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Our competitive prices and premium quality make us the first stop for many trade professionals.

Generate your own account and logon details for maximum convenience and time saving, store your favourites and then just click the order button. We’ll do the rest!

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R0cket canvas print

Decorating a child’s room can be a tricky affair as children often have outlandish demands that are not practicable. Another problem that one may come across while revamping children’s room is that it requires a great deal of foresight. The decoration should be done in a way that does not get obsolete even when the child grows up by a few years. Mentioned below are a few tips that will help you in decorating a child’s bedroom.

1. Flooring: It is better to have a dark coloured tiled floor rather than one with a carpet. Although a carpet looks nice, but it will get spoiled quite frequently and would be extremely troublesome to clean. Besides, the carpet can also be a hotbed for insects and termites that can harm the child. A tiled floor is much easier to clean.

2. The Walls: The walls should be done in pastel colours as it generally looks good besides having a calming effect on the occupants. You can further beautify the walls by adding various designs as per your child’s age and liking.  Adding a canvas print can be a great way to brighten up the walls and make a better quality method of decorating than a poster that gets damaged easily.

3. Cupboards: Storage place is an integral part of a child’s room as there is plenty of stuff to keep depending on the child’s age. If you are going to get new closets installed, it is better to opt for something that will not become unusable in just a few years. Choose the colours of the cabinet to complement that of the walls and decorate it with beautiful pictures. You can even use pictures of fruits or alphabets if your child has just started going to school.

4. Furniture: When buying new furniture for your child’s room, opt for light coloured stuff as it will be easier to paint in a darker shade if you decide to do so at a later date. Make sure that the furniture does not have any sharp corners that may hurt the child.

5. Curtains: There are plenty of options when it comes to choosing curtains for a child’s bedroom, but you should choose material that is easy to maintain as children can make thing dirty really fast. Avoid window coverings with strings as it is dangerous for the child.

Blue Horizon Printing prints photos on canvas, they offer premium quality and great prices. They are sell a wide variety of canvas art prints. visit them at www.BlueHorizonPrinting.com.au or call on 1300 632 332.

Before you start learning how to draw, the first thing you need to do is stop and think about what approach you want to take. What do you want to gain from drawing? What lessons do you need to learn? Anyone can develop the skill of drawing, it’s simply about making sure you approach it with the right mindset and that you apply the time and practice required to get good. After all, practice makes perfect.

Once you’ve planned the work involved, and have an understanding of the stages you wish to go through the best place to start is by studying the various templates available. Why re-invent the wheel? It’s this understanding of the basics that will allow you to build a picture and get the scale and proportions in place. Art is about patience. If you do the ground work the rest will follow. Only after you’ve mastered the proportions and standard forms in art that you should start to experiment with your own personal touches.

Art can be created with all kinds of materials, and as you grow in experience you’ll find styles and media which suit you more and more. Traditional tools like pencils and charcoal are great places to start. Or if you wanted more colour then pastels or crayons can add some tremendous variation to what you do. There are more options available these days than ever before. Some artists specialise in spray paint, which can create some fantastic forms of graffiti art. And computer programs have built a whole new genre as well, with software like Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro being the canvas of choice for many upcoming artists.

Drawing is one of the oldest and most influential art forms. It can tell an audience a great deal about both the artist and the subject and therefore learning how to draw is a valuable journey and a useful skill to possess. Drawing is one of the more rewarding and versatile skills and the vision and appreciation it gives you will last a lifetime.

To learn more about how to draw try http://sketchapic.com/

“Almost every skill can be honed and developed by simply finding the right template, and practicing the process regularly. One of the saddest things I hear is somebody saying “I’d love to, but I just don’t have the ability”. My aim is to share some of the theory and processes so others understand that almost anyone can become good at something if they know the right path to follow.” To learn more about how to draw go to http://sketchapic.com/

This article is brought to you bu Blue Horizon Printing. Experts in printing photos on canvas and disributing quality canvas art prints. Based in Sydney but delivering to all of Australia.Photos on canvas Sydney, Photos on canvas Melbourne, Photos on Canvas Adelaide, Photos on canvas Brisbane, Photos on canvas Darwin, Photos on canvas Tasmania, Photos on canvas Hobart, Photos on canvas Perth, Photos on canvas Canberra.

