Art and Abart

In the air, flying back to base from the land of the long white cloud. You don't have be a space traveller to realise how small our worl...

Wellington has changed in the last 30 years from sleepy hollow to a capital city and much of the change is due to great design. This fence a...

It was clear and sunny during most of my visit to Wellington - and windless as well! So nice I painted outside and made the painting into a ...

I have spent the week drawing wonderful opera singers. They are singing The Valkyries in Wellington on Sunday and they are just wonderful ....

It is a beautiful day in Wellington - cool but bright sunshine. This is the view from the top of the cable car. Down in the city at the ...

This photo was taken from Cemetary Hill in Taihape looking south. It is cold there at the moment  - there is snow on the Ruahine ranges whic...

Farmers don't just farm sheep and cattle in Taihape (middle of the north Island in New Zealand) -  for years now they have farmed many a...

Sydney might be chilly (last post) but it is warm compared to Wellington. This photo was taken last Friday from a bus window on the West Coa...

Who said Australia isn't cold? It's four layer weather this morning . It feels cold here, but then I look at the temperatures el...

Richard Wagner was born in May 1813 and in honour of the bicentenary of his birth, many opera houses  including Opera Australia are prepar...

I have been making a few cards recently. Like this one from a painting made down the road at St Clare looking back down to Woy Woy. Au...

Dark wooden furniture, Erdinger beer on tap and comfort food from the 1950s. Middle Europe somewhere? No not middle Europe but lower nor...

What happened to all the wooden seats? If they still exist they are often like this one. Mostly they have been replaced by aluminium seat...

Calm clear day at the Woy Woy wharf. A bird sits at the end of a pier with its belly to the warm winter sun. View north from the Woy Woy...

Simon Tedeschi played piano at the Pearl Beach Festival with Ian Cooper on violin. They were charasmatic and fun. The chairs were in a sem...

Among performers at the Pearl Beach Festival last weekend were the Enigma Quartet, Simon Tedeschi (piano) with Ian Cooper (violinist),  Jane...

White lillies and large red flowers with floppy petals. These are the flowers that sit in the vase at Ruby's Cafe in Umina. Flowers a...

Rain rain rain. Then out comes the sun for five seconds, shining brightly before it is blotted out by the clouds again. Rain rain rain.

In June the flowering Banksia shine like lights in the bush. Banksia (Watercolour on Arches Paper) ...

The bush track between Patonga and Pearl Beach is part of the Great North Walk which goes all the way from Sydney to Newcastle. The bush pat...