ELSEWHERE

festivities

Dearest Blogging chums,
 
Be it a few days holiday ahead of you or a few weeks, I hope they are blissful. If there are roasted vegetables on your table, I hope they are crispy and delicious. If your bbq is warming up, I hope the gas bottle is full and the nearby beer chilled to perfection. If it is beginning to snow, I hope you get to enjoy its beauty. If the sun is shinning, I hope you get to bask in it a little. In short may I wish you all a joyful festive season.
 
I will be taking a short blogging break. While I am gone I hope you enjoy this little owl drawing. He’s based on one recently exhibited at Craft Victoria and who is now in the hands of the very lovely Ramona.
 
I will return sometime in the New Year with a lithographic offset edition of this drawing. I hope to print it early January and then to handcolour the editions ready to show you.
 
Thank-you all for your interest and friendship throughout 2009; it means the world to me.
 
xo lj

This is for you

As the end of the year draws ever closer Gracia and I felt the desire to send out a little thank-you festive image. It's a thank-you for your friendship and support. It can be viewed on screen or upon cotton paper fed through your home inkjet printer or, if you're really nifty, upon a t-shirt front. Hope you enjoy. Merry festive season.

Image and printing details
A day unlike the previous.
Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison
2009

To print on an A5 (210X148mm) piece of paper (or larger, if desired).
(Please sing out should any difficulties arise.)

>>> Download our print (1.5MB)

Last look

Looking back is not something I often do. I am more in the present or zooming ahead. I am thinking about next year, about 2010, about a summer dedicated to reading. Before I get to my Christmas feasting and lazy summer days that follow, here is one last look at G and my recent show at CV. Feels so long ago now, and, well, it is. We took it down in the last days of November.

On the walls you can see our collaborative drawings and various framed pieces. You can see G's familiar postcard collages too. I wonder what we will make next. Zines to begin with. Yeah, they are a good friendly place to begin. There is nothing daunting about making a zine.

If I had pockets lined with gold, I'd make many, many zines. All on various topics.

Here's to new things next.

Drawings housed

Before Christmas arrives and the year is done and dusted, here is a look in closer detail at a recent artists' book of mine. It is housed in a balsa wood slipcase I made, that matches the one that houses a book made in collaboration with G. It holds twelve drawings, ones you have seen here throughout the year, and it holds them snug. Tied up with ribbon for extra measure.

I have enjoyed sharing these details with you and I have no idea what the New Year will bring, what I will be drawing next and finding inspiring. It is an exciting and odd feeling.

One more thing before I go, our zines arrive in Finland. So happy you like them, Ritva.

Returning now to my daydreams, last night I saw Jane Campion's new film Bright Star, and scenes of bluebells, butterflies and snow are swirling in my mind.

Hope you are keeping well.

Post

The gaps between posts here seem to be getting larger rather than smaller and with Christmas fast approaching it seems it will stay that way. Perhaps in the New Year I will shake up how I do things in this space. What do you think? I have had this blog space for almost four years now. Four years? Yes, four years... not that I delve all that often into the archives. Sometimes I think a swift edit is in order. Somehow, though, I never get around to this.

Sometimes I think I will close my blog indefinitely but this feeling doesn't last all that long. I enjoy posting here, when I find the time, and I enjoy visiting your blogs too. Sweet snail mail from Camilla recently arrived, addressed to G and me, and it made me realise how much I'd miss this blogging community where I to stop. Two prints she posted our way, a thank you for a zine order we had posted to her. They came encased in a handmade envelope decorated with botanical illustrations and we kept it on the bookshelf for a spell before opening it. We waited until we needed the perfect pick-me-up.

You can see more of her work here.

Thanks Camilla. XO

A parcel of penguins, all white in the heat

Long ago, (before I disappeared on unplanned blog hiatus) I made a parcel of white penguins especially for Craft Victoria’s annual coloured Christmas and promised to share them with you here. Well, here they are for you. At long last. Taken sometime ago now and delivered a little while ago too, I thought you would get a kick out of this white grouping. With a Japanese waffle fabric on the front and various patterned fabrics on the reverse, they have coloured felt feet and puffy wings. Some, as you can see, sport bowties. Others have ivory beads on their tummies. They even have a little brocaded ribbon atop their heads so you can hang them at liberty from Christmas tree or festive branch.

Back soon with many more photos from recent days to share and news of a blog giveaway. It's an exciting giveaway. One worth popping back for, I promise.