Our Cottage, Earthquakes, Mosaic

Only two Sundays ago at twelve at night we had a big earthquake again in the South Island of New Zealand. It was a 7.8 and our cottage shook and moved and we held onto the door post of the bedroom.

It is a very frightening experience and because we went through the Christchurch earthquakes six years ago a lot of memories flooded back.

In Kaikoura on the East coast of the South Island there is a lot of damage and big slips and rock falls and no way to get in or out of  town.

It will take months or longer to get this tourist town back to some normality and I feel for the people living through this disaster, I really knows what it is like.

                                                 

 For months I have been working on my mosaic around our fireplace, it resembles our fishpond and it took so long to finish, because I had many other jobs to do.
During the earthquake, the first thing that went through my head " O no, I hope my mosaic won't break, I just got it done".
Isn't it silly, like my mosaic is so important! Maybe that is how the brain works in a threatening event, thinking of something irrelevant as a way to cope.

 The next morning in daylight Henk checked the cottage and we only have a few cracks and no damage and when I walked around the garden I felt really blessed to live here.
We have no mansion and our cottage feels sometimes a bit small, but we have so much to be thankful for.

Fish pond

Our cottage

The cabin in the front

Garden beds

a new vegetable patch

Ollie and the view over the hopfields

I am part of Sunday Sketches

Pencil drawings and art therapy for the elderly

The last few weeks I am trying to get back into drawing again with graphite pencils.

I got a book from the library about High Country farming in New Zealand and found some nice images of shepherds and their working dogs.

I am planning to do an oil painting of a New Zealand shepherd carrying an exhausted sheep on his back with his dogs at his side.

Like the Good Shepherd carrying us when we feel tired and bugged down with life.

This week was a stressful week, I started a job on Thursday morning, but got a call that evening cancelling the job again. I had so hoped to earn some extra money for the wedding of my son Paul and Emma in December.

A working dog waiting in his kennel

A shepherd  with his dogs rounding up sheep

Last week I did an art session at the local rest home and the ladies painted a watercolour background and we made cards with the background adding ink stamped images and glitter paint.
The ladies enjoyed the session and the group is growing every fortnight.

Art class at the rest home

Coming week I like to make paper flowers from tissue paper, the classes are on a Thursday morning so I better start preparing the flowers to show the ladies a finished sample.
I love peonies and the paper flowers will look like peonies.

Painting with watercolours

I hope to have a better week ahead and wish you all a great week too.

I am part of Sunday Sketches

A drawing from the past

Quite a few years ago I made this charcoal drawing of a Maori lady I met in Picton on the top of the South Island. 

Her story was remarkable.

I don't know her name anymore and she never saw this drawing.

Together with her son she owned a little tourist shop and when I walked in I was straight away captured by her presence, her aura of wisdom and grace. In Maori language this is called "Mana".

I approached her and told her she looked beautiful.
She had a moko tattooed on her chin and I asked her if I could take a photograph of her, so I could later sketch her.
She agreed to the photograph and then she told me her story:

"I was married to a Pakeha man [meaning white man] for many years, but then I had an horrendous accident and nearly died. I still have a scar on my forehead from this accident.
I decided that when I would live, I would have a moko tattooed on my face, because I was given another chance of life.
I lived and recovered from the accident and got a moko.
My husband didn't like it and he told me he couldn't wake up every morning next to me and look at the moko on my face, so he left me.
But I know that I had to be true to myself for what  I believed in and to this day I never regretted my decision".

I really admired her to do what was right for her and a few weeks later I did the charcoal drawing of her.
She was one of those people you meet on your way for a just a moment in time, but as a gift of wisdom.
I am part of Sunday Sketches.