ELSEWHERE

A whale of a time

I’ve decided to rename the month of April. I'm going to refer to this month as “AHHH, is there going to be enough time?”. It’s as a result of feeling like I need to work, work, work towards an exhibition deadline and various other work commitments. And as I feel this way, all stressed out around the edges, I feel I need to make a little blog apology to all my dear blogging buddies out there for I've not been around to read about all of your adventures and happenings. I will get there. I'm just a little late.

It seems that socialising and having time to stop and smell the roses (or read blogs) are the fist things to be put aside when the work pile gets too high.

Enough whining about time, or the lack thereof… I’m excited to show you all my new drawings of the Blue, Humpback, Minke, Northern Right and Gray Whales. Are whales not the most gorgeous crusty creatures ever? Well except for those polar bears, and the Fennec foxes, or the striped possum, or any clouded leopard… ok, ok they have a lot of competition… let's just say they are all beautiful.

And here’s what they have been up to…

Medium: watercolour and pencil on Fabriano 640gsm traditional white paper

Dimensions: 18 X 26cm (last four images 9 x 14cm)

A polar bear seeks refuge

It’s the end of daylight savings here in Melbourne, which to me, feels to me like summer has finally drawn to a close. That is if I ignore the unusually hot weather over the past week and a high of 38 degrees Celsius on Friday.

So to celebrate this change in the year and the promise of cooler evenings, I have a few new drawings to share, two of which have made their way up into my blog banner.

The first two are titled A polar bear seeks refuge. I plan to exhibit them as one drawing (over two sheets of paper) as part of Gracia and my forthcoming exhibition at Imp in May.

Another drawing I’m working on at the moment is Humpback whales repairing the icesheet. I’ve fallen in love with Humpback whales at the moment, and the Grey whale is rapidly edging its way into me heart as well. And who can go past those magnificent Blue whales and Perfect whales!

☆ ☆ Top whale fact ☆ ☆
The Grey whale can skyhop for around 30 seconds, with its head emerging 2-3m above the waterline. In shallow lagoons it simply rests its flukes on the seabed. (quote taken from Mammals, Dorling Kindersley Handbook, P.208.)

Medium: watercolour and pencil on Fabriano 640gsm traditional white paper

Dimensions: 18 X 26cm

a new site

Just a little posting to let everyone know that Gracia and I have a brand new... hot off the press web site. Gracia has been up all hours working on the new site. She has been tinkering away from dawn to dusk, and then through the night a fair bit too. I hope everyone loves it as much as I do.

To celebrate I thought I'd post a few more polars with lights...

Also, my new zine is up on our site and on the store, too.

How to… be a little more green

My first zine for 2007 is here. Hot off the press, well, hot off the photocopier to be exact. It’s entitled How to… be a little more green and it consists of 26 (10 x 10cm) pages of green tips and drawings all printed on recycled paper.

Here’s a little preview for you…

I’ve spent most of the weekend guillotining it down along with Gracia’s new zine too (cat’s out of the bag there). So at this very moment a nice big pile of them (it’s an edition of 60) are sitting up on a table drying. Their spines having been very recently glued.

As soon as that glue sets I’ll be able to photograph them and post photos of the full zine.

And what better day than this “green zine day” to announce a new collaborative blog I’m proud to be a small part of. It’s called Sew Green and you can check it out here. Many a talented blogger (Tracy, Ash, Ms. Pea, Lisa S, Cindy, Bugheart, Nichola, Shash, Shari, Hayley and Gracia) can be found there, one or two being very familiar to most of us. Thanks Shash, whose idea this blog was. Thanks Lisa, for the banner artwork.

On a side note, when I was at Officeworks (a very large stationary/office supplies store) the other day I noticed that all their self serve photocopiers only use normal paper stock. To print on recycled stock you have to use one of the machines behind the counter operated by a staff member. I though it would be a good idea for them to run their self serve machines on recycled stock as well, or at the very least on one or two machines… So I phoned them later that day and spoke to somebody in management who thought it was a good idea, and promised to pass it on to HQ. I’m not sure if it will ever happen but it would be cool if it did.

thank-you for all the mail

This is a little thank-you posting, better late than never, to all the very generous friends of Gracia and I, who have recently posted us goodies in the mail.

I was enjoying Lisa's blog the other day and loved her idea of a big thank-you and was inspired to do the same sort of catch up.

Firstly, Crust Station, thank-you for your lovely parcel. What everyone can't see in this photo is the two very cute felt pouches complete with our names embroidered on the fronts, one in aqua and the other in a maroon hue. I'm not sure what special use of my pouch I will make, maybe I will just admire it from day to day until I decide.

Thank-you also to Frips for this oh so cool package of cards, stamps, images, and all round fun. I can't wait to make some works with these pieces. I can spot a Frips parcel from a mile away and they always make me beam with excitement.

Julie, thank-you too for your beautiful wall necklace received a few weeks ago. It's just lovely.

Last but not least, Marieke, you rock. Thank-you for the badges and all your oh so beautiful, oh so generous goodies. Both Gracia and I have worn our badges on several occasions and we just adore them. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to say a proper thank-you, it looks like 2007 is going to be one of those fast moving years, where time just gets away from you.

In between receiving all these fantastic gifts of late, I have also embroidered about six new owl stuffies which are baby friendly, that is, without buttons for eyes. They still have eyes of course, only they are sewn instead. All six of the little guys will be on our shop later in the week.

I've also been working on a new zine, one for my how to series. It's about how to make yourself a little more green, not with paint but with little things like changing over to using accredited green power and keeping a keeping a bucket under your shower to collect excess water which you can later put out onto your garden. I'll hopefully be able to show that to you all later this week as well.

One last thank-you, this time to g for making up these five polaroids for me.