Preamble
For your convenience I have listed below the annual reviews that span the life of this blogspot.
It's Been An Exciting Year (2010/2011)
Another Cheer - Another Year (2011/2012)
Where Did The Year Go? (2012/2013)
The Year of the Horse (2013/2014)
Cold and Windy - But on the Dawn of Renewal (2014/2015)
A Time To Reflect - A Time To Select (2015/2016)
A Time to Remember (2016/2017)
To Be or Not to Be (2017/2018)
The Night Too Quickly Passes (2018/2019)
The Year of Living Dangerously (2019/2020)
Attempt The Impossible Since Failure Will Still Be Your Success (2020/2021)
A Year of Climate Extremes (2021/2022)
I Love A Sunburnt Country (2022/2023)
Australian Rules (2023/2024)
Year of the Snake (2024/2025)
Howzat? (2025/2026)
How's That?
The History of Australian cricket began over 210 years ago. The first recorded cricket match in Australia took place in Sydney in December 1803 and a report in the Sydney Gazette on 8 January 1804 suggested that cricket was already well established in the infant colony. By 1826, clubs including the Currency Cricket Club, the Military Cricket Club and the Australian Cricket Club had been formed. Hyde Park, and the Racecourse were the venue for these organised matches. The formation of clubs in Van Diemen's Land (later named Tasmania) was not far behind with clubs formed in Hobart in 1832 and Launceston in 1841. In Western Australia a match was arranged in 1835 between the "builders" (probably architects and engineers) of the new Government House and a team of labourers and "mechanics" (an archaic term for trades people). In what would later become Victoria (Australia), in 1838, the Melbourne Cricket Club was formed – it would become arguably Australia's most exclusive and influential cricket club. In 1839, a club was formed in South Australia.
Intercolonial cricket in Australia started with a visit by cricketers from Victoria to Tasmania in February 1851. The match was played in Launceston on 11–12 February with Tasmania winning by three wickets. Another three matches between the two teams were played before 1854 but in time the crossing of Bass Strait became less attractive to the Victorians and the focus turned to the neighbouring colony of New South Wales. These matches attracted large crowds, including a crowd of 15,000 at a match in Sydney in January 1853. Boards of control were formed in the various colonies: New South Wales in 1857, Victoria in 1864 and South Australia in 1871.
In May to October 1868, a cricket team composed of Aboriginal Australians toured England, becoming the first organised group of Australian sportspeople to travel overseas. It would be another ten years before an Australian cricket team classed as representative of Australia toured Britain.
The concept of an Aboriginal cricket team can be traced to pastoral stations in the Western District of Victoria, where, in the mid-1860s, the European owners introduced Aboriginal station hands to the sport. An Aboriginal XI was created with the assistance of Tom Wills, the captain of the Victorian cricket team and founder of Australian rules football, who acted as the side's captain-coach in the lead-up to and during an 1866–67 tour of Victoria and New South Wales.
Aboriginal cricket team at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in 1867.
In cricket, an appeal, locally pronounced as a 'Howzat,' but in reality its meaning is, 'How is that?', is the act of a player (or players) on the fielding team asking an umpire for a decision regarding whether a batter is out or not. According to Law 31 of the Laws of Cricket, an umpire will not rule a batter out unless the fielding side appeals for a decision. An appeal covers all forms of dismissal, regardless of what the fielding team believes they are appealing for. On occasions when a batter has otherwise technically been out, the fielding team has not realised, so did not appeal, and so the umpire will not declare the batter to be out. An appeal may be made at any point before the bowler starts their run-up for delivery of the next ball.
Howzat? (2025/2026)
The number of categories on this blogspot keeps growing. They are as follows: (i) ArtCloth, Art Quilts, Textile Art; (ii) Art Essays; (iii) Art Exhibitions/Installations/Talks; (iv) Artist's and Designer's Profiles; (v) Art Resources; (vi) Art Reviews; (vii) Book Reviews/Interviews; (viii) Craft and Quilt Fairs; (ix) Fabric Lengths; (x) Glossaries; (xi) Guest Artists/Authors/Creatives/Guest Editors; (xii) Opinion Pieces; (xiii) Prints on Paper; (xiv) Resource Reviews; (xv) Technical Articles; (xvi) Wearable Art; (xvii) Workshops and Master Classes (i.e., my students outputs).
