casing the joint

As if I wasn't spoilt enought last week Mr You got me my very first digital camera for my birthday (before that I had been using his). It's sooooo cool and the perfect size to carry around in my bag, exactly what I have wanted for ages. Spoilt!!!

Then, just by chance, some other gear I'd had on order arrived last week too. It's all very exciting at my house, so many new toys to play with. One of them is a scanner. Some of you may know I've been researching different types for ages now and I eventually decided on one. Thank-you to those who patiently answered my questions about the various scanners you use, much more helpful than the nonchalant sale assistants, I can assure you.

Anyway, hopefully this new stuff will help me in the process of having some of my illo's printed. I did a test run today on some thank-you cards I have made to send to the friends who came to my party. Ironically the 'thank-you's' are in the style of my 'sorry' illo from last week. I'm sure they'll get a kick out of them considering how much hillarity the original photo created.

I don't have any experience with printing, so if anyone has tips on printing watercolours please bring lay 'em on me. Especially the issue of printing paper texture; do you print the paper texture onto smooth stock, or textured stock? Does printed texture on top of paper texture look weird? Also, I'm getting slight shadows on the edges of of my scans from where the paper has wrinkled a bit (no matter how much I press or iron the paper flat first). Ideally I'd love to print back out on textured paper, I guess I just have to do some tests.

spazzy disproportions and twigs

	I had such a spazzy time at life drawing classes the week before last. So spazzy in fact that I scrunched up most of the drawings I did. Sorry to Amanda, the model, who did nothing to deserve the terrible disproportions in my depictions of her. One of the few surviving drawings that made it to the 'like pile' ended up being a blind contour attempt, (I like her butt in this).
	This week we had to draw with tree twigs dipped in ink. It was tricky, as I was holding the twig up to the paper the ink kept running back down the twig onto my hand. It got very messy but I ended up really liking the results.
	Still not great at hands, but getting better at feet.
	Mr You became very frustrated and cranky with the twig technique and thought his drawings were all bad, so I've posted one here to prove to him that it is actually really cool. (new eyes, new setting, always does wonders. Just wait till I stick it in a frame!)

pink books

You know how nice it feels when friends and family give you gifts that you really like? Gifts that they give with you in mind that capture your tastes and interests and surprise you with the intimacy of their knowledge of you.

My friends and family amaze me with how spot-on their gifts to me were. Among all of the really great things I was given some very cool books.

Handbags book, a paper lantern journal, ‘A life by design’ and Mum got me a ‘Book Of Birthdays”. The Book Of Birthdays is quite unique, I’ve never really seen anything like it before. It’s filled with lovely old fashioned illustrations accompanied with quotes, proverbs, facts, recipes, excerpts from books and journals all relating to birthdays, plus many interesting tid-bits about the history of birthday rituals.

For example, did you know that in the eighteenth century a peasant woman from Russia gave birth to sixty-nine children, consisting of sixteen sets of twins, seven sets of triplets, and four sets of quadruplets???!!!!

Or that it was the Egyptians who are responsible for the custom of celebrating birthdays, but it was the Greeks who added cake to the ritual. The writer Philochorus noted that followers of Artemis, goddess of the Moon and the hunt, commemorated her birthday on the sixth day of each month by making a cake of flour and honey. Her cakes were also adorned with candles, which represented the moonlight and her radiance.

…just in time to give me some ideas for this week’s illo topic “cake”.

sorry

My Illustration Friday attempt for "sorry".

If you're looking at this thinking "Pfff. Dag-gy" than you've got it in one!
This illustration represents 'sorry' in more ways than one. But there's a story...

One of the best presents I was given for my birthday this week was a photo album Sister Sparkle made me containing all photo's of her and I since we were little. It is really special and I LOVE it. The 'sorry' part comes in to the story with the fact that she gave it to me at the party, so all my friends got stuck in and had a good look. We all laughed at the photo's together, but there was one that had them all ROLLING IN THE AISLES!!!

It was a photo of Sister Sparkle and I dressed in bridesmaid dresses for my Dad and step-mum's wedding. The photo's of my Duran Duran hair, or all-in-one pant suits, or little black bikini at the age of 8 had them chuckling, BUT THIS had them all in hysterics.
They crowded around this photo. They took photo's of this photo, and they even suggested having a pianting competition to see who could paint a portrait of this photo the best! (so here's one to get you started!)