Like all museums operated by Glasgow City Council, entry to the Gallery of Modern Art is free to all, meaning there’s really no excuse not to check out the latest exhibitions when you’re next passing through the city. Current exhibitions suitable for visitors of all ages include ‘multi-story’, a project which celebrates the mixed cultural heritage of Glasgow’s Red Road housing estate as well as dealing with the issues faced by political refugees living in the area. Art featured in the exhibition was created by local residents originating in 15 countries, bringing a distinctively multicultural flavour to the museum from now until June.

A new video installation created by internationally renowned artist Fiona Tan also promises to be a major attraction of the gallery from April until September, alongside permanent exhibitions such as the acclaimed Unsettled Objects, which combines photography, video and installations created by some of the UK’s hottest contemporary talent.

As well as hosting Scotland’s finest contemporary art exhibits, the Gallery of Modern Art is also a popular venue for workshops and events held in the Education and Access Studio, suitable for visitors of all ages – from children’s competitions in a variety of fields to study and volunteering opportunities for adults. All of this means a visit to the gallery could offer much more than just a way to kill a few hours in the company of some of the world’s greatest modern art.

Whether you’re staying in a Glasgow hotel near the city centre or just visiting for the day, the Gallery of Modern Art is easy to find, housed in a striking columned building on Glasgow’s Royal Exchange Square that was formerly a townhouse. Just look for the statue of the Duke of Wellington with a resplendent traffic cone on its head, and you’ll know you’re in the right place – not that the statue has any connection to the gallery itself, but the irrepressible local tradition of dressing up Nelson demonstrates that the modern art experience doesn’t have to be limited to the gallery’s four walls.

Adam Singleton writes on a number of topics on behalf of a digital marketing agency and a variety of clients. As such, this article is to be considered a professional piece with business interests in mind.

This article is brought to you bu Blue Horizon Printing. Experts in printing photos on canvas and disributing quality canvas art prints. Based in Sydney but delivering to all of Australia.Photos on canvas Sydney, Photos on canvas Melbourne, Photos on Canvas Adelaide, Photos on canvas Brisbane, Photos on canvas Darwin, Photos on canvas Tasmania, Photos on canvas Hobart, Photos on canvas Perth, Photos on canvas Canberra

by Tony Butz (former history teacher and linguist, past editor of the Boomerang Bulletin, and the founder of the Boomerang Throwing Association of New South Wales)

Myths and Misconceptions

There are several myths and misconceptions about the origin of the word boomerang that need dispelling before we investigate its use in the English language and in the modem world. The following should clarify some issues at the outset.

First, there is no such thing as “the Aboriginal language”; there were in fact between 500 and 600 different Aboriginal languages at the time of European settlement in 1788, each with its own terms for tools and weapons.

Second, the returning boomerang was unknown to Aboriginal peoples in most of the Northern Territory, all of Tasmania, half of South Australia and the northern parts of Queensland and Western Australia. Roughly 60% of Aboriginal peoples used both returning boomerangs and non-returning hunting sticks, and therefore had words for them; a further 10% had only non-returning hunting sticks, and the remaining 30% used neither.

Third, Aboriginal peoples had no writing so could not record their words before the arrival of Europeans, who soon discovered that the returning boomerang was called a ‘birgan’ by Aborigines around Moreton Bay, and a ‘barragadan’ by those in north-western New South Wales.

