Missing

MISSING

Where, oh where is Charlie? Charlie has gone walkabout and hasn't been home since last Friday afternoon - we're very worried and have been mailing 'Missing Moggy' fliers in the neighbourhood - please send him home if you see him. Thank you.



This is Bob. He's missing Charlie! He's also missing one eye, but very handsome on his good side, don't you agree? We don't know how he lost the eye, as we adopted him from the local vet like this. As the empty socket tends to get infected frequently, it's been decided that it must now be sewn up, so he's going for surgery today. Poor Bob!

And this is Tia, who isn't missing Charlie and certainly won't be missing Bob, who bullies her. She misses her perch on this lovely old Mango tree in the garden - sadly it had to be cut down last year :(


Here's a centipede I spotted in the garden last week. I'm still wondering how I was brave enough to get close enough to photograph it! If you can bear to look, you might notice that it's missing something ..... it's headless!


Here's a watercolour painting of orchids I was working on a while back. It's missing quite a lot of detail at this stage. Actually, it ended up in the bin as it was a complete disaster! Ah well, you win some, you lose some!

And finally, I'm going to be missing all of you, my blogging friends, as I have to take time out next week for a little surgery. I'll be back as soon as I can!

Trip to Penang

Here are a few pics from a trip we made recently to the beautiful Malyasian island of Penang. Lots of golden temples with dragons and a lovely tropical spice garden here.

Aromatic ginger and lemongrass.

This plant reminds me of the dragon above!

Lots of different bamboos - this one is black.

And this one is Buddha's belly!

Hope you enjoyed the tour!

Watercolour Trees and a Sunshine Award!

Click to enlarge

Last week I tried my hand at an interesting painting technique using watercolour on collaged mountboard. I'm aware that my compostion isn't great with that tree being a bit too central on the page, but the exercise was essentially about creating texture here! I applied tissue paper to the board with acrylic medium and this delicate paper crinkled up to give a wonderfully textured surface. When it was dry, I covered the whole with gesso, using a bristle brush for even more texture. The resulting surface was pretty slippery to work on - the watercolour paint slid and dribbled into the ridges and furrows and generally flowed where it pleased! Despite that it was fairly easy to manipulate and even simpler to lift off unwanted areas of colour. Very exciting effects can be created with this method which is great when you want to loosen up a little! You'll need to enlarge the photo to see the textures properly!



I'm also posting this lovely award I received from Cathy of One Pink Goose. This is awarded to bloggers whose positivity and creativity inspire others in the blog world. I'm very honoured to recieve it - thanks Cathy. Be sure to visit Cathy's blog - every week she showcases a handful of wonderful artists as well as her own beautifully stylised illustrations. You'll be so inspired! As I'm a little late in posting this and have noticed the award has been doing the rounds of a few friends' blogs this week, I thinka number of you will already have received it too, so I will pass this on to all of you instead of singling out just a few! Have a good weekend!

Sydney

Here are some more photos from the trip to Australia at Christmas.

Sydney Opera House from the water.

Notice that vapour trail?

Here's what the plane spelled out ! Party at Bondi Beach on New Year's Eve!!

View of Sydney from the ferry across to Manley.

Oz surf!

Our daughter Julie lives north of Sydney in Dee Why, within walking distance of this beach. It was summer in Australia but believe me this water was COLD!!!!. Lovely long walks to be had on the beach though!


Actually the weather during our stay wasn't great! We took a trip up to the Blue Mountains in the pouring rain.

We didn't see much!!

Bedgraggled daughter!

We should have seen The Three Sisters - the highlight of the trip ....

3 sisters on a good day
Photo from http://www.bluemts.com.au

The Aboriginal dream-time legend has it that three sisters, 'Meehni', 'Wimlah' and Gunnedoo' lived in the Jamison Valley as members of the Katoomba tribe. These beautiful young ladies had fallen in love with three brothers from the Nepean tribe, yet tribal law forbade them to marry. The brothers were not happy to accept this law and so decided to use force to capture the three sisters causing a major tribal battle. As the lives of the three sisters were seriously in danger, a witchdoctor from the Katoomba tribe took it upon himself to turn the three sisters into stone to protect them from any harm. While he had intended to reverse the spell when the battle was over, the witchdoctor himself was killed. As only he could reverse the spell to return the ladies to their former beauty, the sisters remain in their magnificent rock formation as a reminder of this battle for generations to come.

Ah well, we'll just have to go back another year!

Next stop was the Hunter Valley - wine growing territory. We enjoyed a couple of days here sampling lots of different wines - YUM!!

Elegant bottles with unusual labels made of metal.

!!

And finally, on the way back to Malaysia we overnighted again in Macau and wandered around the old town the next day.






And resisted the temptation to buy more painted boxes - I already have several which I bought in Hong Kong when we lived there!

I spotted these Chinese zodiac animals on a casino ceiling!

And hundreds of tulips were blooming - beautiful!