various arty things

Here is a little piece I did for my brother-in-law and his family who we are going to visit very soon (they live in Perth, the other side of Australia). You can see another one I did for friends with their new baby here (scroll down). I think I like this one better - though maybe not as nicely executed, I like the brush-painted lines instead of just straight pen lines - it's a bit looser and I have to say more fun to do!

Also, I finished grouting my mosaic house number! Phew! It was pretty fun actually, and I'm very happy with it for my first mosaic. I just need to make sure I clean all those little glass shards up from my studio properly! (hmmm, mental note: don't let cat in studio) Now I just need to wait for some better weather so i can hang it on the house....

Mothers, artists and the creative streak

Last night I went to the book launch of my friend Rachel Power's book The Divided Heart, published by Red Dog Books (a division of Black Dog Books). It's about artist-mothers and keeping that creative streak alive while taking on the joys and tribulations of motherhood. In the book Rachel interviews over 20 artist-mothers and also reveals some of her own experiences with this balancing act. I've only read the introduction but already I've vowed to use the time I have for creativeness as much as I can, because it seems like your sense of time totally shifts post-baby! I would highly recommend it to any artist who is a parent, or wanting to become a parent, and also would like to pay my respects to all those amazing women who are able to do both on a day-to-day basis and keep smiling! As we say down here, Good On You!


And speaking of creativeness, I've finished cutting (ie. smashing with a hammer) and sticking down the tiles for my new house number! I will leave the glue to dry and then grout it this weekend. I'm pretty proud of my first mosaic :-) Now off to finish up 'Foggy' for Illustration Friday.

I kneaded this.

It has been really lovely to have a bit of a break from illustration-as-work and to do some other creativey things. "Creativey things" to me includes cooking and it has been great to cook for pleasure as opposed to subsistence ie. "must have something quick so I can get back to work". So... I finally tried something I have been threatening to do for a long time and made bread! It turned out really well (so yummy!) and I was very proud of myself :

this could be the beginning of something beautiful... do I hear herb bread...? olive bread...? raisin bread....? ummmmm. With the price of everything going up these days it's nice to be able to provide some of the basics yourself. I have dreams of veggie gardens and fruit trees. all in time...

My next creative endeavour is a mosaic house number to continue to improve the front of our house so the neighbours feel a bit better about us ;-) This will be my first mosaic ever but I hope it will be the beginning of something else beautiful!!