DSUK

Ok you need to head to the link for the Optimist website link. Click to the charities tab section, register and vote for Disability Sport UK as the best charity. They will recieve extra funding if they win so vote vote vote! While on the website be sure to watch the video of Neil Diamond singing his pink 70s pantsuit. GREAT FUN! (its on the video page of the link above).

Holiday times in Barwon Heads. Well apart from the occasional piece of decoration adorning a street light (a total of three star fish), it does not feel like the festive season. I feel the need for some snow. Happily its raining while I write this which is great since we are experiencing water restrictions so the garden is totally neglected. Sadly my back is improving very slowly since I stepped in a pothole a week ago and have digresses 90%. Fun fun fun. On a happier note we will be moving in January to a beach house directly behind the sand dunes in Breamlea (pronounced Brimli in Australia). We are gearing up now for the move so it is a bit hectic at the moment.

The dog on the beach

The beach at Barwon Heads at low tide.

Food from medieaval times! Joshua Bell who played the violin in the movie The Red Violin. He has come out with another album. In the radio podcast he prepares a 17th century pasta dish with Lynn Rosetto. Link

Welcome back peanut....you were away far too long !

Leonard paint brushes

Last weekend I was introduced the the move beautiful squirrel hair, round headed Leonard watercolour brush. It held water amazingly and always kept a very clean point. One can paint the smallest detail with the large 14 brush. They are said to be made with the finest Rockcliffe Park squirrel hair ( hee hee). Not sure what squirrels have had recent hair cuts but I am sure no squirrels were harmed in the making of these brushes (as much as your tulips might desire). Take a look at their website. Download the catalogue and take a look at page 10. The attention to detail with the wash mop quill is duely noted while holding and painting with it. The website sadly has no links to retailers outside France. I guess one will simply have to fly there to pick up a few and enjoy a couple of long relaxing bistro visits at Verre Volant and L'Ami Jean.

Lisa Breslow - a bit of NYC

I really like this woman's work. There is currently and exhibition in NYC. To view her work click here.

Lots happening down at this end of the world - but most of it is the same as the rest of the world; financial markets wobbling terribly and people fearful to spend (except in Barwon Heads it seems). Our search for a new home is starting as we only have until December 16th so we need to chop chop! Back is feeling a bit better so able to get my paints out and do a bit more branding work in lieu of photoshop with quick sketches.

back with more later
:)

Maira Kalman

This woman is so inspiring. Ok so I'm currently a little obsessed with TED but what I can say; they have some amazing speakers. It would be great to attend but at a cost of $4000 for the conference, its a wee bit steep :) Maira illustrated many a New Yorker cover. I particularly remember getting the New Yorkistan New Yorker in my mailbox and thought "wow what a fantastic idea". Sadly I did not bother to check out who designed and illustrated it at the time.
Click here to watch her speak about what inspires her and a few of the projects she has worked on. Such fun!



Oh remember EB Whites Elements of Style? Visually the book is pretty dry, but then it is a grammar book. Take a look at her illustrated version here.


This a blog she did for the New York Times. Link

Thursday evening, the sun is shinning, the birds are chirping AND its warm outside.




Lovely Sustainable House with Net Zero (0) Carbon footprint (so they say). Very impressive if so. Designed by the arch firm of Sheppard Robson
Link

Food News - Ted with Mark Bittman

Mark Bittman from the New York Times was on Ted last December to speak about the way we eat. Very interesting and a great presentation. I particularly like the part when he describes the quantity of of pigs and cows we consume running to and from the moon some four times.

Video Link

Global Politics

The big day has finally arrived. Phew! Enough with the campaign spending, lets get on with dealing with the issues. While following the election results I came across this humorous article from the Economist.

The Melbourne Cup Results

Australia Rules....

Viewed has WON by a nose - photo finish. The trainer, in his 80th year and his 50th Melbourne Cup, Bart Cummings has won his 12th Melbourne Cup. Bauer placed 2nd, the English horse under trainer Luca Cumani. Third place to C'est la Guerre from New Zealand under trainer Murray Baker.
The Age Coverage and Photo Finish

Link to Telegraph piece on Bart Cummings, Viewed's trainer. Viewed is owned by Malaysian Dato Tan Chin Nam who has owned two of Melbourne Cup's winners trained by Cummings; Saintly in 1996 and Think Big in 1974 (good name).

