March 2018 – MakeCookGrow.com

Bunbury Regional Art Gallery PAINTING THE TOWN

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PAINTING THE TOWN

Bunbury Townscapes from the City of Bunbury Art Collection.

These artists’ impressions are an important representation of the development of Bunbury during the last 100 years.

All these paintings are watercolours except Ron Appleton’s St Mark’s Church, Picton, which is done in acrylics.

Frank (Charles) Norton 1916-1983

BUNBURY 25th FEBRUARY 1973

Bunbury is a regional city about two hours drive south of the capital city of Western Australia, Perth. I grew up in this region. On the way back from our break at Bunker Bay we visited the Bunbury Regional Art Gallery.

Ron Appleton (1908-1999)

ST MARK’S CHURCH, PICTON, 1968

Like many regional councils, in the 1940s, BRAG benefited from a collection of art works donated by WA philanthropist, Sir Claude Hotchin. More recently, twenty two works of art were donated by Alcoa of Australia.

Sam Wheeler (1875-1939)

BUNBURY HARBOUR, MONDAY SEPTEMBER 28th, 1903

The Gallery is housed in the old Convent of the Sisters of Mercy, a beautiful building in the centre of the city. The building still has traces of its former incarnation with a nun’s cell on display and the Chapel Gallery.

Leith Angelo (1904-2000)

UNTITLED

BRAGs has a collection of over 300 botanical water colours by Bunbury artist Rosetta Kelly (1916 – 1940). This is a significant record of the wildflowers of the south-west of the State. These art works are slowly being restored and exhibited.

Ivor Hunt(1903-1971)

THE SCHOONER

Today, Good Friday, marks the beginning of Easter for Christians. It commemorates the crucifixion of Christ and many people attend church services and traditionally eat fish. We also eat hot cross buns, the crosses reminding us of how Christ died.

Easter Sunday celebrates His resurrection and ascension into Heaven. We eat eggs to signify new life and more hot cross buns. My husband would like hot cross buns every day of the year. Lots of families spend Easter Sunday together.

Easter Monday is a holiday in Australia, a time for resting and reflecting and this year, enjoying the last of summer, although it is autumn, but still hot.

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Easter Planning

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Easter is celebrated in autumn in the southern hemisphere and the change in temperature is very welcome, except it hasn’t happened in WA, yet! It’s so very hot.

This is the first time I’ve made a layered cake and it was very easy but took a lot of time as I didn’t have two same sized cake tins. I made a double mix of butter cake and then divide it into four lots and added food dye.

I tried to make the dyed batter similar in colour to the speckled chocolate eggs used in the decoration. I used a very simple butter cream between the layers and to cover the cake then added the eggs.

This cake was delicious! And pretty.

Decorating boiled eggs. Bought a packet of coloured Sharpies and was keen to try them, so cut out two rabbit templates and lightly glued each one onto a hard boiled egg, dotted blue around the template and then peeled it off. Quick and easy decoration, once you’ve cut out the template!

Blue and white shrink wrap boiled eggs. I got these from EBay.

Hello Easter Bunny. He used to sit on my desk at school but now he’s on our dining table with the other Easter themed decorations. Louis, our dog, doesn’t eat chocolate so he has his own Easter Bunny ready in the cupboard for the day. Wonder how long it will last?

Other table decorations. Our other favourite part of Easter is hot cross buns. We’ll make them for Easter Sunday.

How do you celebrate Easter? What special things do you do and eat?

We have just had Know Your Neighbour Day in Australia. The theme this year has been ” The Importance of a Supportive Neighbourhood for Children and Young People” The idea is to focus on encouraging all Australians to support safe and welcoming communities for children.

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Pullman Bunker Bay Resort Break

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We’ve just spent four days at the Pullman Bunker Bay Resort. Checking in was easy and pleasant. The resort is at Bunker Bay, on a beautiful stretch of white beach. Dunsborough is the nearest town. Busselton, Yallingup, Cowaramup, Gracetown and Margaret River are all quite close.

The en suite was spacious and looked out onto a little courtyard..

We had a studio villa. It was a good size with everything we wanted, including a kitchen area

Outside the door near the kitchen was the tiniest, secluded seating area. Surprisingly, there’s no Nespresso machine or similar in the villa.

Quiet and calm with lots of nice views around the resort.

Walkway to the beach.

The resort is bordered by the Cape Naturaliste National Park and other bush land. I couldn’t really enjoy walking at night as it is very dark and there is poor lighting around the resort and but no light pollution, either, so lots of stars in an inky sky.

Gorgeous dell en route to the beach.

The beach. White, clean, private and beautiful.

My haul of things to read plus a passion fruit. They are delicious at the moment.

Sand dunes at Bunker Bay Beach.

The accommodation, the staff and the position of the resort were so lovely, as was the breakfast. I really enjoyed the poached eggs, grilled tomatoes, mushrooms and smoked salmon with capers and lemon. My husband also liked the “make your own” muesli. We had villa catering (room service), dinner from the bar menu and dinner at the restaurant and couldn’t recommend any of them. Best to either go to one of the many restaurants in other towns or prepare your own dinner using ingredients from one of the plentiful sources nearby.

