In the studio

I've been a busy girl but sometimes life takes over. Since we've moved house, I have a studio room set up, but I seem to spend a lot of my time making art out here:

Such a great place to create!

I'm totally inspired after doing a collagraph workshop with Magali Dincher in Fremantle. Here are my first efforts:




I've since made a HEAP of new printing plates. Surf inspired ones - and can't wait to use the press again to get some printed. I'll be tinting them with watercolours and selling as limited edition prints.

I'm hoping to get in there in August, then I'll be putting a sneak peek on here. So much planned for the next couple of months!

Storm Surfers

Another girls Lancelin trip. We didn't have the best of weather, but we had a great time. We made up for the lack of wave quality by eating our body weight in bacon and banana bread.

Messy....

Wave huntin'!

Some of us are off to Bali next month for a week of warm weather and surf coaching! The story will unfold here!

Camping ii

We had a wonderful break over Easter, heading down to a tiny town on the corner of the coast called Windy Harbour. Freezing nights, full moon, wood fire, great company and great food...

Salmon Beach

D'Entrecasteaux National Park - a bit that wan't burnt by the fires.

Just us :)

We actually didn't take our surfboards on this trip but had a magical morning body surfing with the beach to ourselves.

Lomo photo wall

Photos mostly from 2010-2011.

I'm on facebook now! Check my page here: Hannah Katarski Art & Photography
I love the likes. :]

Camping i

Been a bit quiet on here of late. There's a lot brewing in the wings!!
Some shots from my recent camping/surf adventure to Margaret River...

Redgate beach - with the wind in.

Our camp

We ate like kings!

Found a little friend

 

More photos to come when I get my film developed!

New in 2013!

My online shop is now live via bigcartel! 
Check it out by clicking the 'shop' tab. Here are my first limited edition prints for sale.

Stoked

 I just found this post which made me smile. It's so great to see or read about other people who have just fallen in love with surfing. I started surfing just over 4 years ago and don't know what took me so long. This quote sums it up:

"Because when it comes down to it, nothing says freedom like paddling out on a board to bob around in the ocean for a while before catching a wave. I reckon that’s about as close to walking on water that I’m ever going to get…and that feeling is priceless. I will chase it til I’m too arthritic to stand on my board, and then I’ll just knee board or paddle til I die."

Kate just got back from a learn to surf camp and sounds like she's hooked. We've all been there and it's the best. The rest of her story is here:
theperfectwave.com.au/blog/testimonials/the-best-decision-ive-made-in-a-long-time/

Stoked.

Manly ii

Hoping for a few waves this weekend!! We're getting close to the end of summer!

Christmas in Manly

We shared a flat with my parents for 4 days over Christmas and I just loved Manly. If I had to live in Sydney, it would be there. But if had to live on the east coast, it probably wouldn’t be Sydney…

I loved how everything was focussed around the beach. There was such a great vibe. The streets are laid out so nicely and then the harbour and ferries are parallel to the beach, so you’re on this weird little peninsula. The lay of the land is very different from Perth. So much rock. Cliffs and juttings and outcrops and heads. So of course that makes for some pretty cool surf spots. In Perth you can pretty much walk in a straight line along the beach from one end of the metro area to the other. And there aren’t really cliffs… just sand.

There’s a boardwalk from Manly all the way around to Cabbage Tree Park and Shelley Beach. The waves sometimes break across it and you walk past the in-ocean swimming pool, cafes, diving lessons, a calm swimming beach, two surf breaks, and people paddling their surfboards between one spot and the next. There is a natural viewing/amphitheatre where you can watch the surfers in line with where they take off. Then, 90 degrees to your right, there’s another wave, breaking at a totally different angle!

In typical fashion we brought swell with us and the beaches were actually closed for two of the three and half days that we were there. There was a cyclone off the north east coast and the waves got a bit ugly with messy winds.

Christmas day, our first morning there, was perfect, but thinking we had all the time in the world, we had coffees and took in the sights. By lunchtime, when we decided to go hire a board, the wind had come howling in (for the first time in a week) and it was all down hill from there!

Boxing Day we went out on the Harbour and watched the start of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht race from a boat.

I promised myself that I would go out for a surf before we left. Sure enough, the morning that we had to check out was a lot more orderly and smaller. Of course, the board hire places open office hours and we needed to be out by 10am. So I took out my Dad’s kneeboard! He takes his board with him as people don’t rent kneeboards! This was a great experience. It’s 6’2 and has a very spooned (kneeboard, ugh) shape. It goes really nicely as a stand up board – apart from having to stand across knee dibits. Plus it duck dives well – and I sure was doing a lot of that. More than catching waves.

