There are seasons in life when we find ourselves chasing more noise, more momentum, more achievement.
Then there are quieter seasons.
This Journal belongs to the second.
For many years my work centered initially around painting highly detailed, realistic pet portrait commissions and then later obtaining my AIPP Accreditation and running a professional photography studio.
More recently, life interrupted my plans and after a lengthy break I found myself picking up my paintbrushes again as a way to keep myself occupied while I recovered from an injury.
Returning to painting with watercolour and soft pastels in a more expressive, intuitive way allowed me to rediscover something I hadn’t even realised I’d missed.
Painting asks me to slow down. To really notice the changing light across a paddock, the colours hidden in a shadow, or the way a handful of flowers can transform an ordinary corner of the garden.
Finding my way back to painting for no one but myself, working loosely and intuitively without a reference photo or a client brief to answer to has been a wonderful thing.
Learning to enjoy the process again instead of just chasing the finish line and the finished artwork has been so freeing. Especially with watercolour, a relatively new medium I picked up briefly in 2021.
The lack of control with the pigments and water is why the medium never interested me in the past, but today its that same lack of control that gives me the most freedom to create more expressively.
Some days it feels like starting over. Most days it feels like coming home.
Alongside all of this, since about 2020 I’ve been leaning into a simpler, more intentional way of living — in the studio and out of it. I’ve always noticed the small beautiful things in an ordinary day: the light changing across a paddock, colour hiding in a shadow, a handful of wildflowers on the side of the road. I’m not sure that’s new.
What’s new is intentionally choosing to slow down enough to really notice and appreciate them, instead of letting them pass by while I rush on to the next thing.
Home for me is our farm in the south west of Western Australia where I live with my husband, youngest son, dogs, horses and a growing herd of Pygmy Goats.
Life here follows the rhythm of the seasons. There are busy days, chaotic days, unexpected days and beautiful ordinary days. Those ordinary moments are often the ones that stay with me the longest and inspire my paintings.
This Journal is simply a place to share them.
You’ll find glimpses of paintings as they take shape, photographs from around the farm, thoughts that arrive while walking the paddocks and the small moments that often inspire my work.
Some posts may be about art, some about country life. Some about nothing more than learning to slow down and pay attention.
I don’t have a schedule to keep or a list of topics to tick off. I’ll write when there’s something worth sharing, whether that’s a finished painting, the first rain after a long dry season, a lesson learned from spending time outdoors or something one of our little goats did that made me laugh.
If you’ve found your way here, thank you. I’d love for you to stick around and follow along. I have a feeling this next chapter is going to be a good one, and it’s the kind of good I’d like to share with other people who love this same quiet, slow, noticing kind of life. If that sounds like you, I you’re in the right place.
Here’s to slowing down and to whatever comes next.
Until next time,
Michelle