Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

Decorative shell trees Advent Blog  Day 14 - Seashells by the seashore    Shell tree In the 1800's decorative gifts  called sailor's valentines were made with seashells. It is then not too much of a surprise to hear that Christmas trees created  from shells are a popular decor item, especially if one lives near a beach.  My favourites are the more unusual shells with naturally beautiful colours.    Blue green limpet shell tree Cone shell tree Mussel shell tree While these tabletop Christmas trees are all beautiful, I am more impressed by the community effort of the people in Sorsogon, (Philippines). They created a tableau of 30 Christmas trees and many lanterns all made from  discarded seafood shells - 'baluko'  (pen shell).  Baluko trees in Sorsogon, Philippines   These trees were built a little over 5 metres tall and each took a small team about five days each to construct...

"Beach" tags for Tag Tuesday  Last weekend, I was very privileged to do a workshop with Belgium based artist, Jette Clover.  One of Jette's series of small works features postage stamps of famous people, so after the workshop I rediscovered my stash of stamps ( most of them still attached to envelopes). Fortunately for me, this fortnight's Tag Tuesday theme is " The Beach" which seems to be recurring theme for Australian stamps.  These collage tags have been assembled from torn bits of painted paper, magazine pages and stamps. I have called these tags "Winter Beach" as  the beach still looks as bright and the water as blue even  in winter here in Newcastle. Today's  winter maximum temperature was 16 degrees C with a clear blue sky and warm sunshine. ...with Jette Clover in fromt of her art work " Lives of Girls and Women" in  the STITCHED UP exhibition. 

Art tag: Seaside Dreaming  What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.  ( John Steinbeck) Art tag - Frozen Fish 

Towards Nobbys Lighthouse  In my series of blog posts about "Arty Places" the iconic Nobbys Lighthouse is the latest... right in the heart of the city where I live and I didn't really appreciate its beauty until I walked up to the lighthouse last Saturday. from Nobbys Lighthouse  Harbour entrance, from Nobbys Lighthouse The day was perfect - clear skies providing a palette for the occasional fluffy cloud, a sea breeze singing of Spring,and the lighthouse shining white at the top of the headland. The lighthouse is usually open to the public only on Sundays and is a popular tourist attraction, adopted as a symbol of Newcastle. It wasn't always ... Historical image fromlakescan.com.au  Captain James Cook was the first European to note Nobbys Island from the ship "Endeavour" in 1770,and was described by Cook as "a small clump of an island lying close to shore". It was not until the discovery of coal by Europeans in 1797 by Lt. John S...