Parts of a whole

House with smoke from chimney held as a cigarette by figure.

Close up of figure with cats head and unfinished jumper.

Smoke for a fire coming froma cats head.

eloborate mulberry bushes, loosely copied from a book of American Folk Art.

I bought a lovely book on American Folk Art, and a small tattered book on henri Rouseau recently, oh and a silver paint pen, and this is what they all created.

Arrow

right now my head feels like it is full of air, it floats but at the same time it sinks and is heavy and hard to keep aloft.

objects are metaphors for people

some close up parts of a drawing I am working on, it's called 'finding' and it's about how

objects are metaphors for people, how through symbolic connection, objects take on personality, and in reverse people become objects, which in turn have metaphors. My figures are not real people yet they carry connotation of something real, so in a way they symbolize an ideal human.

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Home Coming

A friend is coming home.

Connection

Soldiers of love

More Drawn-Blank

Illustration for title page of drawn-blank website:

And with text^

Drawn-Blank

These are some sketches I am doing for online youth culture magazine drawn-blank, they will be for the website and are meant to indicate the different sections: read(books and literature), hear(music), drawn(comics), watch(film) and look(visual art)

They still need to be refined a bit, and I also need to do an image for the title page of the website, summarizing all the aspects of what drawn-blank stands for. It should be a pretty cool magazine, so look out for it, I will be involved in it as much as I can, doing illustrations and submitting artwork.

Drawn-Blank is not currently up and running but when it is the website is: http://www.drawn-blank.com/

Painting

I had such a beautiful lazy day on Sunday, all exams and assignments finished I was free to draw and read and do what ever I wanted, It felt so good. I spent the the day going exactly that over at my boyfriends house in Flemington. In the midst of my bliss I noticed one of my boyfriends house-mates was painting. She is a self taught painter, so I thought I might as well have a go at painting, I haven't painted in years but I remembered a few things that I wanted to impart to my boyfriends house mate. This painting is an exercise in layering, at this satge it is at layer 3. I wanted to give a the skin a rosey pale glow, so I used an undercoat or terre verte green to bring out the red when I applied a rose pink layer over the top. I wanted the sky to be lilac so I used a grey blue, with a hint of crimson red as the bottom layer and then went over the top with light blue, using a large brush to skim the surface lightly. This painting is far from finished, but I like where it's going.

bathe.

Here are some little doodles of patterns that I am using in a larger drawing.

This is a drawing copied from a very old drawing which i drew in blue and red biro after I completely gave up on a math test. It's based on the illustrations on Bjork's 'Vespertine' record sleeve, in which there is string wining in and out of tiny machines. I used the same idea but included clouds and altered the look of the machines, I guess they could be seen as amps in the sky or maybe heaters.
This is a drawing I did in a cafe when all my tea was done, I am drawing this bird a lot. I found a book of sea birds at the Edithvale op shop a few weeks back and I was particularly drawn to the birds with what looks like little burglar masks on. Anyway, combining this with my ongoing interest in fin lines, gold paint pens and triangles I created a semi-symmetrical motif which I was really happy with.

Then, as you can see I used both of these patterns in this larger work, which I have been working on all weekend. Still unfinished this drawing has taken hours and hours to complete, and is all done in pen and gold paint pen, no pencil whatsoever, so one mistake or slip of the pen and the work is ruined. This is how I always work, which is why I use my tiny sketch book to map out ideas first.

Soldiering

Soldiers, some with object arms, all with downcast gazes and elaborate jumpers. My friend Jess, who is wonderful gave me the tiniest pen in the world the other night, slipped it right in my cardigan pocket at the Harvest launch at 1000 pound. This pen has changed my life, as you can see, particularly from the soldiers in the middle, it allows some crazy detailing.

Inspirations

What interests me at the moment:

elaborate stains

Blue and gold

I have been working with a lot of blue and gold lately. These are a collection of drawings which shows the direction my illustration work is going. Inspired by medieval art, I am interested in creating frames within the work to house the figures, similar to golden vessel bird bath. I have been continuing with this motif and have an illustration published in the next edition of Voiceworks in this style. I am also interested in the intricate pattern work of knitted jumpers, and am at the moment working on a collection of tiny knitted soldiers, which I will draw, then hopeful turn into felt toys (which will take ages so I might leave that till winter break). And continuing on from my 'lungfish' series, I am bringing my new love of blue and gold to the street, working on some sticker graffiti. Look for some down Guildford Lane, around Swinburne Hawthorn campus and various spots around the city.