DRAWING

Drawing | ˈdrɔː(r)ɪŋ | noun
A picture or diagram made with a pencil, pen, or crayon rather than paint: A series of charcoal drawings on white paper.

• [mass noun] The art or activity of making drawings: She took lessons in drawing.

This post is part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,
and also part of the ABC Wednesday meme.

 One of my drawings, above.

A pencil drawing in a recent exhibition at the NGV.
M. C. Escher (Dutch 1898–1972) Study for Drawing hands February 1948 (detail)
pencil 24.9 x 32.3 cm (sheet)
Escher Collection, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Hague, the Netherlands
© The M. C. Escher Company, the Netherlands. All rights reserved

AT DIGHTS FALLS

Dights Falls is located in Melbourne, Victoria just downstream of the junction of the Yarra River with Merri Creek, about 2 km east of the City. At this point the river narrows and is constricted between 800,000 year old volcanic, basaltic lava flow and a much older steep, Silurian, sedimentary spur.

Prior to European settlement, the area was occupied by the indigenous Wurundjeri tribe of the Kulin nation. The rock falls would have provided the Aboriginal people with a natural river crossing and place to trap migrating fish. It was also a meeting place for many clans where they would trade, settle disputes and exchange brides.

In the 1840s, an artificial weir was built on the natural bar of basalt boulders to provide water to the “Ceres” flour mill, one of the first in Victoria. In the early 1840s John Dight established Melbourne’s first water-powered flour mill on the site. In 1888 “Yarra Falls Roller Mills” built a water-turbine powered mill, which was the largest and most sophisticated of the thirty two water powered mills built in Victoria before 1900.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Travel Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

IN CHECK

This post is part of the Mosaic Monday meme,
and also part of the Seasons meme,
and also part of the Macro Monday meme.

WINTER SUN

As I was walking to the gym one rainy morning, I was rewarded by this glimpse of the sun as it was breaking free of the rainclouds. That was it for the day, as the rainclouds came back and the sun disappeared, but I carried this image with me for the rest of that day.

This post is part of the My Sunday Best meme.

EASTERN ROSELLA

The eastern rosella (Platycercus eximius) is a rosella native to southeast of the Australian continent and to Tasmania. It has been introduced to New Zealand where feral populations are found in the North Island (notably in the northern half of the island and in the Hutt Valley) and in the hills around Dunedin in the South Island.

The eastern rosella is 30 cm long. It has a red head and white cheeks. The beak is white and the irises are brown. The upper breast is red and the lower breast is yellow fading to pale green over the abdomen. The feathers of the back and shoulders are black, and have yellowish or greenish margins giving rise to a scalloped appearance that varies slightly between the subspecies and the sexes. The wings and lateral tail feathers are bluish while the tail is dark green. The legs are grey. The female is similar to the male though duller in colouration and has an underwing stripe, which is not present in the adult male. Juveniles are duller than females and have an underwing stripe. The diet of eastern rosellas mainly consists of fruit, seeds, flowers and insects.

The eastern rosella is sometimes kept as a pet. These birds are desired for their beautifully coloured plumage. They are intelligent creatures, which can be trained to whistle a wide repertoire of tunes and may even learn to speak a few words or phrases. Rosellas can make good companion parrots; however, they require a great deal of attention and many toys to satisfy their need for social interaction and mental stimulation. These birds sometimes won't adapt to life as a family pet. Hand-raised birds can be fully domesticated, but usually they turn out still wild. Usually, this species doesn't like getting “petted” or “cuddled” and can bite in response to this type of handling. Many people believe that rosellas are best housed in large aviaries that enable them to fly freely with minimal human socialization. Despite these difficulties, many people enjoy the eastern rosella as a beautiful but sometimes feisty pet bird.

This post is part of the Saturday Critters meme,

and also part of the Camera Critters meme.

CITY SUNRISE

Sunrise on the Yarra River in the City.

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme,
and also part of the Friday Photo Journal meme.

