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Boring Background

I'm Blingit. An Aussie SAHM who spends my life at the ballet studio with my kids and in my spare time i paint.

As a rule i have been painting Daily Paintings. They keep my hand in and also stop my anxiety over not being good enough. i have a time limit and thats it. if it doesnt work, i learn something and move on.

anyway on with today

Painting Through the Storm — When Queensland Weather Puts on a Show

Hi everyone, WHAT a day that was...

Last week, the Bureau of Meteorology here in Australia started catastrophising about the storms on Saturday.
“BEWARE SATURDAY,” the warnings said — worst storm day in years, don’t go anywhere… hail, giant hail, more hail, tornados...
You know, the full “batten down the hatches, the sky’s falling” drama.

the media sure knows how to do this well... and its easy to get complacent... however....

Anyway... they were right.
The shit truly hit the fan today — or more accurately, hail hit the roofs.

all the roofs... sometimes more than once in one day...

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When the Forecast Wasn’t Exaggerating

Across the state, it’s been wild.
Good friends of ours have relatives out in Esk, and their cars had every window smashed out — 10cm of hail sitting in the bottom of them like someone had dumped a bag of ice cubes inside.

People are in hospital, damage is everywhere, and I’m honestly not sure how we still have power.
But somehow, miraculously, we do… which means I can sit here and type this instead of pacing around with a torch. im in a mood so i probably would have painted by torch light if i needed to... least then i would have a good excuse for the painting to not have come out well... (which it hasent) but hey can't win them all. i was distracted after all.

After the Chaos

It’s finally quiet now, after four separate waves of tropical storm fronts rolled through.
It’s too dark to go outside — and truthfully, I’m a bit scared of what’s out there right now.

We’ve got a big green tree frog camping out on the front steps (he’s lovely), but I’d rather not cross paths with snakes, rats, bats, spiders, or any of Queensland’s other unsavoury elements tonight.

any i might feel the need to backwash the swimming pool.. a joyful job in the dark.. and i don't have husband home in case i need anything. so it can wait... and ...

So, I stayed inside... and did the obvious thing:
I painted the storm.

The Painting Challenge

I decided to make this one a bit of a challenge — no black paint allowed.

Every shadow and “dark” in those clouds is mixed optically, using: - Ultramarine Blue
- Burnt Sienna
- Cobalt Blue
- Titanium White
- Yellow Ochre
- and just a whisper of Dioxazine Purple in the deepest areas.

For the highlights, I added a tiny dab of Cadmium Yellow to warm the whites — nothing else.
So yes, it’s a grey painting without any black, and I’m actually pretty chuffed with how it turned out.

Even if the clouds almost look like stormy seas... lol.

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Queensland at Its Most Dramatic

This was the view out my front door at various points today — and it was properly eerie.
At 2PM it looked like night-time in the apocalypse.
By evening, it flipped: night looked like purple daytime, thanks to the constant lightning.

Only Queensland could pull off that level of weather theatre.
It was intense, loud, wet, and oddly beautiful.

The Chaos Indoors

I won’t pretend it was a calm painting session either.
Between a screaming six-year-old (terrified of thunder), a pathetic cat hiding under a chair, and the tree frog trying to hop inside through the door crack, it was mayhem.

Even the frog didn’t want to be in the storm! 😂

In total, the painting took about an hour — though that was with plenty of interruptions, coffee refills, and mini crisis management in between.

Wrapping It Up

Anyway, that’s my storm painting adventure for the day.
Not my finest masterpiece, but given the conditions, I’ll take it!
Sometimes the process is the win.

Trust Queensland to turn a “quiet weekend of painting” into an action film.

Stay safe out there everyone — and as always,
Happy painting,
– Blingit 🎨