Worlds within worlds: A pictorial of a bushwalk in East Gippsland

During our recent holiday up Australia's east coast (only as far as Sydney, this is a bloody big country!), we had the great pleasure of enjoying a bushwalk as a family. It was the LGBB who insisted on the 5km bush and beach trek. I'm so glad we did it. There were some really amazing treats on the well worn, overgrown track. Tiny birds, big rosellas, little lizards, crazy fungus formations, whole copses of fallen beach shrubs that were stunning in themselves despite being long dead and flattened.

It was a humbling experience, coming from the beachside holiday spot in Lakes Entrance and walking just a short distance to get to the point of the actual Entrance itself. So untouched yet so close to all the modern conveniences. I'm quite impressed, actually, that they have conserved this area. It's only a great pity there are not more of these pockets of nature. It really contrasts with the paved roads, the industry, the devastation of tracts of land to make way for more "progress".

Along the way, there were many stops by me and the trusty Canon DSLR. Too many photos to share here but some of my best captures of what we saw are below.

First though... Any guesses what this is?

I'll show you the whole photo in a post later in the week, give you a chance to have a good guess.

Apologies for the pesky copyright watermarks. I'm just a tad protective.

On the boardwalk

Perfect natural borders!

Mushy

Gnarly, dude

Perfect flowers

The reward at the end - 2.8km in.

The beach was an entirely different kind of photo shoot, altogether.

......And if you're not all saying "it was an entirely different kind of photo shoot" in unison right now, I will be most disappointed.

More later in the week. 

I hope your weekend has been kind and restful and given you the chance to stop and notice the significant little things around you.

Hidden talents

The other day, I was cleaning out our guest room to get to the LGBB's old cot. It's going to be used by our sweet little nephew - remember this little guy entering the world? Awwwww, he has his Daddy's perfectly round cue-ball head and the most adorable pixie face. I love him to BITS. But that's not why he's getting the cot. And this is not what I was posting about today.

I digress.

I found my old high school studio arts portfolio. In it were bits and pieces - some old favourite paint brushes (the one with the oh so fine tip, great for creating tiny hairflick lines) and pencils, an eraser (as I recall, this was the oldest, most reliable eraser I ever came across and I used it almost daily on my work... I found it discarded on a desk in a classroom and never parted with it again... SCORE!).

My old tattered once-loved art folder was in there as well. Very dog-eared and becoming quite the fragile, ancient relic (aren't we all?), I turned the first page and gasped. Staring back at me was a rather youthful version of my grandfather. I had clean forgotten that he had sat for his portrait when I was fifteen. I clearly  remember him pulling the wide-eyed, somewhat hopeful look you see in this likeness of him - a fairly good one, I think - and I am really shocked to discover that when I sketched him, I was locking him in to a time before another six years' worth of age would show on his face.

I was GUTTED one day to see that someone had been careless with ink on the top of his head. I am still suspicious about the teacher, for she took some of my work (and others) and displayed it without asking - as if it would be some sort of surprise.... which I suppose it was, but not in a terribly positive way - in a local shopping centre where they were showcasing some of the talent from various schools in the area. Okay. All good. No harm done there. But THIS I found almost inconceivably careless of her/them:

"Are you finished yet, Kirrileh? Oh, choogs."
Oh, Granddad. I still miss him, even after he's been gone 16 years

You know why I blame her, that teacher? This paper is quite fine. It has bled through both sides of this leaf. There are no other blots anywhere at all on my book; no, this page was folded out from the rest of the book somehow and rested somewhere it shouldn't. When I questioned her, she shrugged it off and didn't know how it could possibly have happened. I knew damn well she knew something different but what leg did I have to stand on? Unforgivable! Mrs.... Whatever her name was!

