Narrabeen Printmakers

Last night was the end of term for the "Narrabeen Printmakers", and we celebrated with a print portfolio exchange.

Everyone did such beautiful prints and it was fun to share them. Now each of us has a folder with a suite of linoprints as a souvenir of a group of lovely artists and a fun term.

We also enjoyed with a glass of wine, some soup and a loaf of warm fresh bread, followed by Tara's delicious chocolate cake. A good way to warm up on a cold evening.

Thank you so much Anne, Richard, Tara and Philippa :-)

Book of Birds

I am working on a small artist book, tentatively titled "Book of Birds".

Meanwhile, there is a man outside in the rain, chopping down some trees.

Poor trees, poor birds. Poor garden now looks ugly and empty.

Red washing

Today I washed and hung out my red washing, but then the rain came.

Wet red washing.

Day 26 - The shoebox

On my last day before leaving for Papua New Guinea, the girls at school gave me a present.

It was a shoebox that had pictures of models from glossy magazines cut out and pasted all over it. On a nest of tissue paper inside were lots different make-up things. It must have cost a fortune.

I felt like an imposter, receiving a gift like that. The other girls looked mature and sophisticated when they put on make-up; I just looked like a clown. I liked Pot o'Gloss though, because it tasted like delicious sweet berries. It was usually gone from my lips in about three minutes because that's about how long it took me to lick it all off.

In any event, I never ever used any of it because I would have felt totally out of place wearing make-up in the highlands of Papua New Guinea.

It only dawned on me years later that this lavish present had not been bought but that in reality, light fingers must have pocketed the items from department store shelves.

Day 25 - Pot o'Gloss

In my second year of high school, I felt like I was beginning to fit in. My friends still teased me about my very uncool pigtails hairstyle, but still, we did stuff together on weekends and during the summer holidays, and we talked about which songs and which bands were groovy, and we made ourselves look glamorous with Mary Quant eyeshadow and Yardley Pot o'Gloss on our lips.

When we went back to school after the Christmas holidays, our science teacher handed out text books for the new school year. I told her that I didn't need any because I was going to Papua New Guinea the next week. The teacher laughed and told me not to make up stories. The other kids told her I was telling the truth. She looked dumbfounded because she had never heard of anyone going to Papua New Guinea before.

I was looking forward to this new adventure, but I at the same time, I sort of realised that the fleeting moment of those few months with the cool girls had just slipped through my fingers.

Day 24 - Brown legs

When I started high school, I saw how important it was too be cool, only I wasn't very good at it.

Most of my friends knew how to be cool and often on weekends, we went to the beach with a transistor radio and we stretched out on our towels in our bikinis, and talked about the surfy boys. Only I didn't know what to say about the surfy boys so I just stayed quiet and listened. My bikini was a hand-me-down from one of my friends.

On school days, we all sat in a row on the concrete outside the classroom in our lunch breaks. Our legs were stretched out in the sun and we smothered them in cocoa butter. It was cool to have very brown legs. That was the only cool thing I was good at.

Day 23 (sort of...) - Artist vanishes (sort of...)

A week of spasmodic posts at best. I may have bitten off more than I could chew.

I realise now that it would have been better to do the "challenge" as two separate 30 day projects with a gap in between, because at the moment, I am a bit exhausted.

One more story will be posted a little later today, and then I will take a couple of days to write and draw new material. I will be back online in a few days, hopefully refreshed, to continue the 60 days.

But for now, here is an elephant tree for you :-)

Day 22 - The librarian

Our school got a new librarian in February. Her name was Mrs Milton and she was very old fashioned and very proper and she looked strict. But she turned out to be very different from how she looked.

Each week Mrs Milton helped everyone in our class to find just the books she knew they would love. Thanks to her, I became a veritable book worm and I started going to the library about three times a week. Mrs Milton also read unusual books out loud to us in the library lesson.

But on Mrs Milton's first day at our school, we all laughed at her mercilessly. It had been a very hot day but in the afternoon, dark clouds filled the sky. Just as the bell for the end of the school day rang, the clouds burst. Amidst thunder and lightning, and pouring rain, all the students were pouring out of the classrooms to go home.

Mrs Milton stood on the steps of the library, watching the children streaming out of the school gates, with tears rolling down her face.

"The poor poor children! They're getting drenched to the bone. They'll all catch pneumonia!" she cried.

We all laughed at her because we thought she was stupid to think that a little bit of rain would bother us. But when we got to know her better, none of us ever laughed at her again, even if she did think we were all just delicate little flowers, because we realised that she was the most delicate little flower of all.

Day 21 - Golden dragon

We never went to restaurants. We didn't have enough money and anyway, if there was any extra money, it was better to save it for travel adventures or to buy worthwhile things we needed for the house.

A few times when we did the bus trip to do the weekly grocery shopping, my mother would buy us a finger bun as a treat. That made helping to carry the bags of groceries from the bus stop to our house a little easier. And in summer, my mother sometimes bought us an icecream when we went to the beach. Also there were times when we bought fish and chips, which was a rare treat.

But that was as far as "eating out" went in our family.

And so, when we drove into Dubbo on our way home from one particular camping holiday out in the far west, I could not believe my eyes when my father pulled the car into a parking spot outside the local Chinese restaurant with exotic signage on the glass shop front and lace curtains. My parents told us they were going to order take-away Chinese food for our dinner. I didn't think they even knew how to order food in a restaurant.

But it turned out that they did know, because out they came 15 minutes later with take-away Chinese food for us all. We took it to the park in the centre of Dubbo and ate our exotic meal by the banks of the Macquarie River. We feasted on such delights as spring rolls, fried rice, sweet and sour pork, and some sort of dish with very fine noodles. Dubbo became the international culinary pinnacle of my universe.

Chinese restaurants in country towns still always remind me of my 'introduction to world cuisine' and even though it is a long time since I have been there, I have a soft spot for Dubbo. But I still don't know what prompted my parents to buy Chinese take-away that day.