The Owl and the Pussycat

A watercolour illustration that I made for a dear friend for her baby shower. A3 size, and brighter than in the photo.

Flock

A group of crows is called a flock. Or, more poetically, a murder.  I prefer flock I think...

Pouring

An odd day: Overly emotional.  Feeling wiped out. Unenthusiastic. Pouring rain.
And then, that evening...an absolute outpouring of overdue creativity. Collage, pencil drawings, colour, characters. Then this morning I drew the crow.
What a funny 24 hours.

Breeze

Catherine

Milly

IF_Trail

Little Molly leaves a trail of footprints in the snow on her favourite walk. Molly's fuscia scarf hangs so low to the ground that it too creates a little trail in the snow. Molly says 'hello' to all the wonderful creatures of the forest - 'Hello Mr Owl, Mr Fox, Mr and Mrs Rabbit, Hello Blackbirds and Ravens!'



Winter has begun here - although, being Sydney Australia, it won't snow. Its nice to dream though. This is my illustration for 'Illustration Friday'. Like I said in my last post, I was going to illustrate my favourite walk but turned it into a snow scene instead. It was difficult leaving so much of the paper white for the snow - as you can see from my art I am not much into white paper! Watercolours, watercolour pencil, watercolour paper, white gouache.

Hope you like it
x

IF_Early

From dark to light
to morning from night
Where sun and moon swap shifts in the sky
and each little star says its goodbyes.
The cold of my toes
Slight warmth on my back
That first little chirp starts a creschendo of cries
And each little bird spreads its wings and it flies
Goodbye to the night, wipe the sleep from my eyes.
Its early!

Watercolour pencil, white gouache, watercolour paper and text from an old book. My interpretation of the concept 'early' for 'Illustration Friday'.

I hope you too have woken up well from your dreams!

Nerves and Colour

I drew this image whilst I was doing Art Education at university, and a friend bought it from me for $20 - a lovely surprise considering that at the time I was broke, tired and desperately trying to keep up with lectures and essays.



Its now about 4 years later and I have been working in my job as an art teacher in a high school for over a year. I love it. It is constantly challenging, hugely busy and absolutely exhausting but also very very rewarding.

Today I am nervous.

I have an interview with the Department of Education to renew my teaching number. I have studied but I am still nervous.

So my interview is at 2:51pm today and I am sitting in a cafe around the corner drinking coffee and blogging.

It is 10:30am so I am over 4 hours early for my interview!!! Why you ask? It is in a suburb I have never been to before, at the end of the train line in Sydney's West. West West. West West West West West. You can't get much more West than here. I wanted to be confident I knew where the offices were, had time to study and was confident about what I am doing.

But I am having a good morning despite my nerves. Here in the West it is so so different to where I am from. Its really nice to be here as sometimes I get frustrated by the suburban whiteness and lack of diversity of my area. I would say the majority of people here speak a language other than English and I have already seen a million places to have lunch for under $7 - noodles, curries, pork rolls, a whole plethora of tucker from all areas of the world. I may even go shopping for a ceramic Hello Kitty mug with a lid for work.

I hope this picture is indicative of how I will go in my interview. I am carefree, confident and happy that I will be able to share all the wonderful things I have been doing with my great art students. Fingers crossed.

And on the 21st May I have my Graduation Ceremony. Yes I am fearless.

x

IF_fearless

Yes, she is about to jump but she does not go unaided - that would be very risky! She has her wings, her friends to catch her and a good deal of faith that all will work out just fine! I remind myself of that daily. I think there is a difference between being fearless and outright silly!



I hope your day today is a beautiful one and you remain full of courage and have faith that so much is good in the world!

x

IF_Cocoon

My image to illustrate this week's topic of 'Cocoon' for Illustration Friday:

Cocoon words: pod, contain, vessel container, hold, warmth, crysalis, wrap, hidden, hide, protect, sleep, inhabit, dormant...



