Painting with fire, that is.

"I work from home, so I have a fire blanket on standby just in case. I don't want to burn the house down," the 21-year-old artist said.

Maegan will be at Morpeth Gallery this weekend to show her fire art and demonstrate how she creates it.

Painting with fire goes back to the times of cavemen. But it was Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali who inspired Maegan to use the fiery technique.

"He was doing this technique called fumage in the 1930s to '40s, where he'd hold a candle to his painting," she said.

Using fire in her art was also inspired by her upbringing. She grew up on a farm in rural Queensland.

"Managing the land involved always being conscious of fire. We'd backburn," she said.

She later moved to Victoria, going to high school in the area near Kinglake, which was devastated by the Black Saturday bush fires. A lot of her friends were affected.

She also aims to draw attention to how fires and the climate affect wildlife, with which she feels a close connection.

On the farm, she was surrounded by bush.

"You'd see koalas, birds, goannas and snakes. I was always drawn to them and fascinated by all the different species.

"I had a knack for drawing and I always loved drawing. I draw what I see."

Her artworks feature animals like the kookaburra, koala, platypus, echidna, bilby, Tasmanian devil and wombat, along with owls, possums and butterflies.

Her drawings of animals and plants are enhanced with shades of black and grey soot left behind by the flames she puts to the page. She skillfully uses tools on the fragile soot to create intricate art.

Maegan will be in residence at Morpeth Gallery from 10am to 5pm on Saturday and Sunday. Entry is Free.

Is that Shannon Noll pulling a hedge trimmer from his guitar case at Shoal Bay?

Yep, Nollsy was at the bay shooting a video clip for his new single Long Live the Summer.

Not sure we want this summer to come at all, what with all the bush-fire trouble. But Nollsy has reminded us that our hedges are overdue for a trim.

Lisa Marie was at a supermarket checkout with her groceries when the cashier noticed a container of cream cheese wedged between the side of the shopping trolley and a child's seat.

This was a tad embarrassing.

"Come on, if I'm going to get arrested for shoplifting it'd better be something way cooler than cream cheese," she said.

"In my flustered state, I went ahead and took it one step further. When she told me to have a nice day, I replied with: 'I love you'."

The cashier laughed at Lisa Marie's mismatched response but said she'd rather hear that than a lot of other things customers have said to her.

Hunter rider Hazel Shannon pulled off a remarkable feat last weekend by becoming the first person to win Australia's premier equestrian competition for the third time.

When we wrote a story on Hazel, we had no idea that top-class equestrian events involve men and women competing against each other, even at the Olympics.

Hazel's coach Heath Ryan said men didn't have an advantage because "strength is an inferior tactic at the top".

"At the last World Equestrian games, all the gold medals were won by girls," he said.

The girls are favourite to clean up at the Olympics, too.