Sunshine Days....Magnetic Island Pix.

Waiting for the ferry from Townsville to the Island. There was a TV.  Lil't is very tv deprived.

Townsville.

Magnetic Island.

Spunky kid in the sunshine on the ferry.

Where the ferry docks. A few buildings, a car park and then forest.

T-shirt, shorts, sand.

The power of two. Tourists take turns holding up this rock on s shift basis. Community service.

This was awesome. This little guy ended up about 2 metres away from Lil't.

It wasn't a rock. It was a rock wallaby.

It wasn't a rock. Oh wait. Yes it was. Stunning huge rocks.

Lil t was absolutely in love with climbing the rocks.

I was in love with photographing them.

The way to the old pier.

For real. Taken on ipod.

Wandering up the mountain.

This was a gunner lookout during the war. Fortunately it never saw action. We walked quite a few km's through the state forest to get there. Fantastic engineering.

Hanging with Grandpa. Top of the world.

The communication tower. The tired kid.

Colour Riot. Every morning and afternoon these fellas would be fed at the hotel we stayed at. It was nuts. The noise was extreme. The two guys beak to beak are having a fight.

Magnetic Island. Here we come!

Hola!

 This time tomorrow we will be landing in sunny Townsville, in far north Queensland. Then we will be jumping the ferry to Magnetic Island. Magnetic Island is a tiny place off the North East coast of Australia, with pristine beaches and forests. We will have some awesome posts loaded with information about this special little Island over the next week. A bit of history, a bit of ecology, and a bit of holiday bragging.

Melbourne, while actually having it's warmest winter in 4 years, has been freezing at night time, cold winds, and had a nasty all pervasive chill in the air and has also been chucking down rain like it used to do before the 10 year drought. As a result we have had very little outdoor time which of course results in lowered vit D levels and lowered 'fun outdoors adventuring and gardening' levels.

So we intend to get as much sun as possible and to warm our bones by the side of the pool and on forest walks in the tropics of this beautiful country.

I am heading up to meet with my Dad. Big John (Grandpa). He instilled my brother and I with a true sense of wonder and love for the Australian countryside, cityside, coasts and inland areas. In my life I have never traveled outside of Aus/NZ. But I have traveled extensively across, around and up Australia. There is still so much to explore! After Townsville, we will have to crack Cairns, Darwin and Central Australia. I am attempting to also allow lil't to experience the amazing treats this country has to offer. Last Christmas/New Year we drove up to Qld from Melbourne over 3 days to visit Vonnie and Jez and Niamh. It was such a fantastic road trip and a wonderful liberating adventure.

So stay tuned. Facts and Photos are on their way!

http://www.islandstay.com.au/resorts-on-magnetic-island.php the page I found this photo, as I can't find photocredit.

Beautiful.

Lil't recently did her first singing concert since beginning lessons a term ago with Em. She is loving her lessons and she sings all the time, day and night, composing her own lyrics and tunes. This kid is so relaxed on stage! I love watching her perform. Ash and Em's concerts are lovely. A bunch of friends of various ages showing off what they have learnt that term. Informal and fun. Simple and quick. Leaves heaps of time for eating scones and chatting afterwards!

BLEED + READ: I HEART: GAGA

BLEED + READ: I HEART: GAGA: EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT GAGA! Because she's HERE, in Melbourne, for her Born This Way Ball Tour. PHOTO CREDIT The Tanster  a...

Going Ga Ga for Ga Ga

We went to see Lady Gaga!

 

See the rest of Vonnie's article here!

 My awesome friend Vonnie took some great pictures of us the day of the night of the Lady Ga Ga concert. I have nicked one of the pix from her site, but check out the link to her blog see the whole post. It is pretty hilarious.

Seeing Lady Ga Ga perform was incredibly inspirational. As a performer who comes from a family of theatre/circus/artists I was so blown away by her show. It was pure entertainment and talent perfectly executed. Everything from costumes, sets, direction, chorey, sound and lighting the dancers and most of all Ga Ga's voice, were all phenomenal.

Lil't has just been practicing Bad Romance on the piano. Tallulah spent the whole concert dancing on her chair singing along and screaming and clapping. We never ever forget our first concert experience! Mine was Wham in grade 6. It was AWESOME! Wearing our choose life tee shirts and fluro bobby sox...sigh....

Waiting impatiently for Lady Ga Ga. She rocked our socks off!

After the show. The set was AMAZING!

Barbie dolls and Shakespeare

Over the last 2 months my mum has been coming over on Mondays to teach Lil't how pleasurable it is to understand and subsequently enjoy Shakespeare. Maureen is an actress with over 40 years experience in the industry so it is only fitting for her to tackle this particular subject!

