2023 ends... and so 2024 begins..

2023 ends and so 2024 begins - but what to write? 2023, all things considered was a good year, with health, travel, art and family. I hope it was the same for you and yours, and if not, I pray that you have found a way through the troubles, and I wish you new beginnings and a better 2024. 

I wonder what 2024 will bring. My hopes other than happiness and health for my family and friends is that I will do a little more art, a little more esperimenting with art, a little more committment to art, walking every day and getting fitter, not getting bogged down with socials on the internet, a little more travels to places unvisited and places to revisit, a little more socialising with friends and family, a little more committment to my photography, a little more reading, writing...and publishing.... 

I don't make New Year resolutions. But the world is open to lots more little mores! 

But for now I went to a Gellie printing summer school workshop at the Stirling Street Arts Centre in my town last week, and I am going to another workshop "naturally printed" workshop at the end of this week. I am hoping to expand on my art this year. I would really like to do more sketching and dabble with watercolours. 

Next week I go to Summer School in Albany for a 3 day advance ecoprinting course with the wonderful Penny Jewell - who I have been to two workshops with before and assisted her at a workshop here. I have been doing eco-printing for a few years now, but there is so much more to learn, and so much that I don't know. 

I hope that these workshops will spark my "little more committment to my art". Perhaps I might join a local art group. My sister belongs to one where she lives  which has a vibrant arts community, and I can see the benefits of it. 

On Monday we took a quick trip down to Yallingup just south on Dunsborough in our stunning south west coast to visit an art exhibition by the Dunsborough Art Society which my sister is a member of. Sorry I didn't take any photos!

I am back on the committee for the Photography Group of Bunbury after a few years not on the committee - so that hopefully will spark my "little more committment to photography". In February our club is back to photograph a major triathlon - so great for practising action shots and panning.

We have not been overseas since 2018 (Covid stopped us in our tracks in January 2020 only weeks before flyng out), but we have just renewed our passports. Perhaps "a little more travel" will involve an overseas trip - who knows - nothing planned yet. More likely local trips in Western Australia this year after our epic 9 week caravanning trip to Queensland last year. 

Further to our Queensland trip, I am plugging away at a photo book of that trip - to finish it is on my summer to do list. And I still have lots more to share with you from that trip. 

That's all from me today. Do you have plans for 2024? Perhaps you would like to share with us in your comments. 

Thank you so much for stopping by. I value your comments and look forward to hearing from you. I will try to visit your blogs in return. Have a wonderful week. 

I am linking up to the link-ups below. Please click on the links to see fabulous contributions from around the world - virtual touring at its best!

Mosaic Monday @ Soul & Mind & So On

Saturdays Critters - Viewing Nature With Eileen

Inspire Me Monday

Travel Tuesday

Pictorial Tuesday 

ThroughMy Lens 
Image-in-ing
My corner of the world through my camera 
Wednesday Around the World at Communal Global hosted by Randomosity. 
       and Little bird - Pienilintu
Thankful Thursday 
Welcome to Nature Thursday

Skywatch Friday

Hello there! I love reading your comments. If you scroll down to the bottom you can comment too! I would love to hear from you.

May Randoms 2023

 HI everyone, I hope you and yours are well. I can't believe that May has nearly gone - only a week and a bit to go. I really don't know where May has gone. Here are a few randoms from May. 

Quinces are my favourite autumn fruit and I am so lucky to have a quince tree in my backyard. So delicious! But you must cook them first as they are rock hard. i've blogged about them a few times before. Remember the Owl and the Pussycat ate slices of quince with a runcible spoon? 

This is Mesomelaena tetragona - Semaphore Sedge - we see lots of them when we are walking in the Crooked Brook Reserve. Can you see why they are called Semaphore? You kno...the flag symbols they used to use for signalling... britannica.com/technology/semaphore

You might remember earlier in the month I took you to the Balingup Golden Valley Tree Park - you can see more by clicking on the link. So beautiful with the golden autumn colours this time of year. 

It is a nice time of year to go bushwalking - with slightly cooler days - though not many wildflowers this time of year. However we found two of the winter flowering orchids at Manea Reserve last week. 

At the top - The Hare Orchid - Leporella fimbriata - these are tiny flowers only 10-30mm and very hard to find.  But they do grow in colonies, so once you have found one you will perhaps find some more. You need a good orchid spotting companion. They have long ears like a hare. 

At the bottom - I am not a botanist but I believe this to be the Common Bunny Orchid - Eriochilus dilatatus subsp multiflorus. There are several varieties of Bunny orchid. 

This is the amazing ghost fungus - Omphalotus nidiformis - which grows in large clusters at the base of both living and dead trees. In Western Australia, it’s common on bull banksia (Banksia grandis), peppermint (Agonis flexuosa), sheoak (Allocasuarina spp.) and marri (Corymbia calophylla) as well as understory shrubs and plants in jarrah forest and coastal woodlands.

