happy new years :)

hope you have some uplifting moments in the last day/night of 08, especially when thinking of all the great things that may come of 09!

saturday feature

i was happily surprised to find that i'm featured on timothy adams' blog! if you don't know it already, timothy's blog is really great for info and tips on running a business online. he's often in the etsy forums and on twitter offering free advice/how to info on lots of important stuff. check out his shop too – he makes amazing metal furniture and jewellery :)

beach weather

it's nice to hear about all your christmas fun - it's also reassuring that people are starting to blog again! {i know it was only a couple of quiet days!!}.
. . . a new print which is like a small tribute to the fact that it is finally summer here, well for today anyway . . .
i am looking forward to having some extra time to create over the holidays {between family visits}. i was really spoiled this christmas with gift certificates for art supplies so i'm going to branch out!

happy day

hope tomorrow is a happy, foody, gifty fun day for all concerned!
:)

this would make a great present

i found this bag by drikab via one of the storque articles {a different bag was shown} this morning and thought how much i would love to get it for christmas!! of course it would also make a great present for someone else too!

shop of the day

am very happy to say that my shop is shop of the day on the papernstitch blog and site today. big thanks to brittni :) a great way to end the week. i'm really looking forward to this weekend as my sister and my 6 month old nephew are arriving. {have only met my nephew once so far}. they are staying for christmas, so there will be 3 small boys having lots of fun together :)
happy weekend and christmas preparations {if that's your thing}.

opposite oceans

the top one: mostly drawing and a little painting and collage. the bottom: sunny :) pencil with block print and painting and collage. will be listed soon . . .

paper n stitch

i am exhibiting with papernstitch this month! i love the site, it's so clean and classy and it's a real buzz given how great the other exhibitors are. some of my favourites: jessica gonacha, tangledskystudio, betsy walton, paige russell, and some new favourites . . .
go see :)

original ocean

these are original block prints with painting and collage added! they are so much brighter in real life . . . one of the greens is almost fluro and the orange is also light and almost fluro {well not fluro but bright and rich}! it's tricky when things are 'out of gammet' and rgb! there are 2 more which i will put in a separate post cos it will look better that way :)
happy start to the week.

arms and legs

more christmas related projects, midway along. these are arms and legs for some new characters – am not quite sure who they will be just yet!

mini feelings

i first 'met' mitsy {artmind} when she included me in a treasury on etsy not long ago. then again through twitter! i thought i'd share some of her gorgeous ceramic creations – mini feelings {images all from her flickr site}. each piece is a representation of her feelings in the form a russian doll. i really laughed at the hate one :) you should read her perfect explanations with each image on flickr. and check out her shop.
1. silly 2. ambitious 3. hate 4. mean.
also, thanks to estasketch for including my 70s snow feeling scarflette/neckwarmer in her gift guide post today :)
enough links now, time for a little print-making!

project: decorations

i haven't been an overly christmassy person for most of my adult life probably due to living away from family and not having mum around. but now that i have kids things are different. it has become more exciting, especially as our oldest knows exactly what to expect!
we made this decoration together on monday, pics a little blurry due to melbourne's winter/summer light!
i am always inspired by what my son paints/draws/makes – he seems to have a style already and no inhibitions as to what to do next. eg the yellow and white one in the middle pic.

snowed in

i finished this yesterday. not sure why i'm thinking about snow and pale landscape colours in summer . . . i guess melbourne is still throwing in the odd freezing day.
it's a bit sketchier than usual in the hills. i put a layer of semi-transparent acrylic over the background in the bottom part which gives the texture more depth. off to get some more work done.
enjoy the weekend.

new mist

i finished this one {night mist} today. how nice it was to sit and paint! a relief after the stress of the last few days. i'm still not completely set up computer-wise – i still have to grapple with upgrading lots of things and setting up the time machine 8)

i posted too soon!

i realise now that my last post was way too soon! it turns out that my mac was suffering something far more serious than memory problems :(

so yesterday i bought a brand new one :) and it is very beautiful! the screen is so clear that it feels like i've just put on my glasses – i can actually see the pencil marks in my work even in the tiny picutres on etsy! i wish everyone had a new mac!

