I-F: Communication

This is a cover illustration for a journal that i did late last year. The issue was about communication through technology.

I'll try to do a new illo if I have time!

I-F: Gravity

I love that feeling of floating (yes you got it, of no gravity). and i love the term 'gone fishing' for 'on vacation'. I've never been fishing in my life, but i reckon it would be a great vacation (as long as you didn't take your mobile phone!) But we tend to do so much on our holidays, which of course is exciting, but i find i am getting less and less time to just relax. being surrounded by wilderness with just the fish and the birds, no power lines, phones, or computers sounds bliss to me at the moment.

I just realised that I did a similar illustration for Under The Sea for I-F back in April last year. Similar composition, but different treatment. (I think I'm also using better paper and have a better scanner so that makes a big difference too!) It's good to look back and see where you started.

Anyway, I think I'm going to use this week's I-F for my website's 'on hold' image while I 'go fishing' for 4 months...

I-F: Crash

There's definitely some crashing and banging around this dinner table! I don't think I'll have time to finish this before Friday, so i thought I would post the sketch at least. I hope to colour it soon. There's just always so much to do!

Plus, there's only 30 days until I go! aaugh! I'd better get my act together I think! For instance... must purchase moleskine...

another header...

hmmm.... not sure about this one either. the dimensions are okay, but there's something 'not quite right' about it!

Art & Design

I've just joined Art & Design Online. It's not really targeted at the right markets for me, but i figure getting out there in any way possible on the web is a good thing. Plus, it's free!

It looks like it might be a good community of 'arty' people, but I haven't really had time to check that out yet. So for the time being, you can find me here. :-)

I-F: Sprout

(click to see bigger)

Okay so this is a bit of a stretch for "Sprout," but this is what I have been working on and I wanted to share, and I thought this almost fit. Those are little flower sprouts aren't they?

I'm working on a few things to submit to the stylefile, an australian site dedicated to children's book illustrators and their folios. Apparently publishers actually use it! I applied once before, about 2 years ago, and wasn't accepted, but in retrospect it was when I was just getting into illustration and the work I submitted was all over the place. 8 different pieces and about 8 different styles. Now that I have a more cohesive style, and a bit more experience under my belt, I am hoping I'll have more of a chance...

I think I have a bank of paintings to pull from, I just have to decide which ones! Also, it's important to choose pieces which display well on the website - the viewing area is quite small, and it is also square, so I wanted to do something that fit well into that. Hence, ms. peacock!

The deadline is March 2nd, but maybe I'll post here beforehand for some opinions once I've decided which pieces to submit. Wish me luck!

Street BBQ

After living in this house for over 4 years, we have finally gotten to know our neighbours a bit, and we get along really well! We decided it was time for some togetherness so we're putting on a BBQ for our street. I did this little invite I'm going to pop in some letterboxes today. Having a lot of fun playing with lettering...

pen and pencil with colour added in Photoshop

Diary hunting

Well it's already February and I still don't have a diary ('planner' for you north americans) for 2007 yet. I've looked in all the bookstores and nothing really strikes my fancy. I really like getting a nice one, because I figure you look at it almost every day, it's worth spending that extra $10 to get a nice one.

My favourite past diary was for 2004 - a Winnie the Pooh diary given to me by A - and I love it, because it was interspersed with cool illustrations, like this:


So I wanted to find something similar. Where else but the internet? I looked at etsy... nothing. so I just did a google search and found a few. But really not as many as I would have thought. I think there's a market here. But here are some of the ones I was attracted to:

Flavia

Nice, but a bit mainstream

Little Warrior
really cool, and australian. but then I saw...


Little Otsu
and fell in love!

Love I tell you. such adorable things. I decided to get this diary, mostly for the novel idea that you write in your own dates! I figure, what with it being February already, and going travelling for 4 months this year when I'll be leaving my diary (and my mobile phone, and my computer, and lots of other things) at home, this is perfect. and it looks really cool. PLUS they have shops in Portland, Oregon, which is where my parents live and where I'll be starting off my 4 month trip so I reckon I'll be making a little visit. Love that mushroom t-shirt!

the only thing is, they ship to the US or Canada only (shock, horror) so I got it sent to my parents place (guess I should tell them that, eh?) and they'll send it on to me - so it may be March before I get it! damn!

Paige's Illustrator Project

Paige has posted her Illustrator Project where she asked artists if there was a defining moment where they felt like a 'real illustrator'. Go check it out here. It turns out I am in good company. Thanks for the great idea Paige!

I often lurk on Paige's blog and so I have finally added another inspiring artist to my blog roll!

A little spruce up

Well I've updated my website to link to my blog so I thought it was maybe time for a bit of a spruce up here. I was going to switch over to the new blogger templates but it seemed like a lot of work for not much gain, so I have remained old school.

I hope you like my new masthead! unfortunately I painted it the absolute wrong dimensions, so it has ended up a bit bigger than I intended, but it'll do for now I think...