landscaping with percival

How to design the ideal indoor garden space? Just ask little Percival (you'll find him perched on the left chair!). He has a love of potted plants, reading, tea and let's not forget, exceptional balancing skills! - - 'Landscaping with Percival', the original drawing from the exhibition at URSAstudiospace entitled 'score for uncharted flights' , is now available in the shop... https://www.etsy.com/listing/116991161/original-drawing-landscaping-with

This image also happens to be included in the calendar for the month of April!

thorton & tobias at middle c

2013 calendar - yay!

 

It's official! The calendars are for purchase though my Etsy shop and URSAstudiohouse in Melbourne. I've already sold seven, and have four on order for next week - so I'm absolutely beaming (and have to buy more printer ink el pronto!). It's such a fabulous feeling to finally make something that you've been wanting to for ages (having got to a point a couple of weeks ago of thinking, damn... I'm just not going to make it again this year), and to have it so well received. It helps that I have an exhibition on at the moment, and incorporated most of those images.

Each page (14 of them) takes a bit less than half an hour to print, and I've chosen lovely parchment paper/card - so not your ordinary calendar! The new printer is working a treat (except it really isn't very economical, but it's oh so super handy), and the final product looks really very gorgeous - if I don't say so myself! Unfortunately the quality doesn't translate at all well in the photos - and it certainly doesn't help that my digital SLR has died for a second time - something to do with the connectors for the battery or the power switch. So annoying and disappointing.

The calendar is designed so that at the end of each month the page can be trimmed inside the broken lines to create an A5 art print (1/2 an A4 page 210 x 148mm / 8.3 x 5.8 in). They can then be kept or given out as gifts in a nice cheapy frame! The images are probably some of the most 'accessible' I've drawn to date - they're actually quite children friendly!

And just a little update re the geometric characters in the previous posts - they will be turned into cards this week, and they too will be available in the Etsy shop (nothing like a last minute attempt!) & at URSAstudiohouse.

It's an exciting time for me and my little enterprise helicopter6. It's been a long long LONG time coming, and it's a super lovely feeling to finally launch like this. I have my dear  friend Ursula to thank, for being so brave to take the risk re opening her space. It's allowed me to be an annoying presence where art making & designing are first and foremost on my mind. Now to figure out that pesky 'how to find a part time job that pays OK and that will make me relatively happy so I can do all this other stuff' part! 

emmett's broadcast

window doodles

I had enormous fun drawing on the URSAstudiohouse window with liquid chalk to conincide with the exhibition. It was extremely difficult to photograph due to reflections, but I hope you get the gist! There's something super satisfying creating work in public. It was a warm & busy early Saturday evening on Lygon Street, and people paused to watch and give me the thumbs up. Ursula loved it, and we're going to have a little brainstorm to figure out what I can do for a Xmas window. Looking forward to it - as I would love to do more of this sort of thing.

BTW, what on earth has happened to the blogger compose page in my absence - getting images to sit where I want them is a nightmare!

score for uncharted flights | 4-25 november

I'm very happy to announce a new collection of original A4 & A5 drawings are now exhibiting in the wonderful studio shop URSAstudiohouse in East Brunswick, right here in Melbourne. Artsist Ursula Bolch opened her doors about four months ago, and is selling funky spoils from local and international designers, makers & artists. She has also more recently dedicated a small wall space for monthly exhibitions. Last month was Lindy Judge, and in December, Corrina Bendt takes the stage.

I had a lovely laid back opening yesterday in rather warm conditions!! A huge thank you to everyone who came - it's always so great to receive such support. The exhibition continues until the 25 November. URSAstudiohouse is open Wed-Sat 11am-6pm, and Sunday 11am-4pm, so plenty of time to pop in, have a squizz and purchase some pretty fabulous things!

the great coffee plunge - printing tea towels

Just before Christmas, I signed up for a one day intensive, tea towel screen printing course at the sensational Harvest Workshop in Brunswick. Absolutely love what these guys do - alongside creating their own wonderful products, Harvest Textiles (the umbrella business) organises textile and screen printing classes, design markets, pop up shops & exhibitions.

I had screen printed before, but quite some time ago. The lovely Elissa Sadgrove & I had an exhibition at West Space many moons ago, where we used tshirts to represent a kind of storyboard for a little obtuse narrative we created with stylised graphics - about wombats, weather gods & forces going horribly wrong!

