The Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize, 2009

The Waterhouse Prize is back for 2009 :) Very much looking forward to going along to see it; the finalists go on show at the South Australian Museum on July the 18th. Must remember to have a look before the travel-preparations ramp up in that final fortnight (5 weeks today people!). This was last year's People's Choice: 'Dreaming of Water-Murray Mandala' by Janine Mackintosh from South Australia; it's Eucalyptus cyanophylla leaves stiched onto some sort of background. Clever!

Two posts in one day!

Ooh Ooh, I do like a funky find!
Unfortunately, these people don't ship internationally but their products do make it to Aus somehow because I found the most lovely diary/journal today in my local bookshop, Matilda's (support your local small businesses people!).
Lovely paper, every page with a picture on it. I'd give it as a gift, but prefer to keep it myself :P
I can't read a word of the site so I'm going to try and get my Japanese speaking/reading friend to find the address on there for me so when we visit Japan soon (less than 7 weeks to go!) I can seek them out myself :)
So, check them out for yourself at www.comes-graphic.jp , it's not so hard to find the pictures.

baud-petit2

baud-petit2, originally uploaded by hinaaoyama.

Well, I'm just impressed.
I've stumbled across the absolutely a.maz.ing papercut artworks by Hina Aoyama. I'm astounded, really, the amount of time, skill, and patience that must go into these works belies words.
If I could create things half so good...
This work is called 'Baud-petit 2', click the photo to find some more beautiful things by this artist :)

I'm trying out flickr's 'blog this' thingo, let's see if it works!

Time flies when you're doing nothing

So, not a whole lot happening. Work is so slow at the moment so I find myself sitting around the house watching terrible daytime television and thinking of all the other things I could be doing.
Well, I do some work, all in the night time hours. I'm such a night-owl I find I never seem to get going until the sun has gone down. I have been sewing quite a lot. I have made good progress on the queen quilt for our bed and finished the top-patchwork section of a baby-floor quilt I'm making on a whim. Soon, I'll need to make a couple more baby-quilts as there are several due within the next 6 months. Unfortunately it's likely I'll miss the birth of all of them and won't get to meet these children until they are a several months old, but I suppose you can't put off your own life for the sake of other people.
Want to know how the Laos Girl painting is going?
Well, I'm about 80% happy with it, needs quite literally a few more dabs of paint about her nose and skirt and then I'll be done I think. It doesn't 'pop' quite like I wanted, and actually it took quite a different, more subdued turn, than I had envisaged but still, quite impressed with myself really :)