A big portion of my ancestry is Irish, so visiting Ireland for the first time was something I was really looking forward to. From sunny (and often not so sunny) Melbourne it was hard to imagine the accents, the brilliant greens, the castles (yay CASTLES!!) and the...
When Beth googled "magical places in Europe" to visit during our big adventure, I noticed a shift in my thinking. It wasn't just castles that seemed magic, but it was like there was some indefinable sparkle in the air where almost anything seemed special. I suppose...
Six weeks into our European adventure I started my second sketchbook - a huge achievement for me as I have never filled a sketchbook so fast - or at all really, if I am honest! It was a bit tricky getting used to the skinny, wide landscape format of the Clairefontaine...
Ok, so my Strathmore mixed media journal isn't really made of gold, but the metallic paints meandering over the cover and the gold edges inspired by illuminated manuscripts have given it something of a reputation as a golden sketchbook. This was the first sketchbook...
“Castle!” calls my daughter from the back seat as we round the bend in the highway. It is our third day in England and we still can’t believe that castles and medieval churches seem to pop up on the landscape every few minutes, interspersed by Tudor buildings and...
My mum was a very keen genealogist, and long before the internet she spent years researching our family history in person, gathering birth and death certificates, visiting cemeteries, hand searching shipping records and writing letters to potential relatives. It was a...
I figure that I am spiritually about 10% Dutch. I lived in Holland for six of the first ten years of my life, and I have wonderful memories of that time – memories that have been soaking back into my veins and reclaiming my soul since the minute we stepped on a KLM...
Our family is heading off on a two month European adventure to discover castles, fairytale villages and unicorns. I plan to sketch them in a golden journal.
Standing in Swanston Street, Melbourne as the ANZAC Day Parade passed. You couldn’t have anything more symbolic than a lighthorseman – so I painted him.
Not much time for sketching in Paris, so this was my last drawing for the trip. I was flat out with the conference and soaking up everything I could see.
My sister speaks French quite well, and simply groaned when she saw what I wrote on this page. I promise I was joking with my pigeon French!
Beautiful summer’s day. A family drive around the French countryside. Then lunch in a sunny courtyard. Don’t know how I coped 🙂
A cheeky little guy on a baguette bag formed the perfect base for this colour pencil drawing of my sister’s collection of brilliant tomatoes
Sunset by the river in Quissac, watching the reflections off the river as we munch through our pizza and sip our wine. Doesn’t get much better than that.
Summer in southern France. Doesn’t get much better than sitting out under the trees for every meal, admiring the stunning millhouse where we are staying.