We have found a house to rent that we liked. I will do a proper house tour as soon as our things arrive, and if we are lucky they will arrive at the end of next week. For now we are camping in the living room. We bought an air mattress for the time being, and I went to the thrift store and bought what we needed for the kitchen. It is quite amazing how few things you actually need. I do miss having a proper chair, though, sitting on the suitcase is not that comfortable for a longer period of time… ;-)
It is the last of January already. The days and weeks have just flown past. I am happy that we found our house as fast as we did. Tomorrow it will be exactly one week since we moved in. We have spent the whole week cleaning, and it feels good to have gotten that done before our things arrive.
I found a few places along the river where the local Kingfisher seems to live, so I went out with my camera one day. I got some really nice and useful photos taken. I will share a few of the best ones here once I have finished going through them. I took more than 2000 photos, so it will take a while to go through them all. I was also able to capture the spoonbill, one of the herons and a stilt. So lots of new material to paint from!
I have not painted much since being in New Zealand. I do not know where to begin. So, instead of waiting for inspiration to hit, I decided to do some colour mixing charts for my new Daniel Smith and Sennelier watercolours. It was fun and quite meditative. It also gave me time to digest all the new impressions and inspirations from around me. Now when the house is ready to receive our things, I can’t wait to start sketching again.
My new wonderful and beautiful daniel Smith palette.
My new Sennelier palette. It is just a basic palette to test these honey-based colours.
Last, a sneak peek into the room that will become my new studio:
A lot of light during the whole day. I already like spending time here even if I do not have any furniture yet...
I will have to cover the carpet with something, a nice light something that I can drop paint on all I want!
Once we sort out the internet to our house, I hope to get back into my habit of writing weekly again. Until then!