Hello bloggers

Big thanks to Harry Connick Jr for making Abu Dhabi SWING at ADNEC on Sunday evening last! I had a wonderful time, especially swinging to that authentic New Orleans jazz. Harry entertained us on piano, vocals and also played trumpet for a time!

It was a full house in the audience - since it was his first time in UAE, he said himself that he wasn't sure how many people would turn up? But, he needn't have worried, there wasn't a spare seat in the house! Great band too.........Roger Ingram on trumpet, Jerry Weldon on tenor saxophone, Lucien Barbarin on trombone and Ben Wolfe on double bass..........The band clearly had a fabulous time, dancing up and down the stage at times.........

Classically trained on piano myself, many moons ago, I'm also teaching myself jazz piano and my goodness it is hard! Those timings really stretch your brain like nothing else! Then, you have your two hands doing completely different things at the same time - in rhythm and notes. It's quite mind-bending. It only goes to cement my admiration for jazz pianists such as Harry.......and Bill Evans..........and Oscar Peterson.........

I vote for  MORE JAZZ in Abu Dhabi!!

Anyway, it's really hotting up here in Abu Dhabi now. We're into the low 40 degrees!! But it's the humidity that really hits hard, creeping up each day. Making you sweat (or pant) the moment you exit your house. Nothing like sweat dripping down your legs as a new experience.....hmmmm......nice image 

Once you reach town and get that hot, it's kind of like walking around in a steam bath. Or; you know when you open a hot oven and get it full in the face?.......it's just like that! You kind of get used to it, once your in that kind of heat. Or, really; you just get used to sweating profusely.

Nice excuse to buy more summer sandals though! Bought a lovely sparkly pair today. Sometimes there's nothing nicer than sparkly shoes! Although I'm not the kind of person who has wardrobes full of shoes, I am beginning to see the fascination......... they just brighten your whole day.........

Sadly, those kind of sparkles don't last long - before you find them all around the house. I had a dress with sequins like that. Somehow, they seem to end up sticking to my husband! Sometimes I count how many he has stuck to him. He can't work out how they keep ending up on him. I think he thinks I stick them on him in the night. Sometimes I find two, sometimes I find many more. Where will the trail of sequins end.............................?

Just finished a lovely local portrait commission. And Bonnie our 'desert dog' (mut) has invented a new 'tent' game. She drags/lifts the 'throw' from our sofa, dives underneath, then scrabbles around inside. Ideally, she likes to lay a favourite toy on the outside surface - so that when she dives in, she kind of hunts for it, in her dog-made tent in a frantic manner, until she gets the feel of it. It's very entertaining to watch. I'm trying to get a video of it for youtube. But, since my phone makes a loud beep everytime I start videoing - she stops and looks up when I begin. I expect I can turn the beep off somehow........but it would take me too long to find the beep-stopper.

www.moorethanart.com and contact me at questions@moorethanart.com if you require a portrait or modern art in your style/colours for your house. I work in traditional and contemporary styles........

Here's my 'Deep Blue' contemporary painting. Very large oil on canvas. Any colour/size to suit.

How many littles fishes can you count? 

View me Jazz Singing and playing my Saxophone at my Tedx performance this April in Abu Dhabi. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az_YF_Qocfw  

My Art at www.moorethanart.com

For your Art enquires questions@moorethanart.com (All art sent with tracking and insurance via TNT in a postal tube).

Hello blogger,

Such a sad thing with this Oil Spill. Very depressing news at the moment! Truly hope it turns out to be less catastrophic than expected  

Many thanks to those people who were kind enough to support our 'Strays Of Abu Dhabi' Charity Art Auction at the Millennium Hotel. Here's a few photos of the event. And don't forget to pop back to www.straysofabudhabi.com from time to time, to see the new dogs (and cats) up for adoption.

Sadly, the approaching summer can be a busy time of year, when some people return home for the holidays, without their pets. This is how many dogs are found wandering, abandoned!

Big thanks to our jazz band, that's Andy Tyson on keyboard and Dennis Mercardo on bass guitar. And big thanks to our small army of volunteers too!

Also thanks to Raymond Kuceli our charismatic auctioneer from Australia, for bringing his 20 of Real Estate auctioneering experience to our event.

Anyway, quite suprising to discover how hectic my life had become organizing this event - especially compared to my usual quiet life.

So, I'm currently working on some great commissions. And of course you can contact me for your art on questions@moorethanart.com I love a challenge with my art and love to try new subjects. Working on my first Saluki dog at the moment and it's going really well..................

I've always wondered why dogs dig in a desert by the way. I discovered on the Discovery Channel the other day that one foot down in the sand, is about 60% cooler! So, there you go!

I think our dogs are definitely enjoying seeing a little bit more of mummy!

Very cosy. Having a snooze. What better thing to do in a hot summer................... Well, I'm calling it summer if that alright with you, since it's already hit the 40 degrees!

Caught lovely Suki chewing a huge bug in the garden the other day. Scared the hell out of me, but she looked at me, crunching away. I grabbed it off her and hid it in the bushes. I think she wondered why? So, did I really, since she'd had the best of it! It was like a giant black stag-beetle, without the stag/ antlers bit. But it clearly had wings......well, it did have  

I guess, Suki learned how to survive in this environment. She also has a clear hankering for black, plastic bags - you can guess why. Food, is food, after all! She has a hard time ignoring the household rubbish......and who can blame her. We bought bird-seed, so that we didn't feed the birds with bread, since of course she stretched up to eat that. Now, we catch her chewing bird-seed instead. The other day she looked up guiltily, with her whole snout covered in seeds. And of course what goes in, does of course come out.......looking exactly the same.

Just must include my beautiful Hibiscus pot plant. It's such a novelty for me to have flowers like this growing in the garden. Mind you, it's wilting and struggling in the heat now......as are we!

Oh dear, it's 6 pm and the girls have settled down to sleep! That's not good news now, since they like to wake up with the dawn at the moment....................which is 5:30 am

View me Jazz Singing and playing my Saxophone at my Tedx performance this April in Abu Dhabi. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az_YF_Qocfw  

My Art at www.moorethanart.com

For your Art enquires questions@moorethanart.com (All art sent with tracking and insurance via TNT in a postal tube).