Sketchbook doodles in paint

My sketchbook is mostly filled with rough drafts and scratchy pencil drawings, these days I much prefer paint to pencil. These are a couple of recent paint sketches, feeling spooky!

Noo yeah

Happy 2014! Here's a little summery sketch which I didn't end up developing. Wish 2014 was the year of the gator but maybe it's time to get better at drawing horses. Hope my fellow Southern hemisphere dwellers are having a great summer (apologies Northern pals..)

Match made in Wellington

I now have a bunch of my stuff stocked at the super cool Matchbox Studios in Wellington, they're a shop and gallery and are full of amazing wares (i.e. cat/rabbit/dog temporary tattoos!!). So if you're in the market for prints/cards/postcards/bookplates and you're in Wellington pop in, and if you're not in Welly you can browse their online shop, win win!
Fine em here: matchboxstudios.co.nz/ and friend em here facebook.com/matchboxwellington

Pull up to the (Summer) Bumper, baby

Here's a job I did for the awesome folks at Grove Guide for their Summer Bumper issue, a cover image and a map of NZ to show the new years hot spots. It was fun doing some lettering for a change too. Want to be swimming RIGHT NOW.

Here's how the cover turned out. I don't have an image of the map in print at the moment but will stick it up when I do.

Fair warether friends

Some sweet trades from the Auckland Art and Craft Fair

A cute screen printed Huia pouch from Millicent Crow

A fantastic circus themed screen print by Supercrafti

And TWO sets of amazing hand made hand painted earrings by Sly Fox, that's a pair of lynxes on the left and a honey badger snake pair on the right. I REALLY need to get my ears repierced...

Ware-abouts

Some photos from the Auckland Art and Craft Fair last weekend. Thanks to everyone who came by and thanks to Sam and Emily for the photos and subsequent visit to the pre-stink-but still-flowering corpse flower

New card designs

Just a reminder that I'll be at the Auckland Art and Craft Fair tomorrow (11-3, Aotea centre), I'll be debuting these two new card designs. Merry Krampus everyone!!

Extra awesome

The lovely Ellie behind Extra Curricular dropped off some copies of the issue I did the cover for, there's also an interview with me inside and pictures of my unusually-clean-but-still-a-bit-messy studio. Don't try to read it here, go buy yrself a copy!

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

Well well, I'm delighted to announce that the lovely Ellie May behind the excellent local mag Extra Curricular asked me to to the cover for the summer adventure issue. Such an honour and not only that but there's also an interview with me and some photos of my tidier-than-normal studio. Haven't seen it in print yet but you can nab a copy here http://extracurricularmag.bigcartel.com/ or here http://felt.co.nz/shop/extracurricular or at the Auckland Art and Craft Fair on the 30th of November.

Circles on calendars

Lots going on at the moment, Seed Gallery's Diamonds in the Rough exhibition opens on Thursday night then is up until the 7th of Dec. The same deal as previous years, a bunch of artists get 10 wooden objects to artify. My set this year is all painted on black paper, it's called Nightlife and features aquatic looking plants/Gelatinous zooplankton. Here's one, photo courtesy of Seed Gallery:

The other thing which is coming up is the Auckland Art and Craft Fair which is on 11-3pm on the 30th of November at Aotea Square. There's an interview with me on their blog here.

Sunday painters

A quick sketch this morning of some lovely poppies which have sprung up in the garden. 

Reviewed

My Shitty Jokes zine got a glowing review, read it here: http://newzealandzinereview.org.nz/

This is their photo, credit where credit's due..

Art n crafts

I'm having a stall at the next Auckland Art and Craft Fair, better get busy making stuff to sell!

Well it's been a little while, I've been busy working on my diamonds for Seed Gallery's 'Diamonds In The Rough' Christmas exhibition, same deal as previous years, 10 identical wooden objects. This years shape was diamonds. I dropped them off yesterday but forgot to take photos of them, whoops! Anyway here's the link to the exhibition.

And here's a little sketch from last night. I get impatient at pencil sketching so don't do it at all sometimes. But them I end up with girls with one arm waaay longer than the other. Oh well. 

Her feline friend is modeled on my own.

Sorry we are out of space, filled up with plants

These are some of the paintings I'll be showing at the 'Sorry we are out of space' exhibition which is part of the Hamilton Fringe Festival. I've been getting pretty into painting plants recently, I'm interested in their physical forms, how you choose a pattern to follow, each one has it's own set of rules and I've also been thinking a lot about what is it that they contribute to a room, why is it appealing to keep plants indoors and where does the balance lie between it being pleasant to have some greenery around and it seeming like the wilderness is invading your house.

I've also been really enjoying using limited palettes (again), working more like a printmaker layering flat colour than a painter mixing colours to create tones, and using different papers, gouache is so opaque it can handle dark papers nooooo trouble.

Fringe benefits

Hamiltonians! I have some paintings in this exhibition which is taking over the foyer of the Meteor for the Fringe Festival. Unfortunately I can't make it down there for the opening because it's on my birthday...but y'all should go!  

Lil' still life

Mucking about with gouache last night, this was an unplanned sketch. Sometimes it's nice to just see what come out. My brushes are getting so ragged from all the drybrushing I've been doing, but it gives it some brushy nice texture.

Blue dude

A little detail from something I'm working on

Banana lounger

Ile Deezer

Another illustration for to lovely folks at Presence, I hadn't done a map in aaages, it was fun getting back into it, and putting in some puns. You can read the article over here.