"Solomon Honu"

Finished this little fellow yesterday, I love turtles so this one is all mine. Ever since I visited Heron Island off Gladstone a few years back I've been amazed by these wonderful creatures. Although, the Turtles visiting Heron Island are mainly Loggerhead, this fellow is a Green Turtle.

Once again I used Atelier Interactive Acrylics, but this time I used a glaze too, a mix of paint and thinning medium to give the effect of the coral being under the sea.

The canvas measures 1200x900, so its probably one of the biggest paintings I've ever attempted.

I also got to use some of my fave colours too, gorgeous mixes of blues and greens for the sea.

Anyway he's now hanging in the hallway off the back deck against a golden sand painted wall and he looks devine.

Froggy No. 4

Just finished another painting. You may have guessed by now if you follow this blog fairly regularly that I adore frogs. Lamp worked (of which I've used several in the many pieces of jewellery photographed for this blog) painted, real or otherwise.

This little guy is a "White Lipped Tree Frog" and is happily perched upon one of my favourite tropical garden flowers, a Heliconia.

I used Atelier Interactive Acrylics and pigment ink for something different. I love these interactive paints, the colours are so vibrant and a joy to use.

This is probably one of the largest paintings I've ever completed measuring 900 x 900.

Interestingly, yesterday I happened upon a book about "Picasso" whilst cleaning out my book cupboard. That book bought back lots of happy memories. Inscribed on the first page was a hand written note:

"Presented to Bernadine Yourell. First Prize Kilcoy Show 1977. Donated by Mr. A Tulloch."

The painting that won first prize from memory was a Still Life study, would you believe, of Oranges, cut, peeled, quartered etc. I forget how many countless pencil, pen and other drawings I had to complete as part of my study, before tackling that painting.

Unfortunately I no longer have it, being completed in ordinary old student acrylics there were certainly no archival qualities associated with that paint.

We tackled lots of interesting projects in those classes, lino cutting, screen printing (yep I still have the afternoon tea cloth to prove it and its in original condition, never been used) charcoal and pencil drawings, designing posters using mixed media, doing portraits, never pets always human...lol, are some of things I can recall.

I have been painting for a very long time on and off and way before 1977. Alan Tulloch, now a Brisbane Artist, was my Art Teacher for two years in the late 1970's.

So Alan if you happen to read this, thanks for the happy memories and knowledge you passed on to me.

"Cookie"

I've really gotten into the Pet Portrait thing lately. Here's my latest a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel by the name of "Cookie". He belongs to my niece Samantha, but has a very strong attachment to her mother, my sister-in-law, Jennifer.

Cookie tends to get a bit put out when Remy appears on the scene, because Cookie is an older dog and dislikes having a young pup jumping all over him

A couple of weeks back at a family BBQ Cookie saw Remy appear and scampered off to sit with his back to us all between his mum's feet , a very funny sight. If Remy is doing some of his tricks, Cookie is always keen to join in so he can score a treat too.

This painting will make up part of Jennifer's Christmas gift and was painted from two original photographs shot by both Jennifer and Samantha.

PS.. Jan '09
The painting was very well received, Jen said she loved it.

Whats Up

Gosh, its been a while. Spent half of winter laid up with some illness or another.
Luckily I had two weeks of Olympic Sport to keep me amused. Mind you, the games were almost over, when my DH decided that he'd better go out and buy a Set Top Box so that I could see all the action in High Defination. Well frankly, don't know what all the fuss was about, sport is sport and it looks the same to me whatever the Defination. Perhaps having a TV the size of a movie theatre screen would help, maybe should have put in my order for one of those too. hehe.

Anyway what have I been up to lately???? Lots of reading for a start, thank goodness for the local Library and of course my mate Remy has been great company. This pic sort of gives you an idea of what he's been up to most of the time. Typical Border Collie pose whilst sleeping.

