New Font! New Year!

The Bottom Drawer

This week Jackie Hosking challenged illustrators to "Dress her poems". I have been so wrapped up in the day job that I needed something to get me back into my own work. This was a lot of fun and just what I needed.

You can check out her poems and the other illustrations here

Paper Weddings!

Jannah, the bride                                     Zoe (her sister) and me!

So... apparently at the age of 19, I said to my good friend Jannah: "If you don't let me make your wedding dress, I will be very very cross!" It was back in the days when I was studying Fashion Design and we never planned anything. We would wake up in the morning, discover there was a party that night and spend the day whipping up costumes. I was notorious for sewing my friends into costumes and then cutting them out of them again at the end of the night because I hated sewing in zippers or doing button holes....but we always had enormous fun! I remember making my friend Emil a purple cloak out of a heavy curtain for his 21st and then there was the New Years Eve Tara (my sister), our friend Zoe and I ran all over town wearing mini pvc skirts and corsets....

So 15 years later Jannah rings me up and says "Make my wedding dress! And make it out of paper!!" So while she's saying keep in simple, just wrap me up on the day, my brain went into overdrive. I recruited four of my friends to the project and we spent three weeks pleating newspaper. This cause huge amusement in the art centre where I work. All the ladies with raised eyebrows gave me that look they regularly do that says,  "Claire's rama rama!" (gone crazy!) 

And then the day arrived... Jannah and Damo had met on the festival circuit so the whole night was full of fun and drama. Lots of our friends we grew up with were there and it was just like when we were teenagers again. Jannah was so busy running around getting the venue ready, putting all the finishing touches in place at the last minute (in true festival fashion!), she didn't get into her dress till half an hour before it started. I still didn't know if it would work!! So there we were, cutting and pasting and sticky and folding like mad...and then it was done...and the show went on!

Day 8 Artist Retreat - Cockroach Medicine

Day 7 Artist Retreat - Chloe

 

For my desert friend Chloe whose birthday and hen's party is today xoxo

Day 5 Artist Retreat - Cockroaches... cockroaches...

An idea in the making.....

Sometimes I think about things for too long...too scared it wont turn out right...sometimes you just got to dive in and go for it. 

Day 4 Artist Retreat - Train Detective

When we were kids we would play car detective. We would climb onto the roof of the house and watch the street, our notebooks in hand. We would record every car that drove up and down the street and all the important details to go with it - car rego, colour, what direction, who was driving etc....just in case a crime was later committed on the street and we could pass our findings onto the police. Possibly we had been reading too many Famous Five books! 

So today with a 2 hour round trip on the train to visit my grandmother I played Train Detective. I was only caught once by a tight-lipped mother who glared at me, grabbed her daughter and moved seats. I actually wanted to offer the girl some paper and pen so she could play too. 

The moustache man is for my friend Sassy who made this little handmade notebook for me. She is always giving them to me but they are so beautiful I am afraid to draw in them. She has told me off severely so I can now tell her I am busy drawing in her books. This one has moustaches all over the cover.

Day 3 Artists Retreat - Deep within the Forest

The cockatoo came and tried to engage me in conversation today. It is possible he was just looking for "George" (my dad's very life-like pottery kingfisher he's friends with). But either way, he was very keen I pay attention to him...but that's cockatoos for you!

Eventually... I just went outside and collected leaves along the beck...all because on my troll through the mornings emails I discovered that Creative Kids Tales have a new competition called "Deep within the Forest". Competition doesn't close till September (if you're interested) so I've got time to develop my idea. But as I feel like I AM currently "deep within the forest", the inspiration was there.

http://www.creativekidstales.com.au/competitions/ckts-competitions

Day 2 Artists Retreat - They Draw and Cook "Avocado MOOOOSE!"

Woke up with the sun. Enough lolling around! Could see the sea peaking at me through the trees.Went for a run and a hop and a skip (none of which I am particularly skilled at) and jumped on a passing train in search of avocados and art supplies.

Check out the recipe and more at They Draw and Cook

Day 1 Artists Retreat - Illustration Friday "Sharp"

It is holiday time and I have taken up residency in my dad's house while he is away in Belgium. He lives in amongst the trees where solitude is found. He has stocked the fridge full of all my favourites - brie and strawberries and other delicacies. It is cold... a very different kind of cold from the sunny winter of the desert. In the morning I lay sleeping late under piles of doonas and the electric blanket. Now, mid-afternoon it already seems to be getting dark and the doona and I have moved to the couch where we are surround by paper and scribbles. This will be I think the pattern of my days. Waking and dreaming, creating and reading and watching the birds through the big glass windows that circle the house. 

