TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Shakira the Siamese Cat Acrylic on Canvas, 90 x 60cm, 10 June 2009. Purchase prints of this artwork . Shakira is created from a rejected sketch for one of my cat commissions. The client chose a different sketch but I liked this one so much I just had to paint it (with the luxury of painting it exactly how I wanted it to be instead of with the client's input). The name 'Shakira' came about simply because my partner saw the finished painting and suggested that name for the cat. I hadn't yet thought of a title and 'Shakira' sounded like the kind of name you'd give a Siamese cat so... 'Shakira' is now the cat's name. I can only imagine what this artwork may have been like had my client chosen it as their first preference from the three sketches I sent. Their colour scheme and concept was very different, preferring an early evening, dusk kind of scene (as you can see in the final client's painting below). Evidently the Siamese cat, call

Enigma and I spent our Easter Saturday at Semaphore beach, South Australia. That's our little spot on the beach pictured above where Enigma is actually reading a book, whilst keeping the sun off her face - in case you thought she was sleeping. It was an almost perfect day. Just a touch too cool with the breeze for swimming but Enigma did venture out into the water for a dip whilst I wussed out and didn't go any deeper than below my knees near the shore. I was never that great a swimmer and I've gone right off swimming as I've gotten older. I've particularly never been that confident swimming at the beach - even one as relatively harmless as Semaphore which doesn't face onto the open sea. It actually looks out into the Gulf of St. Vincent. As a result it's not really a great surf beach. I've never seen actual waves there - well nothing you could surf. However it is great for wind surfing, kite surfing and is the home of an annual, international kit