Melbourne Cup Day

Image from www.horsehats.com

Live coverage from the Flemington Track
Cup Day! So significant is cup day in Melbourne, its designated a public holiday. Dress up, get your hats out and head over the Flemmington Race Track. Race starts at 3 pm.

Everyone is watching the Irish horse Septimus and the American horse Mad Rush. Apart from the regular challenges that foreign horses have; travelling to Melbourne, quarantine and climate changes, the horses and their foreign riders have to run the track in the opposite direction from Northern Hemisphere. Poor things! Regardless, the locals are labeling the competition as "The European Invasion"
Link to Melbourne's The Age news clip

While researching vintage kitchen equipment for my current project, I came across this charming site:
La Tartine Gourmande, written by a well travelled French expat stylist living in Boston with her Irish-American husband.

Etsy find! Fantastic rubber stamps from Sweetpapery. Sadly these two stamps are sold out but there is another fun one with cutlery.

Link to Etsy

Great gift for the gardner in your life- I'm sure they will look very charming once they are weathered. Be sure to write with a waterproof pen! Link to Simplemente Blanco. The main site is charming with the leaves blowing off the trees. Happily I don't have to experience that quite yet given that I've lived through two winters in a row.

Prefab

This house is charming and seems like a great little hide away




Lake Simcoe



This weekend Richard and I purchased some wetsuits and proceeded to take our first swim in the Barwon River. Apart from the occasional trickle of freezing cold water entering ones wet suit, the swim was fun AND beneficial to my back (at least that is what I'm told).

Stay tuned for pics of us in our new suits! :)

Wine and Wood

Last night I tasted a beautiful wine from the Heathcote area 120km north of Melbourne. So I've dived in and started to research local producers. The area is regarded as a boutique area with, many consider, the perfect soil and climate for the Rhone varietal. At one point a gold mining area it is growing as more and more vitners are moving in.

Heathcote2
The producer does not irrigate and sells out every year. This one is definitely next on the list to try.

Wood
The Dutch design festival is over. One recent discovery is this website with an interesting mix of products. The joinery on the link above is all hand carved.

I will add the images tomorrow as the internet connection is not working very well at the moment/


Candle
This candle would be perfect on my dinning room table. No need for candlesticks!

November Sketches

With all the "new bridge" issues here in Barwon Heads (they need to replace the old heritage bridge and the local government has proposed to build one vehicle bridge with a separate pedestrian bridge 30 m further down river into the estuary). All very silly. No one is quite sure why they have not simply combined the two while maintaining the same materials and look of the older bridge, thus adhering to heritage laws.

Spring in Victoria (possibly all of Australia) comes with very aggressive magpies protecting their offspring. So much so they dive bomb those who walk or cycle near the tree nest. That might sound reasonable but you might be a good 12' away from the tree and suddenly there is a squawking bird flying after with you a very pointy beak. Flesh has been known to be removed!



This is a charming old local heritage house in the older section of Barwon Heads, only a few minutes from the beach.

Viva Espana

Finally the world is going to discover the culinary and geographical variety the Iberian Peninsula has to offer. Sadly it has taken a signature Italian chef (Multo Mario) to meander his way through the medieaval and futuristic landscape Spain has to offer.
Spain - On the Road Again the Link to the TV blog.

It has been a while since I wrote about food or Wine so it time to return to local produce!

Ode to Japan

On line Japanese ceramics sale. Sadly many are sold out but fun to see the variety.
La Ronde D'argile

This is yet another site with lovely delicate ceramics



Japanese clan - do you know where this place is?
perempuan

This site has fantastic drawings
link
Lovely hand blown glass pieces
link

More Ideas

Well Abigail Ahern has hit the US market! I do missing visiting her shop in Islington on Upper Street. Such beautiful things that tend to always inspire!

The Wallpaper is my favorite!

I came across this artists work Michael Russem. If you're a stamp collector, like I know some of you are; these a fun.

The Beach House

Just found this great website with house designs from Norway. Great looking house but, maybe best in a different colour:
Link to Norwegian Beach House

The MRI went smoothly and now I officially have a bulging disc. Joy of joys. Now it's all about getting the bulge down in size and hopefully, once that is done, building the core strength again. That might happen in 3 months time (fingers crossed). Swimming or pool walking is the first project and a few stretches always keeping in mind that one should not push it to a point of shooting pain. Yeah yeah, pain all the time at the moment so the prospect of lessening any of the pain from stretches and pool walking is VERY attractive.

