Gratitude Labyrinth Walk in Hong Kong

We stumbled across this labyrinth outside a church along a park path in downtown Hong Kong over Thanksgiving Weekend. I love Labyrinths, and have traveled far and wide to walk various labyrinths in the world; so it was fun to stumble across one in the heart of a city that was already busy enchanting me.
My son Oscar and I walked it together. I have to say, I'd never walked a labyrinth with train crossings before, so that was fun.
When we reached the center we both listed things we were grateful for, in the spirit of Thanksgiving. We took turns. "I'm grateful for being in Hong Kong with you Mommy."
"I'm grateful for being in Hong Kong with you, Oscar!"
After we walked out of our grateful centers, I taught Oscar how to hopscotch skip-walk the Labyrinth.
So we skipped in and out of our grateful centers a few times together and then went on our way.

Superhero Photo class, and pictures in Cambodia

From an assignment in Andrea's Superhero Photo Class.




One of my favorite bloggers, Andrea Scher, recently decided to offer a playful online photo course.

I couldn't resist.






It just sounded so fun. And so low-key. And there was no concrete reason to take it other than fun.

 I have this habit of taking a crazy amount of pictures. I look for color, shape, light. But it's all just playful.

Sort of an extension of my excessive journaling habit I guess.

Red-shirted girl in the distance


Anyway, the class exceeded my expectations.  It was fun. Super fun. Superhero fun! 
 There were no goals to make serious art, just an opportunity to play and share (and do photo treasure hunts!) with other like-minded playful (mostly) amateur photographers.
My mother and my son holding hands

The class also happened to overlap with my family's trip to Cambodia last week.

For once on a trip, I wasn't feeling guilty about how many stupid pictures I was taking, and worrying over looking like some sort of camera-happy Hawaiian-shirted stereo-type of an American abroad.


Instead I embraced my practice as a way of appreciating the moment. I was no more obtrusive with my pictures than I've ever been (Let's just say the overly shy girl isn't one to walk around with a camera dangling from her neck, She leaves that to the real pros, like my uncle, or to the bolder amateurs, or to the tourists riding big buses).

Anyway, If anyone out there likes to take pictures, especially in a playful way, I highly recommend Andrea's course.

One of the surprising highlights for me was the group flickr pool, where we shared photos and commented on each others pieces. It was so fun to participate in the exchange!
Plus it hardly took anytime. Maybe 10 minutes any day I felt like checking in. Yet I still gained a lot. 

Andrea will be offering another class soon, I believe. I hope, if you like to play with pictures, you'll join her.
And um... Cambodia?
Blue umbrellas at Angkor Wat
Ya, well, WOW!
Trees draping over mossy textured ruins,

 bicycles, bicycles, bicycles,




 
And some of the most amazing sites in the world.

Some dreams fall in your lap like an apple dropping from a tree. Other dreams you yank and yank and yank at the door, but it just won't open. Both have their place in my life. And I'm happy to say that while I keep yanking at the door of my biggest dream (and dang that door can frustrate me), I'm at least eating my apples. 

In the Tree Tops, walking with trust

The above picture was taken in Australia and the picture below was taken last week in Kuala Lumpur.

What do these pictures have in common (besides both having my son in them)?

They marked the beginning of two different canopy walks.

In Malaysia it was at the Forest Research Institute, where they reclaimed an old industrial wasteland and made it jungle again (above). 

In Australia we walked among the giant tingle treetops (above).

But at both I found myself walking on tiny, looooong bridges, high, high up in the trees.

Amazing. Fantastic. I loved it.

But... these walks were not exactly for the faint of heart.

They felt like small practices in bravery (not to mention yoga breathing).

They were exercises in trust.

They felt a bit like what it feels like when you put your art out in the world, actually.

You trust that the journey will be a bit thrilling, you'll be glad you did it, you probably won't crash to the ground, but things will feel a little shaky and uncertain, even if exciting.

And your view on the world will be different, at least for a bit.

 There may even be anchors along the way, to help calm your nerves, even while keeping the view.

You probably won't fly, but it might feel a bit like you are.

You might even decide to go for it again...

What a cheesy post.

 But a bit of truth is there somewhere, I'm sure.

If not for being an artist, then at least for being an adventur-ess.

Now, back to the ground.

Painting with Vegetables

 Well, he won't eat most of them.
 But they sure are fun to paint with!



 Delicious!



 Look, Mom! Blue hands!




 I suppose Oscar does eat carrots. At least with ketchup.
 And he actually kinda loves corn.



 And now he loves painting with corn!

Shearing Sheep

Sometimes, when I return to my blog after a good travel adventure, I feel overwhelmed. Too much I could share. What the heck do I choose? How do I put anything at all into a blog-sized bite. Other times I feel raring to go with lots of posts and only the question of how many is too many?
 My trip to Western Australia left me wondering how many posts are too many. So at the risk of over-sharing, here's another highlight from my trip: I visited a sheep shearing farm!
One of my favorite books as a kid was Tomie dePaola's Charlie Needs A Cloak, and I felt a bit like I was stepping into a small part of that book at the farm. After all, I saw sheep getting sheared! Just like in the story! (No weavers though).
 
