Zinefest Octopus part III & IV

My final two illustrations for Presence Zine's Auckland Zinefest spotlight.

The lower one is reading 'Incredibly hot sex with hideous sea creatures' a play on the long standing Wellington zine 'Incredibly hot sex with hideous people'.

P.B. & Celery

I finally got around to illustrating my short poem 'Mr. Celery', which I wrote some years ago on a sleepless night in a windowless room in Edinburgh. 

His debut will be at the AKL zinefest, the 27th of July in St Kevin's arcade. 

This painting didn't make it into the zine, wrong orientation.

Octo-zine Part II

Here's my 2nd zine themed octopi for Presence Zine's Q & A with the AKL zinefest stall holders.
It's a bit too small to see but she's making a zine about why you should never date a hermit crab. More fun with limited colour palettes.
Read the A's to the Q's here

In todays mail...

Finally got my hands on a copy of the first issue of Diverse City, with my cover design and winter themed illustration. It also features an interview with me by the editor, Tina Helm. Got a bit of a blush on in the photo, hah, photo shoots are weird. 

Info about how you can order a (free) copy here.

Wolf in (designer) sheep's clothing

This illustration accompanies a great article about "the sad state of fashion blogs today – controlled and curated by designers yet presented as if they are the efforts of, and accessible to, the girl-next-door". You can read it here

Special agent

My final announcement for tonight is that I am now represented by the Sandra Morris Illustration Agency and if you want proof you can look here. My real last name is Watson, I've been lying to you all this time.
And if you want to employ me to work on a children's book please contact them! But if you want to employ me for any other jobs email me at sophieoiseau (at) gmail (dot) com.

My 'Presence'

I was asked by Presence magazine to do some octopi-zine themed illustrations, how can I resist?

Here's the first one, finished this afternoon and due to the lightning quick nature of the internet it is already online as you can see here 

                                        and here

                                             I

                                             I

                                            V

Q & A with Vanguard Red

I forgot all about this, but here's a quick Q & A with the lovely folks at Vanguardred.

http://vanguardredmagazine.co.nz/five-questions-with-chromacon-exhibitor-sophie-oiseau/ 

Alphabet

Well I forgot to mention the opening of Alphabet, but it is now up and you an see it until the 13th of July. You can buy an individual letter of a limited edition boxed set of cards, if you so fancy.

Fair wares

Here's some pics of my stall at the Auckland Art & Craft fair, it was a pretty good day! 

I'm slowly putting these wares on some online marketplaces, as I mentioned last time, I have an etsy store now so eventually things you see here will apear there.

To market to market...

Just a reminder that the Auckland Art and Craft Fair is THIS SATURDAY, the 29th of June from 11am to 3pm at the Aotea Centre, Auckland Central and it only takes a gold coin to gain entrance. I'll have some new prints, postcards and greeting cards and hopefully a couple of zines too. Come say hi!

ALSO, I'm going to have a spot at the Auckland Zinefest where I will definitely have some zines and some other thingos AND my talented sister Sara is going to read some of her short stories, so now you have two reasons to come.

AND I'm slowly working on my Etsy store, so recluses and international friends don't have to miss out. That can be found here.

And finally, here are some images of my stuff at Eyeball Kicks in Wellington. They framed one of my prints for a customer, lookin sharp!

Pink nudes and blue skulls

I went along to a life drawing club last week, did these little paintings based on my sketches. I hadn't done any life drawing in YEARS, it was really nice to get back into it.

Then I felt like painting/drawing more nudes so I did Botticelli's Venus. It's hard to see but she's saying "chuck us a towel would ya?". Haw haw.

Skull lols.

Got some 'esplaining to do..

I realised after I finished my 'bon voyage girl' that she looked fairly derivative of 50s/60s Charles Addams-esque imagery, someone looking at it might conclude that I just copied an old image. While I love Charles Addams' work I haven't looked at his stuff for a while, his work, like many others sits in the visual influences soup in my brain, at times sloshing out onto the page. I also get such a kick out of making images which look older, a sort of lust for the 'timelessness' of these images (more accurately a mid-20th-centuryness). So I thought I'd include the evolution of this image, to assuage myself a little, besides I always enjoy having a window onto illustrator's & artist's processes. 

I wanted to paint a bon voyage image and remembered this old flyer for a party I'd done back in 2007 celebrating my birthday and my sister's departure to Spain. 

At this time I was really into Edward Gorey and using fine nibbed ink pens. I liked how the figure was leaving the scene, pretty apt for a bon voyage card. 

So I did some sketching, thinking about having the figure leave through a door, I didn't know what to do with the other arm so conveniently ignored it.

Re-worked the image again, I envisioned the line cropping the figure as the edge of the card.

Another sketch, this time with two arms.

The finished image. 

Aaaand then I did a boy version too...

Took a while to get those legs right.

Bon voyage!

Been working on some 'Bon voyage' card designs, girl and boy versions. The phrase 'bon voyage' always makes me think of Yacco from animaniacs, saying it 'bon voy-a-gee'. 

Aloe there!

In this last weekend passed I had a great desire to paint an aloe vera plant, I think form seeing one when I was out walking. This is what I came up with. Because I was just painting from google images it might not be that botanically correct. And because it was too big to scan I had to take photos of it, so the colours look a bit weird. 

Trying to find something to do with it now...

Fair's fair.

I'm having a stall at the very prestigious Auckland Art and Craft fair. Do come x. More info and in interview with me about it here.

Smiles and frowns

This pattern came about from some sketchbook doodlings, nice to to something abstract for a change. It's sort of 1930s inspired and has lots of funny faces hidden within.

Crude dood

Saturday night doodles

This one is a bit of 30s print inspired abstract doodling. Might turn it into a print too

Really enjoying the combination of cornflower blue with swamp yellow.