It is a myth that it was Captain James Cook who recorded the name ‘boomerang’ for the first time. In fact, there is no record that he ever used the term or even saw a returning boomerang being thrown, though he did take one back to England, thinking it was a primitive wooden sword. When he arrived in Botany Bay in 1770, he recorded that the Aborigines were ‘all arm’d with darts and wooden swords’. His botanist, Sir Joseph Banks, also likened the devices to ‘Arabian scymetars’ when he saw them in their hands and fibre belts, as William Dampier had done when he saw them on the west coast of Australia in 1688. All of these early explorers thought that boomerangs were swords and none of them ever saw a boomerang being thrown, nor did any of them ever record the term boomerang.

Indeed, boomerangs continued to be referred to as ‘wooden swords’ for a couple of years after settlement, in the journals of Governor Arthur Phillip (1789), Captain Watkin Tench (1789) and surgeon John White (1790). It took an ensign of the New South Wales Corps, Francis Louis Barrallier, a French-born surveyor and engineer, to make the first written record of a boomerang’s return flight. His journal entry, dated 12 November, 1802, and written in French, mentioned the boomerang in a footnote, as he attempted to find a way across the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney:

They throw it on the ground or in the air, making it revolve on itself, and with such a velocity that one cannot see it returning towards the ground; only the whizzing of it is heard.

Barrallier did not give it a name, but referred to it only as a ‘piece of wood in the form of a half circle’. Although it is often claimed that Bungaree, an Aboriginal befriended by the First Fleet settlers, was the first person to be seen throwing a boomerang in Port Jackson (Sydney), many colonists had in fact reported seeing the boomerang in action west of Sydney in the first few years of the colony, before Bungaree was doing his demonstrations in Sydney proper. Not surprisingly, this strange object captured their attention, and soon there were rumours that Aborigines could throw a boomerang out, to hit a kangaroo and then return to the thrower (this physical impossibility was the result of a failure to distinguish between two very different types of throw-sticks). There was much talk about the boomerang in the colony, but still no recording of its name.

The Origin of Boomerang

A year after Barrallier’s journal entry, and possibly because of it, the Sydney Gazette published the first known printed description of a boomerang’s flight path, but even then it was not given the name boomerang. Indeed, it was not until 1822 that this fascinating device was described in detail and recorded as a ‘bou-mar-rang’, from the language of the Turuwal people of the George’s River near Port Jackson. What is immediately apparent is that this same people had other words for their hunting sticks but used ‘boornarang’ to refer to a returning throw-stick. The Turuwal people were a sub-group (the word ‘tribe’ is inappropriate in speaking of Aboriginal peoples) of the Dharug language group which extended from the shores of Sydney (between Port Jackson and Port Hacking) in the east, to nearly Katoomba in the Blue Mountains to the west. Many of the Aboriginal words we use in English are from the Dharug language, including boomerang, waratah, wallaby, dingo, kookaburra, koala and woomera. The first fifty years of the colony were a time of intense recording of Aboriginal languages in New South Wales, yet mistakes were made, including the recording of boomerang as wommerang — a confusion of boomerang and wommera or woomera (a spear-thrower).

The Confusion Persists

When Sir Thomas Mitchell was given the task of assessing the fighting capabilities of Aboriginal tribes during his many explorations, he wrote, in 1846, a detailed account of how a boomerang returns, describing it as the effect of air pressure on the two opposed surfaces (produced by the twist in the wood at the tips of the boomerang) combined with the spinning motion produced by the throw. For more than the first half century of British colonisation of Australia, the term boomerang was used, in its Aboriginal language and in official British documents at least, to describe only the returning boomerang; but, as we have seen, there were already some popular misconceptions about boomerangs circulating in the colony and back to England. John Fraser, writing for an American audience in 1893, noted, concerning the Aborigines of New South Wales:

