Dear Old Lily

 

My wonderful 13+ y.o. standard poodle Lily had her left eye removed a few weeks back, and we are still trying to get used to a permanently winking old lady.

She has been going blue in that eye for time, so her vision wasn't good enough for her to dodge twigs in the garden. She damaged it once last October, we treated it and over some time, it healed. After a few days staying at the kennels, she came home weeping a bit from that eye again. Sure enough she had done it again. I had ointment, so kept putting that in everyday, but it would come good for a few days, then regress. I had a family tragedy arise that slowed my attention to a crawl for time, but finally it got bad enough to warrant taking her to the vet.

My usual lovely vet was on holidays, and the one I saw instead dragged me heavily through a guilt trip, inferring that she hadn't healed from the 2011 issue. It didn't matter how I protested, she wouldn't relent, and suggested I take Lily to see an eye specialist down in Malvern East to try to save the eye. On ringing their offices, I couldn't get an appointment at Moe, who has only one day per month there, so would have to wait a while for the Malvern appointment. Lily was obviously uncomfortable, and I was getting no constructive advice from my vet, so felt it probably should be removed to stop the serial relapses and her suffering. I did ring the night before hoping for some different medication that might help it, but Megan said no, there wasn't.


I had no choice but to use Megan for the surgery, as my lovely vet was still away, but she toned down my guilt trip to a manageable level.
Lily has been brave and dignified through the whole process, but the sight of her stumbling out to me with her topknot clipped off and huge stitches over that side, took my breath away. Such a visual shock! I sobbed loudly all the way home in the car.
She had her stitches out last week and never moved a muscle, earning a dried liver treat from Megan.

I still look at her and am surprised to see her winking, but when her topknot grows back, I will scissor the hair into a fetching Greta Garbo look, and hopefully we'll barely notice. What a girl!

Tomorrow's the Show!

Well, it's taken a while for my Hot Seat Millionaire episode to air, but it will be on tomorrow night (28th) at 5.25pm.

All my friends are very excited and their friends as well ..... so the local ratings for the show will lift marginally for a day.

I was given a bottle of Bollinger by Mr Bliss for Christmas and have been saving it for a special occasion. A few local pals are coming to watch it on our big screen, so it seems like the perfect opportunity to pop the cork!

Talk about 5 minutes of fame!

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Apart from that, I am practicing on my new Wacom pen tablet, and having a lovely time. I have always loved scratchboard art, which is board with a layer of kaolin clay, then a top layer of indian ink. Scratching the surface with a special tool creates fine lines of white.... perfect for creating fur, and anything else you can come up with.

I decided to bypass the board and do it digitally, which has worked a treat. When I want to print some, I will do a limited edition giclee print on quality paper and have a finished artwork. Anyway, here's my first one.

"How To Train Your Dragon'

I took my daughter and her 13 y.o. son to 'How To Train Your Dragon' at Hisense Arena on Sunday, and we had a wonderful time. The show was beyond amazing, with life like dragons of all colours and shapes, and a set that made a whole new benchmark for theatre productions. 

It is hard to get photos to show how the set worked, as it is kept under wraps so we will be amazed when we see it.

We were.

The arena was walled off at half it's size... I suppose to keep the huge dragons stored out of sight, and to use that huge wall as part of the set. The scenery was projected onto the floor and the wall and the scenes rolled and shifted to all parts of the dragon's world. Everything moved, rocks, ladders and other stuff fell and crashed down, houses blew up, flames roared, water lapped and rippled, and fish swam. In one scene, a (real, life size) dragon was chasing a fish in the water. It would appear, and he would jump towards it, the water would splash around his feet, and then it would reappear again for him to chase elsewhere. 

The huge wall at the end would change to order, doors were projected and a real dragon or people would come out of that door.

The flying sequences were totally entrancing, with the scenery rolling up in the air, past mountains, over seas, into the dragon's nest, and the dragon and his hero moving around suspended from the roof, looking just like they were 'in' this scenery.

Down below us, there was a bank of computer guys in front of their screens working hard at timing everything right. Once upon a time, it was an orchestra, now it's computers, a sign of the times.

The dragons were spectacular with the attention to detail mind blowing, down to the smallest wrinkle, stained tooth and muscle definition. The designers said that the muscles were created with shaped bean bags under the skin, so when the dragon moved, those muscles would move realistically.

We loved it, and it was worth the long traveling times to get from Gippsland to Melbourne. It was Moomba weekend, so we were worried about crowds and parking, so the train was the go. I haven't been on one for many years, and I remember why I don't, but it got us there bang on time.

Simon Scama's 'Rembrant' - Magnificent!

Part One of four sections. Well worth a look if you like Rembrandt. Simon does many other great artists and I am looking forward to working my way through them.

'Bermagui Reflections'

This painting was done around 1990 for my Bermagui solo show at Brighton. The reflections nearly sent me crazy, but the result was worth all the work. 

It came runner up in the National Atelier Competition and it's photo was in Australian Artist Magazine.... October 1991 ( I think?).

People came into the show looking to buy it, but it was snapped up early.

I have since done it in pastel as well, and that has sold off my website to a man who bought others at Brighton.

The boats and water were beautiful early in the morning and late afternoon, with still water, orangey light and not too many humans around.

Wise Words Indeed.

Cloudy shapes

On my daughter's Facebook page, she posted the picture above showing a dog/cloud, and wondering whether it was Photoshopped. It's very clever, so I said I would do one as well. Being a poodle person, I chose one as my 'doggy cloud', and see below for my effort.

It takes a while copying, cloning and pasting sections, but I'm pleased with the result.

 

I have just bought a new pen tablet and am looking forward to it arriving next week. My old one became obsolete as I updated computers and operating systems, and they never updated their drivers. 

I am really looking forward to having one again, because I want to do digital art and maybe translate it onto canvas in paint.