Drawing Challenge No# 4

Before I finally announce this week's Drawing Challenge {so sorry to be sooooo late!} I wanted you to see the lovely entries from last week. Looks like everyone had a quiet week but I did get two late entries so I wanted to post them for you to see.

So, here they are....

Ptolemy Brydon age 8 years "Outside My Window"

Perdi Brydon age 3 years "Outside My Window"

Thank you, guys, sooo much for drawing these fantastic drawings. You both have such lovely scenes outside of  your windows. I bet it was really easy to sit and draw and have fun at your home.

Now for Challenge No# 4:

Choose something to draw that is symmetrical eg: an apple, a person, a chair, a glass etc. Take a pencil in both hands. Starting at the same point on the drawing, draw with both hands simultaneously without crossing over the mid line of the drawing. {So, the left hand draws everything on the left hand side of the drawing. The right hand draws everything on the right hand side of the drawing}.

How did you go? What did you notice?

Send them here by Sunday xx

Lewi's Fun Firsts

First grasshopper for the spring. Can you spot it?

Lewi took these shots of the first lizard he caught, with his friend Balun, in the paddock. He looks like he lost his tail a little while ago now. Perhaps, he was one that Lewi caught last year? We are sure that he's re-caught the same lizard on more than one occasion. Very cool. We have such a lizardy retreat at our place {minus the neighbourhood cats!}.

** Don't worry ~ no lizard has ever been hurt during the catchings. They are carefully picked up and then carefully released.  Their habitat is not disturbed. Lewi  is an aspiring Wires member and is a nature loving freak! {I mean that in a good way}

A Lovely Background

 

I have been so inspired by this week's Blog This challenge about the sky that I've been snap, snap, snapping away with my camera in the garden. The sky is such a clear, clean backdrop to things, especially flowers.

When I began snapping the sky was blue as blue. It wasn't long before I noticed grey clouds starting to appear. Funny, I didn't notice them via looking up at the sky but rather checking my photos on my camera. Observant or what?

   Buerre Bosc Pear blossoms   Mt Fuji cherry blossoms Dutch Iris

 

***Note to self: Look up at the sky more often and notice.

Guessing Competition...What is This?

  Lewi turned to me the other day and said:

 "Look on the wall, Mum. It looks like ........"

What do you think he said?

Let's see who guesses it.

{Psssst....there might just be a teensy tiny prize for this too!}

Pretty Quince Blossoms

 

Here are the first quince tree blossoms. So pretty and delicate. They remind me of dogwood.

A Moment in My Garden

 My favourite thing right now ~ gorgeous crab apple looking out to the flowering peach which is about to burst. Right outside my bedroom window ~ this pretty crab apple is so much more lovely in real life.The vegie garden.The Mediterranean garden.  The flowering peach is slowly coming alive with it's dripping hot pink blossoms. So gorgeous with the pale pink of the crab apple. The dutch iris out the back.Flowering weeping cherry ~ Mt Fuji. First of the apple blossoms near the swing.

It is a pretty, pretty time of year.

What's your favourite thing in your garden at the moment?

Cafe Evolve

On Thursday night we had lots of fun down at Cafe Evolve. It was Guitararama night. Dona and Taj and Lewi and I went down to have a spot of dinner and check them out.

The food was yum. The company, lovely. The entertainment ~ fantastic!

Guitararama are a group of young guitar players, led by a well-known talent in our local area. They've got a CD out which I must buy. Dona highly recommends it and bopped her little way through every instrumental on the night.

Cafe Evolve have really evolved. Originally this cafe was called the Niagara. It's changed hands many times over the years, since I was a gal,  and for all of that time it's been a typical kind of take away/eat in type place {hot chips and gravy, crumbed chicken drumsticks, chiko rolls, dim sims....}.  Now it's the hip and happening place that is environmentally conscious and really putting their energies into making the eating experience not just a fun one but also an aware one. They are supporters of Fair Trade and free range and organic.

I love that they have live music regularly. Bega is a pretty tiny country town so it's a pretty huge thing to be able to go out, at night, in the middle of the week and hear  live music! {We are in the sticks}.  I've been meaning to get down there for ages now. I would see The Paul Kelly night posters and think, you've got to go to that. Then the Crowded House ones. Lots of really great local artists too, of course.