The fighting weapons of the Australians are few in number and simple in construction; they are spears, clubs, shields and the ‘bumarang’. Of the last there are two kinds, but it is only the one of these that is used in fights … The Sydney names ‘bora’, ‘bumarang’, ‘karaban’ are already established … I have said that there are two ‘bumarangs’ … the other of these is commonly called the ‘come-back boomerang’, from the strange peculiarity of its flight, but while that name may be descriptive enough, yet it is not convenient to handle, and in one view the name is in itself contradictory, and therefore absurd, for it really means the ‘play-fighting’ weapon … The ‘come-back’ variety is not a fighting weapon. A dialect name for it is ‘bargan’ which word may be explained in our language to mean ‘bent like a sickle or crescent moon’. I will, therefore, say ‘bargan’ when I mean that variety. It is important that two different words should be used, for much confusion has been produced in the past by both varieties being called ‘bumarang’.

Although Fraser was aware of the problem in confusing these two types of throw-sticks, he had, himself, succumbed to the popular use of bumarang for hunting sticks.

In Spencer and Gillen’s classic 1898 book, The Native Tribes of Central Australia, there is a list of over 400 Aboriginal words; but no use of the word boomerang and no other word for a returning throw-stick appear in the list. (The authors themselves refer to five different types of non-returning hunting sticks as boomerangs, showing that the word was still being misused by Europeans, even if the Aborigines themselves didn’t make that mistake.) This is not surprising since the Central Australian peoples did not use returning boomerangs at all, further supporting the notion that, until the end of the nineteenth century at least, Aboriginal peoples used the term boomerang only of throw-sticks which returned, and had several other names for different types of non-returning throw-sticks.

Boomerangs in Speech and Sport Today

Today, it is not only non-Aboriginal Australians who continue to confuse the terms. Most people overseas, if they are even aware of two different types of throw-sticks, speak of them all as boomerangs; and even most contemporary Aborigines today use the terms ‘returning’ and ‘non-returning’ boomerangs when speaking English. Perhaps it’s so as not to be argumentative; perhaps it’s because the confusion is now so ingrained that insistence on boomerang for returning sticks only is seen as pedantic. But many boomerang enthusiasts today would agree with Fraser’s comment from over a century ago: ‘It is important that two different words be used’. The BAA and the BTA of New South Wales have consistently referred to only returning devices as boomerangs when setting rules for competitions, and have used the term hunting stick for competitions with non-returning throw-sticks. We have regarded it as important to preserve the Aboriginal origin of boomerangs in our sport, and to this end maybe an insistence on the correct terms is an education that most people need. If we are going to promote the sport of boomerangs with its history and pre-history accurately, then perhaps we need to insist:

If it doesn’t come back, it’s not a boomerang.

Reference

Butz, T., Boomerang Throwing – notes for instructors, 1973, unpublished booklet
Fraser, J., ‘Aborigines of New South Wales’, in Pamphlets issued by the NSW Commissioners for the World’s Columbian Exposition — Chicago 1893, volume two, Sydney Government Printer
Hawes, L. & M., All About Boomerangs, 1975, Paul Hamlyn, Sydney
McCarthy, F.D., The Boomerang, 1969, Australian Museum Leaflet No. 48
McCarthy, F.D., ‘The Boomerang’ in The Australian Museum Magazine, volume 13, number 11, September 15, 1961, Sydney
Murray, R., & White, K., Dharug & Dungaree — The History of Penrith and St. Mary’s to 1860, 1988, Hargreen Publishing Co., North Melbourne, and the Council of the City of Penrith
Smith, K.V., King Bungaree — A Sydney Aborigine Meets the Great South Pacific Explorers, 1799–1830, 1992, Kangaroo Press, Kenthurst.
Spencer, B., & Gillen, Fi., The Native Tribes of Central Australia, 1898, 1968 edition by Dover Publications, Inc., New York
Thieberger, N., & McGregor, W., (eds.), Macquarie Aboriginal Words, 1994, Macquarie Library Pty. Ltd., Macquarie University, New South Wales

And of course the Boomerang Association that kindly provided this great article.