I've also gone back to painting. Yesterday I finished my first Pet Portrait, of guess who? What fun, ended up searching my computer for all the pics I've taken of Remy for the last 14months or so and found one of my fav's, printed it in A4 size on photo paper, just so I could see more detail.

I've never painted animals before in such a large format and felt really inspired by some of Brisbane Artist Tracey Keller's animal portraits. I love her unique fun style. Anyway I've given the portrait to DH, who had a good giggle and commented on how I view Remy's mezmerizing stare. Remy really does have the most amazing eyes in real life.

Now I've just got to think about my next project whilst I'm in the mood to paint. I'm enjoying the way the hallway downstairs is starting to take on the feel of art gallery.

2008 Swarovski Creative Beading Awards

Wow. Some amazing pieces have so far been entered in the "2008 Swarovski Creative Beading Awards" (Aust) Many of these sparkling and fabulous entries are from the very talented members of the "Australian Beading Forum". Its a such a privilege to know these ladies and gents, their talent is incredible.

Its difficult to pick a fav, all are winners in my eyes and I do believe the judges will have a very hard time, picking a winner this year. Can't wait to see the top 25.

If you're interested in checking out the entries so far go on and visit http://www.crystalpark.com.au

Birthday Present for Jennifer

I made this bracelet a while back using some of Bev's glorious Lampies. I teamed the Lampies with Stering Silver and Swarovski crysals that are half silver and half crystal. They really give a glam look to the whole piece. The beads were actually commissioned for a customer who then changed her mind and wanted one of my gorgeous green lampie bracelets also made with Bev's beads.

Thought the black and silver plum beads made a great winter piece, so as its my sister-in-laws birthday in a couple of days time, she has scored it as her birthday present along with a set of sterling silver, grey and black toned earrings.

Yes, we have no Bananas!

On my recent trip to North Queensland we passed through the town of Innisfail on the "Great Green Way". Innisfail was severely devastated by Category 5 Cyclone, Larry, in March 2006. The town has a population of about 8,000, and is the centre of the Johnstone Shire, which has a population of around 19,000 all up. It is located on the Cassowary Coast (named after the rare local native bird - more about these in a future post )between World Heritage Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef.

This region today is Australia's largest producer of bananas, rivalling sugar as an income earner. Tea, Papaws and exotic tropical fruits are also grown.
Beef cattle are processed in a modern abattoir near Innisfail for domestic and overseas markets. Aquaculture also plays an important part in the region's economy, ranging from prawn, barramundi and fresh water crayfish to crocodile farming.

After more than two years life seems to be getting back to normal although there are still the odd one or two wrecks of houses remaining. We were told by a local tropical fruit winery owner that most of those would have been under-insured and if they hadn't rebuilt by now they had no plans too. The winery's crop of passionfruit was entirely wiped out too, so now they buy all their fruit in. Their Passionfruit wine is rather a nice drop too I might add, think it would go down mighty well with Strawberry, Mango and Passionfruit Pavlova. yum!

I was utterly amazed at the number of houses that have bright shiny new roofs in and around the town, it must have been terrible, almost every house seems to have been damaged. Innisfail is also known as the Art Deco capital of Australia. Many of these buildings can been seen in the centre of town. These were built after the town was devasated by a cyclone in 1918, so the town was rebuilt in the style that was popular at that time. There are many examples of Art Deco design facades including Spanish, Sicilian, Moroccan, Italian and Anglo Saxon.

I was also interested to see how the Banana crops were coming along. Things have improved somewhat as not that long ago, supermarkets were charging around $10.00 kilo for bananas. Now things have improved they're back to their pre cyclone prices.
Lots of green fruit appear to be hanging from trees all brightly bagged to keep fruit flies away. The bags reminded me of brightly coloured balloons of red, yellow blue, orange, silver and green hanging from the trees.

The pic above was taken on the way to the Tully Gorge a popular spot for White Water Rafting.

