I feel like I have been away for a year from this website. Probably because my father and several other people died and I couldn't write anything for a while. And now a year later, I am sitting here writing with a wrist that I broke on Saturday, on the anniversary of Dad's birthday. I am watching the bruising spread up my thumb and hoping very much that it will not need surgery this week, as I go to Madagascar in September to work on a lemur volunteer project for 3 weeks. I am very excited, despite not being a natural camper as I will see lemurs in the wild, as well as a slew of other creatures. And get to draw every day. Between David Attenborough and the cartoon Madagascar, I feel as though I have done some research, although I cannot imagine what this will be like.
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I have been away overseas, to Europe. I went to Iceland too and that was amazing. I loved the colours there, the muted tones with all that cloud, and I finally saw Arctic blue. And it was pretty much as I had imagined. I think that is is in all my paintings now, that clear clear blue.
I also saw Arctic Terns and Icelandic sheep and ponies. Having seen the film Rams, the sheep were no surprise, very woolly, but the Icelandic ponies were beautiful.  I am down at Collins Flat Beach on Monday evenings as a Little Penguin volunteer. This is a beautiful little harbour beach, and I see the most amazing sunsets against the backdrop of Sydney Harbour, with the ferries going past. However what I mostly seem to do is pick up rubbish whilst I am there, and I collect plastic as that is what concerns me most. So I see what washes in. These are the things that I would ban if I could. Lollipop sticks, you know, the small white plastic ones, balloons with long ribbons on them that get caught around anything, seaweed, birds. Have you ever tried to break or snap one of these ribbons? It is so difficult and there are so many of them. I hate them with a passion. Where do people think they go as they sail off into the sky? We could have paper ribbons on them which would solve the problem. And plastic straws, so many plastic straws on the beach. Water bottle tops and their plastic rings, I find more and more of these. The other stuff is more random. Some people see us picking up rubbish and say that they do too, which is terrific. Some one asked me last night 'What can you do?' And I said that you could either pick it up, not drop it or both.   I am loving doing this little bird. The more I look at it, the more fascinated I am. This is a two plate etching and aquatint. It is in a show at the Avalon Art Gallery for a couple of weeks. 15.05.16
I have been working on the little penguin etchings. These plates are in the process of being aquatinted  |
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A big storm knocked it over by Laurie Colwin. Archives
August 2025
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