This article is brought to you bu Blue Horizon Printing. Experts in printing photos on canvas and disributing quality canvas art prints. Based in Sydney but delivering to all of Australia.Photos on canvas Sydney, Photos on canvas Melbourne, Photos on Canvas Adelaide, Photos on canvas Brisbane, Photos on canvas Darwin, Photos on canvas Tasmania, Photos on canvas Hobart, Photos on canvas Perth, Photos on canvas Canberra

Now and again the term ‘abstract’ arises in modern day usage and indeed many are the painters of today who call themselves ‘abstract artists.’ An abstract artist may use digital art via the computer or other methods that do not use canvases and paint, but the enduring lure of a canvas is that it is solid and real, a thing to hold, take down from the wall and over to the window to see what sunlight does to its colors before returning it to the safety of the hanging place. If you should commission an abstract to do a ‘lyrical abstract’ piece, he or she would hark back to the origin of the term stemming from Aldrich’s first use of in circa 1969. Characterized by loose paint handling and intuitive, spontaneous expression, lyrical abstraction used newer technological techniques and led the way away from geometrical art such as that executed by Mondrian. Acrylic paints are the most common media, however, and the roots mentioned above, that of Art Nouveau, may be seen in the pastel and sepia color schemes and swirls of embellishments in a typical lyrical abstract piece. Post World War II, France searched for a new direction in her artistic wave and used lyrical abstraction, possibly as a gentler, kinder sort of expression far from the jagged edges of geometrical and cubism schools of art. It would be natural for a country to yearn for softer curves after the harshness of a World War.

So we see that abstract art offers a range of techniques and results: the dropped paint techniques of Jackson Pollock, the computerized digital art of so many on the Internet and the geometrical exactitude of a Mondrian all bear the common name, ‘abstract.’ Many times there is a range within one single painting, a part of the piece seeming almost photorealistic and the rest of the painting delving into the abstract world, giving a mutable effect to one canvas. From these many choices, surely you can discover a style to your taste and enjoy the work of an artist who releases his inner vision upon the world. You will expand your own mind as you do so, and the term ‘abstract art’ will no longer remain a mystery.

Peter Dranitsin is a self taught and self representing artist. He grew up in the family where his mother a professional artist and his father a professional photographer. To learn more about abstract painting explained please visit my online art gallery at http://www.petesoriginalart.com. ]]> http://bluehorizonprinting.com.au/blog/2010/05/abstract-art-is-complex-to-explain/feed/ 0 http://bluehorizonprinting.com.au/blog/2010/05/how-to-create-art-with-pencils-part-2/ http://bluehorizonprinting.com.au/blog/2010/05/how-to-create-art-with-pencils-part-2/#comments Thu, 13 May 2010 01:38:16 +0000 bluehorizon http://bluehorizonprinting.com.au/blog/?p=376 Now that you have amassed your drawing tools you can decide whether or not you want to hold your pencil in the handwriting position or the under hand position which is simply clasping your pencil lightly with your fingertips holding the pencil under your hand.  This position is favored for drawing long flowing strokes.

From here on in we are going to refer to your pencil lead as graphite and there are several ways to create blends in your graphite drawings.  Avoid using your fingers to blend as it may release unwanted oils from your skin unto your drawing.  The best way is to use a brush and a tissue.

Erasers in your graphite drawings will be used for more than removing a line, especially when you use kneaded erasers. You can mold your kneaded erasers to lift up some of the graphite in your drawing, thus leaving subtle variations of light that can be defined as highlights.  You can take a piece of kneaded eraser and roll it or shape it and then press down and away and you will be able to create designs.  Using a stick erasers sharp edge you can create strokes or lines on your graphite drawing to allow the paper underneath the graphite to show through, thus creating more designs.

It is easy to practice this and it is easy to practice any kind of design or “scribble” with your different pencils.  Just try it and fill your paper up with designs and blended in spaces with either graphite shading or graphite dust that you have brushed in with your brushes or a tissue and then pull out forms with your erasers.