before the mac issues happened i sorted out all of my artwork into 3 neat folders and i came across quite a few pieces that i had forgotten to list . . . {eg above}.

i will list them when i get a cable to setup the new mac with previous settings, programs {photoshop desperately needed!} and backed up files.  

life will hopefully get back to art not computer stuff soon, am hoping . . .

crash, bang, it's all ok, sale!

last week i posted a note in the etsy forums about joining in this weekend's huge sale {buy an original and receive a free print} then on wednesday, just after i had a sale come from madeit in the minutes before i had to leave the house to pick up my 4yr old from kinder} my computer froze and started to make a noise like a vacuum cleaner. i tried to restart etc but no luck. i left the house in a state of mild panic . . . i had not made any backups in the whole 2yrs, 7 months of owning this computer! . . . all the photos of the kids, all my work . . .

when i returned the situation hadn't fixed itself! so the last few days has been filled with dread, panic and STRESS. for more than 24 hours i didn't know if i had lost all of the above and/or the computer. in the mean time a friend came around with an external hard drive {an early christmas present} and saved everything, and my husband took the sick mac to get looked at and it turns out that it's just a case of memory loss - and luckily with computers we can buy them new memory! it's still getting fixed {hence my clumsy post via my husband's pc laptop} and i'm pretty sure it'll all be ok next week - i will get my limbs back!! and i promise i will backup from now on . . .

life, sales and thankfully the weekend must go on!

happy saturday :)

modish feature

a big thanku to jena for this feature on modish – a blog i really enjoy, especially the tours through studios and workspaces. {the articles on marketing are also extremely helpful and a great support to the creative online community}. it's very exciting to see my work here!

house for sale!

i'm happy with this re-worked version of my house block print with 2 layers - this is how i was thinking of the 'trees' originally.
it's called 'our weekend house' and it has made it to the shop.
hope you like it :)

very pretty treasury

i feel honoured to have my snowy hills drawing included in nina's first treasury which looks so fresh and spunky. her blog is great too. go see . . .

groundwork

these new works by danna ray {groundwork} are on my wishlist.
1. a grand discovery
2. in passing.
they are so great. i love the natural colours with the little bursts of intense bright colour, plus the character and humour.
:)

house work

today i have been fixing up my house – i've re-done this carving to allow for the design feature i originally wanted to include. it's getting there. this is a test run - i hope to make some real ones tomorrow.

all about the product

i spent my 'art' time this weekend working on my product shots for some of the prints. it seems pretty rare to have the light right when i have the time to take the shots so i worked feverishly to get them done! only smashed one frame which somehow just fell by itself . . . i'd much rather be actually creating so i'm glad to be done with this job for a little while.
the grey and yellow one, we drive all day, is the newest print now in the shop.
happy start to the week.

jennifer sanchez

i've recently discovered the incredible work by jennifer sanchez, it is so good. i love the colours and 'drips'. i admire her ability to use colour in the most unlikely combinations {for me anyway}. even though i love my greens and muted colours i'm also secretly right into fluro orange and pink mixed on bright white!
here is her website if you can't get enough of them :)

stylised

i've added this print to the shop. colouring these prints are what i have been busying myself with in my available time this week!
i went to see the kat mcleod exhibition {'the tiniest spark' - another bjork fan! her title is taken from a bjork song} today which was really great. i particularly enjoyed the video of her putting together a couple of the pieces – it was sped up and shot from above so you just see her hands working so neatly and in such a skilled way. it was inspirational and mesmerising at the same time!
i also found the new third draw down shop next door {it's amazing how much gertrude street has changed in the last year or so, for the better}.
actually it was a lovely day of art and sunshine for me and my smallest boy.

jessica gonacha

i want to thank jess gonacha for posting my work on her blog. i love her work and have found her to be a very lovely and helpful person :)
and if by chance you haven't seen her work before, i've included 2 of my favourites from her etsy shop .
happy friday night!

