Boy in the mirror

Ethan is growing up so fast!! He has put on a lot of weight all of a sudden and looks like a toddler now. Here are some pictures I took this week of him looking at himself in our bedroom mirror. On thursday I took Ethan to the park for a swing.

Street Art

I recently watched an Artscape program on the ABC which was featuring Melbourne artists Ghostpatrol and Miso. What really interested me about them is how they began as street artists. Miso was talking about her paste ups. These are some of her pictures that she designs to fit into a particular space in the urban environment. She then pastes them up somewhere on the streets of Melbourne and these images change as the elements and other people interact with it. I have loved this idea since studying grafitti in highschool and during university taking photos of poster art and grafitti in Newtown, Sydney.

So this program led me to revisit these photos below which I took in Perth when we were still living there. Now Perth isn't particularly known for it's grafitti, there isn't much of it around. So I was surprised to find these on my street and surrounding streets. It made me wonder, who did these? What do they mean? I was intrigued how they used the pipe to add to the images.





Now don't get me wrong, I do not condone tagging everything in sight or marking for the sake of it, and if I ran the restaurant with the purple and yellow walls I may not be too happy about having a three eyed teddy alien featured there. But these made MY day.

fresh produce!

We spent the weekend with Steve's family in the country. I love to check out what is going on in the vegie patch. At the moment there are tomatoes, potatoes, spinach, zucchini, leeks, capsicum and lots of herbs. I didn't get a photo of the vegie patch itself. I wish I had because it is so pretty!


We also had some local peaches for breakfast. Ethan loves them and I think they might be the best peaches I have ever eaten! Unfortunately this particular crop of peaches won't get to the shops because they were damaged by a hailstorm (so they don't look pretty). I brought some home to stew and freeze for Ethan.

Today we went to the car races - Steve had some free tickets to the corporate box. It's not often we get babysitting for Ethan and do something as just a couple, so it was fun! We ended up having a few drinks, a yummy lunch and reading the papers and magazines with the sound of cars zooming around us! Hee. Oh and we watched the race a bit, but there is only so many times you can watch the cars zoom past.

First Birthday!!

My little man is one year old. On the weekend we had a party for him in the local park amongst the trees.



We wanted to make a cake based on a train, plane or spaceship but I didn't like any of the designs in my kids cake book. So I created this design loosely based on Ethan's toy aeroplane. I found this easy and very tasty chocolate cake recipe. My Mother made up a new buttercream icing recipe using buttermilk and a dash of vanilla. It tasted amazing! The licorice was pulled at by one of the eager young ones before we sang Happy Birthday, that's why that part of the plane is flapping in the breeze!

Even more amazing was the Medovnik (Russian Honey Cake) which my sister made (pictured in background). It consists of many layers of cake and creamy filling. She fell for the Medovnik when she was living in Prague and has been craving it since she arrived back in Australia. She tried to replicate the recipe. The entire Medovnik cake was devoured, it was so good.

Studio Inspiration

I haven't been able to post any artwork since last August, because I haven't had my scanner hooked up since we moved to our little apartment in Sydney. I don't have a studio space at present. This is very frustrating for me, but I find it is actually a good time to focus on sketches and ideas. I'm having a lot of fun!!

In the meantime I'm dreaming of what my future studio might look like. Here are some pictures of other artist studios that I am inspired by.

Photo by Kelly Rae Roberts.

I love how artist Kelly Rae has used this toolbox to store her paints. I'm going to try and find something similar.

Photo by Mati Rose McDonough.

I love how Mati Rose uses jewel like colours both in her artwork and her studio. I like the combination of green and pink.

Photo by Camilla Engman.

I would love some wide flat drawers like these for paper and art storage!

Photo by Lovely Design.

It's great how she is utilising such a small space. I should find a cotton holder like that one.

And some favourite sneak peaks from Design Sponge... Jill Bliss's Home and Beci Orpin's house.

Coffs Harbour


One of the highlights of the trip for me was a visit to the Butterfly house in Coffs Harbour. I think butterflies are so fascinating. I just love the tropical landscape on the north coast of New South Wales and Queensland.

The next day we visited the little artistic community of Bellingen. We had a delicious lunch at the Gallery Cafe. It is so beautiful in the hills around that area.

back from the beach


Every summer my husband's family get together for a holiday at Burleigh Heads in Queensland. We haven't been for 4 years because we were living far away in Western Australia. But this year we are living closer and managed to spend a week in the sun and surf. We would have liked to stay another week to unwind fully but we had a good time. Ethan had a blast!! He loved the sand and water but he may have eaten some sand! The sun umbrella in the right hand side of the photo is about 60 years old.