I could think of many more words for what a cocoon embodies. I think the theme is perfect for this time of year. I can feel myself start to cocoon-up with doonas and jumpers and socks and shoes rather than thongs and singlets. I loved the theme as soon as I saw it however, the actual artmaking was not as glorious as the theme itself. It was hard work and there were very few points in the process where I was happy with where I was going, however I tried to have faith I was on the right track. I'm still not sure of the outcome but I am a lot happier with it now than at any other stage.

This image is composed of so many layers. Putting paint down, pushing it back, adding paper, painting over it, pushing back again. For eaxample, the pods themselves have gone from brown to white to brown again so many times until finally I turned them into faces.


You can see from the design here that I began with wanting to have a more abstract image than other IF designs I have done. I wanted to have beautiful pod like vessels hanging from trees and whilst it began that way, my image went from abstract to more representational.

Anyway, I hope you like it. I'm off to get a cup of coffee

x

Saturday dreaming

Relaxing on a Saturday makes me feel like a princess. A little sleep in, a trip to the gym with a friend, a Jarlsberg cheese and prosciutto panini from the European deli to say 'good work for getting through the pain', a large coffee, some drawing and painting, coffee later with friends, the arts section of the newspaper...



As I was drawing and painting this morning I watched a feature on the ABCs Message Stick about the new website '12 Canoes' which is a selection of "twelve video pieces that provide a visual portrait of the history, culture and environment of the Yolngu people of the Arafura swamp of north-central Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory".

In the video called 'Seasons', the Yolngu narrator notes that the people know when the oysters are ready because of the blooming of a particular flower. He states:

"The seasons are not about the passing of time. They are about how things work together. Everything is part of everything".

I thought it was beautiful. The world does work in mysterious ways and yes, I believe everything is connected. I will show my students these videos and there is even an education kit as a PDF file.

Happy changing of the seasons to you.

Transformation.

I always seem to keep coming back to this image. I even know where I keep the original little pencil sketch. It has been produced as a business card, a profile shot for my blog, prints at markets, all sorts of things. I think it may have first been drawn at least ten years ago, when I used to draw girls holding birds, girls holding fish, many repeat motifs that are still going strong today. Even back then there were birds and fish everywhere.



The image below is a similar story. Drawn, again around 10-15 years ago on a scrap piece of note paper, I kept it, scanned it, redrew it, printed it as an etching and even won a prize for the printed and framed etching. I wish I could show you the etching - I may have to search very hard for a copy.



This is why I try not to throw out any little scribbles I do - I never know what they will become.

Spiral

A little sketch. 

Pen and Ink, scanned and digitally coloured.

x

IF_Ahead

The Owl and the Pussycat

Two things came to mind when thinking about the theme 'Ahead' for Illustration Friday.

The first was 'getting ahead', and the second was 'land up ahead'.

I decided to go for the second idea, thinking about those two ultimate sea-farers...

The Owl and the Pussycat of course!

When they went to sea on the beautiful pea-green boat they would not have known what was ahead (for they packed some honey and plenty of money just in case!) but they took off anyway.

For those who need a refresher on the story like me, here is a link for Edward Lear's nonsense poem in full

The Owl and the Pussycat

Enjoy

x

For You

Here's to happy days

Autumn Colours...

I sketched this yesterday with watercolour pencils, white gouache and collage paper on watercolour paper.

Happy Earth Day for yesterday everyone!

x

IF: (ART) Detective

Art Detective

Desperate to complete an image for Illustration Friday's theme of 'Detective', yesterday morning was spent working on an image called Nature Detective where I drew myself on my hands and knees in the bush looking through a magnifying glass at all the wonder of nature. Sadly Nature Detective did not work out but all was not lost...

Nature Detective metamorphasised into Art Detective. Here I am in my role as art super sleuth - I wander the streets and the bush collecting evidence - observing, sketching, recording, photographing, notetaking. Sometimes I walk, sometimes I ride my bike. What a great life to be an artist.

I hope you like it - I better get back to my real job now.

x

IF: Linked

'Linked'

An illustration for Illustration Friday

Sunshine, teapots, hanging socks

Blossoms and fish and bubbles and birds.

x

Magic Fishy Ride

Magic Fishy Ride

For the theme 'Flying' on Illustration Friday's weekly fun - see http://illustrationfriday.com