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It’s all new to me
‘Emerging artist’ always seems like an odd term to me. It seems to suggest you’ve been hiding away somewhere, not quite ready to brave the bright lights. I feel like I’ve been emerging forever and perhaps that’s all there is. Being an artist is about constant discovery, learning new skills and looking at what you […]
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Time to stop
We need a mini-break! The first three months of this year have whipped by at break-neck speed. It’s just as busy as it was in pre-pandemic days. Perhaps we’re trying to keep on the treadmill to distract ourselves from the nightmare that is going on in the rest of the world. With horrific floods in […]
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Markets Update
It’s been a little over a month since I started selling at local markets. Packing up my car the night before with tables, gazebo, card stands, 20kilo weights in case of wind gusts and boxes and boxes of stock. Then leaving the house at 6am to travel to a field and set up shop with […]
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Time to celebrate women
It’s 8th March again! International Women’s Day. Time to shout loudly about how great women are. I was really lucky to be the middle one of three sisters. This picture was a watercolour I painted a few years ago of a memory of us on holiday together as kids. I went on to have three […]
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My First Market Day
If you were to make a wish list for the best weather and people for your first market it would look a lot like this. 24 degrees, light breeze and clear blue skies. Friendly stallholders who buy you coffee before the start of the day – seriously, I’d never met this person before! (Tracey from […]
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Market Time!
I’m having a mild panic putting together my first market stall. Fortunately the market is set a truely gorgeous place and I’ll be surrounded by other lovely creative types. Check out The Emu Plains Market in Balnarring, it’s very beautiful. I’ll have my Sew Together Kits, artist print, t-towels and cards available. Markets have been […]
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You Can’t Get It Right
At the start of an art class, particularly with children, I often say ‘You can’t get it right and you can’t get it wrong’. Art is an individual thing and no one does the same work. It’s an attempt to put the learners and ease and reduce comparisons and harsh judgments. Creativity is easier when […]
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Wrap It Up
Time to wrap up 2021 and wish it a fond farewell! But first a little bit of reflection. It hasn’t all been easy but I can look back on this year and safely say I enjoyed creating a bunch of stuff, I made some good progress and faced some really unexpected hurdles. I use a […]
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Christmas Challenge
Mid November, panic time! Although generally I get the sense that Christmas has a different tone this year. Let’s face it, it’s very difficult to expect anything to arrive on time if you’re buying online. Stuff is hanging about in warehouses waiting to be delivered. Here in Australia there are huge delays in the postal […]
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Where have you been?
Well, the quick answer to that is nowhere! But I have been very distracted and busy with projects and trying to keep the family on track. Here’s a brief catch up. My husband had to travel to Africa and was stuck there for three months whilst we were placed in another lockdown. Melbourne has had […]
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Back to Redbubble Fun!
This week I had a whole lot of fun uploading some patterns and illustrations to Redbubble. It was incredibly easy and I made a sale almost immediately! That was a big boost. Why wait? What have you got to lose? I’ve put off adding designs to lots of different types of products because I honestly […]
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How Important is Imaginative Play?
Let’s escape all this. What’s better than sitting down to a good movie or reading a book? Escaping into another world and forgetting all your concerns. We just sink into it and enjoy it and don’t think about what we’re learning. This is similar to children engaged in imaginative play. They are so absorbed that […]
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Let’s Sew Together!
Creating sewing kits Over the past couple of months I’ve been working on creating two collections of sewing kits. Now they’re finally ready to put in the shop! The idea came from watching my teenage kids getting into sewing during lockdown (and again in the next lockdown and the next. We’re in lock down 5 […]
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New book on the way!
Tomorrow is the publication day for this lovely picture book celebrating some of the heroes of the catastrophic bush fires that took place in Australia early in 2020. I’m really proud to have illustrated this book, especially as it’s so local. It was a super fast deadline but fortunately there were no compromises and the […]
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Crafting Slowly
In 2020 Whenever we got the chance we bought up big at Spotlight (our handy craft mega-store) and sewed. We sewed clothes and quilts and knitted blankets. It seems like it was a frenzy now but it really wasn’t. It was slow and enjoyable and satisfying. I love seeing the beautiful quilt on my daughter’s […]
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Another Challenge
The 100 Day Project – again I do love a challenge, but sometimes you have to gracefully admit defeat. In February I started another #100dayproject. This time I chose to draw a character every day. It was fantastic practice with using the iPad and Procreate. And it’s always great to mix with other artists outside […]
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Self Belief – What’s that?