The 8 Day Bug Challenge! - Day 8! Shield Bug

The 8 Day Bug Challenge! - Day 7 Earwig

We've been on the road so posting two in a row today.

The 8 Day Bug Challenge! - Day 6 Crane Fly

The 8 Day Bug Challenge! - Day 5 Butterfly

8 Day Bug Challenge! - Day 4 Centipede

The 8 Day Bug Challenge! - Day 3 Caterpillar

It should be noted at this point that this challenge was also inspired by the boys book "How to draw Brilliant Bugs" by Lisa Regan and Steve Roberts which we found on a rare occasion of tidying their bedroom. Jonah (7), who likes to do things just right has insisted we start at the start and do a page a day. On Friday night Hugo's friend Apira stayed overnight and happily joined in the morning activity. The kids are great to draw with because unlike me who is agonising about getting it "right", the boys draw with total freedom and confidence. Hugo and Apira were so disinterested in the instructions that they turned their noses up at drawing the ladybugs but excitedly drew caterpillars. And no...they did not need to look at the book...they knew perfectly well what caterpillars look like!

The 8 day Bug Challenge! - Day 2 Ladybug

The 8 day Bug Challenge! - Day 1 Snail

Don't get all excited you avid bloggers! Outside our house (as far as I know!) there is no such thing as the bug challenge. Hugo (5) and Jonah (7) are counting the days till they see their Dad and they are thinking of fun things to do to make the time go quickly. Today the Bug Challenge began! So if you are afraid of creepy crawlies beware!!!

The Noise Men

For my Dad and his best mate Chrisjohnn who are putting together 

a new street show for a festival in Belgium later in the year.

52 Week Challenge: Week 5 - Kitchen

My favourite place in my house is my kitchen. It is often said that no one has ever seen the kitchen bench because it is always covered with food being prepared or eaten. In the desert there are many foods we can't get, so its a place I experiment. My friends sit at the wide kitchen bench and we make ice-cream and meringues and fancy cakes and fresh bread and pizzas and whatever we have been dreaming about but can't be found for thousands of kilometres. I have been away from the desert for nearly two months. When I returned last Thursday I was feeling a little unsure and slightly scared about the year ahead. I decided...what I really needed to do...was to "cook up some happiness"....and so I did. 

It should also be noted that I had no idea (until I was finished) that this weeks challenge word was "kitchen".

They Draw and Cook & Illustration Friday - PASSION

I'm multi-tasking this week. I've been looking for inspiration to submit to They Draw and Cook and this week when I saw the Illustration Friday theme I knew exactly what to do for both. 

Ayers Rock...which for most people is one of the great tourist destinations of the world (and it is AMAZING!!) is where we go (as I'm sure I've mentioned before) if we need to get out of the desert for the weekend. Its got pools and restaurants, post office, bank, a supermarket(!) ....and.... if we really feel like spoiling ourselves, we go for cocktails at the Sails in Dessert Bar and then go into the restaurant to the all you can eat dessert bar. They have little ramekins with mini-cheese cakes and black forest cake and all sorts. But my favourite is the bush lime panna cotta. We were told once that if we ate all of them that they never replace them with the same dessert but bring out something different. Although we've tried, we've never proven this! We justify all this by telling the waiters we are researching so we can go home and make their desserts better than they can! After all, cooking and eating foods that aren't available in our little tiny food shop in remote Australia is one of our main sources of entertainment. 

I've been visiting my dad for the last month in Sydney and passion fruits are a plenty, so this is the dessert and illustration(!) for the week. 

Check out the recipe on They Draw and Cook.

Dot-to-dot with Hugo (4yrs)

52 Week Challenge Week 2 - Italy

My mum used to quote this old poem, something she learnt in school.

Illustration Friday - Nefarious

People I know...

52 Week Challenge - Week 1 Fairy Tale

I make no promises but like all good New Years Resolutions I start positively! If you want to join the game, click the 52 week challenge icon for all the weekly themes and guidlines or just to check out what other artists are up to this week.