Another cool part of the sheep shearing farm were the dogs.


 I had never heard of the sort of dog that runs on top of sheep! I think it's called a Kelpie.
 We even got to feed a baby lamb.

 
Baaaaa!

WHALES!

Fifteen minutes into our boat ride we saw...

 WHALES!

 Two of them!

Humpbacks.

 They were young whales, or so our guide told us.

So they were curious.

Which could explain why they hung out with our boat for 40-50 minutes,

popping their noses up,

 swimming back and forth under and around the boat,

and sometimes even waving their noses at us when we waved at them (it's true! the guide told us to try it, and it worked! Curious whales sometimes play with people like that, he said).

It was one of the most magical moments of my life.

My son loved it too.

 We also saw two Southern Right Whales involved in, ahem, courting.

They were a bit less interested in our boat though.

We even saw sea lions.

 It was a day I'm certain I'll never forget.

P.S. This was all while still in Western Australia, for those who didn't read my last couple of posts.

Drawing Kangaroos

 My family and I just got back from a trip to Western Australia!
 It's a relatively remote area of the world where there are possibly more kangaroos than people.
 We had a wonderful time there.
And speaking of kangaroos, we saw lots and lots of them.
Some in dusk-lit golden fields.
Some hopping across or next to the road at night like a deer would back home (scary!).
 Some at a wildlife park.
 And even a few joeys who were being raised by a good-natured farm couple who had taken the orphans from their road-killed-mothers' pouches.
Of course I drew quite a few.
 
 But my favorite was watching them jump.
 Boing, boing!

A moment of zen in the clouds

 Today is my birthday!
 I'm off to Western Australia this week to celebrate.
 Meanwhile I thought I'd give a little reverse birthday cheers to anyone out there reading this.
 Here's a few photos, a little moment of zen, from the flight I took last month from L.A. to Seattle.
 When the weather cooperates on that journey, you see mountain, after mountain, after mountain. And it's absolutely beautiful.
I wish for you a mountain-top moment or a head-in-the-clouds good-version-of-dreaminess today.
Cheers to a great day!

Pretty skies

 These photos are from Thailand, taken way back in May.
 I found them while looking for a different picture and they made me smile; I thought I'd post them while I'm home enjoying sunsets in the Pacific Northwest.
No matter how cliche they can be, pretty skies and sunsets are almost always nice.

Harsh Critique

Recently I was reading a story I'd written to Oscar (my son, he's 4). When I'd finished he was laughing and saying "Again! again!" which felt pretty great.

Then he stopped laughing and got very serious. His eyebrows crinkled and he paused his finger on his upper lip.

"Mommy," he said, "I'm not sure if this story has a problem."
Honestly, those words were also pretty great to hear.

Cheers to a critique partner in the family!

More color in Penang, this time using the Hipstamatic

 I took these pictures in Penang, Malaysia, using the Hipstamatic photo app on my Iphone.
 Pretty cool for phone pictures.

 My sister's been using an app called Instamatic. Supposedly it lets you change your pictures retroactively for similar results. I'm very curious if I'll be able to use any texture photos taken this way for my illustrations.
Time will tell...

Dragon Boat Races

 Last month my family traveled to Penang, Malaysia for a weekend trip to watch some Dragon Boat races.
 It's such an interesting practice. If you are interested in it at all, click here to learn more about the tradition.
 My favorite part of the experience was listening to the drummers beating out the pace of the strokes.
 We couldn't get too close to the boats in the race, but I did manage to see a few docked boats.
The boats have dragon heads and tails. So neat!

More crafty fun: Batik

So, like I've been saying, my sister is crafty -- like me.
 
So I had to take her to the nearby KL Craft Complex to try Batik while she was visiting KL.
We also took my son, Oscar, who loves art projects lately.
Painting with Mommy and Auntie Kelli was a big treat (he made 4 batiks!).
I made a tree of life with a labyrinth in it.



 
The craft complex had a new offering too -- they sewed our batiks into pillows for just a few dollars more.
 I added the ribbon and button onto mine. 
Happiness is making crafty projects with my sister and son.
(Unless maybe those projects involve bike trickshaws...)

School Visits in Malaysia

 I've officially made two school visits while in Malaysia.

 Both were at my son's school; once with 3-to-4-year-olds and once with 5-to-six-year-olds.

 SO MUCH FUN!

 I love, love, love working with kids 

(In a parallel universe somewhere I'm probably an art teacher).

I've held back on doing school visits back home because I'm an unpublished illustrator. But now that I think about this, why does that have to stop me? Artists do school visits. I've been a professional artist for a long time.

 So this has got me thinking and dreaming. I hope I get the chance to make paper with many more classes in the future.

 These pictures are of the board about my visit that the older kids put up for Family Day (didn't want to put the actual close-up pictures without permissions; I figured the board is far enough away for blog picture purposes). Below is the beautiful thank you card they made me.