Subdued

A September 9 birthday scarf that is almost finished.  Not for DC my usual fair isle multi colour extravaganza:  I wasn't sure that I would survive the subdued laddish colour palette, or knitting an entire scarf in proper rib, but I only have one and a half stripes to go and the big day is more than a week away.*

A scarf for Craft Victoria, which magically changes colour!  Hee hee.  

I might actually get to make a scarf for myself one of these days...

And a new card for the shop.  It's a bit how I feel today: housebound with a bad cold.  Not sure that I can do it.

*actually that's a lie as it was meant to be last year's birthday present.

Drawing food

In the interests of varying my illustration folio further, I have made this Italian themed food illustration using acrylic on paper.  Food is one of my main interests in life, and I would love the opportunity to illustrate an article in a cooking magazine or even a book one day.

I make footballers!

I am making wooden AFL footballers to order.  I guess it's up to the beholder to decide whether an upside down footballer should come in their favourite team's colours or their most hated's.  (I'd stick my neck out and go for the former myself.)  If either idea appeals to you, you can order one via my etsy shop, just in time for the finals.  I am open to making historical versions of footballers too -- especially if you barrack for a team which was subsumed when the league went from Victorian to national, e.g. Fitzroy.

Fashion pretend

This piece is for my illustration portfolio.  A pretend fashion editorial of sorts, with a couple of odd things thrown in just because I can.  Other than the pipe, African mask and knitted scarf, most of the items were nabbed from Net-a-Porter.  As a former fashion industry employee I can tell you that Net-a-Porter can be useful in all sorts of ways... but I might leave that there.  What I can say is that its incredibly detailed photographs can also be great for the budding illustrator.

The underwear, below, is the part I am happiest with:

T-shirt by A.P.C.  Even though I am admittedly a fan of A.P.C, I'm not sure that this sort of irony works when it comes from a big and relatively expensive clothing label.  What do you think?  Or maybe it works better if your first (or sole) language is French?! 

Little ladies in progress

 Bird ladies in progress.  These are finches.

Alexander Girard painted wooden sculptures in my sketch book.

I worked at Hut 13 on Saturday.  Among the many lovely things in the shop are these little animals which come from East Africa.  They are carved from discarded thongs which litter the beaches.  The purchase price helps to support the local community.  I love them all!

In the studio today

 It was particularly freezing in the studio today.  I took out my copy of Daniel Clowe's Ghost World because bright colours help me to pretend it's warmer in there.  Daniel Clowes and Chris Ware are my favourite contemporary comic book creators.  GENIUSES, just quietly!

 Mirrors in progress.  They are very hard to photograph, as you can see above.  The fez mirror sits over a beautiful 1950s botanical calendar from Kaffe Fassett's Glorious Inspiration.

 Templates for wooden people and other creatures.  You can't put wood under a light box, so I cut around my sketches instead, trace the outlines and then hope for the best.

 These days my studio has a glass window which looks into the hallway, giving a fishbowl effect. However it also gives me a ledge to put things I like on, like this Mona Lisa and a flyer from a Fergus Binns exhibition, because I can't afford the real thing...

I have also been making some wooden people for Hut 13, greetings cards and linen scarves for Craft Victoria, but my photos of them were dark and horrible so they haven't made it here.

A colour and pattern obsessed 'fashion' illustration for Friday...

This is my first ever entry for Illustration Friday and my first 'fashion' illustration for my current folio.  (Previous trials and tribulations can be seen here and here.)  It's winter here in Melbourne, but for me the ideal cold weather outfit has a lot of colour and pattern to counter the grey.  And why not travel around the world vicariously through your outfit, I say?  

 You know that everything is going to be OK when the sketch goes smoothly, as this one did.  And though I scanned the final picture and cut out the background to make it a clean white, for the first time EVER I did not touch the picture itself.  And I must admit that I am pleased about that.  Below: inspiration for the outfit came from one of my favourite books, Tibor and Maira Kalman's (un)FASHION.  The scarf is my own.

 Everyone should own a copy of this book, it's fantastic!!!

Fashion?

Above: I decided to make another attempt at a "fashion illustration" to round out my folio.  Although it is arguably closer than this first attempt, my overall opinion of this picture is a big yawn.  Not sure what my problem is, other than the obvious which is that perhaps I have (almost) completely lost interest in fashion.  But I am going to keep trying.

Above: these days in the real world I am attempting to be green, concentrating on special items as an antidote to "fast fashion."  I hand stitched this dark grey linen scarf last week and it is now in the shop.  There is a similar one at Craft Victoria.  Today will definitely be a linen scarf day here in Melbourne, no need for woollens!  Hooray!!


By the way,  I am having A LOT of trouble understanding the fancy new Blogger posting system, after assuring my studio friend Peter that it was really simple.


AUGUST 6 addition to this post: a brilliant article by former fashion editor Charty Durrant on the tyranny of fast fashion.  (Via etsy.)