Male Carpenter Bee

This photographic specimen sat quietly while both my neighbour and I snapped happily away.  There is quite a colony of female bees burrowing into a dead section of the teatree.  I initially thought they were bumblebees but a great website on native bees enlightened me.   I have a healthy population of different native bees in the front of the house so hopefully this means I have a healthy little environment at my front door!

These were the final colours of sunset two days ago and last night the whole sky was the most incredible  palette of greys with soft pink blushes punctuated by crispy white thunderheads rising higher and higher into the sky.  Wet season skies make up for the oppressive humidity leading into the Wet proper.   That humidity is my excuse for not getting into the clay!

Sunset Inspiration

Just some of the wonderful colours which inspire this.

Special memories of 'the walker' leaving his footprints in the sand will always be in my heart.

Pots and 'dines'

We are getting some late storms and the sunsets accompanying these downpours have been spectacular. A late afternoon drive to Rocky Point boat ramp caught some keen fishermen with a golden backdrop I just had to capture. In the few minutes it takes to get home round River Drive the light changed and the skies lit up with the most incredible pink hues.

I played a little with the camera in between trimming pots today- yes I am easily distracted but sometimes my eyes see things I just can't ignore. I was explaining to my favourite little person in the house how you can see through ice and then what did I see!!!
Finally the clay is forming - I hate recycling but it just had to be done. I throw in a little local red dirt and I get excited thinking about the results under glazes so it makes the task less tedious. I just hope I stay on this roll and keep the hands working but life often throws us the odd curved ball so who knows. I seem to spend a lot of time skipping from one pottery blog to another and not actually getting outside into the heat and pushing that clay about but I did catch the video on making seals and decided I might just do that in between recycling clay..... but as you can see there are things drying so I did manage to do a little bit of work yesterday and trimmed today.

A lot has changed in my life the last couple of years so I thought maybe a change in my mark making might also be due. The three little people who make me look at the world in a fun carefree way and remind me that family is all important have merged into my new mark and I like its look and what it means to me.
And here are two little hands having fun with clay - he loves 'dines' so we had our own little version of 'Ice Age' happening - now this is potting at its best.