Flicking further through the book, I gasped again. A portrait of my mother this time. Decidedly younger than I see her in my mind. Now, I could go to town on myself and critique the proportions, the perspective, the fact that I didn't draw the chair and cushions she was sitting on so she looks kinda squashed..... quite a fair bit, actually. But no. I will give my fifteen year-old self a break and will simply say, what a wonderful keepsake of a time when I was still so close to my mother and wanted to capture her in that moment. Funny that I forgot this entirely in the intervening years.

my mother

There were various other sketches in there, I remember spending some enjoyable time on these two:

Why does that fish remind me of Paul Stanley from KISS???

And then there was my end of year project when I was sixteen. I guess I must have been steeped in the magic of J.R.R. Tolkien around this time because, ah, The Hobbit phoned.... he wants his identity back.

You know what, though, I look at these and think, My God! I made these up out of my own head. Was I really ever that good??  At the time, I certainly didn't think so. I had such little belief in myself and my ability as an artist, as a good... anything. Growing up with emotional and sexual abuse will do that to a youngster, I suppose.

But the final, most amazing thing I found in that folder was the fellow below. I spent hours on this. Blissful escapism, pushed through the grey lead onto the paper. He is an old Mongolian tribesman, from the cover of a National Geographic I picked up one day. When my father left, it took him some time to retrieve all of his possessions - being kicked out will cause that to occur to a person, so I've found - and he had left behind his sizeable collection (okay, it was more like every single NG ever printed from 1968 through to whatever the current year was... 1990 or something). Thumbing through it, as I would do from time to time sitting in the study at the front of our foreboding home, I found this man I couldn't look away from.

Funny thing is, I remember being disappointed with myself because the end result didn't look exactly like the actual man. There was a likeness but I thought the picture was flawed because I hadn't made it identical. Mine was softer, not as harsh-looking or weathered. I look at it now and there is a familiarity about him to me, probably because I spent so much time with him back then. Strange feeling, to think you know someone you've never met, just because you sketched their portrait!

I just loved his face. It looked warm, trusting, honest. So I began to sketch it, without much thought of where it would end up or when I would finish. I don't remember how long it took but I consider it one of my best artistic achievements so far....

Have you ever rediscovered something you were good at? Did you take it up again? Did you enjoy it then and do you enjoy it now? Do you want to start it up again but keep making excuses? (I'm good at those... Hey, something else I'm good at!)

Heartfelt

I am torn.

I want to attend this information meeting next week. Heartfelt is an organisation I wish we had known about in 2004, when we had a rather shady digital camera that did its best in the Newborn ICU but was all we had and, after all, we were going to have a lifetime to get perfect angles and correct apertures and capture our baby and ourselves in our best light.

Weren't we?

Little did I know that when the only thought going through my mind was "Leave us alone, there'll be time for family photos when we get out of here" when the nurse insisted on taking this photo of us - and making me lift my head and smile when all I wanted to do was keep my eyes on my child because it was so rare to have her outside of that plastic box that was keeping her alive - that nurse actually took our ONLY family photos together. All three of us. Steve, Ellanor and me. She snapped four and it's all we have now.

I wish I knew her name so that I could remember her because she'll never know what she did for us.

I'm smiling but my face says "There'll be plenty of time for happy snaps, go 'way."

It's little wonder that I feel compelled to attend the Heartfelt session when I come across the cute Miffy photo album of carefully placed photos that my husband put together in the weeks after his daughter's death. He made it up to have with him at work - he was still a proud father and he still liked to show people photos as much as I, but it became a chore rather than a proud parental moment when, one by one, people did not want to see photos of our baby with wires and tapes all over her face and body, especially knowing now that it had all been in vain.

It was this that initially prompted me to turn photos of Ella into works of art. I had the hours, after all, so I painstakingly went through and improved many of the 370 photos we have of her. I made all the bruising, the velcro tapes, the needle marks disappear. I improved her skin and it soothed me to see her look like she wasn't in pain or being inflicted with medical procedures to keep her alive.

Dozens of photos retouched like this...

