The Beekeeper's Daughter; graphite and oil on board

After many years I have picked up my oils and completed a new painting. I can't remember the last time I painted in something other than acrylics or gouache so this has been a big experiment.

The Beekeeper's Daughter 2014, 25cm x 25cm; finally made real after about three years in my head :)

Dream big, little one ~ Custom skate deck art

This one was a big nerve-wracking to make, it was a gift for my niece's first birthday. Firstly, we were ordered to not bring gifts (lol! like I'm going to promise that) so we decided on something that cost nothing but time and would be super special and grow with her.

So my husband and I joined forces and planned a bird and dreamcatcher design with the words "Dream Big". This is a standard full-sized wooden skate deck, painted, inked and drawn with a variety of different mediums.

The circus is in town!

I just put the finishing touches on these three beauties. The Lion Tamer and The Fire Breather are extra special to me as two of my very close friends posed for these ones for me :)

All three of these are pen, ink and pencil on watercolour paper. Once I have them photographed at a high res I'll add limited edition prints to my store.

Strange Fruit

This is an idea I've had for a while and it feels really good to finally get it down on paper. Sometimes I have an idea that's really strong in my mind but no matter how hard I try I can't find my groove and get it down on paper the way I feel it should be. This one, however has pleased me :)

Strange Fruit

Strange Fruit is a bit darker than my work of late. The tree reflects on itself, showing a summer tree, full of apples and a swing and covered in leaves. The reflection is a bare winter tree with old rope tendrils and various human remains hanging from the branches. That it where the name comes from.

While the piece is perfectly timed for Halloween, it is really influenced by a Laurell K Hamilton novel.

So much drawing, so little time

Wow, today has been chock-full of drawing! It's been lovely to get into some new work and in between science breaks with the kids I managed to exhaust my poor hand and finish these two up.

The Jelly-thief

Muertos Fox

I have a skate deck design to complete next week to be laser-etched onto a 7 ply Canadian maple deck and one of these may be the one, but I'm still undecided.

The t-shirts are in!

Positive Threads have released their first round of t-shirts. Seeing these designs made real is amazing!

To order for for further details please contact Positive Threads.

T-shirt designs for Positive Threads

I have been lucky enough to be a part of the blossoming t-shirt design company, Positive Threads.

The two amazing ladies behind the brand are developing a range of t-shirts for women, men and children with beautiful artwork and positive messages. I love the concept and would be proud to wear (and have my children wear) these gorgeous, uplifting fashions. It sure beats seeing a ten year old wearing a skin-tight shirt emblazoned with 'porn star' - or worse!

Women's designs:

 ^Digitally drawn in Adobe Illustrator CS5 - hand-drawn font

 ^Digitally drawn in Adobe Illustrator CS5 - hand-drawn font

Girl's design:

 ^Digitally drawn in Adobe Illustrator CS5

Boy's design:

^ Hand-drawn on paper, graphite shaded and finalised in Adobe Photoshop CS5


I can't wait to see these printed and ready to wear! For more information, please contact Positive Threads HERE.

Gainsborough Art Awards sneak peek

A sneak peek of my entry into the Gainsborough Art Awards, 2012 :)

"Who knows what song the caged bird sings?" Mixed media on wood, 45cm x 90cm.

Fingers crossed!

Little Miss Leigh logo artwork design

I have just completed a logo artwork for the lovely Little Miss Leigh, who offers make up and tanning on the Gold Coast.   

This piece is 100% vector, so it can be as small as a business card or as big as a building, without distorting. All hand sketched in Adobe Illustrator CS5 with a tablet :D

          

The beauty of women

 Beauty and the deep

 The dragon ballet

The eye of the beholder

Finally I have some photos of this series! These are only preliminary photos but they give a good idea of what I have been working on.

These are all pen and ink on paper. I was thinking about mermaids one day and got to wondering why they are thought of as sirens, luring men in with their exquisite beauty. Could it be possible to lure a man in if you were a different animal? If I were a sea creature surely tentacles would be just as stunning as a goldfish tail. And how about the leafy dragons, with their wispy seaweed-like fins?