So now I've been and it was really, really great. Thank you Dona and Taj for asking us to come along. It was lots of fun and we'd love to do it again really soon.     Lewi's favourite thing to eat was the garlic bread.   It looked yum. Funny, I didn't get a taste of that one...LOL

          Very hot sticky date pudding and ice cream. Oww! We all got burnt tongues from this yumminess. 

Go Cafe Evolve!

Holding The Moon

 

Blog This PHOTO CHALLENGE 56

The Sky

We all live under the same sky but every place looks different... Take a photo of the sky where u live and show us what you look at each day!
It can be the moon, the stars, sunrise, sunset, clouds - anything!

I was just about to blog about the fun we had with the moon last night when I noticed that the next BlogThis challenge was up and it was about the sky! YAH!

OK, well I'm not the world's greatest photographer and I don't have the world's greatest camera {blame the tools ~ that's the way} but, nevertheless, we had to capture what we could as we spent some creative time trying to mimic a really fantastic link that a lovely friend of mine sent us a little while ago. It shows amazing photos of people holding the moon and doing cool stuff with the moon. It inspired Lewi and I to have a go as it's been a full moon the last couple of nights.

Here are our attempts at holding ....

flicking... and touching....the moon!

Anyway, as you can see by the photo, the moon really does look a looooonnnng way away {as opposed to the fantastically clever photos in the link} but I think we caught a glimmer of creativity??? What do you think? Actually, on second thoughts, don't answer that;)

Love, Love Lew xx

Just reminded me of my L boy! Love 'n Lew xx

A Little Hide Away

Wouldn't it be lovely to hide away in this sweet, little nook for a quiet read and spot of tea?

Sometimes I feel like hiding away from the world just  for a few moments {or hours or days}. I think this would be a really cool place to sneak off to.

I used to love blanket cubbies when I was a kid. The feeling of security and comfort that a blanket over some chairs brings is quite amazing. Lewi used to love it too. We'd always be making blanket cubbies for him and I and his toys {generally not the soft and cuddly sort but rather plastic T-Rexs and whale sharks and old taps!} to have tea parties in. Even now he loves the feeling of hiding under the bed covers and reading his books by torch light.

What about you? Do you like to hide away sometimes? Where do you go? Do you have any blanket cubby stories to tell? I'd love to hear them:)

 

 

Image from: Her Library Adventures. What a lovely, lovely blog this is too. You should go and have a peek.

A Perfect Blend Of Old & New

 

Isn't this amazing? I absolutely love it! What a fantastically creative way of utilising gorgeous ruins. The Dovecote Studio is part of  a music campus, Snape Maltings, founded by Benjamin Britten in derelict industrial buildings on the Suffolk coast of the UK.

The Dovecote Studio has been built to perfectly fit the gorgeous old remaining ruins at the campus. The outside of the 'added in piece' is a Corten steel lining. It was welded and constructed right next to the ruins and then it was craned in when it was finished. The outside is welded in a single piece.  Inside the steel 'skin' the building is fitted with a plywood inner lining.

So, three lovely layers make up this unique building: rustic, brick ruins, rusty steel and modern golden plywood. A perfect mix of the old and the new, the rustic and the modern. Perfect!

If you'd like to hear it straight from  the architects mouth {which you can also find at Haworth Tompkins} then here it is:

The Dovecote Studio

The Dovecote Studio forms part of the internationally renowned music campus at Snape Maltings, founded by Benjamin Britten in derelict industrial buildings on the Suffolk coast.

Britten was inspired by the almost abstract landscape of the reedbeds at the boundary between the land and the sea: the ruins of a nineteenth century dovecote sit directly on this boundary, looking out across the marshes.

The Dovecote Studio inhabits the ruins and expresses the internal volume of the Victorian structure as a Cor-ten steel ‘lining’, a monocoque welded structure that was built next to the ruin and craned in when complete.

Above: the ruined dovecote before the project began

The building is fully welded in a single piece, like the hull of a ship, to achieve weather tightness, and then fitted with a simple plywood inner lining.

Above: inserting the new Corten structure by crane

A large north light roof window provides even light for artists, while a small mezzanine platform with a writing desk incorporates a fully opening glazed corner window that gives long views over the marshes towards the sea.

And here are some more  photos of the lovely Dovecote Studio. These ones are from Precut/fab.