Day 16 - shopping, cleaning, baking, eating

Yesterday was my artists date as Effy talked about in this blog post and as written about by Julia Cameron in the Artists Way. It is a day to yourself that you spend doing something related to art.

My artist date was to one of my favourite art store Artshed. I wandered around here for ages and this is only half of the shop.

It is huge and full of so many, many things that I love. I do a fair bit of online shopping for art supplies but nothing beats going and seeing, touching, smelling, feeling art supplies. Well that sounds a little creepy but my art friends will vouch for this fixation and addiction to art supplies. I already have so many brushes as seen here in a recent blog post but a girl can never ever have TOO many can she? 

 Apart from paint, I think my favourite art supplies that I just keep buying are brushes, canvases, and pencils of all sorts. What are your favourite art supplies that you cannot resist buying even though you have a healthy stash at home already?

Due to my shopping trip and a bit of housework that needed to be done I didn't put brush to canvas.

Although I may not have put paint to canvas yesterday but , I did pick up a lot of canvases, quite a few new paintbrushes, cans of picture varnish and fixative and some charcoal pencils, and a few other little bits and pieces, all essential to my creative pursuit.

Today is our art society's AGM so no painting until tomorrow but I did do a bit of baking this morning and just have to share this recipe. Those close to me know that I have cut out sugar in my diet over the past 18 months and have been gluten intolerant for the past 8 years so it is always a bit of a challenge to find something tasty for afternoon tea. Usually when you go gluten free you find that all the products available substitute sugar for the gluten so you end up giving up one thing and eating too much of something else that is bad for you. 

I recently came across this recipe and I recommend it to anyone. I replaced the raisins for dates and will be making it regularly. I also used "fake" maple syrup as it has 1/2 the sugar of real maple syrup - go figure! I have decided that I will be cutting it up and freezing it so I don't eat it all in one go. Even though it is low carb, low sugar, gluten and lactose free it is still a treat.

Here is the recipe from the Simply Living Healthy Blog and here is how mine turned out. 

My drizzle isn't as white but it tastes fantastic. I even made my own coconut butter to use in the drizzle, which was easier that I thought too. You can find those instructions here.

Have a yummy weekend everyone. Hope you are spending it with friends and loved ones

Namaste

Lee

A days with friends and a vision board

Hi everyone,

Well I'm still in the land of the living but had to take a little break from blogging to recharge my batteries for the year ahead.

I have been working on my Book of Days, albeit slowly, and getting the samples ready for my next art journal class on Saturday at Scrappers Warehouse. When the weather is so hot it is hard to sit inside and paint, even with the air conditioner, so I have been grabbing little snippets of precious time to create.

Another thing I did do last weekend was a fantastic workshop called "Your Awesome Year"  with the lovely Louise Gale and Kathy Kirwin. It was so much fun to finally meet some of my blogging friends including the darling Wini and make wonderful new friends at the same times. We had a great day cutting, pasting, eating, talking, meditating and working on our visions for 2012. It was a very productive day enabling us to set clear intentions for 2012 and it was so motivating I recommend it to anyone if you have the chance to attend one of these workshops. Louise and Kathy were the perfect hosts, teachers, motivators. Thanks ladies for an inspiring day.
Here are some photos from the day

 

 

 Here is my vision board for 2012. I have wanted to join in on Louise's monthly vision boards for a long time now so it was great to finally complete one.

 Here I am with the lovely Louise Gale

And here I am with the lovely Wini.

Have a creative week everyone

Namaste

Lee

My Artist Date

Hi and thanks for popping in.

Last Friday I took myself off to the National Gallery of Victoria to view the European Masters Exhibition before it goes back to its home. I must say that I was just awestruck by the early masters paintings, the realism, the mood they captured, the glow they had in their paintings was incredible. I have only seen photos of these before and to see them up close was a real treat.

 Here is a shot looking down the Yarra River from Princess Bridge.

And another looking down Swanston Street.I love the sight of contemporary buildings beside the old St Pauls Cathedral and Flinders Street station.

Here is the front of the National Gallery of Victoria. The glass wall with the blue writing on it is actually a waterwall, very effective.

After catching the tram to the Carlton Exhibition Buildings I stopped in a the Craft Expo and called in to see Anna who had just finished demonstrating at a booth there. We had a great time shopping, watching demonstrations, shopping, looking at new products and shopping and buying things like............

 These lovely butterfly paper cutouts

Some more great stamps

 Some paper kits 

and a journal handbag and ATC box

And some paper cutouts that i will use as stencils.

After I had spent all my money I was booked in to see the movie about a expedition to the Titanic at the IMAX theatre. It was in 3d and was fascinating to see the places they can now get their cameras in to.  After the movie I was booked in to see the Titanic Artifacts exhibition at the Melbourne Museum. I had about an hour before I could go in so I went to have a look in the rest of the museum. I am ashamed to say that after living in Melbourne for 23 years this is the first time I had been there. I walked around the rainforest exhibition and the Melbourne history exhibition which were both great. I will definitely be going back again to see it in more detail. 

Here are just a couple of things I saw - some textile designs

 Some beautiful lead lighting and some pieces that you vintage girls will love.

After that it was on to the Titanic exhibition

I have always been fascinated by anything to do with the Titanic so I have been looking forward to seeing the exhibition for a while.

I absolutely loved my day in the city and will definitely be making it a regular occurrence. Isn't it funny that it seems the city where you live you generally see the least of. I suppose you take it for granted that you can go anytime you want but in reality you spend time going on holidays everywhere else but near home. 

I know I promised details of my weekend but the light is too bad now for good photos of what I was up to so will post them in the morning.

Sweet dreams and good night everyone

Namaste

Lee