Whoa, where have I been?

I'll admit it, I've lost my desire to blog. It seems like so many steps in comparison to just updating my status on facebook with photos, art or clever musings (or so I think anyway.....). But after spending a month in Australia with fellow blogger, Seth Apter (nicknamed, Setho), of The Altered Page, I've decided to give it a go again.

However, my first attempt just ended up erased and I just realized that I have no photos on my computer yet, relating to my recent trip. Well darn, no wonder I tend to give up so easily. So be sure and click on the link for Seth's blog, because he's got a lot of great pictures from our Australia trip up already!

Seth, Michael and Andrea DeMeng and I participated in the Australia Roadshow for Art -is- You. In case you aren't aware, AIY, is an art retreat that I have been teaching with for many years (2015 is their 10 year anniversary)! After Sallianne (she and Ellen run AIY) moved back to Australia, it was her dream to bring out some of her United States and Canada instructors and spend time in various locations teaching our Australian friends. It was my first time there, so it was quite the adventure.

We rented a huge van that we nicknamed, "Walting Ma-til-duh" (was suppose to be Waltzing, but Michael misspelled it). It was packed to the hilt with luggage full of art supplies, boxes full of art supplies, containers full of art supplies and a few bottles of wine (heehee). Along the way, we picked up 2 other roadies, Lovely Linda and Miss Jeno-o. The rule was whoever sat in front was on lookout for Kangaroos or Koalas. We'd all scream when we saw some kangas, but sadly never saw a koala in the wild; apparently this is because they have become quite endangered :( But right before coming home, I did take a tour to a animal refuge where I did get to spend some time with the endearing koalas and the ever charming, wallaby's.

We spent a lot of time in that van driving all over Australia, through the bush, to the Sunshine Coast, over to Melbourne (St. Kilda) and a darling place called Rafferty's Resort  in Mercure, 2 hours outside of Sydney.We spent our time in the van listening to music (cd's like Queen, soundtrack to Priscilla, Queen of the desert, Abba (of course) and others. We had many a sing along with Michael making goofy voices (like Donald Duck) to sing versus. We laughed alot. We also played a phone game where you pick a category, put the phone on your forehead and others give you a clue and you try and guess. That was hilarious. Quite possibly the worst player ever would be miss Jen-o. She sure came up with some great answers (that were no where close, haha). The big thrill would be to see who got a prezzie everytime Sallianne had to gas up. I think Michael got bath bubbles in the form of some macho plastic dude, Andrea got flipflops, don't remember what Seth got and I got a fishing lure (hey, you might see it in a piece of my art.....)

It was a lot colder there than I expected, even though it was winter (I just sort of thought, "it's Australia, how cold could it be?) However, it was a bit damp and overcast and they don't heat buildings like we do - so yes, it was a tad chilly at times (and I had only packed a light sweater, duh). Lucky I threw in some fingerless gloves and had bought a knit hat at the LAX airport due to  Aussie fb friends telling us "how cold it was". But other times, although chilly, the sun shone bright and beautiful. Some where on the drive we even encountered a bit of snow.

Think i'll have to go over to my facebook page and hijack some photos for this post. be right back. ok, got a bunch of awesome pictures to show ya. these ought to keep you busy for a bit. We made a few stops at some of "Australia's Big Icons", like "dog on the tuckerbox", "the big banana" and "large Ram". They were quite amusing and we even bought a map of the icons to start checking them off.

Setho also has a second  blog post up about the van ride. read it here.