Happy New Year!

We're among the first to celebrate here in Australia - so Happy New Year to everyone, from Sydney. I'm not heading to the Harbour this year - it becomes a major exercise to get a good vantage point, then get home again - but I was very lucky a few years ago to be invited to watch the fireworks from a private jetty almost under the bridge. It was a fantastic experience. Tonight we'll celebrate at home with lamb steaks on the barbie and a good Aussie semillon - good food, good company, good wine, may there be more of that in 2008!
Reflecting on 2007, these are my best:

• book - Salvation Creek by Susan Duncan
• movie - The Lives of Others
• dinner - the Saturday night barbecue before Paull left, which had most of my special people all at the one table
• decision - to take art lessons, and get back into yoga classes.
• saying - achieve more by working less (Wu Wei)
• achievement - helping to get a Gifted & Talented class approved for 2008
• lesson from the universe - it really is all about family, friends and community
• idea - to start blogging!

Perfect Present!

You've gotta love a man who gives perfect presents! I've been dipping into these fascinating books since Boxing Day. The preface to 1001 Paintings by Rolf Harris is particularly inspiring. Always a fine sketcher, Rolf wanted to paint like Sydney (Aust) artist Hayward Veal, whose colours merged beautifully straight to canvas. They eventually met in London and Rolf was able to study with him. The style of mixing turpentine with colour to make a blur, then refining and refining until it began to look like the subject, changed Rolf's life. As he says "go see as many of these awe-inspiring originals as you can.....then get up out of your chair and make something creative of your own. Good painting!"
So inspired, I pulled out an abandoned canvas and now have a reasonable looking waterfall taking form.......if I like it when I've finished, I'll post a pic; if not, I'll turn its face to the wall - and start something new!

Family Circle

It's just a slightly blurry pic from an I-pod phone, but it warms my heart because it is my two kids together in New York On Christmas Day. They have been known to bug each other, a lot!, but when the chips are down they stick together. On our long summer holidays when they were kids, they would have only each other for company, and they would crawl around rock pools at the beach and swim for hours in the pool together. The three of us have had many memorable moments, such as our very first ski trip; our decision to buy our cute little house; and the day we went to choose ONE puppy and came home with two.
Happy Christmas, kids!

Best Wishes to All

Peace, Health and Happiness to all my friends around the globe - I guess if you live in peace and have good health, happiness should follow. Any time you're feeling down, remember all the people who live with war, oppression, illness and grief. My early morning walk takes me past a corner where a young motor cyclist was killed earlier this year - his friends keep up a memorial for him. So if you love, care for, or appreciate someone - Christmas Day is probably as good a time as any to let them know. Seasons Greetings - with love,

Cate XXXX

Wonders of Nature

My daughter's friend (an arborist) brought us this amazing protea - it seems to me to have a kind of cute face! I'm trying to sketch it from different angles but it is difficult to catch the 3D effect. It's got me thinking about mathematics and the universe - no, really - so many things in nature conform to the Fibonacci number pattern ( sea shells, sunflowers, pineapples ) and I bet this petal pattern does too. I'll keep on trying to sketch it, nothing like a challenge!

Festival of Love and Family

A few years ago I created my own version of Christmas - a relaxed get-together with friends and family, maybe on December 25th but not neccessarily; what's wrong with December 24th or 26th? It certainly takes the pressure off that "big day". I stopped sending cards and replaced them with phone calls and merged my decorations with the candlelight festival of Diwali, plus lots of fresh flowers. We exchange gifts to express our appreciation of each other. The wreath on my front door is entwined with wattle one day, grevillea the next, gardenias as well. My kids happily accept Mum's crazy notions; they certainly appreciate the freedom to be elsewhere on Dec 25th if it suits them, as we will have a special meal at a time that suits us all. This year - Paull has his first New York City Xmas and tomorrow Eliza flies over to join him for three weeks. I'm honoured to be invited to join my brother's family for lunch on the 25th - after a webcam call from New York, of course!

The Power of Feedback...

Wow, I've just realised how affirming it is to receive positive feedback. Thanks to those lovely people who commented on my first real painting. I think it might look better in the photo than it does in real life!! However, my daughter loves it and she is not known for her tact........ you have taught me a valuable lesson as a teacher. We know we should give ten positives for each negative, etc etc, but the reality is, you're pulled ten ways at once dealing with this and that and forget. I'll be "positively affirming" a lot more regularly from now on. Thankyou, you caring, thoughtful people!

Major work!

I've been quietly working away on my ambitious project. I started it during the last holidays, and have been puttering away on Saturday amd Sunday mornings ever since. I really wanted to fill a wall over my bed, and it just had to be a triptych - and it just had to be sunset over the river. This Saturday, fired up by my Thursday art classes, I just painted and tweaked until it was ready for hanging. I'll stare at it for a while, then take it down and tweak some more, but guess what - I like it!!

Friday on my mind....

Woo hoo, it's Friday at last. School gets very scatty at this time of year; programs fall by the wayside, parties are planned, the Year Six Farewell is approaching, the big transition to high school is on the horizon. It gets harder and harder to keep a lid on behaviour, everyone is tired, the weather is humid. Enough of that! A busy and varied weekend awaits me. A "thank-you" to the Greens volunteers dinner on Saturday night; a barbecue to meet Michael Piechowski on Sunday; and I think I might spoil myself with a French movie as well. "Conversations with my Gardener" should be a treat for a Francophile.

Feline groovy......

My sister, Patti, at Welcome to my Universe has done an amazing cat painting. I'm hoping it is the first of a series. I think one of my sisters has already "bagged" it so Patti will just have to do another. Check it out:

People say you are either a cat or a dog person. I'm both, and so are most of my family. I've always let my dogs live outside while my cat lives inside (a source of much frustration to the dogs) but I spend a lot of time outside walking, running and swimming my dogs. They don't miss out, but they would love to be a cat!