Note: Not all of these categories are present in any given year. For example, this season there were no Book Reviews/Interviews, or for that matter, Guest Artists/Author/Creatives, Guest Editors, Fabric Lengths, or Opinion Pieces. Futhermore, there were no new Glossaries, although several of the Glossaries were substantially increased in content (e.g., click on the following link - Glossary of Art, Artists, Art Motifs and Art Movements to access all the glossaries).
I do realize that judging a post by a single criterion, namely, the most number of views, is not necessarily the smartest approach, since the length of stay of a viewer on that paticular post might negate the former statistic. How often have you heard yourself say - 'Oops I really didn't mean to google this site when I googled "snake" and it landed on not the animal, but on a man's boxer shorts.' Within second, I promise I ditched the site! Nevertheless, this one statistic makes it easier for me to make a judgement about which posts were popular, and so it will be used as the final arbitrator, except in the case when two posts differ by less than two viewers in total. Then I will decree that both are joint winners!
Note: Within each category we are only talking about differences in number of page views, rather than the absolute number of page views.
ArtCloth, Art Quilts and Textile Art
There were twelve posts in this category in the 2025/2026 season, which is equal in number to the Art Resource posts. The two that got the largest number of page views in this category were only two weeks apart, namely: Time Waits for No Man and Art Quilts of Karin Franzen, with the former having 77 more page views and so is the winner in this category.
Title: Time Waits for No Man (Full View).
Artist: Marie-Therese Wisniowski.
Techniques and Media: Hand painted, silk screened, mono printed, stamped and collaged employing transparent, opaque, and metallic pigments on cotton.
Size: 30 cm high x 19.5 cm wide.
Year of Creation: 2025.
Edition: 1/1.
Art Essays
There were six posts in this category in the 2025/2026 season, with the following two having the most page views, namely, Katazome (Stencil Dyeing) - Part III and Optical Illusions - Part II, with the former being ahead by only four page views.
Man on the Moon.
This image of Buzz Aldrin's helmet was made out of a collage of space images.
Art Exhibitions/Installations/Talks
There were no posts in this category in 2025/2026 season.
Artist/Designer Profiles
There were four posts in this category in 2025/2026 season, with the two most popular in terms of page views being: Maurits C. Escher (1898-1972) and Abby Thomas, with the former having two hundred and sixty-eight more page views and so is the winner in this category.
Escher with wife Jetta Umiker (her maiden name).
Art Resources
The Art Resources posts are generally the first post in any given month and so they tend to numerically dominate the number of page views of the published posts in any given year. Also the posts in this category that were published early in the season have a longer time duration on the blogspot and so feature more prominently in terms of the page views statistics compared to more recently published posts. Hence it is not surprising that the two most viewed posts in this category were one month apart and moreover, featured early in the publishing cycle of the accounting period. The two most viewed posts in this category in 2025/2026 were: White Pigments - Part I and White Pigments - Part II, with the former having 183 more page views.
Guest Editors
There was only one Guest Editor in the 2025/2026 season and that was Robyn Werkhoven, who penned "The Journey of Studio La Primitive Arts Zine".
Prints on Paper
There were four Prints on Paper posts in 2025/2026 season, with the two most viewed being four months apart and they were: Intaglio Prints Created Using Solarplates [1] - Part VI and Margaret Preston and Printmaking, with the former having 147 more page views.
Creator: Yvonne Boag.
Title: Nowhere Road (1998).
Print: Double exposure.
Size: 12 x 16.75 in (30.5 x 42.5 cm).
Comment: Yvonne Boag created two drawings on semi-matte drafting film with lithographic crayons and graphite pencils. The two films were partially overlaid and taped together, then exposed in a vacuum frame using the double exposure technique. Inked a la poupée, this print shows the fine marks and textures that the double exposure technique can preserve.
Courtesy: Comtempory Access Gallery (Australia).
Wearable Art
There were six posts in this category in the 2025/2026 season, with the two most viewed posts being Felt Objects - Part II and Traditional Batik Clothing, with the latter having 56 more page views and so is the winner in this category.
A central Javanese bridal couple, 1975. Men wear the dodot over tight trousers made of cinde cloth. The higher the status or class, the more these trousers are visible. The dodot trails a little at the back, falling over the dagger sheath and is lifted by several train carriers. The dagger (kris) is held in a wide belt called pangsit. The head is covered by a stiff Persian cap called kuluk. The upper trunk is uncovered. Women wear the dodot over the kain panjang, the upper trunk slightly bound with a breastcloth. The draping is carried out by selected servants and follows strictly in accordance with a prescribed ritual.
