Building of our house in Ubud has started now we have fun shopping for materials.

After so much planning the building of our dream house has started. We are on site every day, it is so exciting to see things moving ahead.

We are out every day looking at the materials and finishes that we want in our house.

We find some beautiful re-cycled Ironwood timber, perfect for the outdoor areas.

In a junk shop I find a chandelier, the price is crazy and well over budget but I am not leaving without it.

In the same shop, a place where we would spend many hours over the next few months, we find heavy decorative metal panels salvaged from houses in Java, perfect for those places that we want to leave open but still secure.

We buy the three temples we need find some amazing flying dragons that will go onto the roof.

Ancient Landscape my new work on paper.

Take a look at how I create my contemporary art pieces in my latest video.

I started this painting by applying thin layers of acrylic wash. Then adding details with black ink.

More layers of thin acrylic applied with a roller to build up the texture.

To finish I worked more details with black ink.

We have our land and now to build our dream house.

For many months, while living at Nando House I had been designing how I imagined our dream house in Ubud would look. Everywhere I went I would take a tape measure with me and I would measure rooms and ceiling heights. I looked at materials people had used in their houses and made notes of what I liked. Now that we had our land I was able to refine my designs to suit and spent many hours there with my sketch book and tape measure getting my design right.

I found a local company who could translate my drawings to working plans. At a meeting with them they told me that they also built houses. We looked at many of their projects and liked what they were doing. We had our builder.

We had a survey done and the shape and size of our house was pegged out on our block, this was changed three times, the last time Tim and I did at dawn one morning.

We signed a contract with the builders and we are ready to start to build the first house we have ever built.

We are living in Ubud.

For years we imagined living in Ubud but really it was a distant dream, sometimes dreams do come true and we were here. We knew that the process ahead us, finding and leasing land and building a house would take time, so we settled into Nando House, a Balinese homestay close to the center of town. Nando House suited us perfectly, it was within easy walking distance to the area where we wanted land and the family were very welcoming. This would be our home for the next two years.

Our large room became our bedroom, sitting room and of course, painting studio. We had a small bathroom and even smaller kitchen.

And so, with the help of Pak Gusti the journey of finding land began. A group of friends from Perth came to visit and we showed them around through the muddy rice fields.

After many months we found the perfect piece of land and met with the family who owned it, I also started my first drawings of how I imagined of house.

Our move from Perth to Ubud.

Tim and I first came to Ubud almost twenty years ago and it was love at first sight. We came for two weeks every year and imagined that one day we would live there. We loved where we lived in the Perth Hills in the small village of Mundaring. Our house was a centaury old cottage with a large garden, all very run down but magical. Over the eighteen years we lived there we transformed the house and garden into something very special, established an amazing garden and built a large studio. But the cold winters and hot summers took a toll and the day finally came when we looked at each other and said, “ lets move to Ubud “

And so the epic job of selling the house, packing up all of the things we wanted to keep and bring to the new world and the hardest thing of all, saying goodbye to our beautiful dog Cherry Blossom, we were on the journey.

more to follow.

How I create my contemporary art: The Making of 'Magpie Song'

I started this painting drawing Magpies in my sketch book. Then the shapes of Magpies onto paper which I cut out and placed onto my canvas until I was happy with the composition. Then drawing these shapes onto my canvas and working with charcoal, oil stick and oil paint and paper collage to achieve the finished painting. The paper I used for the collage is from 1950’s school text books.

Magpie Song, I am very happy with the result of my latest contemporary art piece.

How I create a painting.

Three weeks of work in my studio The Tree Of Life is now finished.

Fingers Crossed

This week I delivered my piece to the Wanneroo Art Awards, fingers crossed.

This year I am entering the sculpture category. Girt By Sea is soda fired Raku clay. The title, meaning surrounded by sea is a line from the Australian national anthem.

My painting provides home inspiration

Lovely to learn in this article in the Weekend West New Homes Magazine that my painting has such a prominent place in this new home! Excerpt from the article: “A striking painting of African women and children, in shades of blue and brown, inspired the colour scheme for this light-filled home with panoramic views across the Canning River and Perth city skyline…….The painting, by WA artist Christine Hingston, takes pride of place in the home’s foyer, opposite another Hingston work depicting a bustling African marketplace.”