I only wonder now what it would have been like if I'd had professional photos to work with. I've done the best I could with the camera we had. It makes me wonder the results I could come up with for people if I was given their photos taken by Heartfelt photographers. I don't know! Once again, my lack of a piece of paper (for I am self-taught) is messing with my head and self-worth.

And it is this that is the single-handed reason why we now own a proper digital SLR. We went out and bought it as soon as we started IVF. Talk about expecting lightning to strike twice...

On finding the Miffy album yesterday, only minutes after I found out about the Heartfelt information session, the LGBB came up and wanted to see what was inside. We sat down together and from the first page, she shut the album, crying and scared of seeing her sister that way. This was an album of the raw photos. Lolly has only ever been exposed to the ones I have improved. It stung me in my heart a little. I was all at once sad that she couldn't face them - but understood perfectly why she couldn't - and really relieved I had done this to the photos so that she has been able to connect with her sister and not be repelled by all the scary looking stuff on her body.

To be honest, I don't know whether I would be able to help the Heartfelt project. I do know they are after professional photographers (which I am not) and photo retouchers (which I would think I am) and it is actually a service that I have done for a couple of people in the past, but never pursued.

I have many projects on the go at any one time and I wonder if I would be able to commit myself to the time it would take. On the other hand, I ask myself, if I have this skill, how could I not? Are there many other Photoshop artists who are skilled in doing this and willing to give of their time for free and work with this subject matter? I'm not sure. That's why I feel compelled to go.

But I'm also scared to go. I would not be able to live with myself if I committed to helping out and then let anyone down if I couldn't keep up in high demand times.

What to do?


At any rate, I want to spread the word about this network of amazing photographers. You can join their Facebook group, visit their website and follow them on Twitter.

Heartfelt, indeed.

I love this girl

Walking home from kindy.

And I adore these Photoshop filters.

Pity I only had my iPhone handy...

Does my bum look big in this colour?

I thought I'd get all growed up and choose a classy look for my blog for once. How'd you like it? You'd better get used to it, because I'm not reverting back to the old one (Read: I've impulsively trashed the code).

After viewing my blog on the iPad and realising, aghast, that the background image didn't stretch far enough (heck, it looked bad on our 27" iMac as well, so goodness knows what it looked like on all your screens), I couldn't take it any longer. The nervous tic and the anxiety that made my twitchy designer's fingers restless just couldn't sleep at night knowing it didn't repeat (the background image, not my undigested dinner in my churning stomach, that is).

So here we have a hastily chopped-and-grunged-up photo that I took on the family property in April. A bit of picture slicing along the horizon and field lines. A couple of layer masks slapped on and the old "Multiply" filter gizmo applied, a few other tricks snuck in and there you have it.

I'm not so sure the blue text works with the browns and yellows scheme but it was bland otherwise. Pah. I do like it. Even if I do say so m'self.

It was just time for a change. You know?

Do you have any impulsive changes you want to make now that there's a new year to be had?

How the craft ended up

Can't get enough of looking at our tree! It looks grand this year.

Thought I ought to post a couple of pics of where our craft ended up. It was just what we needed to add some homely touches to the place, on the mantelpiece there:

I thought we wouldn't be needing the fireplace... but I may have spoken too soon.

Yesterday was so cold, it was hot chocolate and marshmallows weather. There was snow on the Vic Alps and it was bone-chilly. Okay, so not quite anything in comparison to the UK. Possibly balmy, at 11ºC. But still. Not Summer!
The LGBB would like you all to notice her nailpolished, star-stickered fingers please (hence their strategic placement in shot):

I already told you... I just can't stop looking at the tree at night!

Universal You

Perhaps this will be relevant next Christmas as well and will become a bloggy tradition of mine, to post it at this time each year. But I happened across this post as I was searching for something else and was struck again by these very fulfilling words. Now that the LGBB's room is complete, a copy of this wall poster I made is hanging in there. Sometimes, she asks me to read it out to her. It's especially cherished because it's a photo of her and her Daddy that I took when she was just two, on vacation to her beloved "Squeezeland".

