Flooded

Unless you are living on the moon you will by now have heard about the flooding in Queensland, Australia. The Brisbane River reached its peak last night and many, many buildings are inundated. The photo above (from the Courier Mail) shows a flooded street corner in the Brisbane CBD, the one below was taken by my husband yesterday; it shows the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital where he works (and where I work on my thesis on Fridays).



We are incredibly lucky to be living in a high-lying suburb, not close to the river or one of its tributaries, and we have had no problems at all - thank God. But we have spent the last few days glued to the television, radio and internet to follow what was happening in Sout-East Queensland and our thoughts are with the victims of this disaster, and their families.

With all this happening, and our 4-year old being sick for the last 2 days, you will understand that I have not done any sewing or quilting recently. I did manage to work my way halfway through this wonderful book:



If you are interested in learning to draw I can highly recommend it, and even if you are not, it is a fascinating read. Here are some of the exercises I have done so far:



I think it will be useful to finish this book before I get back to the Sketchbook Challenge.

Sketching

I did some sketching today - any idea what the above is supposed to be? My 6-year old thought it was a toothbrush ;-).

I was actually trying to abstract this image:



and quite surprised at how much you can take away and still keep the essence - although that may have been because I knew the image? I tried the same with the gymnast on pommel horse that I depicted in my Balance 2 quilt:





Of course this is the process they use for the pictograms at the Olympics etcetera... I would love to study graphic design! (maybe someday, when I have finished my PhD...)

I have also started on the Sketchbook Challenge for January - the theme is Highly Prized. I will show you some of my drawings soon.