primitive

My Illustration Friday attempt for primitive.

There's something I find incredibly reassuring about the fact there are tribes of communities still living traditional primitive lives, in this fast, modern, complex world. Whenever you see photo's or footage of them, they always seem joyful.

This is a woman from a tribe in Papua New Guinea.

getting on with it

Mr You has pointed out that I should stop moping on about myself... I didn't realise I was, but after reviewing my last few posts I think he's right. I apologise for being such a sook. I think I "de-railed" after the exhibition opening (where my Rosa painting was), and have had trouble getting back on since then.

...but that happens from time to time.

Thank-you all for your kind words. It's amazing to have such great support from distant friends.

Now I shall shut-up and get on with it.

Much love,
flossy-p .xx.

latest discovery

This is: "my latest discovery"

Each week I discover new artists that make me weep, both with the beauty of their art, and also with envy and feelings of my own inadequacy that comes with it. Every now and then I'll discover one that blows me away! My latest of these discoveries is Bailey Saliwanchik from NY.

I ADORE all of her work. All of it! I wish I was her.

a plea for advice

Hi, we've had friends visiting! :) It's been so fun; we had lots of beach time, swimming, playing cricket on the beach, going for long walks, racing our sunglasses as they sailed along the sand in strong wind, picnics, and even a trip to the circus! Have I mentioned how fun it was?

Now my office/studio room has morphed back to it's old self after doubling as a guest room. I'm catching up, and thinking about what's next...


For a while now my Etsy store has been a dark cave of inactivity. There's just nothing happening there, and it's so disheartening watching my items expire, my cupboards are filling with unwanted stuff. So I'm asking your advice:

Do you have an Etsy store? What have you learnt? How do you make it work? What do people like buying? Are you an Etsy shopper? What do you look for? How do you find the items you buy? Do you have a budget when you set out to shop?

I've tried listing one item a day or week to try and keep further up in the listings, but eventually I run out of things to list, and sink further and further down the lists. I'm about to have some new prints made to freshen things up a bit, and am also thinking of cards maybe???

I don't know... What advice would you give me?
If you were me, what would you do?

6 for dinner

This is: "my perfect dinner party guest list"
You are of course hosting this dinner party with your significant other and you can invite 6 other guests.. All we would love to see is your choice (images please) and your reason why you chose that particular person.
This week's "this is" meme theme was thought up by Lily and Agathe.

This one is hard, like one of those scary job interview questions that reveal more about your psyche than you realise. Oh, it's hard, I don't know...

I can't just list my friends from Sydney can I? I really miss them all, and each weekend all I really want to do is to be able to sit around a table with them all, laughing and hanging out.

Oh! What about blog friends I've never met before? That'd be fun...

No? Okay... Um...

Alright, here we go...



Starting from the left:
1. An attentive Johnny Depp. Notice my seat is empty at the head of the table as I'm taking the photo, but quite clearly I'd be sitting next to him.
2. David Bowie would be invited because I've always loved his music, I think he's an innovator, he's constantly pushing his artistic boundaries even now, and he seems down to earth with a good sense of humour, and likes to laugh.
3. Another Johnny Depp. Hey! It's my party I can invite who I like! Okay!? I was going to invite him all 6 times, but decided that would be too telling.
4. Frida Kahlo (standing up at the back). She's coming because she's awsome. I'd like to pick her brain about her art processes, oh, and also borrow her clothes :)
5. Elvis is there for Mr You (who's currently popped inside to get some more glasses). We like him because he's cheeky, funny, and sounds nice.
6. Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeah's... um, well I just think she can turn any situation into the best fun time ever. So obviously she'd be a great dinner guest to keep the vibe fun and entertaining.

And you'll notice we're having bread and cheese and olives and salad with red wine and maybe some rosé too... We have to, that's just what you do when you're dining outside under a grape vine at a villa in Tuscany!

swap surprise

So we went along to the exhibition opening last night, and today I am feeling embarrassed. I am ashamed to say I underestimated the quality of work that would be in the show... basically it was excellent. I assumed being a local open submission show I'd be fine, but the quality of the other works put me to SHAME. So today I'm feeling pretty low.

Tossing up whether to crawl back into bed, or lock myself away in a room with art materials until I come up with something good...


Fortunately a lovely surprise package arrived to lift my spirits! Last year I put on a little ATC swap. I got some wonderful things from some talented folk in return for my tiny ladies. Meanwhile I had completely forgotten about it, and then, out of the blue, THIS arrives!
It's a postponed swap from Johanna of Just Johanna fame! It had a sweet card, a cheery picnic-bird ATC, and a bonus prize set of her self-designed stamps! There's a few birds to match my blog header :), the cutest owl, a hot air balloon, and a stamp that says "friend". How cool are they?!

Thanks SO much Johanna. This is a great package, and it was soooo nice getting it as such a surprise.
(And thankfully we have a mail redirection, and she knows my real name, otherwise it would have gone to our old house in Sydney - phew)

I love surprises! :D

rosa

It may seem, from the lack of illustrations on this blog for the past few weeks, that I haven't been doing any. In fact that's pretty much all I've been doing. I have been working on a new commission (will show you that after it has arrived to it's new owner). This week marked the end of some courses I've been taking; a portrait class, and also going on with my life drawing classes... Getting back to the fundamentals. It's good practice, and no matter how much of it I do, it's always challenging.

I find when I focus on classic drawing skills, my work naturally sways that way for a while.

Some of you may recall when I started this painting. Every now and then I get a big urge to paint a canvas. I started this, and then before it was completed I signed up to enter it into a local art show. The show opens tonight, and I only just finished the painting in time. (Those hands had me beat!). I entered it into the show in a hope that someone would buy it (because I don't have enough space to start keeping canvases like this).

It's called Rosa. I named it that because the inspiration for the painting was Picasso's rose period works. (PLEASE don't even try to compare them). I love the way he uses black outline on his figures (something you're often told NOT to do), and the bold background colours. Sadly, no matter how often I try I always overwork my paintings and lose that beautiful rough, simplified quality he has in his figures and paint application. I need to practice deconstructing the figure a bit more... and setting a time limit of the work so that I speed up the process and keep a roughness to it.

So while it's clear that I'm certainly no Picasso, it's been a good exercise. I look forward to the day when one of my paintings comes out the way I'd intended it to in the beginning... though I've got a fair way to go yet.