White during the day, during the night the ghost fungus is luminescent and glows an eerie green colour. The intensity of the luminescence varies and diminishes with age. The reason for its luminescent is not known, but perhaps it is to attract night flying insects which feed or forage on it and then spread its spores. You can learn more here - WA department of Environment & Conservation

So cool! but poisonous - i photographed these beneath peppermint trees on my son's small property. My son photographed them with his mobile phone on a slow shutter speed but I used my DSLR camera on bulb setting, on a tripod, with a remote shutter button, on about a 2 minute exposure - in order to capture the green. 

The first photo shows the ghost fungi in dayllight, the one next to it is the same fungi at night. 

Book i am reading - I highly recommend both these books. 

The Book Binder of Jericho by Pip Williams - The follow-up and companion to one of the most successful Australian novels, The Dictionary of Lost Words. 

What is lost when knowledge is withheld?

In 1914, when the war draws the young men of Britain away to fight, it is the women who must keep the nation running. Two of those women are Peggy and Maude, twin sisters who work in the bindery at Oxford University Press in Jericho. Peggy is intelligent, ambitious and dreams of studying at Oxford University, but for most of her life she has been told her job is to bind the books, not read them. Maude, meanwhile, wants nothing more than what she has. She is extraordinary but vulnerable. Peggy needs to watch over her. Into the mix come refugees from Belgium, and wounded soldiers. 

There is a short video below from Pip. 

Just a short post from me today but thank you so much for stopping by. I value your comments and look forward to hearing from you. I will try to visit your blogs in return. Have a wonderful week. 

I am linking up to the link-ups below. Please click on the links to see fabulous contributions from around the world - virtual touring at its best!
   

Mosaic Monday @ Soul & Mind & So On

Travel Tuesday

Pictorial Tuesday 

ThroughMy Lens 
Image-in-ing
My corner of the world through my camera 
Wednesday Around the World at Communal Global hosted by Randomosity. 
       and Little bird - Pienilintu
Thankful Thursday 
Welcome to Nature Thursday

Skywatch Friday

Hello there! I love reading your comments. If you scroll down to the bottom you can comment too! I would love to hear from you.

Sculpture by the Bay- Dunsborough 2023- Western Australia

Last weekend we visited the Sculpture by the Bay exhibition as part of the Dunsborough Art Festival. This is an annual event which has been held in Dunsborough since 2011. 

Always very interesting to see the range of large sculptures through the park along the foreshore and along Dunn Bay Road, and the small scultpures in Christian Fletcher's Gallery. 

I was particularly drawn to those with an environmental message. 

Below top left you can see - 

- Insiduous by Heloise Roberts - Flowers made from plastic bottles attached to trees and trailing through the garden representing insiduous introduced species that are suffocating our native ecosystems. This piece seemed like it was lit by solar lights in the middle of each flower. Would have been good to see at night. 

And below that -  Cumulonimbus by Shanti Gelmi & Louise Grimshaw - using waste and products of over consumption, it reflects on the effect of climate change on our environment. But I did love the little plastic creatures. 

I enjoyed the play of light and reflections on the fish in The School by Richard Aitken - reflecting on the warming of the oceans and the delicate balance. 

I really liked The Plant Apocalypse by Year 6 students at Dunsborough Primary School and their teacher Karen Seaman -  a colaborative piece using recycled paper, cardboard, plastic, salvaged fishing rope and wood, using metallic patinas to disguise the origins of the materials and creating a skyscraper that has been overtaken by nature. 

Musical Bones by David Johansen was a piece that encouraged interaction. Made from an old piano and bits and pieces inside to create the sound. Lots of fun! 

My husband particularly liked Brian Plank's - Kite - each piece moving independantly at the whim of the wind. 

Below 

- Jillain Warnock has used her artworks printed on aluminium to create Spiral Journey of the Spirit.  

- Plastic rope has been unravelled to make the tail of Kerry Walker's Peacock  

- and recylced objects have been used to create a dog as part of Merrilyn Whisson's piece - To Fetch A Pail of Water. 

In Size Matters by Margaret Rees - a hungry seagull is sizing up his options for breakfast, knowing the future of the ocean's sustainability is on the line. The pylon base is salvaged timber from the old Busselton Jetty. 

Below here you can see - clockwise from top left - 

- Shorts too Big by Greg Banfield created from windfall jarrah tells the story of hand-me-down clothes. 

- Tempest - by Wayne Smith - Created from corten steel this piece is like a whirling dervish or dust devil in the desert outback. 

- Metamorphosis by Rod Barnes - made from metal including old car doors representing the Year 2080 where machines reaching out to assist in developing mechanical life forms to restore beauty and wonder to the world. 

