Queen of the Roost...

"Queen of the Roost" 7"x 5" watercolor c. 2014

We have finally arrived at the first painting I completed in New Zealand.  It was five months of unsettled life for us from Nov. 2013 to April 2014.  First, we attempted changing apartments in Dresden to try and save money in November.  Oh boy.  We packed everything up, moved, nearly froze, and then moved back to our original place.    In December, I did some sketching and rough paintings, but then we spent the whole month of January packing up again and getting ready to fly.  The middle of February, we ended up moving from the south island to the north island of New Zealand and then spent another month apartment hunting.

The couple we rented a room from in Wellington were so kind and understanding, especially when it was taking us so much longer to find an apartment than we planned. Our one week stay had turned into four. We agreed that we wanted to do something nice for them.  They had three mischievous little hens in their backyard who liked to get out of their pen and hide their eggs.  The big golden-red hen definitely caught my eye, what a beauty!  She seemed to think she was pretty special too. 

We moved into our apartment towards the end of March.  There is just something about having my own kitchen and a table I can work at that gets my mind back into the creative mode again.  After all that flying around, it feels so good to have a "roost" again!