Le Page Homestead and a Painting

Hello Blog World,

As you all know I went on a 10 day holiday at the end of the November 2011 to celebrate my darling friend and adopted mother Jenny’s 60th Birthday.  She has been my mentor with my painting and drawing and since moving interstate I have missed her dearly.

She is a such a talented painter and thanks to her tutelage I have also grown as an artist (still nowhere near her though).   Here is a sample of her work in acrylics.



Jen, loves painting sceneries especially Australian, and her trees are just amazing!!  She is part of an art group in Melbourne called Plenty Valley Arts that has an art Gallery at Hawkstowe Park – South Morang, Victoria at the old Le Page Homestead.


This beautiful old homestead built in the 1850’s is nested in the park surrounded by beautiful gardens, scenery and a dam.  The most amazing thing is though it is less than 5 minutes from a main road but you would never know, it is so beautiful and quiet.


This is the dam out the back, so peaceful.  The day we were there, there were ducks playing and splashing about in it.



And a taste of the beautiful gardens surrounding the homestead.  Victoria Parks gardeners do a wonderful job on the upkeep.

Part of Jenny’s commitment with Plenty Valley Arts is to look after the homestead on Gallery days, well it happened to be her turn while I was there, so off we went, I got all these lovely shots, and in our down time we did what we do best and painted.

Since I am still trying to master watercolours and since I had my mentor on hand we decided we would play around with them.  I am also not very good at trees so Jenny says I need to practice and that’s what we did and this is what I came up with.



Obviously this is unframed, just finished actually.  Still taped to the board I painted it on.  It is bigger than an A4 size, so I will need to either find a frame at a thrift store or get it professionally framed.  I had lots of fun doing it and while I still have a long way to go these are the best trees I have ever painted.  The sky however was supposed to be more orangey like a sunset but this reminds me of fire.  So I have named it “Fire in the Australian Skies”

Anyway do yourself a favour, if you are from Australia or even overseas and get to Melbourne, visit Hawkstowe Park and Le Page Homestead and experience the beautiful scenery and home as well as the fantastically talented artists from Plenty Valley Arts.

It is still quite hot here in Queensland 38 degrees today, and this painting just reminds me of that as the sky is like this most evenings here, so I am off to cool down a bit and plan some dinner and a grocery list.
Until then Happy Crafting

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