Word is that wee little niece Peanut now has an official name; Cait Aoyama Quah Donoghue. Fabu I think :)

Shadow Dance

This is a fantastic video. So very impressive.

I'm currently lying on the sofa since it's a pain free position. Working on the ultra thin apple laptop. Tomorrow is the MRI so I am a bit concerned about claustrophobia but best to bite the bullet and know what is going on with my back. I discussed my concerns with the MRI receptionist and I might be able to have my head pointed in a direction that I can see a bit of the larger room. 20 minutes in a tight tube full of noise is not going to be fun. I have to admit I did not think I would get an appointment so quickly. Very impressive.

Merchandise design conversation continues. Looks like we will have bags, tea towels and towels to wrap meat in (not really sure what this is but sounds better than plastic).

Etsy

This site is wonderful - full of super fun crafts. These charming little people friends are from Tasmania. Check out their Etsy site here.

Just a quick update since I thought these were so fun and reminded me of the paper mache dolls sold at Takashimaya in NYC.

Blogging

Monday morning in Australia.

The global markets continue to crash. Since we are the first to wake, the economists are expecting the markets to continue crashing. The Australian PM is securing people's bank deposits and the sun is shinning. Barwon Heads continues to be in a little bubble where no one seems the least bit concerned about the world beyond the Barwon River. People are chattering away at all of the 6 cafe's (keep in mind the permanent population of the village is about 300). Building projects continue on every block expecting the summer rush to start in the very near future.

Yesterday in the Independent (London) there was a great article about green design...

Green Design Link


What else? More weather news! It is still chilly here at night but the temperature rose to 31 yesterday so all the lovely spring roses are now withered and shriveled up. Poor things. You can't win. It's either too cold or too hot.

ok thats it for now

over and out
S

The art

Hi hi

This is my latest invite for a couple who got married last weekend in a small village in the Italian Lakes. Fun project as I learned a lot about the area and I think it needs to be visited very soon.

Spring has not yet increased the temperature here in Melbourne but the sun is so strong water is evaporating faster than it can fall. Water restrictions continue.

A few weekends ago I visited the Slowfood farmer's market where most stalls of heritage meats and heirloom this and that were wanting people to join 'their family' and become members for a fee. It seems to be the trend which I thought was quite odd, since all I wanted was a nice bit of meat and veg to buy without any commitment. Ties are a good thing in the world of slow I suppose.
This is Stephanie Alexander's children's farm education program. She is the Alice Waters of Australia. I love the font and the logo. Great fun.

Oh I came across this woman's work. Just beautiful.
Caroline Swift

Not to much to say today. I have a meeting later with the local rag's owner to discuss a cookbook with food illustrations. Should be interesting. We are off to Melbourne this evening to celebrate Richard's birthday!

New Moon

Hi hi,
Well it's the end of the month and yet again I have some illustrations for the local rag, Talking Heads.

Tonight is the town hall meeting to discuss saving the Barwon Heads Bridge. This image is a view of the underside of the wooden bridge. Sadly Victoria state road managment is planning to tear down the bridge and replace it with two separate bridges. The local population is roughly 300 in the low season. Needless to say two bridges are a bit excessive. Apart from that, the locals love the simplicity and heritage of the bridge so they would prefer if it was restored.

As I continue to research food and design sites I have encountered a couple of really fun and worthwhile sites to visit:

Martha Stewart, as many of you may know, has started a "blog"
blueprint

There is, without a doubt, a massive resurgence of craft making. Sponge is a site which lists great craftspeople as well as before and after images of redecorated furniture. I personally don't always think they improve all the pieces but it's fun to keep up with what people are doing.
designspongeonline

Wine shop with amazing design which makes me REALLY miss NYC
Pasanella and Sons located near the old Fulton Market
pasanellaandson.com

A great spot to get handmade crafts, letterpress cards, silk screened products, jewellery and such, at what seems so far, very reasonable prices
Etsy








A view of the Barwon River which flows under the bridge and out to the Bay and the "heads" a few hundred meters away.