Workshops and Master Classes (i.e., my students outputs)
Due to the number of extracurricular activities (e.g., penning, designing and creating a soon to be published printmakers book) there were no workshops and masterclasses that I taught in 2025/2026 season.
Conclusion
I hope you have enjoyed this review of my yearly posts between August of 2025 to August of 2026 of the "Howzat" review.
Reference:
[1] https://vinpearl.com/en/vietnamese-new-year-animals-12-signs-their-symbolism.
For your convenience I have listed below the annual reviews that span the life of this blogspot.
It's Been An Exciting Year (2010/2011)
Another Cheer - Another Year (2011/2012)
Where Did The Year Go? (2012/2013)
The Year of the Horse (2013/2014)
Cold and Windy - But on the Dawn of Renewal (2014/2015)
A Time To Reflect - A Time To Select (2015/2016)
A Time to Remember (2016/2017)
To Be or Not to Be (2017/2018)
The Night Too Quickly Passes (2018/2019)
The Year of Living Dangerously (2019/2020)
Attempt The Impossible Since Failure Will Still Be Your Success (2020/2021)
A Year of Climate Extremes (2021/2022)
I Love A Sunburnt Country (2022/2023)
Australian Rules (2023/2024)
Year of the Snake (2024/2025)
Howzat? (2025/2026)
How's That?
The History of Australian cricket began over 210 years ago. The first recorded cricket match in Australia took place in Sydney in December 1803 and a report in the Sydney Gazette on 8 January 1804 suggested that cricket was already well established in the infant colony. By 1826, clubs including the Currency Cricket Club, the Military Cricket Club and the Australian Cricket Club had been formed. Hyde Park, and the Racecourse were the venue for these organised matches. The formation of clubs in Van Diemen's Land (later named Tasmania) was not far behind with clubs formed in Hobart in 1832 and Launceston in 1841. In Western Australia a match was arranged in 1835 between the "builders" (probably architects and engineers) of the new Government House and a team of labourers and "mechanics" (an archaic term for trades people). In what would later become Victoria (Australia), in 1838, the Melbourne Cricket Club was formed – it would become arguably Australia's most exclusive and influential cricket club. In 1839, a club was formed in South Australia.
Intercolonial cricket in Australia started with a visit by cricketers from Victoria to Tasmania in February 1851. The match was played in Launceston on 11–12 February with Tasmania winning by three wickets. Another three matches between the two teams were played before 1854 but in time the crossing of Bass Strait became less attractive to the Victorians and the focus turned to the neighbouring colony of New South Wales. These matches attracted large crowds, including a crowd of 15,000 at a match in Sydney in January 1853. Boards of control were formed in the various colonies: New South Wales in 1857, Victoria in 1864 and South Australia in 1871.
In May to October 1868, a cricket team composed of Aboriginal Australians toured England, becoming the first organised group of Australian sportspeople to travel overseas. It would be another ten years before an Australian cricket team classed as representative of Australia toured Britain.
The concept of an Aboriginal cricket team can be traced to pastoral stations in the Western District of Victoria, where, in the mid-1860s, the European owners introduced Aboriginal station hands to the sport. An Aboriginal XI was created with the assistance of Tom Wills, the captain of the Victorian cricket team and founder of Australian rules football, who acted as the side's captain-coach in the lead-up to and during an 1866–67 tour of Victoria and New South Wales.
In cricket, an appeal, locally pronounced as a 'Howzat,' but in reality its meaning is, 'How is that?', is the act of a player (or players) on the fielding team asking an umpire for a decision regarding whether a batter is out or not. According to Law 31 of the Laws of Cricket, an umpire will not rule a batter out unless the fielding side appeals for a decision. An appeal covers all forms of dismissal, regardless of what the fielding team believes they are appealing for. On occasions when a batter has otherwise technically been out, the fielding team has not realised, so did not appeal, and so the umpire will not declare the batter to be out. An appeal may be made at any point before the bowler starts their run-up for delivery of the next ball.
Howzat? (2025/2026)
The number of categories on this blogspot keeps growing. They are as follows: (i) ArtCloth, Art Quilts, Textile Art; (ii) Art Essays; (iii) Art Exhibitions/Installations/Talks; (iv) Artist's and Designer's Profiles; (v) Art Resources; (vi) Art Reviews; (vii) Book Reviews/Interviews; (viii) Craft and Quilt Fairs; (ix) Fabric Lengths; (x) Glossaries; (xi) Guest Artists/Authors/Creatives/Guest Editors; (xii) Opinion Pieces; (xiii) Prints on Paper; (xiv) Resource Reviews; (xv) Technical Articles; (xvi) Wearable Art; (xvii) Workshops and Master Classes (i.e., my students outputs).