Enjoy!

Brag pause

Minor break in my hiatus to just splurge about... well, nothing much in the scheme of things, really. I just wanted to say Hoy!

"We love it!" the client says. I love it too. "We absolutely love everything you've done..... Now... can we just move this here and change that picture over there and... see that colour there? We loooove it, really love it. But can you try it in this shade instead...."

I. Love. My. Job. Seriously, I do. But sometimes, like this time when you know you've produced something kick-ass, it's disappointing to have your design elements jacked around with.

Ahhhh well, they're paying me. And they are honestly the loveliest and most gracious clients who have given me the best content to work with [I mean, look at this guy's landscape design work! Genius..]. Therefore, I am here to do their bidding where their website is concerned...

Cross-promo madness

I've joined the modern world and gone and created my business its own page on Facebook.

Is that wise? Time will tell....

Feel free to visit, and tell your friends!

Hot diggety bedrooms, kids, it's a smash!

Just last week, the LGBB got up after we had said goodnight, for some excuse or other (one of the usuals - "I need a drink/to go toilet/my light on/my light off", etc.) and we had turned on the video monitor in the kitchen. We've always had it, it's something I am not exactly sure when we'll not feel the need to use anymore. It's been such a huge part of our routine in parenting Lolly. Watching over her. Waiting for her to leave too. Then relishing her growing, comical, sleeping and waking moments over these past years.

So she sees it switched on, peers at it suspiciously from across the room, then says, "What's THAT?" What's whaaat? we both say, as nonchalantly as possible and thinking dammit dammit dammit we are so busted. "THAT!" and she points, then goes over the monitor, inspecting the screen which clearly shows her bed and Scraps and Bunny as she's just left them to come out to us. "Is that for you to see in my room?"

Er. Yes. About that, we go to tell her... But she's distracted by trying to weazle another few minutes out of bed and it's forgotten and we get away with it. The monitor survives detection for another day!

Anyway, following on from my last post, little did I know that yesterday, I would be put upon to get not only the rest of the skirting board painting and the fairy done as well, but also the curtains.

I delivered.

The poster is a really cool retro-looking thing that Steve ran once on a job,
this was an over that was going to be thrown out so I said Yes please! I'll take it!

Last night, our girl spent the first night in her new bedroom. And the delight she had was matched only by mine as I watched on that same video monitor my dear little one wake up, early this morning, then sit up and look around her room for the first time. I watched as she lay back down on her pillow and listened as she sighed a really satisfied sounding sigh. Then she smiled. That familiar wide-mouthed smile that takes over her entire gorgeous face. And I smiled too, still watching her. She stayed like that, beaming and looking around her room.

And I heard as she whispered to herself, "It'th. My. Bedroooom!"

I tell you, I nearly dropped all my tears all at once while my heart burst. She likes it. She's comforted by it. I am so relieved. The lounge room where she has been for the past six months has been okay. But it's no little girl's bedroom. It's scared her, it hasn't been somewhere she wants to spend time on her own. A little kid needs somewhere they can feel like they can be alone. She hasn't had that since we moved here (so, basically, the entire time she has been able to walk).

Happy, happy day today.

The fairy commands the central corner of the room. Lolly's tall white shelf unit will go underneath (its top comes up to the knee height of the fairy... a new unit of measurement??? Knee-height to a fairy?)

Close-up so you can see the purple flower centres (of course) and also the kick-ass lips/facial profile... Man, it was a killer to keep my hand straight but I did it. And I think it looks good. If (ok here comes Ms Self-Critical ....again!) you don't look at the proportion of the forearms to her thighs.... she looks like she could be a contender for the East German Women's Olympics team (throwback to that classic line from Top Secret - don't shoot me! It's a movie quote!).

I love that by 12pm on Day 1, the LGBB was already treating this as her kick-about room.
Shoes kicked off, socks tossed, drink shoved to the side....

