URSAstudiohouse & I have teamed together to make some lovely little gift tags for the silly season. Very happy with the end result (except that my beautiful camera died, so apologies for the poor quality).

procrastination - be my bunny

Look what evolves when one is suppose to be working on some more Xmas card designs! I kinda like them. I think an A-Z of fun but dodgy animal characters is an imminent project!

Then of course, if I need to procrastinate just that little bit more, why not put together another Etsy treasury! This one is 'dinner party for sixteen' - an intriguing bunch of personalities brought together for an evening of shenanigans!

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! 

saturday morning fun

I make myself laugh sometimes!!

...hairy ...glammy ...flappy ...chirpy!

Having heaps of fun turning these into cards for the silly season... still trying to decide what size... more details soon!

2013 calendar sneek peek

I've been working like crazy to finish a 2013 calendar of recent drawings - all very exciting! I acknowledge it's a little late in the proceedings to be releasing it, but I think I've probably just managed to slip in with Christmas and the New Year on the horizon - not an optimum timeline, but OK! This is the first mock up of a single month. I've printed this page and it's looking beautiful - I'm printing on a lighter gsm/version of the parchment paper I use for my cards. By Wednesday I'll be able to provide a full update, and have the finished product available to purchase at URSAstudiohouse in East Brunswick and online in my Etsy shop. So please stay tuned!!

grrr... photography part 2!

I'm so very close to making the shop live (but not tonight)! But alas, my camera died today (or the battery, or the charger - I'm seriously hoping it's one of these rather than the camera). It seems my master plan to snap away in perfect Spring daylight has been hijacked by the dreaded 'electro-devil', a great term my brother used today to describe what happens to all printers, computers, phones, cameras, cars, scanners, recording devices, photocopiers, washing machines, dryers & any other electrical device - when you have a deadline. What IS that all about? How DO they KNOW?! Gah! Grr! Hissss!

grrr... photography!

Trying to get my little online shop up and running by the end of the weekend. But who would have thought that taking pics of cards would be so hard?! Day one of playing in bad light - obviously we need a day 2, day 3 & maybe a day 4!

Definitely need to wait for good day time light over the weekend - and to think this through a little more in the meantime!

Composition take 2 - hmmm. With some proper focus, a better background and a tweaked angle, this one may gain some legs!

Good ol' front on. Stock standard. Not minding this...

Neh... who needs detail when there's a good paper triangle to capture!!! Look at those glorious crisp edges.

Zooming in on the back - just coz I can! Obviously a few more macro lessons are in need - but I like her fade in & fade out style - it's foggy up there you know!

people in the air

There's no doubt that some things just take a while. It's a fact for many of us! Blog entries. Projects. Savings. Rhythms. Headspace. Ideas in general. And when there's full-time non-creative work, a festival to run, a number of sneaky other commitments and of course that old foe fatique, the thing you want to do most continues to be pushed to the furtherest most reclusive corner where spiders & bugs & varmints can happily make their designer inspired homes!! And I hate the thought of kicking them out, as no-one wants to be homeless, but the time has come to get jiggy and just do. So apologies fellas (don't despair, you'll be able to inhabit most of that space for some while still!)

So why all this banter? Well, because I've steadily been accumulating materials in recent months to get this long term goal of mine on the move. Everything I've read about starting up a creative enterprise suggests careful planning, a good accountant, a business plan - but I'm choosing to just get started with the smallest thing and to see what happens. Yup, it's potentially a recipe for disaster, but heck, I do believe a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do!

So this weekend, my brand new Epson A3 printer (finally!!) is going to chug into action and print some C6 cards inspired by my solo exhibition of drawings last year at Lowrise Projects. My partner contributed some brilliant little texts in response to the work, so I've decided to include them on the back. Noice.

More soon!

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!

silly season

Thank you for your wonderful support throughout the year, especially since posts have been rather sparse! May you all have a lovely Chrissy (if it's something you celebrate/acknowledge) and a truly fantabulous year ahead.

festivities

Goodness, did I really think I could keep posting in the lead up to the festival... silly me! Looking forward to the beginning of July when I can get back on track here and get some drawing done. In the meantime I've been busy designing programs, passes (see below), posters, marketing, compiling, updating the website... and everything else in between. I did manage to dart away to enjoy bday celebrations with a dear friend today, and above is the collaged card I made this morning when I should've been working!! Super enjoyable getting glue encrusted finger tips when days have been so computer based.