Victorian Games

above: Little Red Riding Hood, 1890. I love the contrast of the simple and beautiful game board over the detailed picture.
above: the game of railway promoting character Phoebe Snow, 1909.

above: the word 'dude' obviously used to have a more interesting connotation. His slovenly friend looks strangely contemporary: she might be Emily the Strange's grandmother. All from The Game of Don'ts and Old Maid, 1905.
Above: the Manhattan Post Office game, 1897.
Above: a card from Logomachy, or War of Words, 1887.

All from Margaret K. Hofer, The Games We Played: The Golden Age of Board and Table Games, New York, 2003. A beautiful and funny book.
Above: I am also inordinately pleased -- considering eastern Australia's extreme tropical weather -- that my scarf pdf pattern is finally in the shop. It's a fun way to make use of leftover yarn!

Burger Ballerina

The idea of doing a little dancing burger lady has been on my mind for a while now, so it was really interesting to see an blogpost on etsy showing a hamburger motif recently.
I actually did alot of sketches and it took a while to decide whether she should be a fairly anatomically correct woman, or something more odd, based on a vintage doll perhaps.
The vintage doll won out because the idea of painting her seemed more interesting. I ended up using watercolour rather than the more usual acrylic, as I thought it might be nice to make a hamburger seem more delicate and befitting of a ballerina.

A little print and card of her are in the shop.

Finished and in the shop

Ms Mortadella: finished and in the shop. (I must admit that I am quite fond of her!)

And some new mirrors are in the shop too.

Happy 2011!

Happy New Year!

I have been working on a card order for a special customer called Mum. She has ordered quite a few using the Rags to Riches II image, below. As I hadn't made cards using that image before, I decided to add one to the shop as well.

Thanks Mum!

Mortadella

This is my first ever blog post from my "new" Mac. (I have been a PC user both at work and at home for ten years. It has taken me weeks to get it all working, and I am far from used to it yet.) Above: I have also been making this mortadella-like lady for a while, in between other things. I would like to give her a nice belt, in the way that salami often has, but I am too scared to go to the Vic Market for research purposes in case I just buy lots of salami and eat it. I would also be interested to know if anyone thinks that maybe she doesn't actually need the belt.

Above: Hungry cats from a book of Victorian games that I bought at that nice second hand bookshop in Northcote recently.

And a pipe mirror, this time with bonus smoke! Soon it will be finished and in the shop.

Safe and happy holidays to all. See you next year!

Basse Couture, No.1

Above, front. Below, back.
My first (and possibly last) piece of basse couture. (Thank you very much BB and Lambert for correcting my previous attempt at humour in a language I do not actually speak.)

Merry Christmas everyone, and wishing you a wonderful year in 2011! Thank you so much for your support, it makes my heart glow and helps my hands to make more...

Circus Highlights

Girls just wanna have fun? Just a few of the many highlights from Taschen's giant book of the circus. (So giant that I had to photograph rather than scan these, unfortunately.)

See more on Creestal's flickr photostream.

Lino Lady

Photo above by Anna Parry.
Thanks to the lovely Miso (and the equally lovely Tim) my work has been included in the awesome Fit to Print exhibition at No Vacancy. A great part of the exhibition has been a series of printing demonstrations where you can see gocco, screenprinting and linocuts being created in-house. As the latter is the only style of hand printing that I am half capable of, I volunteered to sit in the gallery last Sunday and make a little linocut. It was a fun afternoon, chatting with two young art students called Jess and Peter, gauging away at the lino with tools I hadn't touched in five years and stupidly cutting my finger. I actually gave my lack of expertise away even before I injured myself, but my two companions didn't seem to mind.
A scan of the unfinished and as yet unprinted lady, above. She may be a self portrait. Her ponytail is meant to double as a brush (somewhat Illustrators Australia logo style, oops!). I also don't smoke a pipe or wear a hat, and my head isn't quite THAT big, but never mind. I don't know whether I will ever finish her or print her: I actually quite like her just as she is with all of the gauges showing.

For anyone out there who lives in Melbourne and is interested in linocut printing, or any sort of printing, The Australian Print Workshop on Gertrude Street is highly recommended for its classes and facilities. And gallery, which often has higly covetable work by Aboriginal artists.

Well behaved

I have mostly been behaving myself, stitching another bunch of scarves for the Craft Victoria Shop. In between I have been spending a bit too much time on etsy: now that the interface has been updated to include Facebook-style real time "Activity Feed" showing who has been putting one's items in their favourites and "Your Circle" which shows what selected etsy friends have been putting in their favourites, really there is no reason to ever leave and have a normal non-computer life. Yesterday as I finally logged out (um, I had an appointment to keep), I noticed a very familiar eye half way down the front page, below:



It was a detail of my mark II version of the Lady with the Village on her Head! When I clicked onto it, this is what came up:
Alison Feldmann, AKA TeenAngster, smiling up at my Lady! To say that she made my day is quite an understatement.

For those less familiar with the staff of etsy, Alison is the very cool editor of The Storque, etsy's blog, has her own fantastic blog called TeenAngster, and a bunch of etsy favourites that is always a browsing must.

And for those who are even less familiar with anything to do with etsy, it's simply a huge thing to have your work anywhere on the site's front page, as it means that millions of people could potentially see it.

Thank you thank you thank you TeenAngster Alison.

I FINALLY fixed my saw.

I have cut out an aqua sweater clock with bright orange 'knitted' people.

A hanging tattoo clock with a mother tattoo. (I left the hairs off this time because I always make them look like rain, which would have been even more likely now as it's raining every single day on the tropical isle of Melbourne.)

A Lady with a village on her head mark II: this time she has a dark and mysterious visitor.

And of course the original wooden tattooed sailor who was first shown here.

Yes, I finally found a blade for my scroll saw and cut out the things that I had been working on over the last couple of weeks. They are now all in the shop.

Here's an interview with lil' baby Bro!

Rags to Riches II

I took Thea's advice and opened my giant circus book the other day. It is so full of incredible images that I am beyond words. The photo below of performer Zelda Boden, taken in the 191o's, so intrigued me that I had to do something with it.
I actually painted this picture a couple of weeks ago when my back was at its most sore, and it took a while to get it right. My memory of exactly how and why I connected the headdress to scraps of food packaging has faded. I know that one of my inspirations was the work of the brilliant Rob McHaffie, a Melbourne artist whose work I love, and whose blog I stalk occasionally and write incredibly inane comments. (Intelligence of comment and admiration of work have an inverse relationship as far as I am concerned.)

A print of her is in the shop, by the way.

Little plaits and a pipe

New mirrors in the shop. I love plaits, particularly classic plait wearing characters like Pippi Longstocking and Anne of Green Gables. The comparatively simple pipe design is inspired by one that I found on my favourite blog, Agence Eureka.