LANTANA

Lantana is a genus of about 150 species of perennial flowering plants in the verbena family, Verbenaceae. They are native to tropical regions of the Americas and Africa but exist as an introduced species in numerous areas, especially in the Australian-Pacific region. The genus includes both herbaceous plants and shrubs growing to 0.5–2 m tall. Their common names are shrub verbenas or lantanas. Some species are invasive, and are considered to be noxious weeds, such as in South Asia, Southern Africa and Australia. In the United States, lantanas are naturalised in the southeast, especially coastal regions of the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, and the Gulf Coast.

The generic name originated in Late Latin, where it refers to the unrelated Viburnum lantana. Lantana's aromatic flower clusters (called umbels) are a mix of red, orange, yellow, or blue and white florets. Other colours exist as new varieties are being selected. The flowers typically change colour as they mature, resulting in inflorescences that are two- or three-coloured. "Wild lantanas" are plants of the unrelated genus Abronia, usually called "sand-verbenas".

Lantana camara blanca, shown here is a small perennial shrub which can grow to around 2m in height and forms dense thickets in a variety of environments. It has small tubular shaped flowers, each of which has four petals and are arranged in clusters at the end of stems. Flowers are yellow and white and after pollination occurs the colour of the flowers change (typically from yellow to white); this is believed to be a signal to pollinators that the pre-change colour contains a reward as well as being sexually viable, thus increasing pollination efficiency.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

CANVAS

Canvas is an extremely durable plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other items for which sturdiness is required, as well as in such fashion objects as handbags, electronic device cases, and shoes. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame.

Canvas has become the most common support medium for oil painting, replacing wooden panels. It was used from the 14th century in Italy, but only rarely. One of the earliest surviving oils on canvas is a French Madonna with angels from around 1410 in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.

Canvas is typically stretched across a wooden frame called a stretcher and may be coated with gesso before it is to be used; this is to prevent oil paint from coming into direct contact with the canvas fibres, which will eventually cause the canvas to decay. A traditional and flexible chalk gesso is composed of lead carbonate and linseed oil, applied over a rabbit skin glue ground; a variation using titanium white pigment and calcium carbonate is rather brittle and susceptible to cracking.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (known as Camille Corot; July 16, 1796 – February 22, 1875) was a French landscape and portrait painter as well as a printmaker in etching. He is a pivotal figure in landscape painting and his vast output simultaneously references the Neo-Classical tradition and anticipates the plein-air innovations of Impressionism. A detail of his canvas of "Ville d'Avray", ca. 1867, (oil on canvas, Washington, D.C: National Gallery of Art) is seen below.

This post is part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,

and also part of the ABC Wednesday meme.

AT THE MUSEUM

Melbourne Museum is adjacent to the Royal Exhibition Building. It was designed by Denton Corker Marshall Architects and finished construction in 2001. It was commissioned by the Victorian Government Office of Major Projects on behalf of Museums Victoria. The museum is a rich response to Melbourne’s urban condition, and provides a place for education, history, culture and society to engage with each other in a contemporary setting. It is now an important part of Melbourne’s soft infrastructure.

It is the largest museum in the Southern Hemisphere, and is a venue of Museum Victoria, which also operates the Immigration Museum and Scienceworks Museum. The museum has seven main galleries, a Children's Gallery and a temporary exhibit gallery on three levels, Upper, Ground and Lower Level and was constructed by Baulderstone Hornibrook.

The Touring Hall is where temporary exhibits are displayed. Past exhibits include mummies from Egypt and dinosaurs from China. The Big Box is part of the Children's Gallery. In addition, the museum has other facilities such as the Sidney Myer Amphitheatre and The Age Theatre. The Discovery Centre, on the Lower Level, is a free public research centre. The museum also has a cafe and a souvenir shop.The IMAX Theatre, which is situated on the Lower Level is also part of the museum complex. It shows movies, usually documentary films, in 3-D format.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Travel Tuesday meme

and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

ANOTHER WEEK

How the year is flying past! Nearly the end of July, and then it's Christmas again...

This post is part of the Mosaic Monday meme,
and also part of the Seasons meme,
and also part of the Blue Monday meme.