Where do you find support and encouragement when you work alone? I signed up to attend a SCWBI event for illustrators. I would love share some of my work for ‘peer review’ (when I’ve figured out what that is) but honestly, after ten years of working as a professional illustrator, I’m not sure I’m ready […]
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Got an Issue?
Should picture books tackle the big issues or are they just for fun?
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Dont Stop
Illustrator Karen Erasmus discusses the slow and sometimes difficult process of developing a creative career.
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I finally kicked him out
My Space I know how lucky I am to have an office to myself. It’s an outrageous luxury, but like all luxuries sometimes you have to learn to share. D started working at home last March and moved into my office. It was an interesting experiment but yesterday we finally found an acceptable place for […]
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Love a challenge!
Another 100 days Once or twice a year I take on a ludicrous but entertaining art challenge. It’s always an interesting journey. I’ve had some that have failed miserably because I just wasn’t in the right space or at all organised. Others have been an adventure. In 2013 I created pop-up sketchbook diary for The […]
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Inspiring Surroundings
New Project…time for a break The start of every creative project is an idea and a brief. And it’s always nice to receive those from a publisher and get the contract signed. But after that comes the best bit. The faze of gathering more ideas and inspiration and letting it all sink in. It can […]
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Celebrating Illustrators and Colour
Many years ago I listened to Shaun Tan speaking to a small group of illustration students about how he uses colour. He showed us one of his pictures where he’d deliberately chosen a green colour for the sky. He explained that it was used by many painters and helped evoke a surreal, dreamlike effect. It […]
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Colour and Illustration
Colour – it’s a massive subject. Something that is incredibly beautiful and fundamental to art and illustration. Yet if you start getting into studying it formally, it can get very overwhelming. Complementary colours aren’t colours that sit well together, they’re colours that make each other stand out. Like red and green. Already it’s confusing! From […]
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It’s all new
New Year The start of a new year immediately makes you look at the past one. It’s not very pretty this year though is it? Personally it was ok for us. Australia hasn’t been hard it by Covid 19 like other countries. But then we were in lockdown for what seemed like an eternity, so […]
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List, plan, muddle…Christmas
Four days left before Christmas! I’m a ridiculous list maker at the best of time but it can get out of hand at this time of the year. We haven’t got any house guests this year, and although we’re allowed to mix with others here we’re keeping it low-key. The news from the UK, where […]
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Well here it is…
Happy Holidays From where I’m sitting on the south coast of Australia, I’m very aware of how incredibly fortunate I am. After many months of severe lockdown – no schools, shops or public places open apart from the grocery stores – we no longer have active cases of Covid19 in the community here. It’s pretty […]
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Christmas Again!
Karen Erasmus discusses Christmas and the end of that year.
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Famous Story Reading
I’m a bit excited about this! A famous person reading a book I illustrated, and getting dressed up for the occasion.
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Play the Game
After going to all the effort of learning your craft and creating work marketing and showing your work can be difficult. But with some guidance it starts to feel more like a game.
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Mock-up Love
I love creating mock-ups for patterns and prints. Here are some pointers on how to start creating mock-ups
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Reading to Children
I can honestly say that some of my favourite memories of my children being small are the times when we sat down to read a book together, or two or three. Most nights I had to put a cap on it at three or four in case I fell asleep whilst reading to them. Our […]
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Next Phase
A brief update of what I’ve been up to for the past three months. I’m very happy to be getting back to illustrating.
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That Drawing Project I did 100 Years Ago!
It’s hard to believe how quickly the past two months has disappeared. When I last wrote I was finishing up on my #100daysofanimalsinhats project with The 100 Day Project. I really got into the swing of it towards the end and stared getting to grips with using Adobe Illustrator and building my skills. I also […]
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Creativity, young people and mental health
As a teacher of creativity it was really disheartening this week to hear in the news that humanities degrees in Australia are set to double in cost over the next few years. The (total nonsense) logic is that it will encourage young people to consider more vocational subjects. But of course it will only disadvantage […]
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Learning new skills
I’ve recently published a Skillshare class on illustrating characters in Photoshop. You can get 2 months free Skillshare access with the referral code in this post.