Creating smaller one off prints at one's leisure is a helluva lot easier than setting up a mini production line in a really small window of time. I looked as though I had run a marathon by the end of the course, but was super pleased with the end result. I could unfortunately only print four, so three have found new homes with family (chrissy presents), and one remains with me. Definitely would like to pursue more printing on fabric in the the not too distant future. But due to lack of space, I'm thinking of playing around with smaller stencils and the good ol potato. I do like the idea of a vegetable being a piece of image making equipment!

in search of inaudible quarters...

Climbing out from underneath it all, he found a surprising amount had changed. You had to know, of course, what it was like before he went under there in the first place which is, it has to be admitted, not easy from this angle. But there was snow, a marauding army had emptied his larder, his 12 sons were all practising their brass instruments under fruit ladened trees, a small carousel was turning to a merry jingle and there had been windows – many windows. Change is a difficult animal to muster and master. The views would be missed but it definitely seems quieter.

... written in response to this drawing - by Malcolm Turner

> @ lowrise projects

kids & art & appreciation

from left to right:
1. Seating for rehearsed aeronautics | 2. Advancing in familiar light
3. Birds ascending at c minor | 4. Outing for uncertain pursuits
5. Lessons in landscaping with music | 6. A league of shadows

An enormously warm thank you to everyone who came to the exhibition (in the rain!) on Saturday at Lowrise Projects. Not only did you all make my opening a super special one, you also bought half my drawings!! I'm so very very chuffed & honoured. The feedback was incredible, and the book with Malcolm's writing (& little b/w snippets of the drawings) received really fabulous praise. He's an uber talented lad & it's such a shame he wasn't there to enjoy it - but Estonia & animation goodness were-a-calling. I'll do a bit of formatting in photoshop and post the book in its entirety soon. Here's a pretty bad photo of the cover to inspire curiosity in the meantime.



The images posted above are the six that sold on the day. And the most interesting thing was that the first three were chosen by kids and bought by their wonderful parents. I love this outcome. I don't consider my drawings targeted at kids at all, but the fact that they have sparked their imaginations and engaged them in conversation is about as good as it gets.

Many thanks to Melanie & Jeremy for being such gracious hosts and for getting all the drawings up onto the Lowrise Projects website - I'll aim to get them onto my own website el pronto.

a gentler approach

It's funny seeing all the drawings on the wall together for the first time. This lot lack an edginess that has been evident in earlier work - heck, there's no axes, or guns, or decapitations, or burnings, or volcanic heads, or missiles, or nudity. They're all... well, kinda 'nice'. Maybe the gorgeous (but devious) cream Stonehenge paper I used, subliminally directed the whole thing!


a little example from the last exhibition at Chapman & Bailey
...ok, it was one of the sillier works!

it's a good day for a hanging (of art that is!)

Well, it's finally here! Soon I'll be heading over to Lowrise Projects in Richmond to hang a suite of 14 drawings - all doneski. Somehow I've managed to pull this off whilst working full time. The image above is another little sneak peek, inspired by time spent in my current place of work.

I still have to finish making pocket size booklets with wonderful fictitious passages by Malcolm Turner (Director of Melbourne International animation Festival & my partner in crime) that have been penned from planes, hotels & animation festivals in Germany, Poland, Portugal, Estonia & London, in response to images of my works emailed by moi from afar! Unfortunately they won't be available until the opening on Saturday, so if you pop in before then, don't forget to come back to grab one. If you're in Melbourne, please say hi on Saturday between 4pm & 6pm, otherwise the exhibition runs until 17 December - full details are in the last post.

score for forming chords & crossbars

I thought it was time to post a sneak peek from work being developed for my upcoming solo exhibition at Lowrise Projects in Richmond - a wonderfully intimate, light-filled, converted warehouse space recently set up by the lovely Melanie Flynn, former gallery manager at Karen Woodbury Gallery, and her partner Jeremy Smart. They are also the folk behind Artsphere, which provides a very fine website service for artists.

I popped into the gallery on Saturday and absolutely loved the current show - delicate black & white photographic and graphite works by Genevieve Swifte, conceived from her residencies at the Upernavik Museum, Northwest Greenland and the Photomedia Workshop, The Australian National University School of Art. These stark, minimally rendered landscapes, although small, still managed to expound such a strong sense of place - it would be truly brilliant to head to this part of the world.

There’s no doubt that my quirky, colourful drawings which will follow this show, will present a somewhat blaring contrast!

… and here are the all important details!

helen gibbins
a scenario for perfect placement: score for forming chords & crossbars
18 november - 17 december 2011
opening: saturday 19 november 4-6pm
lowrise projects
level 1, 32 wangaratta street, richmond, victoria
gallery hours: thursday-saturday 11am-5pm
www.lowriseprojects.com