Copyright

Logged on to the Australian Beading Forum this morning to find an interesting and heated discussion on Copyright. I must say I was sad to find the thread closed by the time I got to the last page, although anything that I might have added I've already posted here in this blog previously. (Click on the Label below entitled "Copyright" to see other posts)

Lets hope that the thread on the forum doesn't get deleted this time as it contains some very useful info and can certainly be used as a reference by any new and unfortunately inexperienced beaders.

Just back from Holidays

Returned home late yesterday from Far North Queensland, hence the reason I've not posted for a couple of weeks. Found both good news and bad news sitting in my email in box.

Received a very nice email from "Burkes Backyard Magazine" here in Australia after submitting a little story and accompanying photo of Izzy Liz.

Here's what I said in my original email to them

"Hi there Don. Just thought I'd send you a pic of our friendly backyard eastern waterdragon "Izzy Liz". Sadly she is no longer with us, but as you can see she wasn't to be trusted around food and her table manners were a little lacking... ie...foot in the bowl. She loved to raid leftovers off the table on our back deck and not too long ago I found her sitting amongst upturned tea cups helping herself to the biscuit crumbs after I returned from seeing my guests off at the front gate.

I snapped this particular pic one morning a couple of years back after my husband Michael left his cereal unattended whilst he made coffee. She loved grapes, cherries and strawberries and the odd painted toenail...lol. I learnt really quickly not to paint my toenails orange and sit barefoot at the table.... ouch!!

She became very friendly around 4 years ago when Michael was digging and levelling an area in our garden which was to be paved. He kept throwing her earth worms that he dug up as he came across them. From that moment on, she hung about the back veranda and would sleep in one of our hanging orchard baskets till the end of April each year and then would disappear till the beginning of Spring. Occasionally she would come into the kitchen via the back door and one day I even found her investigating the corridor off the kitchen. She became so friendly that I could just call her by name and she'd appear from the back garden, often getting up on the chair beside me and resting on the back of it whilst I read or made jewellery. I occasionally fed her worms from the pet shop, these she would take straight out of my upturned hand, plus she would also let me stroke her neck."

Here's the magazine's response

"What a great story, sounds like you had a wonderful relationship with Izzy Liz. Your photo really captures that cheeky side of her that you described so well :)

I have sent your photo off to the shortlist for possible publication.

Good luck!"

I won't write about the bad news as I'm still digesting it as well as coming up with an apt response to the nutter who sent it.

Another thing I really hate is the amount of junk mail that hits my in box. I arrived home to find about 300 time wasting emails. You've won the Lottery!! We want to give you USD24,000,000 as we've found a long lost relative of yours!! Can we launder money in your bank account and then clean you out of house and home!! Please tell us you user name, password and birthdate so we can clean up your email account!!

Time I got a new email address which only my friends will be privy to.

To all those fraudsters, I hope the long arm of the law eventually catches up with you and you get what you fully deserve. A nice long holiday without your own set of keys!

Gimme a break. I'm still learning.

"Ooooh, its a Sheep! What am I supposed to do with them again"?


"Yum"

Do I operate or not?

Mean't to post about my fun day a couple of Friday's ago...

Early in the morning went to check on my aquarium and feed the fish. Thought I caught sight of a bug caught in the plants that are growing in the tank. Went off the grab the net, then I heard a crunching noise.

Well too late, the bug which just happened to be a giant roach was swallowed up by my 16cm long fancy tailed Shabunkin which I've had for sometime now. Darn, now what to do? Could see the fish wasn't able to swallow the whole thing and part of one of its barbed legs was hanging from its mouth. Oh that's just dandy I thought, I'm going to loose that fish, he's going to die for sure. Not happy Jan, that fish cost me Forty big ones.

