Old tree…and memories

There is an old tree – part of a long ago area of mangroves – that stubbornly is still clinging on. It is on the way into Yamba from the highway at a place called Oyster Channel.

I remember this place from my childhood – the much awaited last section of road on the long drive to visiting my grandparents. Every holidays my dad got, we as a family went to visit them from our home in Sydney. For my father it was always a home coming – to his beloved Clarence River and his favourite pastime – fishing. For us it was swimming, the beach, ‘the pictures’, walks to the shops, reading, general lazy days, wandering days around town and a sense of freedom.

Of course there was always nearly every day – the fishing and the getting of the bait for fishing – yabbying in low tide on the mud flats in stingray holes with yabby pumps and worming and pippying on the beach. As you can see in the photo below we started fishing young!

Going fishing often began with the 4am rise time – just so that we could make sure that we got ‘our spot’. I still have visions of my short, quite round grandma, demanding of anyone who happened to have the audacity to get to her best fishing spot before her, ‘get off my rock’. She was not keen on going out much but she loved fishing and would set out with grim determination and a basket of sandwiches and freshly baked ‘grandma’s cake’ for everyone, to make sure she got ‘her spot’. We caught lots of fish and had lots of fun but there were some parts that were less than impressive – the 4 am starts and lets not forget to mention the large buzzing and ravenous scotch grey mosquitoes that also seemed to inhabit in huge numbers ‘the best spots’ – obviously just knowing the humans with the warm blood would be here in ‘their spot’!

Oyster Channel and Romiaka were one of the best winter ‘blackfish spots’ with memories of fishing with green weed on the ends of bobbing floats waiting for the fish to grab the line and take the float under water.

Both my grandparents are no longer here but the memory of this roadway into town with its low lying roads that in flood times cut the town off (and still does) and the final bridge into town still evokes memories of happy family times. Their house was in River Street opposite the old Public School which has now been moved out of town to make way for the Bowling Club extensions. Their house is still standing – well over 100yrs old but like the old tree still hanging on – just. Yamba is not the same as in my childhood. It is no longer the quiet backwater of my childhood and I suspect the next owner of my grandparents old house will be the last before this prime position is ‘redeveloped’.

We probably won’t go fishing there again but there are the memories and this tree – battered and worn but still there hanging on – just.

Air NZ ‘nothing to hide’ advertising…made me smile

I love the new Air NZ ‘nothing to hide’ advertisements – very clever. It is a good example of positive quirky advertising that makes you smile and actually remember the product.

This series of videos also include a safety one – now I would remember this one – even with the blind and irrational complete panic that grips me everytime I have to fly.

This is a video of the Air NZ staff background to the video – looks like they had a lot of fun!

Stavros Flatley – to brighten your day!

Thought I’d post this – even though it has been around for a while. I must say it is great entertainment and certainly made me giggle!

Ringtail Possum Nest

We have been busy trying to get our trees under control in our suburban block. It has been a very long time since we tackled this and the trees have got to the stage where we needed to bring them down to a level where we can get some sunlight into the house/yard. There are 4 lilly pillies on the fenceline and two of these are quite large about 6-7metres high. My birdwing butterfly vine had also wound itself up on of these trees so we decided to take it down to a reasonable level and take the vine off this tree just leaving it on the fence. The first smaller branch covered in the vine came down to a flurry of frantic activity from above. Out from the high enclosed space flew three ringtail possums. They had apparently made their nest in the vine which was way up to the top of the tree.this is the best view I could get of the ‘nest’.

We had no idea they were living there! Although I did photograph a ringtail possum a while back. Consequently the tree is still there but not sure about the possums – think we might need to make a possum nesting boxes to keep these ones safe – especially from a very large and nasty neighbourhood cat!

Here is the largest of the three ringtail possums – the other two disappeared back into the nest – I must say he/she was not looking impressed!

