A Lovely Day

Hello there,
A bit of a mixed bag for this post, but I've had my head down and brushes up for a while now.
Time to post something and to pay a few visits.

The other day started off with some painting... by the time MD had coffee ready, I'd roughed out a little acrylic.  Have a new fad to paint at the moment - vases of flowers.  The one in the photo below is of some pink nameless kind of flowers but I'm going to intermingle branches of the lovely silver grey eucalyptus leaves.  You can see I've got one of my photos showing on my laptop and I'm using that as a reference.  I'll post a photo when its finished.

We decided on a walk after brekky, so down we went to the lake.  Saw this lone Australian White Ibis (I think that's the right name) having a feed way off in the distance.  It was beaut because we don't often see them here.
(Sorry to not have joined in with Stewart's Wild Bird Wednesday but I can't seem to be organised properly these days ... blame the painting and swimming!!)

I'd wanted to do some sketching after we'd walked.  Got it into my head that I could do some boats and so we set the chairs up and I had a go.  Lol, I think that'll be as far as I go with trying to draw boats somehow... lost patience pretty quick - back to flowers and other such things!!

It was a lovely spot though:

After a little while, we noticed this fellow paddling along towards us.

"Hello" he seemed to say !!!!  "Got anything to eat?"

He soon got bored waiting for us to break out the snacks, so a bit of preening took place:

.... then a stretch.  Oh, what a beautiful sight, just a couple of feet away from us:

Wings down and feathers settled:

obviously time for a walk.  Up he came, right up close to MD.  Totally friendly, but really, really hungry apparently !!

Nothing doing, no food from us (we didn't come prepared), so he ambled on down alongside the road.

I'd been meaning to take some closeups of the swans' feathers when I next had an opportunity and this was as good as any.  Aren't they gorgeous!

Back home I played around with the photo editor, applied a filter and enhanced the colour... I didn't change the colour to mauve purposely, it happened as I applied more contrast and saturation. (I'm not technically minded but I love experimenting... can always hit the 'Undo' button!).

Last of all, here's one of my paintings that I've recently finished.  It's an acrylic that had been sitting on the easel (or near it) for the past 6 months.  Finally, I got stuck in and completed it.  "Kelp Forest Fantasy"... I enjoy painting the fishies.  There's a little mermaid in there as well.

That's about it for this post.  Thanks for taking the time to visit.
I hope life is treating all of you really well.
Cheerio and I'll see you over at yours :D)

Happy New Year with Cherries on Top !

Here we go again ... another year.  Good wishes to all of us that it's a great one :D)

Lovely to be back, and I'm keen to catch up with everyone once more.

Random offerings in this post, starting with dessert:
oooh la la.... memories of a trifle that was definitely not to be trifled with!  Our Daughter's Christmas Day Delight... it had everything, and more !  We slept well that night ;D)

Now for a walk along the sandy shoreline.
Couldn't resist snapping this truly random find:

Here's a photo opp that I did set up.
I plunked the mussel shell in the water and was happy to watch it drift on its way - floating and bobbing along:

Sometimes, it's lovely to just float along.
I remember as a child, floating with only my eyes, nose and mouth out of the water, hearing nothing much at all except the underwater sounds. 

A couple of 'firsts for 2015' ... our first coffee for the new year:

I couldn't resist adding a loveheart I cut and pasted from our coffees we played around with a few years' ago

... and our first Turkish Coffee for the year.  Very strong - hits the spot!

We treated ourselves to some pretty little cups

Ha ha, I warned this post contained random offerings :D)
Here's a recycling thingy I thought up because I don't like having to clean chopping boards after cutting up raw meat... you know, how those little bits of meat (especially chicken) cling determinedly to the board.
Well, I washed and cut empty UHT milk containers and they're excellent for one-off uses as cutting surfaces.  No washing up, just throw away after use!

Finally, I'd like to end on a pretty note.
The ability to photograph white flowers seems to escape me, however, I had a lucky moment a few weeks ago:

Thanks for popping over :D)

A mixed bag today !

Hello everyone,

Well, the movie "Love Actually" was on telly last night so Christmas is definitely near!  It's one of my 3 favourites that I can watch again and again.   The others are "My Blue Heaven" and, I can just hear my darling groan  (in a painful way) when he reads this... "Out of Africa"  lol ;D)

My selection of photos come from another one of our recent walks and we were greeted firstly with the happy squeals of a toddler learning to fly his kite.  A happy little scene:

A flying fish no less !
A bit different to our paper and string kites of eons ago :D)

Gall-ing
We were walking around the bush to the left of the kite flying family and I decided to take a photo of these things that were on certain trees we pass when we walk in this area:

I wondered if they were some kind of bush fruit perhaps, so decided to take some photos and investigate.
Silly me, turns out they are galls caused by a special kind of wasp.  The tree is a coastal wattle Acacia longifolia.

Just happened to see this little fellow on one of the leaves near the galls. All in all, by the state of the Acacia,  I guess it's not feeling the brightest !

