Made on the Left display

I had my first art / craft stall on Saturday 14th November. I really enjoyed the experience. The actual day was fine and it was nice meeting customers and selling work, however, planning for it was a lot of hard work. First of all you have to make everything (the fun bit :) ), but you also have to shop around for the best printing prices, order cello bags, envelopes, stickers, business cards, design signs, price lists, flyers and information sheets. Then there is deciding how you are going to display your work. Fortunately i had some friends who run a newsagency so they lent me their card stands. There is also deciding how to price your work. I could list a lot more but won't. I think the efforts are worth it when you get to show your work to the public. It's quite exciting making sales and hearing feedback about your work :) Now I better get back to my book illustrations due this Friday!

Book illustrations

I am over the moon to be working on my first chapter book for Blake Education publishers. It will part of the Sparklers series, aimed at ages 7+. I received this job 4 weeks ago and i now have 1 week to get the illustrations finished. I am enjoying the process and putting my skills into good use. The editor and art director are great to work with. I have just attached a few roughs for now, will show more when the book is published next January.

Made on the Left, Saturday 14th Nov Hyde Park hotel, 10-4pm

2 days to go to my first art stall! I'm pretty excited about showcasing my work in this way. I love markets and have been thinking about having a stall for a couple of years now. What motivated me was a fellow illustrator Ali J suggesting I give it a go as it will give me a goal to work towards. For the past couple of months I have been staying up past 1am most weekend nights working on my wares. I will be selling hand made and digitally printed greeting cards, limited edition giclee prints, Christmas decorations and hair clips.

My stall will be on the Saturday, 14th November, 10-4pm. If you love art and craft come along and start your Christmas shopping :)

Germs

"Ewww, injection boy germs!", this is my memory of germs from school. I grew up in the 80s, so i also had a lot of fun incorporating items from that era. e.g. Adidas sneakers (I had a white pair with blue zig zag stripes), Reebok pumps, roll down socks, massive headbands, Pop Swatches, crimped hair. It was fun reminiscing!

I haven't done an Illustration Friday topic for a while but couldn't get this one out of my head so had to get it down on paper.

I have been doing a variety of things lately: making hundreds of hand made cards using chopped up bits of old artwork (I knew there was a reason i hadn't thrown them away!). I am applying to have my own art / craft stall at a market. First time I have tried this. I have been working on a couple of logos, graphics jobs, and you can see my latest editorial illustration below. I have also decided to give community art teaching a go. The activities I have instructed include wire and bead fairies, rubber band stamps and enchanted fairy / elf illustrations. It is good to get out of the house and into the community (can get a bit quiet working as a freelancer).

20 Questions - artwork for Illustrator's Australia 9x5 exhibition

I created this for Illustrator's Australia 9x5 exhibition. The theme had to be based on '20'.

As stated on the IA website:

"To continue the celebrations of our 20th Anniversary, the 14th annual 9 x 5 exhibition and auction is brought to you by the Number Twenty. - and will take place @Space 39, 39 Little Collins Street Melbourne on October 9".

If you live in Melbourne and can get there have a look.

Latest editorial illustration published

Always like seeing my editorial illustrations published! These were for Child magazine's. They have one in Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Canberra. These were a lot of fun, they were made using clay, hand painted, then photographed. I deep etched (cut out) in Photoshop and the background shapes and drop shadows were done on the computer too. I am glad I have both traditional and digital skills.

New studies of children

Some studies of children in different poses

Impatience - Illustration Friday topic

Dorothy was getting impatient with Nina, she wouldn't stop talking or asking questions. I haven't submitted to Illustration Friday for a while. We moved house 4 weeks ago so have been preoccupied with unpacking. Looking at my picture now I probably should have added some question marks too since the duckling is asking questions, oh well you get the gist of it. I decided to leave most of my pencil marks in the sketch just for extra texture and interest. Usually I make everything look so clean.

Hollow - Illustration Friday topic

I created this illustration a couple of weeks ago, but have moved house and only just got my scanner connected again.

When I was about 8 I went to some after school art classes and we had to draw our own tree house, I really enjoyed it maybe that is why I have remembered it 22 years later!

Editorial illustration published! :)

This is my latest Editorial illustration published. Had a lot of fun creating this one. Medium: Clay and mixed media. The skirt is a girls hair lacky :)

Illustration Friday - Drifting

Sophie and Claudia's pool pony race got out of hand and they soon realised they were drifting out to sea! This was inspired by one of my old 80s pool party photos I saw the other day. Did you ever have pool ponies? So much fun

Craving - Illustration Friday Topic

My doggies Banjo and Jaya crave icecream! so do I in fact :) they get a couple of teaspoons every now and then if they ask nicely :) 

It is nice to have some time to submit for Illustration Friday, It has been ages. I will try and submit more regularly from now on. 