Find a location where you can practice your art.  It may be a secluded area away from your everyday schedule and family or it may be in your favorite chair.  Once there look around and choose a subject.  Can’t seem to focus?  Just look around and try drawing your own two feet.

I can remember being in a real estate workshop where everyone sat at their table and leaned on one elbow holding their hand upright in any kind of position.  Focusing on that hand and picking up their pencil in their other hand within 20 minutes all 30 non-artist people had sketched their hand and all were pretty good.

Try this exercise.  Look at a chair, basket or table lamp for about 90 seconds and then look away and draw what you saw in 60 seconds without ever lifting your pencil from the paper.  This is called blind contour drawing and it is not about perfection.  Here is a chair I did once. I then add a fast watercolor wash and it sold immediately for $50.00!

Now look at that same table lamp and again start drawing the outline and edges of the lamp as you remember them.  This is called contour drawing.  We are concerned with the process here, not the results.

Now look at your drawing of the lamp and look at the lamp.  Add some more detail to your drawing of the lamp.  Again look at your drawing of the lamp and again look at the lamp.  Notice any more details plus any shadows on the table thrown there by the light.  Add these new details and shadows to your lamp.

Practice is the only thing that will make your better. Giving this a minimum of a ½ hour each day will give you great results and you will definitely see the improvement.

About the Author & Artist. Arlene Wright-Correll (1935- now), popular American award winning Artist, published author, columnist, & is the resident art instructor for Avalon Stained Glass School, at the age of 68, decided to pick up her paint brushes again after 54 years and paint.  She is a cancer and stroke survivor who is able to strive forward each and everyday to welcome the beauty of this small planet.  She also is a China & Porcelain painter, Sandblasting & Etching, Stained Glass & fused glass Artisan. She is one of the six KY Artists who worked 6 months to create the dolls for Journey Jots in 2006 and a Smithsonian Institute art exhibit in 2008. Her published books can be found here . She is also a featured writer for GreenThumbArticles.com and teaches Art Vacation Holidays at Avalon Stained Glass School and Creativity Center.

http://www.learn-america.com

Interior Design is a buzzword in today’s modern world. The top interior designers around the Globe consider the walls as the perfect places to decorate a home. Apart from installing different kinds of fixtures and accessories, the interior designers consider the wall art as an excellent, cost effective interior design option. Unlike the costly interior design objects like lighting fixtures, these wall arts are very cheap and are very easy to maintain. People have a misconception that the wall art will fade in time. With the advancements in technology, the wall art can last for a lifetime in all its glory with very little maintenance. For high durability, the wall arts are done using the modern canvas print technology. The canvas art is washable and hence very easy to maintain too. Moreover, the canvas art will be more realistic than ordinary wall art methods.

An artistic approach of interior design

Art forms are known to easy grab the attention of the people. The wall art used in interior design is no exemption. Hence the canvas art in your home will definitely admire the visitors. Unlike olden days when people used to spend thousands of dollars in buying art works for decorating their homes, today, with the introduction of canvas art, people are able to bring home the various art forms to the homes at a very cheap pricing. People can get their desired picture printed as a canvas art within minutes. Moreover, as the canvas art is washable and fade resistant, they require only less maintenance.

Increasing the value of you home with Wall art

The values of the homes are found to be greatly dependant on the wall art. According to a recent survey, the home owners claim that the wall art have the ability to increase the value of a home by more than 30%. Due to this reason, American home owners have spent more than 50 billion dollars in decoration their homes with canvas art. They consider the wall arts as wise investments in their home. Not only in America, but also in all parts of the world, the wall art has gained huge popularity. Hence there is huge demand for the wall arts worldwide.

