It’s been a while since I last wrote a blog post here. I’ve been so busy setting up my business in surface pattern design. There have been some delightful goings on in the children’s picture book area though. This weekend is the first book launch for Grace’s Mystery Seed. I was fortunate enough to meet the author the other day and she is a bundle of enthusiasm, so the lunch should be a lot of fun. This Sunday 24th March 2019 – 2pm, Ford Street Publishing, 162 Hoddle Street, Abbotsford, Melbourne
Digital fun
Yesterday I had the absolute joy of experimenting and getting to grips with photoshop. I was motivated to reproduce a pop-up piece I did for The 52 Week Illustration Challenge last year. It came together surprisingly quickly.
Playtime!
I’ve had a day day of messing around and experimenting. I listened to a gorgeous podcast interview between Wil Anderson and Bryony Kimmings yesterday (Wilsophy). She said something fabulous about being an artist, something along the lines of not understanding why artists are so self important and claim that making art so so hard…..it’s not hard, it’s just playing and experimenting. Loved it.
So today I played and experimented, and it was totally appropriate because I had this to do for the Illustrators Australia 9×5 Exhibition titled ‘Playtime’
This was watered down acrylic and graphite on wood sealed with gloss varnish.
Thumb Blister!
The 52 Week Illustration Challenge continues! I’m enjoying it so much and my books of pop-ups are growing every week. This is Week 29 ‘Love’ Week 3 ‘Retro’ The inspiration for this was 50s dress pattern covers. i’m not sure it’s very successful because it was hurried a bit. …
Whiplash!
I thought I’d go for a dramatic title. You never know, it might generate more hits. I think the majority of those hits will probably be hugely disappointed though….. I swear I don’t know what happened this summer. A series of gorgeous days out and trips to the beach, and …
Book on the Telly!!
Last year I illustrated a book named ‘A Secret Safe to Tell’. I must admit it was a confronting a difficult book to illustrate but it felt like the right thing to do. Since the book was published earlier this year I have had the pleasure of getting to know …
Progress
I was looking back on old sketches and illustrations today. The work I was doing 4 years ago was really awful and it was good to see how much easier it is now.
New Projects
A few weeks ago I watched a video by an illustrator. It was a talk on her work practices. She bordered of being OCD but her approach was something I feel I’d like to adopt. It centred around systematically and routinely creating according to rules and commitment. Sounds really boring …
Drawing meditation
Sometimes it’s really great to just empty your head and draw. I watched a little video of Shaun Tan talking about how he approaches starting a book. He said most of the time it starts with a bunch of drawings that seemingly come from nowhere. Here’s the result of my …