Today is St Patrick’s Day. My parents married on this day 68 years ago. We ate a green iced cake to celebrate.

Yesterday was World Sleep Day, intended to be a celebration of sleep but also focusing on how to get more sleep and emphasizing how good sleep is important for well being.

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Cottesloe Beach and Sculptures By the Sea

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To Cottesloe Beach to view Sculptures by the Sea and to get my regular dose of vitamin sea! This is the 14th annual Sculptures by the Sea on the iconic Cottesloe Beach, featuring the works of 73 artists from all over the world including Denmark, Slovenia, England, Japan, Thailand, Singapore , Chile, India, Spain, America, Indonesia, Iran, China and, of course, Australia.

Here you can see such a range of themes and media, from a crocheted cat, a dog walker surrounded by dogs, a tent made from recycled toys, an enormous eggplant (aubergine), a skin diver appearing out of the sand and so much more.

The beach is stunning with over a kilometre of clean white sand, views of Rottnest Island in the distance and ships heading out of Fremantle Port and cool grassed areas shaded by Norfolk Pines. There’s plenty of food across the road including icecreams, fish and chips, coffee and cake and cafes and restaurants. The icecreams were particularly attractive as it was 36 degrees C (97 degrees F) the day we went.

The beach is such a good place to view these sculptures. You don’t need to get dressed up, it costs nothing, you can get very close to the artworks and touch them, it’s easy to get there and park and when you’re hot from wandering around, you can have a swim in clear, clean waters.

Luckily, the Fremantle Doctor, the sea breeze which occurs during summer, had arrived by the time we went to the beach. The breeze is called the Fremantle Doctor because of the relief it brings on hot summer days, blowing in from the Indian Ocean.

Sit on the grass and enjoy the artworks and the view and the constant parade of people.

It’s hot in Australia, although we are into Autumn, so everyone is encouraged to use sunscreen. Supplies are placed regularly along the beach.

Sculptures on the grass, the beach and the groyne, and one up a tree.

The white, yellow and red structure on stilts isn’t a sculpture, it’s the Surf Lifesaving lookout.

This clever “cubby’ is made of a thousand recycled toys and welcomes children to enter and relax with more toys and soft rugs. The perfect child’s hideaway.

Yesterday was International Woman’s Day, commemorating the movement for women’s rights as well as being the catalyst for change.

Just for some contrast, today is Barbie Day, marking the doll’s debut at The American International Toy Fair in New York, in 1957.

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Making Bread, A Curry, Some Art And A Gift For You!

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I was intrigued by a recipe for bread cooked in a slow cooker, so gathered the ingredients and began making it. It was a warm day and the yeast mix began foaming quickly.

When the yeast mixture was frothy I added the flour and began kneading it.

Put the shaped loaf in the slow cooker which I had lined with baking paper then scattered chopped rosemary on top.

Two hours later and a delicious, aromatic loaf was cooked and ready to eat. The original recipe suggested putting the loaf under the grill for a minute or two to make the top more crusty but we couldn’t wait. Search online for a similar recipe if you are interested. I actually prefer oven baked loaves.

Fresh, warm bread and butter. Wonderful.

Officially, autumn has begun in the southern hemisphere, although the temperatures here are still hot, but slowly dropping. The most obvious change is it gets darker a little earlier. We don’t have day light saving in Western Australia so it is light until quite late in summer.

Our reaction to autumn is to make curry! This chicken curry was also made in the slow cooker.

Some chicken dipped in seasoned flour and lots of spices.

And six hours later, a feisty and delicious curry.

We served it on pasta as there was a good amount of sauce. Enough left for the next day, too, and the flavour had matured beautifully.

To mark autumn I made a new pen and glasses elastic holder in red for my diary. As many of you know, I’ve written in my diary every night for many, many years and described how I covered them, printed the marbled front and back lining paper and also the elastic holder here.

The garden is bursting with blooms and very pretty.

Went to the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery at the University of Western Australia and really enjoyed their current exhibitions, especially the FLORA pictures from the Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art. This small collection reflects on the uses of flowers throughout history in decoration, in medicine, in love and death and as part of the ecosystem.

One of my favourites was this Margaret Preston’s “Jug of Flowers” print shown above. I really liked Nora Heysen’s painting “Gladioli”, too. Also at LWAG are Zadok Ben-David: Human Nature and In The Shadows.

( Image used by permission LWAGA.)

This is eucalyptus youngiana, a eucalyptus endemic to Western Australia. To celebrate the first anniversary of my blog I have a printable for you! It is a botanical painting of eucalyptus youngiana which I did some years ago. I wanted to give you a gift which is unique to Western Australia so I searched through so many of my botanical paintings until I found this one. I hope you like it. Please feel free to download and print it for personal use.

To print, click on the image and a printable page will appear, but please be patient as it loads slowly.

Today is Carers Appreciation Day in recognition of the enormous contribution made by paid and unpaid carers. So, if you know a carer, say “thanks” or send a “thankyou” card or email.

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