imhilien

I recently finished a painting of a castle and it's available in my Redbubble store as a greeting card, tote bag and other stuffs.

https://www.redbubble.com/i/sticker/Castle-by-NicciArt/132074660.EJUG5

July means winter Down Under and recently it has been cold. Last week I think it was, it dropped down to 2 c / 34 F one night and that was a bit horrible for me despite all the layers on my bed. I couldn't cope with colder temperatures than that. If it snows, don't go has been my life long motto.

My work has been busy as it's school holidays. In the gift shop they have I've got one of my landscape paintings up for sale. I also have some greeting cards with my art on for sale as well; I've sold two cards so far so that's great.

I feel sorry for Australia at the moment; New South Wales is having trouble with a bad Covid outbreak and Sydney has been in lockdown.

I've got book club on Sunday; the subject is books or authors beginning with 'C'. I might bring along 'Cold Comfort Farm' which is always good for a chuckle, as well as 'Chalice' by Robin McKinley which is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast; the heroine has honey-based magic.

My laptop's hard drive broke down a little while ago and it needed a complete replacement. I lost some files unfortunately because I hadn't backed them up, urgh. Of course this happened just before season 5b (5b!) of 'Lucifer' came out on Netflix so I had to wait a week before my laptop came back before I could watch the episodes. It started off a bit slow and then really got going. When he's not going through angst and anguish, Lucifer gives the impression he's actually a golden retriever in disguise who loves his Detective. Aww. I wrote some fanfic after the season final which is up on A03.




There is an English woman on YouTube doing vlogs of Babylon 5 and is getting quite excited as she's working her way through season 2. Heh heh.

Babylon 5: Season 2 - YouTube


There is a cold south-wester outside at the moment so am staying indoors as much as possible.

Well, in the last few days it suddenly turned into summer with temperatures in the early 20’s. Hooray. It’s good to wear t-shirts again.

I recently went with a friend to the Corsini family art exhibition currently on at the Auckland Art Gallery, where there were paintings that went all the way back to the 13th century, some paintings by artists such as Botticelli and Caravaggio.

The reason we are lucky to get an exhibition like this dates back from World War 2. A New Zealand battalion was based in Florence near where the Corsini family lived, and helped protect the art being carried off by Nazis, which all sounds a bit Indiana Jones-ish, doesn't it. One of the paintings (of the family saint!) was actually shot twice at by a Nazi, and the family afterwards decided to keep the bullet holes in as a reminder of the war to future generations.

So, all these years later as a way of saying thank you, they allowed New Zealand to have an exhibition of their paintings - I think it’s the first time this art has been outside Florence. Most of the paintings were religious or Greek / Roman myth based, which was typical in pre-19th century art. There were some of family members from the late Middle Ages which I liked as it’s good to see how people dressed in those days.

One painting was of an unidentified man from the Middle Ages who had a very ‘Professor Snape’ expression – you could almost imagine him thinking, ‘why am I stuck here having my portrait done when I could be doing More Important Things you idiots’. LOL.

My friend and I had lunch first at the gallery café, which was a good idea as we were in the exhibition for a few hours. There were also other things as Ye Olde kitchen ware and a dining room table set for a meal.

https://www.aucklandartgallery.com/whats-on/exhibition/the-corsini-collection

Well, I recently completed a new picture at my art class called 'Lantern Festival'. It's based on a photo I took at night at a Chinese Lantern Festival a few years ago. :D

When I started the painting, I was at my usual art group at the local community centre. Then the two oldest members decided not to come any more and oh, the room rental was going up. It was decided to move the group somewhere else, but that fell through and then the tutor decided the group wasn't viable anymore.

*sigh*

Luckily I found another art group nearby at an art gallery (a former scout hall, actually) and it's much nicer. The fees are cheaper and the facilities are great. People have their art on the walls. I have to pay a gold coin for a cup of tea, but that's ok. It was a nice place to finish my painting.

http://imhilien.deviantart.com/art/Lantern-Festival-690951295