Fancy adventure: Barrington Tops {part two}

Just a few of my favourite photos from Barrington Tops. Am saddened by how quickly one can adjust to working life. Even though we took the trip just two weeks ago, it now seems nothing but ancient history. Trying to hold on to that little bit of festivity still within me. Isn't it about time for someone to invent a time machine?

Hope you guys are having a great week. Click here if you would like to see more photos from my recent outing.

Fancy adventure: Barrington Tops {part one}

During the Christmas/NewYear holidays, Mat and I took another small trip to Barrington Tops. It is about four and a half hour drive from Sydney and easily one of my most favourite weekend getaway spots ever. 

For this trip, I cleaned up my dusty analogue Minolta and took it out for a spin. I wasn't sure whether it can still take good pictures but was really surprised when the photos came back better than I imagained. Other than a few fuzzy night shots, everything was perfect. I love looking through the analogue viewfinder, it is so different to a digital and to me so much more easier to use when composing a picture. The images has such warmth and depth to them which I believe is very difficult to capture with digital. It is not a cheap hobby, but will definitely experiment more with film photography in the future.

Super friendly wallaby, he was greeting us the moment we arrived.

The view from our balcony. Love to wake up to this every morning.

Fancy adventure: Watercolour class {week 3}

Week three of watercolour class was all about seascapes. I have to admit, I wasn't at all impressed with my creation, it looked very much like a horrible art project by a primary school student. Let's hope that this was just a bad art week and things will pick up at a later stage. At the moment, I'm having a lot of troubles with building up layers and understanding the behaviours of watercolours. It would be great if someone could tell me how I can build layers without accidentally stripping colours off the page.

Fancy adventure: Sculpture by the Sea

Went to Sculpture by the Sea on Sunday. Wasn't too impressed with the artwork this year, in my opinion, majority of them looked a bit dull, as though they were designed to be purely sold to corporate offices. I was more interested in taking pictures of the giant fluffy cloud over the horizon.

Nonetheless, there were a few pieces which I thought were quite interesting. Did you get a chance to visit Sculpture by the Sea this year? If so, how did you find it? Which one was your favourite?

Fancy adventure: Watercolour class {week one}

Recently Mat and I have enrolled ourselves to a weekend watercolour class in Newtown. The course goes for 7 weeks and so far we have learnt the colour wheel, different ways of applying paint and the different techniques in holding a brush. I have used watercolour many times before, but it is so nice to be taught the fundamentals. I cannot wait to apply what I've learnt to my illustrations in the near future.

The paint I am using is only of the cheapest variety, I would really like to invest in something better. However from what I've seen, you can either buy really cheap paint or top of the range which cost upwards of $200 for a set. If you are a watercolour aficionado, I would really like to hear your recommendation. Which brand of watercolour do you use, and more importantly can you recommend a brand that is of good quality but won't break the budget?

Fancy outing: Newcastle and surrounds

For our 5th year anniversary, Mat took me on a mini getaway to Newcastle and surrounds. It was such a fun trip. Highlights included discovering amazing street art, consuming copious amount of mojitos, visiting the dog friendly beach, getting lost in the art gallery at Maitland and sampling lots of gourmet food at Morpeth. I can't wait for our next visit.

Fancy outing: Down the rabbit hole

Sunday was spent visiting the  White Rabbit Gallery  which I happily declare as one of my favourite galleries of all time. If you haven't been, you better make a dash for it. Not only does it host one of the world's largest and most significant collections of contemporary Chinese art, it also has a tea garden where you can sample teas and dumplings to your heart's contempt. The building itself is pretty amazing too, light floods in from all direction, creating the perfect setting for art appreciation and photo taking.

Fancy outing: Petersham Portuguese festival

There is something about street festivals that get me all giddy with excitement. On Sunday we paid a visit to the annual Portuguese festival in Petersham. We drank Sangrias like greedy school girls, gorged on food which we have never tasted before and filled our belly with custard filled pastry goodness. Hands down this is my favourite festival of the year.

