is given an egg to crack onto someone else's until there is a winning uncracked egg. What does the winner receive, hmm nothing.... except the glory of being the egg winner!

On Good Friday we decided to spend a family day at the beautiful South Australian Botanical Gardens, as it was such a gorgeous Autumn day. My youngest daughter who is 14, loves going for walks in the great outdoors, so there really is no better place to go.
A part of the gardens, alongside the path are giant bamboo. It seems to have become a part of the visitors tradition to carve their initials in the bamboo and in such great mass, it actually really does look like a masterpiece of art! Of course my daughter just had to do it..
The best part however was the Rainforest Conservatorium. It is a wonderful dome shape type of building with glass panels to let in the wonderful sunshine. While walking inside with the beautiful trees and palms, they were watering with slow mist coming somewhere from above. The effects were beautiful and I tried to catch some on camera.

Unfortunetly, I forgot to get a photo of the outside of the building so I managed to google an image for reference and found a really nice photograph I thought I would use, by Mr Trevor Hampel. Thankyou, Trevor for letting be borrow your photo as reference!

 

Paint for the sake of Painting

Sometimes you fall in love and sometimes you fall out of love.
However its not a case of me falling out of love with painting and sketching, its more of a matter of forgetting what I am in love with.

My husband always teases me saying "I used to be positive, but now I'm not too sure".
I have always struggled with having faith in my own . Never really seeing myself as an 'artist'.
Even after selling two of my watercolour paintings, I still don't see myself as being called an artist.
I think the problem is that unless I have everyone I know telling me I am this fantastic artist that needs to be selling her work and that they would even buy my work, then I am not an artist.
Just someone who like to draw and paint and isn't that fantastically great.
I was watching re-runs of a TV show the other day, and the girl was telling her male friend that she gave up violin because she wasn't that good at it, and in her family, if you weren't the very best at something then you stop and move on.
The friend then replied, "Haven't you ever done something, just because you love doing it?"
It was this line in the show that struck a chord with me. Why do we as people always strive to be the absolute best there is or quit when we realise maybe we suck.

We are always trying to get approval from everyone else, when all it takes to be happy is to be happy with yourself.

Without getting too emotionally deep, I just want to say that I am happy when I draw and paint. I find it a great escape. No matter what's going on in my life, those few moments I am painting, are calming. Nothing matters in the world accept the colors on the page and I am at peace.

Hugs
Sonya

5 Reasons to keep a daily life sketchbook

Hello,
It has been approximately 2 weeks since I started my daily life sketchbook. Since then I have drawn in it everyday. I love it so much that I can see me doing this for many years to come.
I am so passionate about it, that I want everyone to keep one. I guarantee anyone who decides to keep a daily life sketchbook will be hooked! I'm positive... I really am.

So here for you, is my top 5 reasons for keeping a daily life sketchbook:

1. What is better, I ask you? Capturing your life in Art or Photographs? Just think of any favorite photo you have. A person, an event or object that you have, and now imagine if you had drawn it/painted it yourself? Now how would you feel about it?

2. It's simple- drawing and painting everyday makes you better at it. Think your not good at drawing? That's probably because you don't practice enough. It is like anything else, playing guitar, learning to read, riding a bike. Practise, practise, practise. I know I am not the best drawer, but I also know that in a year or two when I look back at my sketchbook,my art is going to look a lot different.

3. You will be capturing little parts of your day that you probably wouldn't remember in a years time. Not to mention next month, next week, or tomorrow.
In a daily life sketchbook you get to sketch anything you want. What you bought today, what you ate for breakfast, what's in your cupboard, your flowering garden, your favorite drink, a butterfly you found, your next door neighbours annoying cat... Anything to do with your everyday life.

4. You love art, and everyone wants to do their hobby everyday don't they?

5. What better gift to leave your loved ones when your gone. What an amazing insight they will have to the life that was you!
And it is this thought that keeps me going. I know one day my daughters and grandchildren will have something very unique and irreplaceable to always remember me by.





I hope I have convinced even just one more person to start a sketchbook and draw in it daily. Tomorrow I will be back with a list of my most favorite everyday life sketchbook keepers., to give you even a little more inspiration.

Thanks for visiting,

hugs

Sonya XX

New sketchbook pages.

Hi all!
Just wanted to show you all a couple of pages from my Everyday Life sketchbook. Basically I create pages with ink and watercolor paint about things that I have done in the day, or items I have used or bought.
I love this sketchbook the most out of all my art journals. I make it a routine to every night to draw in it. I highly recommend everyone to have a sketchbook like this. It is so rewarding and so much better then a boring photograph. You don't have to be the best drawer out there, just go for it!

MY TWO TEEN DAUGHTER AND I WENT SHOPPING YESTERDAY AND THEY BOTH FELL IN LOVE WITH THE SAME DRESS. THEY ARE ATTENDING A ONE DIRECTION CONCERT NEXT WEEK HERE IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA AND I'M SURE THEY WILL TURN A LOT OF HEADS WHEN DOUBLE TROUBLE WALK IN!

My faithful friends, my adidas runners.

Inside my living room

My dog Lulu, is always looking for passerby's through the window on her chair. She is my little princess who always loves to sit on top of a cushion. She is a very spoilt little girl.

Thanks for visiting,

Hugs Sonya XX