Sms'd hubby at work, no sympathy there. So then joined an Aquarium forum and of course not too many people had experience with this sort of thing. Why me? Someone suggested that I could perhaps operate on him by removing the bug with a pair of tweezers. Eeeek! I'm squeamish at the best of times and was sure that I'd gone out in sympathy with the fish without even knowing it. My throat felt like it had something caught in it all day. Darn that fish! By this time said fish, was lying on the bottom of the tank, still upright, but obviously not feeling very well.
"Serves you right for being a little pig", I said.
Of course every time he opened his month slightly I could see the bug lodged in his throat, which made me feel sicker.

ok ok a plan was forming. I'd wait till Hubby came home then he could help with the operation. After all, he'd kept fish for years as a child and young adult, surely he'd know what to do. By the time he came home, fish had managed to get all of the bug into his mouth and was obviously swallowing it slowly as he digested it. Several more hours of sitting on the bottom of the tank, hardly moving and continuing to look very sorry for himself followed. After about 36 hours he was fine and swimming around looking for something else to gobble up. Just hope he doesn't decide to eat the rest of the goldfish in the tank, just because he thinks he can.
PS... that's him in the pic above swimming about happily today.

A fun way to select colours for Jewellery Design

Most of us at one time or another have trouble coming up with new and exciting colour combinations. Of course one way to get out of trouble is to use seasonable colour charts many of which are accessible on the net; one such site that comes to mind is Fire Mountain Gems who are actually a bead and finding supplier in the USA and you can check out the 2008-2009 colour forecast guide on their website.

Alternatively you can raid the paint charts and chips which are also seasonal and available at your local hardware store, but one of my favs is to use fabric or a piece of clothing out of my very own wardrobe.

Here's a piece of jewellery I designed around colours in a new blouse I bought in the summer. It was a combination of deep violet, white and rust tones.
I had been saving a luscious strand of violet dyed large fresh water pearls to make something for myself. I teamed these with sterling silver, and various swarovski crystals to match the colours in the fabric.

Summer time Bracelets

This is one of my favourite bracelets. I adore the colours of the Swarovski crystals and pearls together, but the big feature opalite bead in the centre to me seems to capture the essence of summer from within.

Guess I'm just trying to remind myself that summer will reappear again in a few months. Today its dark, gloomy and cold outside. Rain is forcast along with a possible storm. Maybe a good thing we could certainly use some rain and goodness knows my garden would love it to.

Something not quite right

Last week was a stinker of a week. It started off well enough, then on Monday a dust storm hit without warning. No ordinary dust storm, this one was man made. Let me explain.

The property behind our house was sold a few months back and now seems bought by someone intent on pissing his neighbours off before he even moves in.

The house was "demolished" on Monday with no warning, after being delivered a letter to say the house would be "removed" on Saturday. We naturally assumed that the house would be removed on the back of a very large trailer around midnight with a police escort as is often the case with old Queenslanders in our area. But, at 6.30am on Monday morning we were all rudely awakened by an excavator crashing about, smashing roof tiles and basically creating havoc and unsettling years of dust, which I might add managed to find its way over my back fence, showering my upper and lower outdoor entertaining areas including the pool with dust and filth. Took me four days to clean up the mess which wasn't easy when we're not allow to use more than 140 litres of water per person per day here in Brisbane because of our drought and so called lack of planning by councils and Government.

On Tuesday to add insult to injury and whilst I was at the vet with Remy, all the vegetation was removed including a large Jacaranda tree, more noise and more dust. These clowns also managed to wreck a section of our back fence whilst trying to remove a very large Cocos Palm. That fence also encloses our pool area. Enough was enough. Over I went and let 'em have it. Normally I'm a very patient person and will put up with all sorts of crap, but not anymore.

They proceeded to tell me that there wasn't that much dust. "Well how come then, that guy over there is wearing a mask", I said. Some very sheepish looks and a promise that they weren't fly by nighters and would fix my fence that evening. Well yes they fixed the fence, in dark. Needless to say the job was pathetic, tonnes of bent nails and unsupported work that had to be ripped out and put right on the weekend by Hubby.

I'm sure this is not the end of trouble. I can hardly wait, I would rather have continued looking at a very green if somewhat unkept backyard that provided tonnes of privacy.

