Nanjing Butterflies

This painting will be auctioned for Hopeful Hearts a charity group here in Nanjing that raises money for children who have heart defects to have operations to save their lives.
The yellow in the painting represents Hope. The Plum blossoms are formed with small heart shaped petals. The plum blossom is the floral emblem of Nanjing. The butterflies represent the "butterfly children" from the Hopeful Hearts website.
It is at the framers now and is being framed with a cream matte with a small red stripe and a black frame - it was difficult to negotiate anything else with my limited Chinese skills!
Postscript: Here is the digitised version. You will see the changes that occur to colour and lines when the paiting is transformed to a vector design.

New series - "Symbols of China"

I downloaded the Adobe Illustrator program in Creative Suite 4 and I joined an online forum to learn how to do the vector diagrams, all to no avail - the jargon and the degree of difficulty was just too much for me! So for now I am just completing these designs "Symbols of China" as paintings and I will learn how to "vectorise" them at some later date. Maybe when I go back to Australia I can do a course that will explain it all to me!

This painting is inspired by the Chinese Opera Masks that you see all over China. Once completed I looked at it and thought they could be masks from many cultures, but I do think they have a distinctly Chinese "feel".

A portrait of Ron

Thought I would have a go at painting a portrait. This one is of Ron from a photograph taken just before we left Vanuatu. OOOps I haven't signed it - must do that!

The bridge at Huang Cun

The Bridge at Huang Cun

It took me a while to get this painting going. I loved the little village of Huang Cun at the foot of the Yellow Mountain - Huangshan in Anhui province in China. I am not confident of doing landscapes and I need lots of practice because I don't have the skill to produce something photographic and I just play with impressions. Still it is OK and I have put it in Ron's study. More practice will get me more motivated to paint more in this style.

Seduced by China!

Well before I could actually get on with the Memories of Vanuatu series China has taken over my mind! I think I will try to create a little balance between the 2 countries and work on them side by side. I want to thank Gabrielle Cordioli for his magnificent transformations of my art to vector diagrams. He did a fabulous job on the Impressions of the UAE" series. I now want to learn the process of turning my art into vectors, as Gabry has done. Santa kindly authorised a download of Adobe Illustrator and I am now embarking on a new learning curve! When will it stop! Have decided to work from B&W drawings and put the colours in later for some of these Chinese drawings. Here is the first and it is based on the Chinese Opera masks. It is not perfect and I am sure there will be some further renditions of this theme.

Memories of Vanuatu Series

Since completing the Impressions of the UAE series I have decided to work on some "Memories of Vanuatu". We spent a year in Port Vila in 2006/7 and it was a wonderful warm and happy place to be. Lots of swimming, snorkelling and friendships that will last forever. Here are the first 2 pieces of my memories of those happy times - more to come soon!

The first is called "Flippin Out in Vanuatu"

This one is "Harbour Swim"

Impressions of the UAE series

Well it took a while but I have finally finished my "Impressions of the UAE" painting series. The paintings were finished a couple of weeks ago but the vector diagrams have just been completed and they are all now looking pretty great I think!


I have placed all these designs at 2 print on demand websites. That means that anyone can go to the websites and order calendars, gifts, cards, mugs - even baby bibs and barbecue aprons!

There is an Aussie website and an overseas one. The Aussie one does not do gifts but does a great job on calendars and cards and framed prints. Here is the link - Cheryl Malloy on Redbubble.

The overseas site posts to any country in the world including my favourites - Vanuatu, the UAE and China! There are heaps of nice gifts and cards, calendars and prints to buy! Here is the link - Cheryl Malloy on Cafepress.

I would love it if you could buy some of the gifts, and better still get your friends to buy them as well!