So the animals inspiring these works were the goldfish, the blue-ringed octopus and the leafy seadragon.

I'm in print! Ok, digitally, but it still counts

I was recently interviewed by a lovely blogger and artist, Lyubka to be included in her artist interview series alongside some amazingly talented people. It's such an honour to be included and a massive boost to see my interview on screen.

Check out the interview and read all about Lyubka too, she's a talented artist and great blogger.

Time flies, allow me to recap...

In attempting to find where the time has gone, I felt compelled to make a list. I have had 2 months free of study and swore to myself that after Christmas I would devote plenty of time to my own artwork and build a nice little library of work. While I did manage to complete 3 new pen drawings and an inked drawing, I didn't manage anywhere near what I planned. My wall is still full of post-its with ideas, plans and random names for artwork :(

In no particular order:

• Hosted Christmas dinner
• Prepared my son for his first year of school including all prerequisite uniform, stationery, backpack, lunchbox, textbook and accessory shopping. That quite frankly deserved a month all to itself
• Hosted and promoted my first blog giveaway on two blogs
• Opened an Etsy store
• Sewed a panne velvet quilt
• Baked a three tier chocolate cake, shortbread, sugar cookies, marshmallow slice, chocolate coated marshmallows and pretzels for dozens
• Sewed 7 baby dresses, 5 headbands and made a dozen hairclips
• Sewed a dinosaur pillow, wrist cuffs and made a customised dinosaur dig
• Painted 5 shirts, a golf towel and made tulle pom poms for decorations
• Put together 8 baby and child gift hampers for donation
• Did the Christmas shopping!
• Took the kids for a photo with Santa, attended a Christmas concert and a graduation
• Made a flogger and tickler
• Had a short holiday - the first as a family of four
• Painted a swan portrait
• Played with a DSLR camera for the first time
• Had a Christmas party and organised a Secret Santa
• Kept blogging AND Facebooking :)
• Participated in various Etsy treasury-making and promotion
• Watched my son ride his first big-boy bike and scooter, saw my daughter stand for the first time, cut new teeth and do a handstand
• Got my hair done, woot!
• Read at least six new books - that's right, start to finish, I feel your envy :)
• Lost weight, not quite as much as I would have liked but I haven't regained any. Don't let the door hit you in the ass, weight!
• Drew pictures, played Search and Find, built transformers and read stories with my son
• Cuddled, sang to and played with my daughter
• Spent time with my husband, we even saw at least one good dvd (though the rest were crap, thanks Hollywood)
• Took on extra page-layout work, voluntary work and I-don't-get-paid-for-this extensive promoting, networking and random business crap that's supposed to make people notice me
• Laughed, cried, was amazed and schocked
• Spent too much time anxious or depressed, but got over it
• Did all the regular stuff that helps keep the home and family going

None of this was done alone, were it not for my husband taking kid-duty while I worked or my kids being so well behaved and quiet while I converse with clients or finish artwork I never would have made a quarter of this list. I still wish I could find more time to work on my own stuff but perhaps that's something I have to work on this year.

How has your summer (or winter) been so far? Have you achieved what you wanted?

Don't forget you can always fit in those missed projects in the future!

Going black

Today I'm going black to support the anti SPOA and PIPA movement.

Do you want your internet censored? Do you want your web page under scrutiny by the government? Do you want to risk being closed down because some big business thinks you are impinging on their copyright? Don't risk the amazing and free-spirited voice of the internet that has been creating and supporting individual voices for years.

Piracy is the worst type of theft, stealing other's hard-earned ideas and creations is the most despicable form of flattery. But these laws are not the way to protect us.

More new pen work

In addition to my tentacled lady and octopus love, I have also been working on my mermaid.

I still have to name these pieces and put some ink to them but I like the way the black and white pen artworks speak for themselves.

I love the idea of human-animal hybrids and sea creatures have the most amazing organic lines and flowing shapes.

I would like to add a third piece to match my tentacled lady and mermaid, what do you think? What should the next animal be?