Rubbish... grrrrr
Further on, we were walking right by the water and I saw this:

... and this:

the movement in the water kind of distorts what it is but, yeah, more rubbish into the beautiful lakes system.  Takes all kinds doesn't it!


More Sweet Swans
Anyway, moving on, we turned the corner and saw a sight that put a big smile back on our faces:

Mum and Dad Swan and their little one

I could almost imagine the cygnet was playing a game of peek-a-boo:

So sweet.

My Artwork and Photos
At the suggestion of my good friend Vicki of Eucalypt Habitat I've been creating a portfolio of my artwork and photographs on one of the online sites she suggested.  I decided to give it a go and so chose Redbubble.  I remember Deb of Ramblings of a Square Peg in a Round Hole suggesting the same spot a few years' ago but I never followed her up.  Well, now I have paintings as well as pics, so why not!!

It's been a learning curve... so much to learn but lots of easy tutorials are there to help.  Lots of helpful technical advice for taking photos for specific purposes and products too.
They seem a very professional site with a good reputation and copyright matters are a high priority. While it's the first time I've ever done anything like this, I'm happy that I've started:

If you'd like to pop over sometime you'd be most welcome, here's the link to my portfolio which I add to every few days: susansometimes on redbubble

Well, that's about all for this post.  I shall pull Froggie out of the archives so that he can spread some Christmas Cheer on the header.  See you over at yours ...  :D)

Hello again

Just sliding back into my little place in the blogosphere and picking up where I left off.

I had a quick look through the blogs in my sidebar and it's beaut to see all the familiar names there.
I can see there's been a lot of travelling, birdwatching, cooking, gardening, sewing, painting and all things in between that have been going on, so it will be nice to catch up with each of you once more.

I've been painting a lot over the past few months, and we've been walking nearly every day.  Life's been quiet and peaceful and that's the way we like it.

Here's a few pics of what's been happening in our part of the world:

Our Magpie family thought it about time we became acquainted with their new addition,
so they brought baby to our yard for a feed.

It's a greedy young thing ... noisy too !

This is some of the beautiful scenery we see during our walks. 

... lots of funny little worm tubes

This year's hatch of cygnets with their protective parents

Adorable cuties aren't they !

My latest additions to my windowsill collection of plants...  truly amazing how much one
windowsill can hold !!

A page from my sketch book... such a peaceful thing to do with a pen and a few splatters of colour.
I've popped a couple of my other paintings up in my header. 

Here's my next challenge... painting the glass jar.
Fortunately, there are lots of helpful Youtube videos out there
by very generous artists.  I'll learn from them.

I'm never short of inspiration for paintings - how magnificent is this simple geranium
(pelargonium)

Well, that's me for now.  Thank you for your visits while I was absent.  I'm going to take pleasure in returning the courtesy and will see you over at yours :D)

George of Mykanos

Following on from my previous post of jellyfish sightings.  You can see I'm still in "fresh seafood" territory:

MD and I were hanging around the jetty and walkway when the Prawn Man asked if we'd mind his boat while he went across the road for a short while.  It was only a matter of staying where we were and telling anyone who came to his boat that he'd be back soon.  I had momentary visions of us spending some time in his boat - oh well!
When he came back he asked us if we wanted to meet some of his mates.

First of all, George of Mykanos:

He's made himself quite at home amongst the fishing boats...

... and George really loves his tucker:

The Prawn Man starts calling "George",  "George",  "come here George"

Whoah !!  George sprang into action ....

... couldn't get there quick enough, ha ha, he nearly burst a valve ! 

... got there just in time for Prawn Man's tossed fish (which might be a bit hard to see - I've have arrowed it)

we could feel George's delight - a free meal - yum!  

More of Prawn Man's mates next post.  Cheers now :D)

The things you see when you do have a camera!I

Felt like a walk by the water this morning, have been there lots of times and have thousands of photos of that particular spot but, something made me grab the glovebox point-and-shoot just in case and, boy, was I rewarded!

You've got to look extra hard in this pic to see what I'm on about ..... to the left of my watermark and you'll see

This is how close I was able to get to them.
There were a few happily floating in the water alongside the walkway, they'd hide down around and behind the pylons then float back out again.  I was good and ready for them.

This is a crop from the photo above, to show its cross marking on top

I had earlier this morning made a comment on Deb's Ramblings of a Square Peg in a Round Hole post on the beauty of her water shots - the beautiful patterns and reflections.
Her work inspired me to take this particular photo as well as some others ... Thanks Deb :D)

I took these from looking down at them from the walkway.
To me they look like real underwater shots.

Walking further on, I found this one had beached itself.
My first instinct was to try and get it back into the water but, the tide was coming in so best to leave things alone I felt.

Another one a bit further along, the water had reached it.

Looking back to the walkway.  I took my first few photos on the other side of that boat cruise ticket office.

Last one ... again with the irresistible reflections - a smaller jellyfish, a bit hard to see,
but, once again, to the left of my watermark.

It was such a great morning for that walk... came across more interesting things too - they involve George of Mykanos, and Bob and Maria.  Will save that for my next post, have overdone the photo count, I'm sure, in this one!!

Cheers and, as always, thanks for your visit :D) xx