1) Very very sorry my friends ever saw this photo

2) Very very sorry we ever had to wear these dresses

If you were joking about a bridesmaid dress, most people would accentuate the horrid features. THESE dresses had them all:
- Taffetta (and loads of it)
- Apricot in colour
- Gaint puffy sleaves (that didn't have anything inside, they were just magically self-inflating)
- Hoop hem (impossible to go to the loo in)
- Giant bow on the back
- Hundreds of tiny buttons
- and princess waist line

3) Very Very sorry all of the tackiest features of a dress were crammed into one feature-packed design! (set off nicely with carnations and babies breath bouquet, and white high heeled shoes) All class I tell you.

it's official

This past weekend I managed to tick number 6 off my New Years resolutions list; Throw myself a giant birthday party! (Which is why I’ve been absent for so long and missed last week’s illo. Not that it was so giant and "rock-star" that it lasted an entire week, but there were many preparations to be sorted).

Saturday night I threw a 20’s send-off party. A hoedown to be precise, a hootenanny to end them all, it was the best by far the most fun birthday I’ve ever had.

It started with a bunch of my closest friends coming to our house for a champagne reception around an outdoor fire in the backyard. Then we all climbed into a little bus I had chartered and were driven to a winery in the countryside about an hour away. We were greeted by pungent country smells, wide open space, billions of stars and some members of my family, and were soon all enjoying a wine tasting. From there we walked down the lane to the woolshed (with open fireplaces) where we had a yummy 3 course meal to the sounds of a live bushband. We ate cake that my mum made and decorated to match the theme (and some peoples outfits) of the night. I love cake! The night climaxed with an all-in bush dance! It had us all thigh slappin’, partner swingen’, do-si-do, and toe tappin’ the night away. I haven’t had so much rootin’tootin’ silly, high spirited fun in ages. I’m still buzzing.

Today is my actual birthday, and I am now officially 30 years old. So far it’s not too bad at all. Mr You made me a big cooked breakfast, at work my boss bought me a lovely pot plant and there was another birthday cake. I then had the afternoon off to spend pottering around the city with Mr You. We tried to go to an art gallery but it was closed, so we ended up on a touristy harbour cruise which made us feel like we’d gone travelling for the day.
Just had Portuguese for dinner and came home to a bunch of flowers waiting on the doorstep, sent from my Dad who is in Ireland.

I was given so many lovely cards and wonderful gifts, I’m still beaming. I’ll endeavour to share some of them with you soon. For now I’m off to enjoy the last few hours of a day that has whizzed by far too quickly. Good night.

it's all got to go

On Sunday I went to help my friend Ria at a market stall. She's planning on going travelling soon and was trying to get rid of lots of her stuff while making a bit of money at the same time. She has a very cool job as an 'art buyer' for TV shows and films. In other words she gets to talk to the set designers about what they have in mind for their sets, and then she goes driving around town from shops, to prop houses to second hand stores to auctions, buying all sorts of things for them.

Over the years she has collected heaps of amazing things for herself, for 'just in case', and at the end of jobs. Her house is filled with amazing 50's style furniture and an aray of curiosities. But the time had come to get rid of the stuff she no longer needed. It took alot of strength.

I had had my eye on this candle holder for a while, so she gave it to me as an early birthday present, I also nabbed a great red fabric lamp, a spotty shirt and some cool fabric, and that was all before we even got to the markets.

The candle holder is painted terracotta, I think it looks Mexican although I never been there so I don't really know. I love the things I see that people bring back from Mexico (my friend Henna has a set of cool dioramas all made inside coke and tuna cans, and some amazing chunky jewellery). Because we're so far away we don't really get any of it here, so when I see it I get very excited.
I really really want to go to Mexico! (one day)

Anyway, we had a really fun day playing shop at out little market stand. All the dealers came rushing over when they saw Ria (she's only done the markets twice before but they know they're in for a treat when she comes). We spent the day chatting, people watching and drinking hot tea. I ended up making about $100 selling some of my old junk, but Ria made heaps! So it was fun and a success, not to mention a really nice way of spending time with a dear friend who may be going away for a long time.

sketches

This week Amy asked me about my preparatory sketches for the 'fat' illustration, so here they are. I'm afraid I'm not very professional when it comes to planning. The composition and style usually comes together in my head and then I sketch out a few poses, mainly to see if I'm capable of pulling it off. I then draw onto the paper, rub it out and re-draw it about 10 times, then when I get completely frustrated and lose patience I just take the plunge and draw it in pen.

The fat headed lady was done in pigma pen and coloured pencil. The paper is some old recycled letter writing paper (not very sturdy, which is why I didn't attempt to paint on it).

I should probably spend more time sketching, that way I wouldn't keep drawing the damn hands backwards! Did you notice? I hope not. Mr You was kind enough to tell me that it suited her strange body shape.

Anyway, you'll be glad to know that I intend to remedy these anatomy issues. Mr You and I have started a life drawing course. It's only the first week in and considering neither of us have done it in over 10 years we're a little rusty. We're not used to standing up for two and a half hours, but it was good fun.