Another use for a Bear

Couldn't resist snapping this pic. Here's Remy fast asleep using his bear as a pillow. Funny when he's had a big weekend, he spends the whole of the next day fast asleep.

Winter is here

Its not even the 1st June yet, already its starting to freeze. Can't wait to head north even if just for a short period. Nothing better than a warm sunny day with a cooling breeze, sitting under a tree on a stunning beach...sigh..roll on.
Why do the days before you go holidays always drag by?

I started to pack my suit case weeks ago, am I keen or what? I'm struggling with what to pack. Should I pack a wrap for evening just in case? Been working though my to do list before I go and its slowly getting shorter too. Spent the last two weekends pulling old palms fonds out of the garden and putting them through the mulcher, as well as repotting/planting, prunning etc. We got a really heavy down pour on Saturday night and I could hear the garden yelling out its thanks whilst it greedily tried to swallow up as much of that refreshing aqua it could.

I lost my prized double red standard camilla during this hideous dought. On the weekend we finally dug it out, added some sweet new compost to the spot where it had been and planted a new double flowered white one tinged with pink on the edge of the petals. Hope it survives. At least that nasty possum that had been eating the other one has now disappeared. We found him with his head stuck under the back garden fence, silly thing if it had turned its head slightly it would have been able to release its self from what was to become its nemesis. These critters eat everything in sight. I'm told they have no taste buds, hence I guess the reason they strip my chili trees bare of fruit, leaves, the whole lot. Am hoping that the new pots I planted full of herbs, cherry tomatoes, chili, mixed baby lettuces and egg plants survive long enough for me to harvest them for dinner. Well I guess I'll let you know how that goes.

Yes Indeed the Proof's in the Pudding

Two engineers trying to fit a new bicycle in the back of a 4 wheel drive, they lay one side of the backseat down (the other side is in use) proceed to slide the bicycle in handlebars first, find it doesn't fit as the back doors won't close.

So they take the bicycle out and decide to take off the front wheel, only to find that they can't get it past the brake pads, no tools...hummm....what to do?
Fiddle about for a while talking amongst themselves.

Meanwhile onlooker with other places to be says "Why are you doing that, put it in back end first, so that you can maneuver the handle bars around and the door will close"

So they do as suggested and it fits perfectly. What does that prove?
That an x officer manager (me) is a far more logical thinker than two Engineers (Husband and Brother-in-Law) put together.

Yup and I won't let em' forget it....lol

Another photograph, this time of a storm brewing out at sea off Heron Island. Heron Island is a little coral cay off the Queensland coast near Gladstone.

It's that time of year when most of the resorts are offering cheaper holiday deals as its coming into the winter season here. I was reminded of Heron having seen a recent add for cheap holidays, although this shot was taken in the month of February a couple of years ago.

I must admit I loved it. Great snorkeling, fishing and diving, but just as wonderful for doing nothing and lazing about the beach reading. A word of warning however, as beautiful as the place is, October through to February is nesting time for Black Noddy's and they are everywhere. My best suggestion is to wear a hat, even on the walk to the restaurant for dinner. Believe me, no-one is safe from being blitzed by bird droppings.

You can also see Turtles hatching in Feb. I was lucky enough to see hatchlings run down the beach to the water right in front of me. It so happened that it was a bright sunny day, when suddenly the sun become covered by a cloud, and practically turned day to night. This was followed by a scampering of little flippers in an urgent rush to get to the water before the sun returned. That indeed was an amazing sight.

2008 Swarovski Creative Beading Awards

Its on again. Check out the 2008 Swarovski Creative Beading Award Entries at www.crystalpark.com.au. Vote for your fav each month until the end of the comp when the offical judges pick the final 25, and of course the winner. As usual great prizes up for grabs, terms and conditions of entry can be found at
http://www.crystalpark.com.au//cgi-bin/cn17325/awards

All in the Family

Was looking through some of my photo albums of various holiday pics and came across this one. Taken at Melbourne Zoo a couple of years ago now, how cute is that?