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Above: meet Franz, the Little Wooden Man. He is based on an early 19th century cloth doll which I found in a book a long time ago. I have always been charmed and intrigued by his strange proportions and I thought that I would have to use them as inpiration for something one day: whether it be a drawing, object or even an ongoing character. Franz is the first fruit of that exploration, and I don't think that he'll be the last. I have put him up for sale in my etsy shop and I feel a little sad as I am quite fond of him. But hopefully he will have all sorts of brothers one day who will visit me, if only briefly. And I kind of like the idea of him going to live somewhere exotic. In the meantime I badly need to improve my photography skills...
A Hawaiian vacation print for Seed. The scenes were all painted separately in watercolour on textured A4 paper. I used colours which were not correct but as contrasting to one another as possible. The pictures were then scanned into Photoshop, and each colour was 'picked out' (made easier as they were contrasting), placed in a different layer and re-coloured until it looked right within that month's range. My favourite image above, and the finished repeat fabric artwork below. The resulting shorts will be posted onto this page in the last week of October.
Above: I came across a lovely blog this week which reminded me of these little 'diary entries' that I did a few years ago as part of a class exercise at Latrobe College. It's surprising (a) how few of those clothing items I am still wearing three years later even though I am trying to be green and not changing my wardrobe as crazily a fashion industry employee might (b) what a negative frame of mind I was in!
I
love Indian miniatures, for their unexpectedly pleasing colour and pattern combinations, incredible detail and compositions which challenge western eyes long accustomed to perspective. I have owned and loved a copy of Indian Painting by Douglas Barrett and Basil Gray (Skira, Geneva 1978) for over fifteen years but (sshhh!) I have never read a word of it. So unfortunately I know nothing about their iconography or social context. I have bravely reproduced some of my favourite pictures here anyway. The captions are as they appear in the book too, except that I have changed the measurements from inches to centremetres. Above: Madhu-Malati: The Resourceful Lover. Bilaspur Style, Kulu Valley, dated 1799 (15.5 x 12 cm), p. 192. What bold contrasts of colour and pattern! One could easily design an entire range of very 'now' textiles based on the beautiful patterns in this work. Hmmm...
Above: Lady Listening to Music. Guler Style, Jammu, about 175o. (25.5 x 21.5 cm), p. 181. 
Above: The Approaching Storm. Guler Style, about 1750 - 1760. (15 x 23 cm) British Museum, London, p. 175. 
Above: After the Bath. Bundi School, about 1775. (15 x 22 cm) Allahabad Museum, p. 148. Does this look familiar to anyone who has used the facilities at my house? A little framed photocopy of this lives in the bathroom.
Above: Lalita Ragini (from a Ragamala), painted by Sahibdin. Mewar School, Udaipur 1628. (15 x 21.5 cm) Khajanchi Collection, Bikaner, p. 135. The composition! The bold contrasting colours! That dark red against the yellow! The horse, a rather strange breed with a pretty horizontal pattern! I could stare at it forever. Even better, I could visit Bikaner and see the real thing.
Above: just to completely contradict the previous post, I present a little toucan which is not yet available but will be appearing in Seed stores shortly as a girls' t-shirt print. Although I have designed many many a bird print, I am particularly fond of this one as he is quite exotic and not a little kitsch in a late 70's/ early 80's way. Speaking of this era, I think that my bird would go particularly well with a listen to The Models' Two Cabs to the Toucan from 1981. This 7 minute + YouTube clip includes my favourite Atlantic Romantic too and is great fun.
Above: I generally wait until my work arrives in store before I can post it. This is because obviously there are thousands of people out there who read my blog and are going to immediately copy my designs otherwise. Ha! The problem with posting designs at least four months after coming up with them is that I can't remember what my thought process was anymore. Here I offer physical evidence: it's my first version of the fabric print below. All of the painted bits were done separately -- in black ink actually -- then they were layered over one another in Photoshop. The bird silhouette, then its wing, the three layers making up the flower, etc. I am no more technical than that, and I admit that with some shame.
I would think the final birds a little bit Collingwood magpie-like if it wasn't for the fact that they are actually navy and white. See them flitting about on a dress or some very funny little pants here.
Above: I love folk art and I have always been particularly fond of the traditional Swedish Dala horse. I visited Sweden last year and loved it so much that I wanted to keep reminding myself of its wonders after I got back to work. This was the first thing that I did in Sweden's honour. I hope that I haven't messed with its horse too much.
Above: work in progress. Of course my main resources were the photos of actual Dala horses on the left, but I also copied and pasted a more realistic horse to refer to for the headgear and tail. The tail especially is a bit of poetic licence, as Dala horses don't really have one except when they are sometimes painted onto the back of the body. My sketch is on the bottom right.
Above: the finished t-shirt, which can also be found here. It looks nice in pink too!
Above: I have just finished my entry for this year's Illustrators Australia 9 x 5 exhibition. With the anniversary theme of "20" I thought that I might make twenty illustrations showing twenty different types of illustration, therefore twenty different reasons why one might want to be an illustrator. Illustration for children, mapmaking, food, fashion, travel, automotive, books, textiles, decoration, plants, animals and medicine. Perhaps not quite twenty, but these are all things that interest me and the opportunity to research and then draw/paint them is always a pleasure. Thanks to the very kind brother Nick for cutting the little pieces out -- and so carefully!
Above: meet Franz, the Little Wooden Man. He is based on an early 19th century cloth doll which I found in a book a long time ago. I have always been charmed and intrigued by his strange proportions and I thought that I would have to use them as inpiration for something one day: whether it be a drawing, object or even an ongoing character. Franz is the first fruit of that exploration, and I don't think that he'll be the last. I have put him up for sale in my etsy shop and I feel a little sad as I am quite fond of him. But hopefully he will have all sorts of brothers one day who will visit me, if only briefly. And I kind of like the idea of him going to live somewhere exotic. In the meantime I badly need to improve my photography skills...
