52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 2

The theme for Week 2 is "Kids", but I drew a kid puppet. Double-ended waterproof black Sharpie. No pencil, no eraser! (Living dangerously!)

Week 2: Kids

Lion around

Lion Island, as seen from Paul Landa Park, Pearl Beach (2011).

And a recent trip with the school choir, into the recently-revamped Sydney Town Hall in the CBD, had me noticing these stone "lion head" gargoyles (below). I guess I'd always known they were there but I hadn't really examined them closely before, nor noticed that each one had a different expression!







Then, of course, there are two lions in the school library:


Alex from "Madagascar" and "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa"


Alex and friends

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Library lion

And, it's almost Chinese New Year!

The Year of the Tiger this week

Our students at school celebrated Chinese New Year this week, and the Tigger cushion from the library couch - and my synthetic tiger skin rug - made cameo appearances in the annual K-2 celebrations.

The modern slideshow

Ever gone to one of those awful "slide nights" when you were a kid? Some neighbour would invite your whole family over to see slides of their family holiday to... wherever. And the slide projector always developed a fault, or blew a globe. Or someone would spill the box of slides, or the screen would be blank and someone would make those tired old jokes about the white screen representing a snowman in a blizzard.

May I present the modern slideshow, which I'm using as a teaching tool in my job as a teacher-librarian. I Photoshop and upload the photos to the Internet from home, select them as a group for a slideshow, and design lessons around the use of the images (that have no copyright problems).

My first three Flickr slideshows have proven to be very useful. But I learned something very exciting yesterday: when the mouse is dragged across the middle of the frame, a large "i" icon appears. I assumed this meant "information" but I never thought to test it. Children don't seem to have that lack of impulse to click a button; thus I discovered that my photo titles and description, in white text, superimpose the photos at the click of a mouse! Simple, but effective. Technology makes adults feel dumb sometimes!

Chinese New Year K-2
Bridges - Stage Two (Years 3 & 4)
Antarctica - Stage Three (Years 5 & 6)

Year of the Small, Nocturnal, Domestic Rodent

This weekend marked the commencement of the Chinese New Year. The Pig (2007) officially handed over to... the Rat (2008). Or, indeed, the Mouse - if you believe my local coin shop which is distributing special "Year of the Mouse" collectible coins for the Australian Mint. Maybe mice are more socially acceptable to coin collectors? (You dirty rats!)

I was in the city for a Star Trek Meetup in the Royal Botanical Gardens but, on the way through the CBD, I passed all the marchers and floats preparing to start their huge Chinese New Year Parade. Perfect timing, and I couldn't resist firing off a few digital snaps for my Flickr account. Or as a slideshow!

Photographing colourful, waiting, assembled marchers proved to be quite effective - with all the outfits pressed against each other instead of stretched apart during the parade proper - although the dragon and lion dancers came alive with a magic that only moving footage would have been able to preserve.

The most amazing group was wearing grey, faceless costumes of the Terracotta Warriors. Very impressive.

Enjoy!










Sunday's magic number: 92.1. Tempted by food - all around me! But resisting anew. I hope.