A view of the bridge from the pier.

The tea pot

Akiko Hirai's beautiful teapot

I was not sure it would arrive since there is bark on the handle but luckily it made it through and pours exceptionally well. She commented that it poured well since I had to return two teapots in 2004 since more tea ended up on the table than in the teacup.

The Letterpress Course at the Melbourne Printing Museum

The images provide you with an idea of the piece I am working on. I will be heading back there again this week to finally ink and print a poster series. To set up the press and block all the letters took 4 hours, so printing the poster should be the easy part.

Last weekend we were in Forrest where there are many many kangaroos munching away at the lawn. Sadly this little "skippy" died the day after this photograph was taken.

The local Rag

Birds

Talking Heads is the local magazine distributed "out and about" the Barwon Heads area. I met with the local editor Trish who was a bundle of energy and ideas. She is planning product design and book illustration. First up will be illustrations for the local magazine....so many great ideas. It will be interesting to see how things develop. The image above is one of the images which will be published this month (not in the negative though) along with the two below.

Community Garden

Surfin' Maggies (aka magpies). The remit was to produce local images. Since magpies outnumber the locals, I thought it might be fun to have them surfing on 13th beach.






This past Saturday Richard and I attended the Melbourne Printing Museum's antique printing course. We are now budding letterpress artists (yeah right). After a full day of learning how typefaces are made, set and printed we came away with a few business cards from the Adana machine and two lines of typeface. The larger letterpress is awaiting my return to print a poster. It took the better part of 3 hours to find and set up the wooden typefaces (aka fonts in todays lingo). As we ran out of time around 6:30 we thought it best to let Michael, the instructor/curator go home for the evening. Personally, I was ready to spend the entire weekend there dabbling about with the various machines. I'm hoping to get back there on Thursday.

The museum is in dire need of financial help. They possess the world's most extensive collection of antique printing presses but not enough space to house or display them. They need to change locations in the very near future so if anyone has any fund raising ideas don't hesitate to let me know and I will pass them on to Michael. One thought was to have an auction of posters designed by well known people from all walks of life. "The Prince Print Series" to be held every year at the end of November.....

Melbourne and the Taste of Melbourne

Taste of Melbourne
A gathering of the most recognized restaurants and chefs so locals can sample their creations in one location and the restaurants benefit from a different form of advertising. We attended the Sunday afternoon session, thinking it would be more relaxed. Sadly it was a bit of a zoo. Located in Melbourne’s Exhibition Buildings, the front entrance area was dedicated to local restaurants such as Verge, Three-One, Two, The Press Club, etc. All very well know restaurants to those who live here.... Overall the food was good. The best dish we sampled by far was the quail wrapped in marinated grape leaves sitting on a bed of short grain rice, barley, lemon, pomegranate and hazelnut salad. The texture was fantastic with little explosions of lemon and crunch nutty bits. The longest queue was for Nobu's black cod dish. We tasted it and, it tasted just like the black cod in London's Nobu AND Cafe Japan. Always good but a bit overrated when you can buy the dish at most grocery stores in Tokyo. The secret ingredient is the sake lees. Of course, you do have to travel to Japan. Yet another food item to import. Another surprise was Verge's slow roasted pork belly served in a mirin seaweed soup. A bit too sweet but the textures and flavours were good. Along with the restaurant were wine and beer producers, cheese makers, magazine reps and ice cream makers. One of the more recognized wine producers in attendance was Dalwhinnie. Located in the Pyrenees, to the West of Melbourne, they are most recognized for their Shiraz grapes.

Dalwhinnie Wines
http://www.dalwhinnie.com.au/

The 2005 Southwest Rocks Shiraz was overly mellow for such a young wine. There were no tannins and was amazingly a very quaffable jammy fruity wine with notes of fresh fruits such as raspberries. The grapes are single vineyard, 100% Shiraz, 50% French Oak, 50% new oak, single vineyard wine. A bit overpriced at $60 a bottle.




Ice Cream
Gundowring
http://www.gundowringfinefoods.com.au/

We tasted the award winning vanilla along with raspberry. Both very good and creamy. Given that I'm not a die hard ice cream fan, I am not the best person to be sampling ice cream but I'm not about to give up my love for Bologna's Sorbetteria. Their gelato is still king!