- Stealth Birdhouse by Keith Lush would almost disappear in the garden follage. 

And a few of the small sculptures - clockwise from top left - 

- Best Laid Plans II by Shanti Gelmi - representing the manipulation of dreams and expectations and the delicate balance between honouring wishes versus following your own path made possible by parental scarifice. 

- Lil'Bird by David Barbour made from washed up driftwood. 

-  Don't be afraid to think outside the box by Sue Smorthwaite representing the importance to think and decide for yourself whilst still being mindful of the need for social cohesion and tolerance of other views. 

- The Money trap by Louise Grimshaw aims to provoke discussion about the assumption that more money equals more happiness and the risks associated with obtaining more at the expense of simple pleasures. 

- Our Prickly Earth by Joshua Nicholas - made from wire, nuts, and washers represents the state of our global climate which is at least, a bit prickly. 

I hope you have enjoyed this look at the Dunsborough Sculpture By the Bay. You can see more at Sculpture By The Bay. Click on Galleries, then 2023 Sculpture By the Bay Gallery to see all the entries and prize winners. 

Thank you so much for stopping by. I value your comments and look forward to hearing from you. I will try to visit your blogs in return. Have a wonderful week. 
I am linking up to the link-ups below. Please click on the links to see fabulous contributions from around the world - virtual touring at its best!
   

Mosaic Monday @ Soul & Mind & So On

Travel Tuesday

Pictorial Tuesday 

ThroughMy Lens 
Image-in-ing
My corner of the world through my camera 
Wednesday Around the World at Communal Global hosted by Randomosity. 
       and Little bird - Pienilintu
Thankful Thursday 
Welcome to Nature Thursday

Skywatch Friday

Hello there! I love reading your comments. If you scroll down to the bottom you can comment too! I would love to hear from you.

52 x 2 photo project - February 2023

 Hi everyone, I hope you and yours are doing well. This week I am continuing sharing my 52 x 2 photo project with you. 2 photos per week for 52 weeks - one colur and one mono per week. Below are my February images. 

Week 1 - 1 February 2023 - colour - Outside some housing units I saw this little patch of gorgeous sunflowers. So I went back with my camera to photograph them.

Week 1 - 3 February 2023 - mono - a walk bridge over the water between the Leschenault Inlet and Koombana Bay in Bunbury. 

Week 2 - 6 February 2023 - Mono - Giant red tingle tree in the Valley of the Giants at Walpole in our Great Southern Region of Western Australia, taken during a little getaway. 

Week 2 - 7 February 2023 - Colour - Driving through the karri forest along the Karri Explorer drive in the Pemberton region during our little getaway. More about this later. 

Week 3 - 12 February 2023 - Colour - Banksia Baxteri - Baxter's Banksia. I bought a bunch of these gorgeous banksias in Balingup on the way home from our little getaway. You can see more if you click on the link. 

Week 3 - 15 February 2023 - Mono - playing with a little still life photography for a photogrpahy group topic. 

I ended up entering this one, and received a Gold award for it - a collection of my grandmother's mother's, and mother-in-laws old spoons etc, plus a few of my own. 

Week 4 - 20 February 2023 - Mono - the Safety Bay jetty near Rockingham

Week 4 - 21 February 2023 - Colour - On an overnight trip to Rockingham a couple of hours north of home, we took a ferry ride to Penguin Island and then a dolphin-sealion boat tour and penguin discovery talk. We hadn't been to Penguin Island since we were teenagers - it's changed a lot! More on this later! 

The Penguins are so cute! 

BONUS shot - We went to the South West Multicultural Festival in Bunbury on the 18 February. Always a fabulous afternoon of free multicultural entertainment. And a great opportunity to experience cultural dance. Unfortunately I couldn't stay for the evening show. This is a vibrant Colombian dancer.  

And the beautiful Nicole from Sol y Sombra Spanish Dance Company in Bunbury. I've blogged about them many times before. Sadly I haven't danced this past year due to a foot problem. 

A few more pics from the Multicultural festival 

Thank you so much for stopping by. I value your comments and look forward to hearing from you. I will try to visit your blogs in return. Have a wonderful week. 

My thoughts go to the people of the Ukraine at this time of the one year anniversary. 

I am linking up to the link-ups below. Please click on the links to see fabulous contributions from around the world - virtual touring at its best!

Mosaic Monday @ Soul & Mind & So On

Travel Tuesday

Pictorial Tuesday 

ThroughMy Lens 
Image-in-ing
My corner of the world through my camera 
Wednesday Around the World at Communal Global hosted by Randomosity. 
       and Little bird - Pienilintu
Thankful Thursday 
Welcome to Nature Thursday

Skywatch Friday

Hello there! I love reading your comments. If you scroll down to the bottom you can comment too! I would love to hear from you.