Note: Not all of these categories are present in any given year. For example, this season there were no Book Reviews/Interviews, or for that matter, Guest Artists/Author/Creatives, Guest Editors, Fabric Lengths, or Opinion Pieces. Futhermore, there were no new Glossaries, although several of the Glossaries were substantially increased in content (e.g., click on the following link - Glossary of Art, Artists, Art Motifs and Art Movements to access all the glossaries).
I do realize that judging a post by a single criterion, namely, the most number of views, is not necessarily the smartest approach, since the length of stay of a viewer on that paticular post might negate the former statistic. How often have you heard yourself say - 'Oops I really didn't mean to google this site when I googled "snake" and it landed on not the animal, but on a man's boxer shorts.' Within second, I promise I ditched the site! Nevertheless, this one statistic makes it easier for me to make a judgement about which posts were popular, and so it will be used as the final arbitrator, except in the case when two posts differ by less than two viewers in total. Then I will decree that both are joint winners!
Note: Within each category we are only talking about differences in number of page views, rather than the absolute number of page views.
ArtCloth, Art Quilts and Textile Art
There were twelve posts in this category in the 2025/2026 season, which is equal in number to the Art Resource posts. The two that got the largest number of page views in this category were only two weeks apart, namely: Time Waits for No Man and Art Quilts of Karin Franzen, with the former having 77 more page views and so is the winner in this category.
Artist: Marie-Therese Wisniowski.
Techniques and Media: Hand painted, silk screened, mono printed, stamped and collaged employing transparent, opaque, and metallic pigments on cotton.
Size: 30 cm high x 19.5 cm wide.
Year of Creation: 2025.
Edition: 1/1.
Art Essays
There were six posts in this category in the 2025/2026 season, with the following two having the most page views, namely, Katazome (Stencil Dyeing) - Part III and Optical Illusions - Part II, with the former being ahead by only four page views.
This image of Buzz Aldrin's helmet was made out of a collage of space images.
Art Exhibitions/Installations/Talks
There were no posts in this category in 2025/2026 season.
Artist/Designer Profiles
There were four posts in this category in 2025/2026 season, with the two most popular in terms of page views being: Maurits C. Escher (1898-1972) and Abby Thomas, with the former having two hundred and sixty-eight more page views and so is the winner in this category.
Art Resources
The Art Resources posts are generally the first post in any given month and so they tend to numerically dominate the number of page views of the published posts in any given year. Also the posts in this category that were published early in the season have a longer time duration on the blogspot and so feature more prominently in terms of the page views statistics compared to more recently published posts. Hence it is not surprising that the two most viewed posts in this category were one month apart and moreover, featured early in the publishing cycle of the accounting period. The two most viewed posts in this category in 2025/2026 were: White Pigments - Part I and White Pigments - Part II, with the former having 183 more page views.
Guest Editors
There was only one Guest Editor in the 2025/2026 season and that was Robyn Werkhoven, who penned "The Journey of Studio La Primitive Arts Zine".
Prints on Paper
There were four Prints on Paper posts in 2025/2026 season, with the two most viewed being four months apart and they were: Intaglio Prints Created Using Solarplates [1] - Part VI and Margaret Preston and Printmaking, with the former having 147 more page views.
Title: Nowhere Road (1998).
Print: Double exposure.
Size: 12 x 16.75 in (30.5 x 42.5 cm).
Comment: Yvonne Boag created two drawings on semi-matte drafting film with lithographic crayons and graphite pencils. The two films were partially overlaid and taped together, then exposed in a vacuum frame using the double exposure technique. Inked a la poupée, this print shows the fine marks and textures that the double exposure technique can preserve.
Courtesy: Comtempory Access Gallery (Australia).
Wearable Art
There were six posts in this category in the 2025/2026 season, with the two most viewed posts being Felt Objects - Part II and Traditional Batik Clothing, with the latter having 56 more page views and so is the winner in this category.
Workshops and Master Classes (i.e., my students outputs)
Due to the number of extracurricular activities (e.g., penning, designing and creating a soon to be published printmakers book) there were no workshops and masterclasses that I taught in 2025/2026 season.
Conclusion
I hope you have enjoyed this review of my yearly posts between August of 2025 to August of 2026 of the "Howzat" review.
Reference:
[1] https://vinpearl.com/en/vietnamese-new-year-animals-12-signs-their-symbolism.