Fancy outings - Camperdown

Since it was such a beautiful day yesterday, we decided to take a walk to a nearby suburb for a bit of inner city safari. Apart from visiting  Camperdown Mews  (a must see if you love vintage and antiques), we have never really been to Camperdown before. To us, it was always one of those neglected suburbs where you just drive pass and forget about. However, instead of facing a suburban wasteland, we were greeted with hundreds of historic warehouses, amazing street art and a  shop  where I've found my favourite lolly of all time. We are already planning our second visit.

Arcade screen printing class

Mat and I went to a screen printing class at  Arcade Screen Printing  on the weekend. It was a belated birthday present for Mat, but since I couldn't resist the opportunity to do some screen printing of my own, I enrolled as well. The course was aimed at people who have never screen printed before as well as people who want a refresher course on the craft. We were given the choice to print our design on either a t-shirt or a tea towel, and I guess anything else to your heart's desire. It was so much fun! We are now officially addicted and are already talking about setting up a print studio of our own.

Making sure the design fits within the tea towel.

Getting ready for my first print.

Mat's t-shirt. That's right, he made a t-shirt design on Miso, look out for a Miso appreciation club in the near future.

 Happy camper. This is going to be the first of my Imagined Travels series. I will be putting it on my 

 etsy shop  in the next couple of days. There will be an extremely limited amount of tea towels available. So get it before it is too late.

The land of giants

Thanks for everyone's lovely comments on my  Macaroon disaster , I think I will give it at least one more go before I throw in the towel and give up.

Well, apart from my adventure in baking, my weekend was filled with a trip to Bondi's  Sculpture by the Sea . It was a beautiful misty day as evident by the moody picture above. I can't help but notice a trend towards giant reproduction of animals and everyday objects. I wonder what would happen if a giant visit this exhibition.

Still on a high

Harvest Festival was beyond amazing, highlights were seeing Mercury Rev for the first time, being chased by a robot, the super friendly and chilled out festival punters and of course getting close and personal with Portishead, not only was I in front of the stage, I even got to say hi to her at the very end!

Yippee yay yay

Going to the Harvest Festival this Sunday. I am dying to see Mercury Rev, Portishead, Death In Vegas, The Flaming Lips and The National. Please, please, please play my favourite songs!

Working out my festival outfit two days in advance. Yes, I am lame that way.

Road trip - Barrington Tops

We took a road trip to Barrington Tops for my 31st birthday celebration. For anyone who have never been, I would say pack your bags now! It was the most magical place I have ever been, we were greeted by friendly animals everywhere we go. We had possums, bush turkeys, bower bird and parrots knocking on our window each morning, visitations by the too curious neighbourhood pony, horses and rock wallabies. We even made a life long friend with one of the wallabies and her baby as evident above. Be ready for my image heavy post :)

We are already planning on our next return trip. Can't wait to see my animal friends again.

Goal 10 of Twelve by 2012 complete, 11 more to go.

Here kitty kitty

Just have to share this beautiful photo of a kitty I met during one of my neighbourhood strolls the other day. How beautiful are her eyes? I think she and Miso would make the perfect couple....

Piggy in my belly

I never thought a piggy will end up in my belly until I met these little buns yesterday, How adorable are they? They were sesame steamed buns from Chef's Gallery in Sydney. They even come in his and her version. You can't really see it here, but the one that is in focus has a little bow on her head. I want another one just looking at it now.

After the piggy massacre, we took a walk around the side streets for Streetware as part of the Art and About festival. We couldn't find most of the sites on the map. Either they are not painted yet, or already covered by the council or we are just extremely bad at reading maps... We did manage to find this one by Claire and Mie Nakazawa in Dungate Lane. I love the vibrant colours. I hope this will stay for a bit, we need more colours in our city.