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Black illustration
A blog post celebrating black illustrators and designers
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More sewing
Face masks with wire! So life is opening up again and it feels weird and worrying so this weekend I hid behind my sewing machine. That’s not strictly true, we did have drinks with a few friends and of course I ferried the kids around but I did spend a large amount of time sewing […]
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More and more animals in hats!
Day 40 and counting. 40 days ago I had the ridiculous notion to start The 100 Day Project. As I love creating characters I set myself the challenge to create 100 animals in hats. Why? I don’t really know…it’s fun and we all need more silly nonsense in our lives. I’m contributing to the greater […]
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Getting Help…getting too much help
Karen Erasmus discusses guidance and advice for creative business.
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My first story reading
At last! I was brave enough to get in front of the camera and do a story reading. And it turned out to be the best fun and much easier than I thought, so I’ll do it again. It helps that I have three teenagers who are really great at directing and editing. Directing usually […]
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Happy Easter
Stay home, stay safe This time next year With any luck I’ll be able to look at this picture and remember this crazy time as a distant memory. A time when life was really odd but it’s ok again now. It’s not really looking likely at this stage though. But it is Easter! There’s chocolate […]
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The 100 Days of Animals in Hats
It’s getting to us all Well of course, like everyone else on the planet, life is just not the same. We’re all working at home now. But it’s going just fine. There’s an endless list of things to be thankful and grateful for of course, and we’re all massively productive in pursuing our fabulous passion […]
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Getting by at home
Sew-Walk-Draw-Design-Repeat As for most people on planet earth at the moment life has changed dramatically around here during the past two weeks. But we’re lucky, we have space to walk the dogs and for each of us to hide away from each other when we need to. I’ve been enjoying starting some unusual projects. At […]
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Flying Elephants from the Past
Many years ago when my parents lived in Australia (and the world wasn’t completely fxxxed…sorry, I’m trying to stay positive!) my daughter drew this marvellous elephant. Mum loved it so much she had it stuck on her laundry wall for ages. I managed to take a photo before it faded and the other day it […]
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Time for some Dancing Bears
I scribbled down some dancing bears today. It seemed right to find something silly to do. Things are still pretty easy for us in southern Australia, but we know that the schools will close soon and we’ll told to stay at home. Over the years I’ve run private art classes and school workshops on drawing […]
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Rainy Day Mock-up
It’s been raining non-stop today and I’m feeling a bit coldy and yuck, so what better to do that play around with some mock-ups. It’s so great to see a whole collection of patterns come together. I’d love to see it come to life one day. There is so much brown, ochre and muted tones […]
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Setting up shop!
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been setting up shop on my website. The idea is that this will support my market shop. At the end of last year I was able to have a small stall at a twilight market for alumni at Chisholm college. It was such an uplifting experience to have […]
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New Collections!
Three new surface pattern design collections. Here’s some of the inspirations and ideas behind the designs.
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Springing Forward
Illustrator and surface pattern designer Karen Erasmus has designed a new pattern with a Springtime theme
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Magical Mallacoota
Australia is experiencing our worst bushfires in history and the news from Mallacoota was some of the worst. It is harrowing and difficult to get your head around. It’s hard to know what to even write under the circumstances. There is so much commentary on how to donate, whether or not to send goods or […]
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Happy Holiday Season
I made this! The holiday season always seems to creep up on me at an alarming rate in Australia. The kids finish school and the weather starts to warm up so we all hit the beach and forget that Christmas is coming very soon! I did manage to organise myself a bit this year though. […]
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Walls That Talk
My illustrations on the outside of a public building! Back in August The Maitland Library in New South Wales approached me to ask if they could use the illustrations from one of my books for their Christmas exhibition ‘Walls That Talk’. So I was delighted when I checked out their website and saw that they […]
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Christmas Cake Toppers Workshop
I ran a festive cake decorating workshop with High School students.
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Christmas! Just round the corner.
It’s going to be a bit of a mad Christmas this year at our place. With relatives driving across the Nullarbor Desert to be with us, a new puppy and just one bathroom because the renovations haven’t progressed in time….what could possibly go wrong? One thing is certain there’ll be a lot of laughing and […]
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Excitement all round Play School, Fabric and Puppy!
Mini Celebrations We had a lot of fun watching Play School yesterday and celebrating ‘Eva’s Imagination’ being read out. It brought back memories of the time when it was on every afternoon. The bubbles were non-alcoholic, and when the kids were little they certainly didn’t have chocolate and crisps for afternoon tea. Who knows if […]
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Book reading on Play School!