The curtains worked - I removed the pins from the backs of these delicate butterflies and sewed them by hand onto the curtain. The blockout fabric is the highest grade - I bought it from Spotlight and sewed it onto the back of these tab top curtains - giving a really deliciously dark room...
which is lit up, of course, by every little girl's favourite accessory: the Glitter Lamp.

Bought this from Ebay a couple of months ago and have been positively ITCHING to put it on the wall. I put it up this afternoon and tonight, Lolly was lying in front of it, feeling it and saying, "This is gorgeous." I love that we have stirred a sense of wonder within her with these finishing touches.

Gorgeous nature

I took this photo (below) driving back from Peace Space one day a few weeks ago. As it is an expanse of open countryside for a lot of the 2.5 hour trip, I often get to see big fronts like this one. It's amazing seeing them hitting the blue sky like this. And because I am normally heading home at the end of the day, I usually get the setting sun on them which just makes them look all the more extraordinary.

On this day, a phenomenal, direct and very bright little rainbow was peeking out of the base of the storm clouds. I took this with my phone camera. Without stopping. In a 110km/h zone. Whooops. But I just HAD to capture this! It was so beautiful, even more vividly contrasted than you see here.

I have to say...

I am just BESIDE MYSELF at how awesome these photos I took on the weekend turned out. They're for my darling SIL and her upgraded website/business identity (I did her one a couple of years back, hastily and half-hearted, though with lots of love, and it is time for a major snazzing-up of her 'joint' on the www). She is a naturopath extraordinnaire, specialising in - who knew - natural fertility education.

I feel very privileged to have this girl in my circle (or rather, to be so firmly placed in hers) and we all in this house love her dearly. On Saturday night, she, Steve and I all but snuggled up together on the couch - with laptops on laps and Steve in the middle with his iPhone, not wanting to be out-tech'ed - and we worked on some themes. The SIL decided on old school: Paint Shop. I laughed a maniacal, if not condescending, MOOOO-HAHAHAHAAAA and drummed my fingers on my key pad, whipping up some delights in Photoshop and Indesign.

But the stealer of the show, for mine, was the photography. Taken in my kitchen, in fading evening light, I painstakingly picked a dandelion to pieces, tweezering the last few and then taking to the underside with some nail scissors. The result needed no photo touching at all, bear in mind what is below is the real, raw deal, no cheaty-type flares or colour corrections added:


I took about 60 shots - amazing how carried away you get, especially when you've taken a while to set up. And then, inspired, I grabbed a HOME GROWN granny smith apple (awwww! so little!), skewered it and got Steve to hold it in front of our kitchen splashback. It looks very crisp and fertile, to me!...


All I have to do is blot out the skewer and we're apples! Heh!

A very productive weekend. We even made progress on the house. Which reminds me.... must update on that soon, it's been months!

Perspectives

Someone has prayed for mercy today.
Someone has told their worst secret today.
Someone has lied in their faces today.
And it's all so sad and yet, beautiful.

Somebody's decided he's leaving her.
Somebody's found out he was sleeping with her.
She can't go on with him beating her.
And it's all so sad and yet, beautiful.

Somebody found out they'd be parents today.
Somebody was asked for their hand in marriage today.
Somebody decided to travel today.
And it's all so sad and yet, beautiful.

A parent will hear their baby's first cry today.
A father will lose his firstborn today.
A mother will cry the most tears of her life today.
And it's all so sad and yet, beautiful.

A kiss on a hand sent a thrill today.
A caress of a face showed tenderness today.
A moment to express love was siezed today.
Sometimes it can be too late to do.

I felt a change on the breeze today.
I sensed a need to change me today.
I vowed to make my peace today.
And it's all so sad and yet, beautiful.

Someone chose to be different today.
Somebody rose to the challenge today.
Something changed someone's world today.
And it's all.
Incredibly sad.
And yet... so beautiful.

Don't Touch!!