The Big Ride for the Big Issue – Jerseys

Just a quick update on the girls doing ‘The Big Ride’ for The Big Issue. Anne and Jo completed a fundraising ride on May 23rd – you can find their blog about this event here. Here is a photo of the participants wearing their new jersey’s with my Australian Floral Emblems design on them! Very impressive!

On 31st May, Anne – who is also a singer – held a fundraising gig – and here she is in the new jersey! My jerseys should arrive in the post this coming week – can’t wait to see them. Also great to see the amount raised by Jo and Anne to buy new equipment for The Big Issue office in Melbourne has almost reached their goal of $10,000 – great work!

School bullying – Kate Miller-Heidke – Caught in the Crowd

Kate Miller-Heidke – Caught in the Crowd – is a song about school bullying from the perspective of the onlooker. I have always thought it is important in addressing the issues involved in school bullying that it includes not only the victim and the perpetrator, but also the onlookers. By standing by and watching and not helping, the onlooker is also participating in the bullying itself. Kate Miller-Heidke has been recognised for this song and the important issues in educating students about school bullying that it is able to highlight.

A webpage has bee created to talk about this important issue – http://www.myspace.com/caughtinthecrowd.

Schools were asked to make videos and the winner was from Upper Coomera State College,
Queensland.

NSW North Coast ‘Weather Incident’

Early last week a weather forecaster talked about a ‘weather incident’ heading to South East Queensland and Northern NSW. Translated (with hindsight) this meant torrential rains, gale force winds, floods, trees down, roads washed away, electricity, phone and in some places water cut off.

Fortunately where we live is not affected by flooding and we managed to keep electricity and phone connected – although I was sure on Thursday night we would lose electricity with several episodes of power flicking.

The sun came out on Friday only to be replaced by storms, gale winds and rain until late last night. the sun has been coming through for most of today.

…Just a few images of the flooding in Lismore taken yesterday about lunchtime…

Tawny Expressions Linocuts – first hand coloured drafts

It is wet windy and cold here at the moment with a ‘weather event’ looming – according to the weather forecasters. Nice weather for being inside drinking coffee, making winter comfort food and well procrastinating which seems to loom large for me in recent times.

I have however managed to complete one set of colour drafts of the set of 12 tawny expressions linocuts. I wasn’t sure how much to hand colour at this point so have gone in this set for the full colour with glowing yellow eyes look.

Below are the template images with just yellow eyes…

Tawny Expressions Linocut Templates

I was planning to have them framed using black core black mountboard with a black frame so the second image here is to give some idea of that.

I will probably sit on these images for a while (yes more procrastinating!) so I am going back to carving some more work and also further working on the Barn Owl image. I did the original drawing of this barn owl about 5 years ago and it has waffled around for all that time. I have come up with a whole new way of looking at it and may even drop the orginal idea in favour of developing the new images. I will post the process at some stage as it can be valuable for an artist to look at their own processes in a more ordered fashion required for blogging and may provide some small insights for others. Well hopefully anway!

Emu Linocut – what a difference a background colour can make

Having finally carved, printed and now coloured this linocut (after working on the original drawing over a year ago and the pre-sketch ideas are over 2 years old!) I finally have finished!

I had hand painted the emu first as you can see but it felt a bit empty so added a graded wash of ‘Australian Red Gold’ which I am quite pleased with. I must say this one of my favourite watercolour pigments as it just seems to have a glow about it.  I think the background colour can make a huge difference to any work and often it may take several tries to create the effect you want. So now it is a matter of completing the edition of this design.

Oh and still deciding on a final name for this work? Any ideas?

The Big Ride for the Big Issue – Updated Information

For those with a sense of having seen this before – you have! Unfortunately the link wasn’t working to Jo and Anne’s website/blog about their fund raising efforts and events so I am re-posting the information – here is the working link now! The Big Ride for the Big Issue

They have two events coming up – one a fund raising ride from Melbourne to Yea on the 23rd May – there is additional information on how people may support this event and the fund raising on the bottom of the poster (click posters to enlarge). The second event is a jazz fund raising gig on 31st May in Fitzroy.