Weekly drawing: Wind and rain monsters

As a kid some monsters seemed more honest and friendly then some of the adults who pretended they weren't monsters. This is a drawing and poem too the honest monsters who would walk through the bush on stormy night. I enjoyed their Muppet appearance and Wild Things ways.

The wind and rain monsters

I can't sleep.

The wind is wild,

The rain is insane

The trees are alive

like never before

I want to see more.

But I have school 

in the morning.

                         by Joel Tarling

Weekly drawing: The big tree in playground

In Bermagui public school there is a grand old tree growing in the middle of it's playground. I have always loved this tree, it reminds me of the kind of tree that would grow in Tolkien's Mirkwood forrest.

When I was in year three, Scott and I played cars at it's base. We made camouflaged Batcave's for our cars by placing sticks between buttress roots and covering them with leaves and soil. In the company of this grand old tree, we were lost in our own imagination and a thousand miles from the school yard politics of footy and kiss and catch.

Weekly Drawing: Singing to the cows

This drawing is an illustration of something I mentioned in the blurb of Weekly drawing 53 

"We lived 5km out of town along the coast and my sister and I were the only kids at our school bus stop. However this didn't seem to bother us. While we waited we made a hand ball court by sweeping the clay, so there was a smooth area to play. And the property over the fence was dairy farm, I would sometimes amuse my sister by singing to the cows "Da do ron-ron- ron". To our amazement they would all huddle over to listen. These were magical days."

Weekly drawing: Message in a bottle

My big sister, Dan Scollay and I, inspired by a combination of The Police song 'Message in a bottle' and Robert Louis Stevenson's story Treasure island, decided to make our own messages in a bottle and cast them into the ocean for passing ships to find.

Our hand drawn messages were placed in old lemonade bottles and we clambered down a goat track to a small beach, only accessible from Eileen's property.
However when we tired to send to bottles out to sea we couldn't get them past the breakers. Not even our Dennis Lillee styled bowling methods helped that day. Every bottle floated back to us.
I was left feeling I would really need to practice bowling in case I was ever stranded on a desert island otherwise I wouldn't have much chance of survival.

My message was a treasure island surrounded by sharks

Weekly drawing: At the tip with Dad

Bermagui tip collecting yellow bricks

There were lots of good things to salvage at the local tip. Our best score was a pile of yellow bricks. We used these to make a windy yellow brick path to our front door through the spotted gums and burrawongs.

Weekly drawing: Shell Beach

Amber and Danny looking for tiny abalone shells at
their  favourite secret beach

Weekly drawing 76: The forrest by the beach

Another fun day at the beach

Some of the best beaches in the world look like this.

Weekly drawing 75: Underwater gardening

Realising the joy of underwater gardening.

Before: I built the stone steps and oyster-free swimming cove

I was just out of Art school doing odd jobs and my friend Matt offered me some work, building stone steps for a property at Cottage Point. I have always enjoyed landscaping with stones, so I jumped at the opportunity.

The stones for this particular job were all gathered from the site. Experience has taught me, when working with stones it should be within a 5-1o meter radius from were I want to use it. By doing this the stones will suit the environment and I won't break my back moving them around. To my joy, I also discovered stones are a lot lighter to move underwater. So I used this to my advantage and saved a lot of time.

The time I saved making the steps, I used to landscape underwater, creating a small oyster-free cove for launching a row boat or a place to swim. Unfortunately the couple who paid me for the days work thought I was just mucking about in the water.  To give you an idea of what they must of seen, use your hand and cover the underwater part of my coloured drawing - I just look like I'm just playing in the water.

It wasn't until I'd gone home, they went down a had a closer look and realised what I'd created for them. A functional and subtle design which the fish also loved.

Weekly drawing 74: Wes Stacey's home

Wes Stacey's home camped by the sea

Over the years growing up in Barragga Bay our family became close friends with Wes Stacey and his partner Narelle Perroux. During this time he showed me that an artist can create serious work and also have lots of fun just being yourself.

I was extremely lucky to have my childhood with someone like him around. Wes along with Harold Cazneaux is one of my favourite Australian photographers.   I remember the first time I saw his book "Timeless gardens" a photographic record of Australian environments which included coastal flora, desert flora and even underwater flora (coral reefs). I'd never considered that these were actual gardens to admire until he photographed them and highlighted this concept to me. It was quite a revelation and changed how I viewed the natural environment.

When I was 9 years old, I would walk the rocky coast to visit him and his partner. He was often full of energy and cooking something like pasta and loudly calling out to the commercial fishing boats. Saying things like "Allan catch a big fish mate! catch us a Bea-uty! And drop over for dinner, we don't mind we've got lots of pasta!!!"

I loved his place so much. It was hidden in the bush on the edge of the ocean with paths that blended into the environment. This clever camouflage was subtle but made his camp more secure and extremely hard to find unless you knew exactly were it was. Even the chimney was disguised as a termites nest. To me it was designed like the ultimate cubby house, but it was actually a home. So it was the best of both worlds.

Signing the land by Wes Stacey
'Remote shore'
A beautiful example of Wes capturing the south coast
coastline, which I'd often venture.

Weekly drawing 73: Barragga Bay rock pools

This drawing is my celebration of a magical place and the amazing
times spent with Eileen Scollay, Dan Scollay (her grand daughter),
Amber (my big sister) and Bridget (Eileen's Labrador).

In the 1983-85, a family friend and neighbour Eileen Scollay would often babysit my big sister and me. One of our favourite places she took us were the rock pools hidden under the seacliffs at Barragga Bay beach. I remember the first time my sister described them to me. I couldn't believe there were so many pools in one place, It sounded like some fancy resort. And I loved it.