What was meant to be a couple of hours' of craft fun with the LGBB, making little snow angel decorations, has turned into a weekend-long pilgrimage. Nay, a "quest for fun." Just wash my mouth out with soap and call me Clarke Griswold right about now.



I feel like the father who spent all that time on his kid's science project, in a scene from The Simpsons' ep "Duffless"...

Chuck: {Can I touch it?}
Dad: {I've worked too long and hard on this for you to
screw it up now.}
Chuck: {But it's got my name on it.}
Dad: {Just stand over there!
[kid walks off screen]
   Over there!}

I know exactly how the guy feels. Seriously! I've been pushed to the brink by glitter. Glitter, of all things!

They do look very cute, though. And Lolly is strutting around like she did every cut, every painstaking fold. She helped put glue on the wings, dipping the unglued parts of them in glitter (how do they do that?? miss the blobs of glue and put glitter on all the unglued parts so that there's no glitter on anything when you dry it?) and then asked, "Can I eat the glitter off my fingers?"

Awww, yeah.... coochy-coo. Now move out of the way, Toots.

Steve had to make dinner tonight just so I could finish the second angel and be done with her. It would have been fine, as a little project, if I had read all the instructions carefully. Little did I realise, but they were not as meticulous about the hair, face, arms or legs as they were about how to fold, cut and assemble the dress, body and wings. I had to freestyle it and, thank God for the perfectionist in me, I wasn't driven to drawing out several versions til I got it right. No, I hacked up a coupla bits of paper and slaved over the damn things (with the LGBB jumping all over me and hugging me so tight I thought my jugular might snap at one point - she loves it when I get down on the floor), then slapped on the glue and said, "There y'are!"



The LGBB paraded them over to her Dad who made the obligatory (and just as well) "oooh's" and "aaah's", then she proudly brought them back.... and chucked them at me before flitting off to play with something else that had taken her fancy.

I absolutely dread getting involved in any of her creative school projects. I know what I'm going to be like. Chuck's dad. Fer sher *grimace*

The fortune teller

What we did today blew the LGBB's mind.

It took me back to sitting at my little wooden primary school desk and having the girl in front turn around with one of these and saying "Pick a colour!" or "Pick a boy's name!" and I'd never pick the name of the boy I reeeeally liked. 'Cos, like, that would've been just so, like, obvious.

Remember these?



Lolly helped me number it and write the words, then I stuck little stickers under each flap (instead of writing her "fortune" or prediction, like "Cameron is going to give you a wet willy sometime today").

She is besotted with it and keeps demanding that I "pick a cullah!" And the gasp I heard when I showed her how her fingers could open up the other way to reveal a whole new lot of numbers was just priceless.

Origami Fortune Teller

Did you ever want to see into the future? Make an origami fortune teller, and you can find out what the future holds for you and your friends! Here's how to do it:

	1. Start with an 8 1/2 X 11 piece of paper. To make it perfectly square, fold one short edge up to one long edge and make a crease. Cut off excess and unfold.
	2. Fold the opposite corners together to make a second crease and unfold. You will now have a square piece of paper with diagonal creases going from corner to corner.
	3. Fold each corner to the center and turn over.
	4. Fold the new corners to the center. Do not turn over.
	5. Fold the square in half from edge to edge in both directions.
	6. Turn square over and put thumbs and forefingers under each flap and bring fingers together toward middle.
	7. Now write a color on each outside flap, and a number on each inside triangle. You will have four colors and eight numbers. Finally, write a fortune behind each number on each innermost triangle. Voila! Your origami fortune teller is complete!

How to Play the Game:

1. Hold the fortune teller and ask a friend to choose one of the colors shown.
2. Spell out the chosen color by opening and closing the fortune teller, and stop.
3. Have your friend choose one of the numbers that is shown. Count out that number by opening and closing the fortune teller, and stop.
4. Again, have your friend choose a number, and repeat step 3.
5. Have your friend choose one last number. Then open the flap beneath that number and read your friend's fortune!