half hearted love heart

Here's the Valentine's Day love heart. It actually looks much better with only half the lines. I'm gonna muck around later with text but that might make it too busy. We'll see... xxxx

Getting ready for Valentines Day

Everyone's getting ready for Valentines Day, so I guess I should too. Here's an image I did ages ago, and I'm in the middle of doing a similar one in the shape of a love heart. As all the lines are drawn individually it will take a while to finish - bit I'm halfway through. It's relaxing to make - like doing needle work or sewing. I'll post it when it's finished. xxxx

Katja Mater, Grijs and Any Gven Name

I just saw the most beautiful images over at Grijs, an equally beautiful blog. They were done by Katja Mater, an artist from the Netherlands. I looked all through her website and decided to post the above work, but everything there is really impressive. They were originally found via Any Given Name, a contemporary art blog well worth looking at too. Wow - that's three links in one post! xxxx

Art Nouveau Post-Cards

This morning I popped into Gertrude and Alice, a second hand bookshop, and got a cute book called 'Art Nouveau Post-Cards' that was published in 1977, (by Images Graphiques, New York). These scanned images prompted me to buy the book. They're by Raphael Kirchner (1876 - 1917), a prolific designer and artist of the period. It's suspected that much of the work thought to be done by him was actually done (or at least assisted) by his wife, who was also his model. You can find out more about him, and see some of his paintings here. xxxx

Yuko Murata and Gallery Side 2 Japan

I love the paintings of Japanese artist Yuko Murata. I was looking for information on her on the net, and surprisingly there's not that much around, so I scanned these (above images) from the book Drop Dead Cute. You can see some of her images at the website of Gallery Side 2 who also exhibit two other artist I love, Sylvie Fleury, (below, left) and Yasuko Watanabe (below right). Images from the Side 2 website. xxxx

Owl Drawing

I just worked all weekend. Working as a newspaper graphic-artist can be a bit like working as a fireman. Sometimes you have to sit around waiting for the action to happen. Yesterday was really busy and I didn't have time to look sideways. Today, however, things were completely dead. I only had to do one, tiny job, so spent half the day doing this owl (above) in Illustrator, and the other half of the day looking around on Etsy. I found these really cute kids and babies recycled t-shirts. xxxx

Artist links and buttons!

My friend Marisa and I are always sending each other links to artists we like. She just sent me the link to Mel Kadel, who shows at Richard Heller gallery in California. Below is an image which I got from her website. And I popped past Marisa's studio today and she had these great vintage buttons on the wall (above). xxxx

Cross Stitched Alphabet

For the last couple of days I've been using my spare moments to make the alphabet out of squares and crosses so it looks like cross-stitching, and then made these little digital doilies (below) while I was watching television. Click to enlarge. xxxx

Op Shopping online

Aesthetic Outburst is one of my favourite blogs that I read, and How Now Design is the Etsy shop attatched it. She sells her own designs there, as well as really great vintage stuff. That's where I purchased this cute tambourine. I got it in the post yesterday afternoon. It's so cute! xxxx

Type Tuesday 22nd Jan 08

Stephanie DeArmond is an American ceramicist working with typography and word-play, often using traditionally crafted letters to convey sinister, contemporary messages. You can see more of her work at Shop Standing Up. Images from Stephane DeArmond's website. Click the image to enlarge. xxxx

Plushies gone wrong!

I laughed so much when I saw these. They're done by artist Noel Middleton, a Toronto based artist. I got the images via his website, but first found about him via Bezembinder Illustrated links. xxxx

Talking flowers

Quick Friday afternoon collage - done in 3D and illustrator. xxxx

Antique looking keyboard by Steampunk

I found this amazing antique looking keyboard at Street Tech, a DIY electronics site that displays lots of interesting projects. Anyway, the keyboard was done by Steampunk. If you have a look at the site it shows you the obsessive steps that were taken to handcraft the finished product. I've included a couple of images below, but it's worth looking at the original article. (All images from Steampunk). xxxx

Pixelgarten

Pixelgarten does fantastic stuff. They were art school trained, and do their own art projects, as well as really cool art-direction, like the cover design for the book Tactile, published for Die Gestalten Publishing. I got the above images from the Pixelgarten website, and the bottom image from Shift, where you can read an interview about them. xxxx

Wonderland the blog

My friend who had the most beautiful kids shop called 'Wonderland' in Sydney, now has Wonderland the blog, otherwise known as Our Little Wonderland. It's full of posts about amazing kids things. All the images shown above came from her blog. My favourite link from her so far is from Hut Up in Berlin, who did those felt jackets above. I'll post more stuff from them later. xxxx

Objects from the National Museum of Australia

One of Johnny's sculptures is going into the Museum collection (might post pics later). When they came to pick it up they gave us a catalogue called Captivating & Curious. Here's some cute things I found in it's pages: a hand painted dress and a pram from the 1930's. I decided to choose children's images because ......... I'll tell you next post. Images scanned from the book. xxxx

Twiggy

I did a drawing of Twiggy this afternoon to make into another badge, and I put her beside two other existing badges I've made. They don't resemble anyone I know or know of - they're just random drawings. xxxx

Op Shopping

Here's a dress I saw in the window of an Op shop and didn't get, but kind of wish I did. I love the lace up boots on the girls. Click the image to see the detail. xxxx

Badges on Etsy

I just popped these badges on Etsy. There's lots more I've made - I just have to find the time to photograph and upload them. Slowly, slowly..... xxxx

Type Tuesday, 8th Jan 2008

I'm not going to do Type Tuesday every week this year. I think now it will become 'Type every other Tuesday'. It's been good to have to find stuff to post on a weekly basis - but I think once a fortnight will be enough to satisfy my curiosity for indie alphabet projects.

Anyway - I've seen these above images on a couple of places in blogsphere, but had to post them here cause I love them so much. It's a college project done by the University College of the Arts, Konstfack, Stockholm, where the students dressed up as alphabet letters and then had a football game. You can see a video of it all here at RGB6, where I got the images. Click to enlarge the above image. xxxx

Op Shopping & Elmo

Just a couple of days after I got Lukas an Elmo toy I found a massive one for a third of the price at the local Op shop. I love Elmo!! xxxx

Derek Stroup

I found Derek Stroup's stuff via Reference Library. There's more cool stuff on his webiste which is where I got the images. xxxx

Zebra drawing

I did a drawing of a zebra at work today and then added some squiggles around it when I got home. Zebra's are definitely not just black and white. I was looking closely at the photo and there's beautiful browns and greys on a zebra's coat too. I categorised it under television doodling, even though I did it at work cause it reminds me of the type of drawing I'd do in front of the television. xxxx

Le Grand Crew

Le Grand Crew left the above teaser on Bezembinder Illustrated Links. So I went to their website and found heaps of exciting stuff. Below are some artworks by two of my favourite of the crew members, Anne Marie van den Berg and Sabrina Deisler . They have a guest section too which is worth checking out. Images from Bezembinder Illustrated Links and the Le Grand Crew websites. xxxx