Selecting and installing wall art

With the increase in demand of wall art, there are different types of wall arts available today. Selection of the best wall art has to be done considering some key factors. First of all, the color of the wall art should match the other interior design objects and furniture in the room. The placement of the wall art is another important factor to consider. The canvas art has to be placed in an elevated position which can be seen from anywhere in the room. The wall art should be able to make the visitors feel comfortable and relaxed as soon as they enter the room.

Bottom Line

Considering all these benefits, the canvas art is a cost effective artistic approach for interior design.

Article by

Blue Horizon Printing, they deliver great quality canvas art prints in a variety of styles such as Modern, Pop Art

, contempory, Abstract, prints of famous paintings.

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Diving in Sydney is like drinking beer, it can take a while to get used to but once you get the taste for it, you’re hooked for life. It can be cold, it can have poor clarity, but you’ll be hard pushed to find anywhere in the world with such great diving a stones through from your office in the city.

Australia is renowned for its tropical diving: seeing Nemo on the Great Barrier Reef, schools of sharks in the Coral Sea, manta rays and the majestic whale shark on Ningaloo Reef., so it is not surprising that the diving in cooler waters goes largely unnoticed. Especially diving in a major city, which is rarely a priority for divers.Yet the temperate waters of Australia boast one of the most diverse marine ecosystems in the world – an amazing underwater world that few ever explore – Sydney is at its heart. There are over twice as many species in the harbour within sight of its famous Harbour Bridge than in the entire British Isles.

The secret behind Sydney’s marine life is its proximity to the continental shelf, bringing with it nutrient rich water and a vast array of visitors including several tropical species caught up in the East Australian Current coming down from the Great Barrier Reef.

Bondi Beach epitomises the diving in Sydney – visited by millions of people each year, it is arguably the world’s most famous beach. A beautiful surfing beach, within 15 minutes of the City centre, it is home to the oldest surf lifesaving club in the world. However despite its high profile, only a handful of people ever check out what lies beneath the waves.

Bondi Beach has become world famous as a surfing beach because of it’s accessibility, so why isn’t its diving equally famous? It certainly has the marine life to justify it. A typical example is the Weedy Seadragon – one of the world’s most amazing creatures. Growing up to 45cm, it is related to the seahorse, but as its name suggests, it looks like a dragon, complete with blue stripes and yellow spots. How can a dragon living on the world’s most famous beach not be famous itself? The fact is, even the majority of locals don’t know it exists. In virtually any other country, everyone would be aware of this beautiful creature, but Australia is so spoilt with incredible wildlife, so it gets ignored.

Despite their bizarre appearance, Weedy Seadragons (Phyllopteryx taeniolatus) are actually pretty difficult to spot. There are only about 20 at Bondi Beach and they blend in perfectly with the kelp – which seems completely ridiculous after you spot one and then consider how brightly coloured they are.

Even if you don’t get to see the Weedy Seadragon on a dive at Bondi there’s no shortage of other bizarre life to look at. The giant cuttlefish is a favourite. Its ability to change shape and colour in an instant is impressive on its smaller cousins, but when you are faced with a group of cuttlefish all over a metre in length, imitating their surroundings as the swell takes them from sand to rock, the image is mesmerizing.

The Wobbegong, a 3 metre carpet shark, aptly named for its ability to look and act like a kitch 1970 carpet is another local favourite. It lies on the bottom motionless until an unsuspecting diver swims too close and is shocked to suddenly see the seafloor bust into action.

Other marine life seen regularly at Bondi Beach include piles of a dozen or more Port Jackson sharks having their afternoon siesta (a shark that can’t bite you but can give you a nasty sting from its horm), large bull rays, fiddler rays, octopus, schools of squid and the large sex-changing, bright blue groper that follows you around like a puppy. Then there are the balls of stripped catfish that you can swim through (if you dare – their poison never leaves your body if stung), the large schools of salmon tuna and kingfish that form a perfect barrel around divers, brightly coloured nudibranchs, big red stonefish… the list goes on. They all live a few hundred metres from the 35,000 oblivious topless sun-worshippers on this famous strip of sand.