6 things

i have been tagged by beth, the lovely and creative lady from tangled sky studios!
the rules:

1. link to the person who tagged you

2. mention the rules

3. tell six quirky yet boring, unspectacular details about yourself

4. tag six other bloggers by linking to them

5. go to each persons blog and leave a comment that lets them know they've been tagged

my 6
1. i am 37 and still don't have my license to drive
2. i hate football {a very unpopular viewpoint if you live in melbourne, australia}
3. when i was a kid i wished that i was left handed and that my toes could be even. {my 4 yr old is left handed and has pretty even toes}
4. i am very messy
5. i am a hopeless hopeless cook
6. i think that i am slightly psychic!

i tag:
leah giberson
chad wys
nina invorm
fede
sieben morgen
girlferment

happy tagging:)

1973/modern

my show and tell for today! i know that printing on text/book pages is not an original idea but i just couldn't resist. i have a copy of an art magazine from 1973 and i thought that the combi looked perfectly at home on this article. and, the juxtaposition {not to mention the crazy angle} of the 'modern sedan' seemed right too. am still enjoying the block printing and have plans for these ones that include a re-make of the first combi design. now all i need is a little more time . . .

birthday festival

it has been a birthday festival for the last 5 days as our first son turned 4 and the little one turned 1! the birthdays are five days apart. the character above was a small present from me to my little one!
i am hoping that tomorrow, while most of melbourne goes crazy about the cup, i will be at my desk doing some art!

realsimple

i was really excited to find a convo in my inbox this morning letting me know about this post!
thanks to holly {decor8} for posting about my work on this great site.
screenshot above.

weekend's work

a new digital print for the shop. the waves are made with a rubber block on a pencil background and the sun and moon are done in photoshop. so a mixed media print print . . . tags get confusing here. i like the simplicity of the rubber block. i've used oil paint to make images like this in the past with semi-transparent white layers. the focus there was on the texture and overlapping of layers where here it's about the lines and simplicity.



here are some more block prints i did on saturday. i made some of the combi too but the lines need more work, they filled in a bit too much. with these ones i experimented with the background layer – the grey one is pencil. i like the colour but it's not so perfect as a print! the green ones have an acrylic paint layer which helps the print. in the bottom image i've added the 'leaves' in photoshop. i'm getting a little closer to the image i had in mind at the start but would like to use a hand-made layer for the leaves. i might try sponge stamping . . . maybe next weenkend.
happy monday, or mumday as we call it :)

work in progress

i caught an hour to work on this this morning {older son at kinda, younger one in the cot}. am still loving the carving, in fact it's very therapeutic! i wish the green was a paler one tho as my eyes feel like i've been staring at op art after a while. i've learned that it's best to start on the hardest part with these, then if it doesn't work there's not too much time wasted. i will get to test this one out on saturday . . .
we've been watching Dexter {a great series about a serial killer forensic cop who uses his skills/obesessions for 'good' - only killing other ruthless killers, not innocent people} and as i laid out my tools on the table i started to get flashbacks! funny how things you watch or read inhabit your brain!

saturday

i've done some more rubber block carving and i think that i love making block prints! i made one yesterday morning that turned out to be backwards?? {i didn't test the print} all that work – i was pretty disappointed .... but then in the afternoon i made this one. i was pretty happy with the results with the white on red but got that feeling of satisfaction/excitement when i peeled the rubber back on the blue/green pencil background version. i know they need more work to get the print right but this is all i needed to get me hooked. it's so good when a little experiment turns out well!
i did buy a new tool for carving finer lines and changed from the super soft-but-too sensitive speedball rubber blocks to the blue/green rubber that is easier to carve than lino and it seems to have made things much easier/more successful.
rebecca from edwardandlilly has included my work and shop in her saturday shopping list. thanks rebecca, the online shopping list is a great idea. there's a gorgeous woodblock print on the list by mizu designs. here's an example of skillfull block printing :)
enjoy the rest of your weekend.