Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

This seems to have been a long hot summer here in Australia.... so when Tag Tuesday's theme was announced last week as "Use a Quote" , I began to think of some 'sunny' quotes.  Both of these tags use quotations which have been printed on my laser printer and then transferred using a 'sticky tape' method.  Here is a video which describes this technique well.  The first tag also has magazine images, a water coloured sun and a background of gelli -plate printed paper. The second tag is an eco print which I originally thought was not so great, but it seems to have worked for this tag.  As an aside, I was really interested to find out whether we do in fact have a lot of sunny days...  I live in Newcastle NSW  and my home town is Townsville, Queensland, so compared these two places with a few of the Australian State capitals.  Average total days a year with sun City                                                Sunny   Partly Sunny

Today begins the Lunar Year of the Dog... I started well  last week preparing my greeting cards  incorporating 'red' in my art works in time for giving and posting. Why are these so red?  Most of you can answer that as it is commonly known that the colour red for Chinese symbolises  good fortune and happiness. It is certainly the Chinese celebratory colour - unavoidable during Chinese New Year and other traditional and official holidays. Being the year of the dog, so many cute images of dogs appear in both traditional and contemporary New Year designs. I used Christmas Island stamps on my cards. The stylised  patterned image of a little dog is adapted from the Chinese character -very modern and festive.  Although I think the little red dog looks pensive, it is certainly a lovable and a reassuring  image. This thoughtful dog image certainly fits with what  Chinese astrologer Linda Lau predicts for this year.. .. (from  https://www.refinery29.com/2018/02/190941/year-o