Thursday, November 8, 2012

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Monday, October 22, 2012

yesterday, i stepped into the lift and saw

!

When we reached the 6th floor, it got up moved to the back, and sat down even before the doors fully opened and someone else walked in.

On the ground floor, as we filed out, it lay down and stretched out comfortably in that back corner.


Sunday, September 30, 2012

IF - book



i really, really like books, so it's hard to choose what to draw.. but i think that they are most importantly like a warm, safe harbour in a storm...

Friday, September 14, 2012

IF - burst

what happens if you notice everything?


Sunday, September 9, 2012

elephants



i've started a new collection on spoonflower :)

Monday, September 3, 2012

doodle creatures

1. take some watercolour
2. make a shape
3. fill it in
4. add details..

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Monday, August 27, 2012

Saturday, August 25, 2012

st john's island and lazurus island

Not perhaps the best day for an island trip…




We spent quite some time sheltered (partially) in a pavilion, painting.
In very good company :)



One of my postcards:


My other postcard:
(floating in the sea, sent there by a sudden gust of wind)

miraculously recovered it later, since the tide was coming in


Thursday, August 16, 2012

no hay camino


caminante,
no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.

wanderer, 
there is no road, 
the road is made by walking. 

-Antonio Machado

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

IF - freeze

Frozen peas (I couldn't resist)





Thursday, August 9, 2012

happy national day

I can hear the planes whizzing by as I type.
Not very many flags on display this year.

IF - bounce

I vaguely remember reading this somewhere and writing it down, can't find it now though..
(update: added a gif version, just to try gif-ing in photoshop)


Sunday, July 29, 2012

IF - lonely


The first thing that came to mind was "no man is an island" - if only because it is a phrase I've always found slightly annoying. Today however I came across a new term/concept - ubuntu, and I found it not slightly annoying but rather impressive. Hmm.

Monday, July 23, 2012

chickens!

A cheerier post :)
The chickens at stonecircle organics (a vegan farm, they inherited the chickens from the previous owners) were some of the fluffiest, shiniest, most self-assured chickens i've ever met. They clucked, scratched and ambled regularly past my caravan and picnic bench, secure in the knowledge that they have the run of the land and will never be eaten.





IF - carry

this is rather doom-and-gloom, it might have to do with the books i've been reading lately… thought i'd try a different style (not stick figures, for once!) but i still have a (long, long) ways to go… and i can never remember how the continents look like on the globe...


Friday, July 6, 2012

IF - suspend



















something from last christmas~

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

IF - refresh

15.04.2012. old man doing taichi next to a 100+ year old kahikatea tree
(travel journal excerpt,  @riccarton bush, christchurch, new zealand)




Thursday, June 14, 2012

waterlilies at the botanic gardens

enjoying the luxury of a leisurely stroll in the middle of the week, with yy and yt.

 

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

wwoofing...

 
a summary of the more diagrammable things.. there are so many more lessons, feelings, experiences i haven't figured out how to put down.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

spinsters roadtrip

i'm BACK from my long, awesome, wwoofing holiday… lots of drawings and other little things i'd like to put up on the blog, they will probably be uploaded in no particular order..

 

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Days 3-5

After a lazy weekend spent reading and walking round a bit of the creek.

Day3- more weeding! And then tucking, pulling up the wires as well this time to contain the vines better and tuck faster. Worked in a patch of pinot gris with M, the vineyard manager. Several crossed wires and pulled-up net wires in the rows... I realise everyday that anything done wrong at any stage will just snowball and lead to a lot more work a few months down..

Day4 - leaf plucking at rennock, a patch of merlot grapes on leased land, about 10km away. The land is in a valley with views of hills and pastures in the distance, with a small forest of oak trees next to the vines. 3 of us girls worked alongside M, and we learnt some things about the various hoops that have to be gone through - constantly- for organic certification. Even the fenceposts cannot be of a treated wood!

Day 5 - a half day, with most of the other woofers goimg to the beach. Leaf plucking again in the pinot gris. The sheep are wandering into the rows now but they really don't seem to be eating much. M has told us that once they start, they can leaf-pluck (or maybe i should just say eat) a patch beautifully in just 3-4 days. I hope they 'get the taste for it' soon! If not we humans have to fumble on.

Looking forward to tomorrow, when M is going to 'stir the potion' (mix up the biodynamic sprays) at the crack of dawn. I've heard from A, another wwoofer who was here for a month before, that there is singing involved!

Friday, January 13, 2012

wwoofing day 2 - turanga creek

Ever wondered why vineyards always looks so picture perfect, with bunches upon bunches of grapes ripening under the sun? I found out yesterday with my first vineyard task, leaf-plucking along the rows to expose the young grapes, so that they can dry out better in the wind (it has been raining a lot) and get some sun too. Interesting fact: they keep sheep to do this task for them too (much more efficiently no doubt) but there is only a very narrow window of time in which the sheep will eat only the leaves and not the fruits. Yesterday the sheep weren't very interested in the vines at all, concentrating on the grass instead.

My inexperienced progress was slow and the rows were neverending.... D (a girl from ireland who has been traveling wih her husband for 18months and has been here 4days) next to me moved like a machine - hands in a blur and sidestepping at a constant pace, she did almost 2 bars ( a bar is from post to post of vines) to my one. Trying to catch up with her occupied me mightily till lunch, after lunch I thought I made some progress but that might be because the weather slowed us both down. What you need for a day outside here is sunscreen, sunhat, raincoat and wellington boots. Sleeting rain and burning sunshine are only 5 minutes apart and they alternate frequently.

We did some tucking (of vines back within rows of wires on each side of the vines so they don't grow all over the place) after afternoon tea, lagged behind the 2 guys and D again, also managed to quite amazingly get lost among the rows (they are short for a stretch then become very long further out into the property.)

Had a great dinner with the family (dinner is usually very yummy) good wine and we chatted more to Mandy's husband. Was rather shocked when someone said they thought Asia was a very relaxed tranquil place. Asia?? But they agreed not Singapore, obviously.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

wwoofing day1

Introduction to wwoofing: weeding. I have, actually, never weeded anything before. Reasoned that it would be more effective to get rid of the roots as well but the host saw my precision digging progress (about 50cm in half an hour) and kindly told me i could 'just pull hard'. At least now i know how to weed! A cat wandered over regularly to lick my hand, which made me very happy but I wonder if it has an odd taste for sunscreen.