Our weekend

Ethan has started walking in the last week. He is getting quite good at it but is walking with arms out front zombie style! He has also been riding his fire engine around a lot. Most notably while holding his balloon at the same time. Yeehaw!!

Friday night we stayed with my Dad in the city. Steve took me out in the morning for a yummy breakfast (we haven't been out anywhere for I don't know how long) and he wanted us to look for something for my thirtieth birthday present. This was cut short when I walked into a (very clean) glass window where I left half my face on the window and I quickly left (half in shock and half in mortification) with an enormous lump on my noggin! Steve being the lovely husband he is ran off to find some ice and a cool drink to ease the swelling.

I was going to drive to Jen's place for a picnic lunch but Steve decided it was probably best I didn't drive with possible concussion, so he gave us a lift. Jen's new unit is so perfect for one person. She has decorated it and it looks great. Ethan enjoyed jumping in her beanbag and playing with her different pegs!

Sunday I visited the Mathilda's Market in Sydney. It was a great collection of craft products for children. As always the products for girls were over represented, however my Mum and I did purchase two very cute t-shirts for Ethan.

One was a cute pirate ship t-shirt from Sandt. It looks awesome with his navy pinstripe pants he was given for his first birthday!

and the owl tee from The Raisin Did It. I also bought a birthday gift for my sister from Gifts Created.

Art Gallery of NSW

Today I went to the Art Gallery to check out the Archibald Prize, Art Express and other exhibitions on there at the moment. I was especially impressed with the Korean Dreams exhibit. It was all in the dark to protect the delicate artwork, so I could hardly see the detail. I also managed to pick up three of Flossy P's beautiful greeting cards, which I will most probably frame.

Picture by Flossy P

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.