Wild Girl and snake

Lots has been happening at ‘The Nest’ – there has been a lot of ART going on for a start. I Heart Drawing, my figure drawing workshop, is off and running at a million drawings an hour! And now, I am looking to continue working on Artini which is a whole NEW School.

But I needed a little palate cleanser -( or should that be palette cleanser?!!)… and that came in the way of a surprise parcel from Letraset ! As an affiliate, they kindly sent me a set of their new Neon Markers to try out from the UK – and they get a big thumbs up! Loves me a bit ‘o’ neon. And lightfast neon – LOVE that! They are sort-of like Aquamarkers ie: gutsy, controllable watercolour. I pushed them by mixing them with water, matt medium and gesso.

It seems like a hundred years ago that I signed up for my pal Mindy Lacefield’s  class ‘Paint Your Story’. I managed to squeeze all the vids in on the weekend – cramming my eyes with her super-whimsical, soulful delights.  I could listen to her Arkansas drawl all day!

so… what came out of the New markers? A strange double horned Unicorn girl with banging hot body. That’s what you get when you mix Neon, carefree painting and a figure drawing class – some of my current inspirations.

And here is the video of her coming together:

Letraset Neon Markers: Twin-tipped Neon Markers offer brilliant, fluorescent colour in high quality Markers. They are pigmented and lightfast, making them perfect for adding vibrant highlights to art and design work.

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In other news, ‘my’ koala’s baby is big enough to venture out on the branches on it’s own. I try not to annoy them, by going out to gaze too often. And some days, they are in the trees that are easily viewable from my desk. I can see them both right now. I am blessed by the Marsupial Gods!

To counter balance this slice of heavenly joy in my life, I had a 2m plus carpet python try and come and sit next to me as i was eating my lunch on the deck in the sunshine. They are silent. Absolutely silent. I  didn’t even notice the snake until I saw it from the corner of my eye and it was nearly in my lap. If the Olympic selection committee were driving past at the same moment as my leap of the chair, I would be put in all the vault events for Rio. ( Sponsors may not like the swearing though…).

LUCKILY, Rob the tV antannae repair man was here, and HE was a bit of a Steve Irwin. He fashioned a snake catcher with some pvc pipe and tv cable. He secured the snake around the head, and carried to the farm over the road. The snake was probably very confused and wonderring what it had done wrong!

On telling my mother of the adventure, she was dissapointed that we didn’t invite it to live in the roof. Her vision was for it to become my pet and be fed frozen rats. Don’t want the snake in my roof. Don’t want the frozen rats in my fridge. The thing with the carpet pythons is one minute they are there, the next minute gone again. They are silent, and can fit into the tiniest space, so a constant surprise! But the dealbreaker is that the Python would eat Tinsel. Not on my watch buddy.

The python isn’t poisonous and pretty relaxed, but the way it went and hid in the remnants from moving that are still under the house means all that stuff will be gone tomorrow ( mark my words!)

p.s. As we drove of to the shops the today, guess who I spotted about to cross the road and come back again? We stopped the car and clapped our hands and generally made a big noise, and snakipoo turned around and headed the other way. I have NO doubt at all that it will be back. Just if it could stay away from the dogs and live in the forest end of the property? I would never ever harm it in all is bizarre beauty, but no to being near me, the doglettes, and the koala baby!

So that’s a snake count of two, koala count of two, brush tail possum 3 ( 2 adults and a baby on the back of one…aaaawwww), two ringtailed possies, a posse of bandicoots, a native jumping marsupial mouse of some description, 3 green tree frogs, 3 Cane toads (all deceased. Toad meet shovel)  2 x owls, and a small colony of TEENY TINY micro bats that live under the verandah eave, a big huntsman spider that had a beard and turquoise blue blood ( it lost part of a  limb when we were pruning a tree , a huge orange spider that lives in the banana trees,  several stripey huntsman spiders that live in the woodpile, which I will have NOTHING to do with and  there are birds galore!

It’s so amazing seeing all this life around us. I am still pinching myself every day.

xoxox

Jane