In Australia, Shakespeare's plays are not approached by students until high school which is right about when kids are rejecting anything cultural that is proffered to them by anyone over the age of 22 (which is WAY OLD anyway). Sparking an interest in this subject now is invaluable to Lil't's education, and how wonderful to have the privilege to start exploring this subject at the tender age of 9.

Big M and Lil't have been studying Romeo and Juliet. The quintessential romantic tragedy. So far they have also taken in two films as part of the study- the Baz Luhrmann version, and Westside Story, along with detailed coverage of the dialogue each week. More films will be viewed over time as to  impart some of the critical and interpretive understanding of theatre, tv and film. I can't wait to take her to a live theatre production!

So, what role does Barbie play in this I hear you ask? Well, who better to play the Montagues and the Capulets and all the other roles!

Learning to read Shakespeare out loud is fantastic. Lil't is learning about language evolution, history, metre, character, all while improving her literacy and covering various aspects of acting and performance. They have even begun a project that embraces location design for production purposes, finding  locations within our suburb to be used for different scenes and photographing them.

hi it's little T! Me and grandma have been doing Romeo and Juliet and we have being using the barbies that me and my dad collected when i was the age two up to five. I like the plot in Romeo and Juliet except the death part about it :[. sorry about the sad face. my favourite character is the nanny. ummm i guess that's all folks!!!!! :D

Learning Art.

A bit about Big T. 

 I AM ART. IT IS ALL I KNOW. I KNOW VERY LITTLE.

art [ahrt]

noun

1.the quality, production, expression or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.

2.the class of objects subject to aesthetic criteria; works of art collectively, as paintings, sculptures, or drawings: a museum of art; an art collection. See fine art, commercial art.

3.a field, genre, or category of art: Dance is an art.

4.the fine arts collectively, often excluding architecture: art and architecture.

5.any field using the skills or techniques of art: advertising art; industrial art.

Art in school has upset me since I was a very small child. I would go to galleries with my mum, and see magnificent works, or look in books and be awed by simple pencil drawings of aesthetic proportions that would blow my mind, and then I would be at school 'learning art'. You do not learn art at school You learn to blob paint around in a format set out to cater to a half hour slot.  True art requires immense skill and knowledge, and does not come about by colouring in a picture of a bilby with coloured pencils. Art requires planning, mathematics, understanding of colour, of depth of field, of ratios, more planning, understanding of physics, chemistry and now also computers. Art requires practice, courage and insight and the capacity to translate from the inner eye to reality and hard copy.  But none of these are taught in school. Art is treated like poo at school. A boff off easy subject, a time to rest from 'real' learning. 

My first day of pavement art at 24or25. I had just quit doing visual arts at tafe because it was such a load of rubbish.

As a child I taught myself. No one else would teach me what I wanted to know. My mother helped me at home, she was a pretty good artist herself. We had a fantastic room with sesame street characters painted on the walls. But for the most part I taught myself, I was resourceful that way, still am. Trial and error and hours every day learning the hard way, painstaking observation. I was teaching myself how to make something of 'more than ordinary significance'. I started this when I was eight.  I wanted to be a master painter. Eventually I was good. Very good. I have not yet reached my potential, the fun part is that I never will!

 A rather bad photograph of one of my last works of pavement art and one of my last works of art. She was about 8ft tall! Summer 2005/6.

I am actually glad I never studied art at University. I have learnt that they teach aspiring young artists to cheat. Yep, to use projectors to translate photographs into paintings. What they haven't worked out yet, is that this totally messes up the proportions of the portrait, causing bulbous noses and large foreheads. A projector doesn't understand foreshortening. It just makes things big, and it doesn't work. I can pick a projector painting a mile away. They can look flashy, because the kids are great at colouring in, but they are missing something, something integral, something I can't yet pinpoint, inner soul perhaps? Oooh, I am such a b*tch.

Over the last 8 years I haven't produced much work. I did a few lame sketches of my daughter sleeping when she was a baby and that is about it. I will get back to it eventually of course. I have just been doing other things! 

 

So here is the first art project that Lil't has done at home. This project required a paper draft, to plan pattern, colour and layout and measurements. Also important to the plan was the order of colours to be painted, as acrylic tends to have a shadow bleed effect. The project is a complete one. Not a slap of sticky tape and pipe cleaner. It took two weeks to compleat. Some of it I helped with, especially the lining (which was really hard) but then my mentors would get their hands in with my art too. Teachers at school can't teach art this way, because there isn't the time to teach art properly at primary school, especially to kids who show a disposition toward it, which is a travesty and let down to the future culture of the human race.

Planning. Integral to learning to be an artist.
 This can be executed as a million drafts or in the head,
 but it has to be done.

Each colour required several coats of paint, which in turn requires patience. Patience is awesome.

The finished box, ready for display!