The past couple of months have been very busy with graphic design, illustration and fine art work. I also submitted for the ASA (Australian Society of Authors) picture book illustration mentorship and thestylefile.com which i haven't found out about yet. 

Next step is to send out promos to publishers.

I would also like to try submitting some designs to greeting card companies. 

My portraits of little kids have been pretty popular lately. Here is another one I worked on recently

Talisman - Illustration Friday topic

Talisman: an object that is thought to have magic powers and bring good luck. I did these illustrations end of 2006 for a mock up book for a children's story i had. I thought they were quite relevant to this weeks topic. Created using inks, bleach, pencils and some digital techniques in Corel Painter (stardust on rainbow and also the glow tool (one of my favs!)). I have a bit too much work on at the moment to find the time to create original illustrations for weekly topics. Not that I am complaining as I work freelance so I am grateful for the work.

Editorial illustration published! :)

I illustrated this piece for an article entitled 'Vegetarianism For Beginners'. I was asked to use my clay technique again. I have shown my original rough, was going to use a cow on the front  but they preferred fruit and vegies. Still looks pretty effective I think. I would really like to do a short Photography course so that i can learn how to photograph my artwork professionally.

Books Alive competition

Books Alive cover competition. I don't enter many competitions, but i thought why not give this one a go! I decided to create the letters out of the clay technique i have used which has proven popular in the past. I once won a Subiaco Craft Fair poster competition using this technique. I also have been asked to do a couple of editorial illustrations using clay which has been fun :) I didn't win the competition, but I thought I would put it up anyway. 

Life Drawing

I went to Life Drawing last night in the first time in about 6 months! Haven't ever put any of my Life Drawings online before so thought i would share them. Will try to keep going back now I have started. Always good to keep practising those observational skills. My dogs were also good models under my desk :)

Legendary _ Illustration Friday topic

Mother Teresa was pretty legendary in my eyes, the way she devoted her life to help the poor and sick. 

Intricate-Illustration Friday topic

Intricate - Illustration Friday topic.

These illustrations were done for a TAFE (college) assignment a couple of years ago, but i have never put them on my blog. I thought they fitted in this week with all of their intricate details!

Thorny Devil is an Australian lizard, found in the Western and Central deserts of Australia, they range between 15-20cm in length. 

Breezy - Illustration Friday topic

I got this done just in time for the latest Illustration Friday topic 'Breezy'. I drew this tonight at a Cat Empire concert in Fremantle, well actually when their support act Paprika Balkanicus, a group from the Balkans were playing! Was a great concert, lots of fun dancing, clapping and singing :)

My dogs Jaya and Banjo love the breeze in their face like most dogs do in the car. Jaya is the one smiling on the back right. Sometimes she also rests her nose on the top of the window, and she looks like a little piggy! :)

Just a quick one tonight as I have so much work to do at the moment, which I am very grateful for. Working on a combination of illustration (fairy designs and a painted clay editorial illustration) and graphic design jobs (logos, posters, business cards etc.). My to do list whiteboard is choc-a-block full, but can't complain about that being self-employed. It is so nice when you get to wipe a finished one off the list though! :)

Celebrate - Illustration Friday Topic

Celebrate - Illustration Friday topic.

Thought I would play around with some clay again :) also bought some coloured foam, corrugated card and other materials the other day. This little green friendly monster was just an offcut shape that occurred by chance, I quite liked it so thought I would include him in my celebration piece.

Time - Illustration Friday

Time - Illustration Friday topic. So many things could be illustrated for this topic.

Time can be good to help organise and plan our lives and at other times it can be bad.

In a way time can be our friend or our enemy. 

I have illustrated a race track, on the left you see people / numbers / creatures enjoying life and the time they have been given to enjoy special events in life such as having a child, getting married, playing with your dog at the park, winning a trophy or a race (I know these are a few of the many things one can celebrate in life). I thought about how important the measurement of time is to olympic athletes.

Then on the other side of the track you see people trying to run back in time away from death and disaster. As you will probably know last Saturday the 7th February in country Victoria, Australia we had our worst ever bushfire disaster. Currently the death toll stands at 181, authorities say that figure could soon rise to 200 or even 300. Apparently up to 1,000,000 wildlife could have been killed too.

It is unbelievably sad and devastating the destruction these fires caused. A lot of innocent, good people lost their lives and they had no chance to react. What's even sadder is that some of these fires were deliberately lit. We hope that if arsonists are to blame that they will be caught quickly and we hope and pray that the victims wounds, nightmares and lives will heal.

If you are in Australia you probably have heard that Coles is donating all profits from groceries bought today.

If you would like to / can donate there are many charities accepting donations.

Click here if you would like to donate to the Red Cross

Click here if you would like to donate to Wildlife Victoria

Fortunately there are a lot of firefighters, defence force, volunteers and every day citizens doing an amazing job. Here is a nice story of a koala that was rescued.

and another nice story of an 18 year old boy who rescued his sister and 8 children on a tractor.