However, Bondi is not even considered the best shore dive site in Sydney – there are many other contenders: The more popular sites include Shelly Beach and Fairlight in the northern beaches, Camp Cove and Gordon’s Bay on the eastern harbour foreshores, Bare Island – a small island on the northern foreshore of Botany Bay – and Shiprock, in Port Hacking.

Manly, the other great surfing beach of Sydney, like Bondi is also typical of Sydney’s amazing marine life. Ten metres off the crowded harbour beach, in 3 metres of water, lives a colony of 200 seahorses on the man-made shark nets. Tell anyone on the beach about them and they’ll think you’re crazy.

Bare Island is a personal favourite – one of the most scenic shore dives. It has many of the same species as Bondi but with a few stunning additions including the red indian fish that looks exactly like a red indian chief and the elusive blue devil fish that never ceases to amaze divers. They live in a surreal landscape consisting of bright orange and pink sponge.

Although the shore diving is excellent sometimes it is great to get on one of the dive boats in Sydney and get out to some of the other dive sites. Almost all of the 30 odd dive facilities either own, or have on permanent charter, a dive boat – capable of carrying anywhere between six to twelve divers. Whales and dolphins are regular visitors to Sydney and frequently appear alongside dive boats and even the occasional giant sunfish makes a trip in close to shore.

One of the most popular boat dive sites is Magic Point – a fabulous dive that starts off at a large amphitheatre with an overhang that goes back under the cliff. This is where the endangered Grey Nurse Sharks cruise by. There are only approximately 500 of these sharks left in Australia and you feel very privileged to be able to get up close and personal to these harmless rare large sharks.

Sydney is the oldest settled city in Australia and its coastline and waterways are littered with wrecks of every description; some the result of maritime misfortune and others that have been purposely scuttled. In Sydney Harbour alone there are more than twenty-five known wrecks and offshore there are an even greater number. Although many of these vessels lie in water depths only accessible to technical divers, others are in shallower waters just metres from shore.

One of the most popular is the Coolooli – a large wreck scuttled off Long Reef. An old bucket dredge that now lies on her side on a sand bed in 48 metres. This dive has something for everyone and begins at 36 metres. The wrecks superstructure is intact and it is possible to penetrate various areas. For the more adventurous – you can swim through the funnel and come out through a hole in its side.

Diving in Sydney surprises virtually everyone. Once you get used to the colder water (16 to 24 degrees) and the lower visibility than the tropical diving up north, you’ll find the experience unique. The sheer diversity of life in the temperate waters means that there are always new things to discover – in fact, despite being in a major city, even in the harbour there are new species waiting to be discovered and named.

Conditions

Subject to the vagaries of the weather, diving conditions in Sydney can change on a daily basis – particularly after high seas or heavy rains when the wave action or storm-water run-off from the land may reduce the underwater visibility. Although seldom less than 8-metres, the very best visibility and sea conditions usually occur during the dry winter months (June – August) when the combined effects of the prevailing offshore winds and the “blue-water” currents produce visibility often exceeding 30-plus metres.

Water temperatures reach a high of about 24º C. in summer, (February/March) and drop to 16º C. towards the end of winter (August/September) when more thermal protection is required. For most people, however, a 5mm wet suit is adequate for use throughout the year.

Getting There

Most International carriers offer direct flights to Sydney’s Kingsford Smith Airport, just 6 kilometres from the City centre. Depending on the time of day regular shuttle-bus services or metered-taxis will cover the distance in about 15-minutes.

Climate

Temperate, with four seasons. Driest month – August: Wettest – February. Mainly sunny throughout the year with cool, mild winters (June – August) and hot, humid summers, (December – February). Average temperatures range from between 9 – 15° C. in Winter, to 22 – 28° C. in Summer.

Photography by Richard Vevers (Underwater Australia) and George Evatt.

Article courtesy of http://www.underwater.com.au.

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