We’re on the telly! I was super excited this week to hear that ‘Eva’s Imagination’ is going to be read on Play School. I used to watch the program every day with the kids ten years ago, but on Tuesday this coming week I be sitting in front of it again with my three near […]
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Water Lilies
I made a new pattern yesterday with water-lilies for inspiration. I was also following the creative prompt ‘Grateful’. My cynical voice didn’t get much of a look in (‘god help me if I hear someone tell I have to be grateful one more time I’ll scream!’…that one) because I really do have something to be […]
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Inktober Round-up
This is the round-up of all my Africa Inktober sketches. I’m not sure what I was thinking of when I decided to do two Inktobers. I over-did-it and didn’t do any of it brilliantly or finish it! Pretty sure that’s breaking the rules and shows no hard-line commitment at all! But it was wonderful to […]
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Inspiration for Design
Inktober I’m managing to keep up with two versions of Inktober, but only just. Days go by and I miss doing the sketching and then do a whole load at once. So, as with many things, I’m hopelessly inconsistent. The sketches I’m accumilating though are leading to all sorts of ideas for patterns and collections, […]
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African Designs
A blog post about folk-art and surface pattern design.
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Do children have a say in design?
They have minds of their own A long time ago, when I started illustrating children’s books someone very cynically said to me ‘You know you’re not illustrating for children, it’s for the parents or grandparents, they’re doing the buying’. Now that’s all fine if you’re in publishing and marketing and all that matters is shifting […]
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Tea Towel Design
A tea towel designed with a recipe for chocolate brownies
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Inktober
Inktober 2019. Will I get to the end?
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Licensing my work
This week my surface pattern designs were accepted on patterndesigns.com, a European pattern licensing site with really high standards. I was really thrilled. The designs are all checked and curated, so you have to have a sharp eye with whatever you present or it’s rejected. I’ve only managed to upload two patterns but, as with […]
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Winter Blooms
What better way to get back into designing than to enter another Spoonflower challenge? This week is Winter Blooms and as we’re coming out of Winter it wasn’t difficult to figure out the colours. Greys, soft greens and little splashes of colour are very much par of the Australian scenery. This little bunny jumped out […]
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Limited Palette
This is the first time I’ve attempted the challenge of using a limited palette for a pattern. Who knew it could be so incredibly absorbing? And I’ve just spotted a mistake! Ahh. Anyway, it’s inspired by the thought of floating along the Lower Zambezi admiring the egrets wading. Something I’m really hoping to be doing […]
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My pattern designs on cushions
I’m so delighted to see my own pattern designs on cushions.
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African Boyhood
A pattern designed for boys clothing with a wildlife them
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Vintage postcard inspired pattern
This week’s Spoonflower challenge was inspired by vintage postcards. I chose my palette from various old Australian surf posters. I also explored under-patterning and adding texture so the final effect has depth. I think it would be a nice piece for a beach bag. Still thinking about doing something to bring out the turtles.
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Cushions!
I finally got you round to having some of my own prints made up into cushions. It was about a year ago that I first took some classes on Skillshare with Bonnie Christine. Then we went on holiday to Queensland and I collected a whole load of drawing and photographs to make my own patterns. […]
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Cycling and Pattern Design
Cycling and Pattern Design
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Small Scale Summer
A couple of weeks ago I entered my second Spoonflower competition and was please to get around 90 votes! That’s my best result yet, but it didn’t cut it for the top 60. Onwards and upwards though. I’m going to just keep on trying. This week was Small Scale Summer. It was so perfect for […]
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Australian Beauty
I have loved creating a new pattern for Spoonflower this week. Australian florals are an endless source of inspiration. The’r mad and random, curly and spiky and come in the brightest, loveliest colours. I also discovered Roostery this week. Cant believe it took me so long. What fantastic resource for creating quick mock-ups and visualising […]
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Nautical
Last week I entered my first Spoonflower challenge. But Whilst I was doing that I generated a whole new collection. It was such a great creativity boost. I’m really pleased with the results. I’ve put the whole collection on my other website. It’s had a little bit of attention on Spoonflower. The competition is really […]
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Wooohooh! Happy Halloween!
‘Monster’ for The 52 Week Illustration Project Another cake!
Karen Erasmus
Illustration and Design