Absence makes the pen work harder

 

I've been absent, I know. But in my defense I've been getting my photography on and just couldn't tear myself away! I borrowed my brother's kick-ass DSLR and shot 325 photos over 3 days, lol.

My main aim was to attempt to photograph my pen drawings to see if I can wring some sense of quality from the shots. My point and shoot is good but I always have a bunch of work to do to the pictures afterward. I still had to edit the shots but it wasn't so bad and I could maintain the feeling of hand-drawn.

I've been working on some animal-woman hybrids and in the spirit of Valentine's Day that is assaulting my senses from all directions, an octopus embrace. Those ones are still un-inked but the raven is finished.

So after experimenting with focus, depth of field and macros I'm off to do some real work!

And then it all went pear-shaped

I have no idea why pear-shaped is bad, but it is.

After carefully sketching, masking and taping I added the inks and then shit happened. The paper warped, the ink pigment separated and I ended up with a wet muddy mess.

So I started again.

A decent artists' watercolour paper this time, taped to the board and sketched. AGAIN. By this time I was becoming right royally pissed with winged horses. Do you KNOW how many muscles and shit a horse has? Unless you have studied horse anatomy it makes drawing them a pain in the ass. And here I had to draw it about five times.

Anyway, it's done now. You can see the progress here:

 sketch penned in

body outline thickened, hair detail in

first wing detail

 second wing detail

contour lines and ink laid on

gouache backdrop in, water and splash detail in

finalised!

So there you go, a little glimpse into the progress of my mixed media drawings :)

This is how the inking starts

Just a little insight into how my ink pieces develop.

After sketching the design and finalising my proportions, I sketch the image onto watercolour paper, giving thought to how much background I want to show. Then I grab some masking fluid and a rubber sculpting tool and mask off all the areas I want left the paper colour first.

Once the fluid is dry the background goes on. That's up later :D

Liquid chalk = love

Oh liquid chalk markers, how I love you!

I grabbed a couple of these suckers to decorate the windows for Halloween and fell in love with the bright colours. Going to clean them off the windows and they cleaned off with a tissue O_O. Yeah Baby.

Christmas is going to be full of chalky goodness. I think all I need to decorate the house now are random acrylic sheets tacked up everywhere waiting for some penmanship...

A new logo for me!

I finally got around to designing myself a logo. I wanted something that represents that I am an artist (the paintbrush and pencil) and that I am predominantly influenced by whimsy, nature and myth (the floral flourish, poppy and moth silhouette).

I chose orange as it is one of the colours of my favourite little friend, the orange banded tiger moth (the silhouette shape) who often visit me at home when I am feeling conflicted or down. I paired it with green, one of my favourite colours, which makes the design a little extra nature-ish I think.

 

What do you think?

My offerings for the Inchie swap

I joined my first Inchie swap earlier this month and sent out to my partners last week. It was a lot of fun, though I was nervous at the beginning since I really didn't know what I was doing.

Don't know what an inchie is? Check out this link.

We were all in groups of 8, so we each made 7 sets of 7 inchies to send to each person.

I approached my inchies like tiny works of art. And really, and inch is pretty freaking tiny when you are trying to draw. I did a few sets of continuous art, broken up into squares and a few sets of individual inchies that fit together in a theme. I like continuity, I like repetition and I love how each person I swapped with now has a part of a larger piece of art, shared with like-minded people.

I am a totally sucker for customised packaging. To the point that I am considering posting a cutom packaging design service when I open my online stores.

Here are the envelopes I printed out, just a piece of heavy computer paper (210gsm).

The inside:

I cut out each little square and the inchies are stuck between the folds of paper with a little blu-tack. A custom design also gave me the opportunity to make a special frame for my little bonus, a magnet inchie to pop on the fridge.

With all of my swaps I like to send out a little extra, a practice I intend to follow into owning a store. Little surprises can be really inexpensive but leave a wonderfully happy feeling with the recipient. In a swap situation it makes you both feel happy about giving and receiving something special and in a business perspective it gives added value and leaves a really good impression in the buyer's mind.

I am pretty pleased with the results, those little pieces of art are quite addictive.