The water was SO clear out there and I got such a kick out of sitting out there (and from being able to see our balcony from the line up). It was also pretty amazing to see the stereotyped Australian summer surfing culture. Perth is so flat in summer with the protection from the outer reef. But Sydney needs hardly any swell to have waves. Imagine that! Surfing decent waves regularly in summer! Warm water, blue skies, holidays… The Perth surfing culture is having your pick of the car parks, putting on a wetsuit, and paddling out at a beach that is empty apart from the surfers. Lucky for us, Perth is generally pretty spectacular in winter; blue skies, offshore winds, no crowds… and the water and air aren’t really that cold…

I was proud of my duck dives. They’re coming along now. The Manly experience has certainly helped me to concrete my technique and to tweak my timing. Friends said they’ve found my mini-simmons pretty hard to duck dive, but to me, it is actually doable which makes it awesome! It’s not a potato chip thin shortboard, but I’ve been riding a minimal for 4 years. It’s all relative. So the fact that I can actually sink the nose and reach the tail simultaneously means it’s totally workable. I’m still a bit hesitant when I get a critical duck dive where the wave is about to unload on me, but I’m feeling pretty confident with unbroken waves and walls of foam.

Summer Reprieve

So we moved recently. We've been in our new house for three months and they've been big ones. We're loving it - so glad we moved. We're slowly making it our own and finding homes for everything.

James waxing up his new board ready to surf

We've already made ourselves a boardrack!

We've had a lot of wind and heat and not many waves this Summer. We went to Manly, Sydney for Christmas, but more about that later...
James and I got a surf down at Hussas late arvo, after a wild search through Dunsborough and Yallingup. I learn about conditions and places every time we head down there. It's pretty confusing when you don't see places regularly. We looked at Yallingup, went to Smiths... We wound up at Windmills and it was so big it was dumping overhead onto the rocky, granite shore. After that, I'd decided just to head back to Yallingup and go out there - by which time, the wind came howling in.

So Hussas was good. It looked big but was actually too fat to catch. We both caught a wave and felt pretty good, I think, about being out somewhere unfamiliar. The next day was another lesson wave hunting. We went here:

Unridden perfection

- A place suggested by my Uncle, who is a local. His call was good on Hussas the day before and when we turned up at Moses Rock it looked soooooo nice. I was going to be going out on my own and got to the point of suiting up and standing on the stairs... before I chickened out and decided I didn't like it so much with the wind shift... and were those set waves getting bigger..? So, second guessing myself, I decided to go check out Hussas again. Upon arrival though, we found that it was flat without the wind pushing swell in, and the conditions had obviously dropped, unlike what was forecast. So we missed the window.

I second guessed myself and missed out. It's hard to be brave sometimes. And it's always easier when you go out with someone who knows the lay of the land to tell you how it all works, where to get in, get out, watch the rocks, where to sit...

And I think it is a definite balance between *being safe and knowing your limits* and *having confidence in yourself and judging the conditions with a clear mind*. I think I should have gone out at Moses Rock. It has become a monkey on my back and I hope I'll be able to give is a go on one of my next trips south.

In the meantime, I'm trying to remind myself of what I'm capable of. To stop over analysing waves and just get out there. I definitely need to find some bigger balls.

We've just started surfing Tom's in the last few weeks. You could say that we've discovered it. For ourselves, that is. It's no secret - loads of people surf there, but we never have. I assumed it didn't break in Summer and Scarborough was always closer. When Cott breaks, we go there. So it's been a real treat to realise there is a reef break in Perth that breaks on a small swell! We've had 2 out of 3 good surfs there and are starting to get it sussed. Between Tom's and Wedge, I've actually had quite a few surfs over the last fortnight. It feels good.

Byron Bay Surfer Girl

Lonley surf at beautiful Wategoes from Rest Your Eyes on Vimeo.
I had to post this (again maybe?) because I love everything about it.

Summer Soaking

Surf conditions have been dire this Summer. Can't remember the last surf I had here. Lots of early seebreezes and intermittent, lacklustre swells. So I took the dSLR out finally in the waterpoof housing I bought a few months back. It didn't leak, which was a good start and I saw a huge eagle ray on the way to shore. A real treat.








I can't wait to take the kit out in some waves. Also excited to get some shots around sunset.