Sir Hans Heysen – The Cedars

The sun was out, it was a perfect day to visit Hahndorf and “The Cedars” home of Sir Hans Heysen, a well known Australian landscape artist.  Sir Hans Heysen has had the Heysen Trail walk named after him. More details about “The Cedars” here Welcome to Hans Heysen

The Studio from where he painted, inside it is bursting with natural light.

Sir Wilhelm Ernst Hans Franz Heysen, was born in Hamburg, Germany on 8th October 1877 and died in Mt Barker, South Australia in July 1968. His home and studio are still owned by the Heysen family (third generation) and they are open to the public, every day except Mondays (unless a public holiday).

Heysen won the Wynne Prize an outstanding nine times between 1904 and 1932. The Wynne Prize is given annually to the artist who paints the best landscape painting of Australian scenery in oils or watercolours.

Heysen also won The Crouch prize in 1931, and the Maude Vizard-Wholohan prize in 1957. Heysen was knighted in 1959 for his services to the art world.

The Heysen family home and the studio that he worked in are still very much the same today as they were when Heysen was alive, unfortunately, photos of inside either property are prohibited, but post cards are available for sale.  The present Heysen family still call the house home and stay there regularly.

As soon as you walk into the house, you can feel the warmth of the family that lived there.  It is awash with charm and character, Heysen and his wife Selma (Sallie) had eight children (daughter Nora was the only one to follow in her fathers footsteps and became an acomplished artist in her own right).  I am sure it would have been a very happy home, there are many paintings adorning the walls, probably more than he would have had when he was alive as it is now also a showcase  of his paintings for us, the general public to appreciate.

Heysen was a keen gardener and even now there are rose bushes still flowering that he planted many years ago, in fact the bushes he planted, also flower for the longest time throught the season and they are regularly picked and placed around the home.

Scattered around the property are various sculptures, each very different and fit in their new surroundings perfectly.

more details about the sculptures can be found here  Heysen Sculpture Biennial

Artists were: Trevor Wren, Helen Printer, Liz Williams and Ron Rowe

More pictures from  the 2012 event, which unfortunately I missed, in fact I have missed them all since conception of the first Heysen Sculpture Biennial in the year 2000, but now I am aware of the Heysen Sculpture Biennial, have put in my diary for 2014!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WTqX0B_qiuE

Heysen loved painting the Flinders Ranges and used to travel up there regularly with his son David they travelled in Heysen’s 1928 A model Ford and his own pop top caravan built in 1931, the caravan was used as a bird cage in later years until it was fully restored by the son of the man who made the original.

Pop Top Caravan

1928 A Model Ford

Our tour guide was Annette and she obviously enjoyed her job as a volunteer, if you have a spare couple of hours it’s well worth the drive!

Lunchtime Walk – Swim Centre

In my lunch break today, I had a wander around where I work and took some photos, as you can tell, I work near a swim centre…….

The graffiti can still be seen, even though it has been cleaned off

Beautiful Day for a Beach Wedding!

Reblogged from choppy123:

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Almost two years ago was my youngest daughter's beach wedding.  Now, the beauty of living in Australia means you can get married anywhere, beach, back garden, reserve, shopping centre, you name it you can get married there!

When we first looked at the chosen venue a few months prior, the beach was perfect, just lots of beautiful sand, a couple of weekends before the big day we went to have a final look, to decide on the exact spot, when all we could see were grass and plants coming up through the sand, they looked quite pretty, but not what we were expecting, a bit disappointed we wondered what to do, we spoke to the  photographer who said "No, that was perfect, just  plain sand, doesn't always look all that fantastic in photos", so fears eased, we didn't have to worry about going out with the weedkiller a week before and then a day before going to pick out the dead weeds.........

Read more… 502 more words

Well, now I have another wedding on the horizon, my eldest daughter is marrying in September, this will be a totally different experience, but have no doubt it will be every bit as awesome

Heysen Trail

Today, Group End to End 8 (E2E8) completed their first walk of the Heysen Trail.

The Heysen Trail covers 1200 km of South Australias beautiful coastline, bushland, forests and vineyards, from Cape Jervis in the  Fleurieu Penninsula to Parachilna Gorge in the Flinders Ranges.

End to End Groups cover the trail over 60 walks, which are spread over a six year period with one walk a month for the first three years, during the walk season which is April to November each year and gradually as the walk heads further north of the state, the walks extend over  a weekend and then in the final year  a week long walk!  I think a glass or two of wine each night is customary!

E2E8 will be the eighth group to complete the walk which will finish in 2018.

I and hubby Dean were supposed to be  starting with this group this morning but unfortunately I managed to catch a cold over the weekend, which is quite frustrating as I haven’t had a cold in about 4 years and as rain was expected on the walk, decided not to risk making it any worse.

There will be an opportuntiy to do a catch up walk so it isn’t a real drama, but it would have been nice to meet the other fellow walkers on the first day, a bit like the first day at school.

The Heysen Trail is named after Sir Hans Heysen. Sir Hans Heysen is a famous Australian artist who is known for his stunning landscape paintings, particularly of the Flinders Ranges and of trees on his property, The Cedars near Hahndorf, South Australia.

The Cedars including the studio where Sir Hans did most of his paintings is still owned by the Heysen family and remains much as he left it and it is open to the public most days except Mondays for more information click here Welcome to Hans Heysen

Friends of the Heysen Trail (est 1986) are a group of volunteers that help maintain the trail and educate people about walking in South Australia, people of all ages are welcome to join and walk the trail, for more information on the trail itself, end to end groups or other walks organised by ”The Friends”  click here The Friends of the Heysen Trail

Future posts will contain pictures and details of the walks as we complete them and I will also visit The Cedars, the home of Sir Hans Heysen, a great place to take some photos I think!

A bit of a play!

I haven’t been able to get out much over the last few days with the camera as I have had to work, so had a quick wander around the garden and took a few pictures and have had a bit of a play around with Picasa.

I purchased Adobe Photoshop Elements two or three years ago but it seems like hard work to learn, so haven’t used it all that much, so with winter heading our way (well maybe we are missing winter this year, it is now two weeks off from winter and it is still like summer with days of 29 degrees, not usual for us even though we live in Australia) I will learn how to use Photoshop, no pain, no gain as they say.

The same but different!

This picture was taken on our old Panasonic Lumix. Edited with Picasa. Same photo but different!

Portland Bill Lighthouse, Portland Dorset UK

Different Angles 2

Again whilst walking along the River Torrens Linear Walk the other day, I came across these!