Watercolour meets Juicy Roo

OK so it had to happen, right? Creatively speaking, you can only temporarily escape what comes to you naturally, right? I've spent the last twelve months exploring a creative realm that, at times, felt very unnatural! Drawing realistic faces with charcoal...tonal studies..playing with pastels....it only makes sense that I would discover a medium that made me want to revert to my natural quirky sticky style of illustration.

But that is what happened. My life seems to be currently revolving around this formula:

watercolour + ink + juicy roo = fun

Colouring with watercolour is way more fun that adding colour in photoshop, which is what I've been doing for the last 10 years or so! The little girl and her dog in this pic reminds me of one of the early Juicy Roo greeting cards that read "you can never spend too much time with your dog".

I'm thinking of digging out some of those old designs and revamping them with my Gocco printer, (just the black outline of the drawing) and colouring using watercolour. But first, I am going to do an experiment with a quote from my very talented friend Christina.  I've been meaning to do this for, like, well...18 months or so.  Shocking. But I'm nearly there! Here is the print design in b+w:

I have a beautiful old quirky scale that belonged to my grandmother, and I've been instructing myself to draw it for the purpose of this print idea for many many, way too many months. It felt like every day I'd realise I STILL HAD NOT DRAWN IT, and then I'd be CRANKY because every day was another day that I hadn't started on this print idea. Here is one piece of evidence of the many notes I wrote to myself with instructions to pull my finger out and draw the scale:

Does anyone else give themselves written notes, slightly snarky, to force one to spring into action? Or is that just me *blush*
Anyway the good news is I'm ready for Gocco action. Hooray! I'm not even sure if the ink is waterproof for watercolouring purposes. But I'm sure I'll find out! And as I always say, I'll keep you posted!
xo

Pastel Drawings

It is almost one year since I pulled back from craft shows, and started going to a weekly art class. As usual, I am terrible at posting my progress. So I thought I would share a few drawings. It is amazing how quickly Wednesdays come around, and for every class I need to come up with a project to work on. I have been pushing myself to do some more traditional drawings, because the whole reason I started the class in the first place was to get away from my natural style and try something different creatively.

I was really happy with how these pears came out. I guess I couldn't escape my style completely, given I chose fuchsia for the background!

After drawing the fairy wren last year, I discovered that I love drawing Australian birds. I wasn't over the moon with my first attempt at the lorikeet, but I do love working with vibrant colour. Might have another crack at this one day.

 I did fall in love with this little clown fish however. I found a photo (below) from Getty Images and you'll notice there was a bit of creative license with the colour....that would be Juicy Roo doing her thing again.

This butterfly is missing her white spots...I haven't finished her either. I really do find it SO hard to get to my art in between classes. Which is one of the reasons why I continue to go to the class - it forces me to sit down and focus on drawing for 2 hours - something that NEVER happens in my week.

And then there was watercolour.

I had no idea paintbrushes could be so precise! This really was an instant love affair, way bigger and more intense than my crush on pastels!  The Rules for Cooking Perfect Pasta. My very first ever attempt at watercolour. Merilyn (my fabulous art teacher) laughed when I said I only had four colours. When I was finished I declared I could have got away with only two colours!

I made this little pouch for my watercolour brushes. Water colour is crazy amounts of fun, and seems to suit my scribbles perfectly. 

It is almost as though I have come full circle, and am rediscovering my style yet again, with a different medium. How cool is THAT?!  I'm working on a fun streetscape that I will share as soon as it is finished. XO

Making Dresses for Little Girls

Trying to find a winter dress for a girl who loves yellow was not easy. I searched the shops high and low and simply couldn't find anything remotely enticing. So I decided to get stitchy instead. Here is a pic of the dress I made for my little friend Charlotte who just turned 9. I wanted to make a dress that she could wear in winter over tights and a long sleeve tee. So I modified this pattern and lined it, nothing worse than your dress sticking to your tights, major personal peeve! I was really happy with how it turned out, and I'd like to make a few more for some of the other gorgeous little girls in my life who are long overdue for a treat from Juicy Roo.

The yellow fabric is actually from Ikea! They were scraps left over from a rather crazy skirt I made for myself last Christmas. And the green corduroy was also sitting around, waiting to be turned into something loveable.

Stitching such a small garment turned out to be deceptively fiddly. Shorter seams, but not as much room to move. I think I'll try a different technique for the next one to make lining it easier. And I'll share how I do it, I promise.

Millthorpe Market

Earlier this month I had my first ever visit to the Millthorpe Markets. It was a great day out and VERY busy for a tiny place like Millthorpe. I am contemplating being a stall holder later this year, given it is only 40km from home and I have a fair stash of excess stock to clear. Big call, knowing me lately...

Anyway my score of the day was this fantastic find, sculpted from an old corrugated iron fence. How fabulous is he? At $40 I couldn't resist. I wondered if this was a flippant purchase but after two laps of the markets I just had to go back and pick up my pooch. I can't even put a link here for the metal artist, it was his friend selling them for him and it was a very low key commercial affair: not a business card in sight! Anyway. I worried someone might nab my new canine friend from my front yard. But, one month later, so far...so good!

Also: around the same time, I finally took the plunge and bought a new "point n shoot" camera. My trusty Canon PowerShot S30 (a whopping 3.2 megapixels!) had served me SO well for almost a decade, but it was finally showing its old age (no doubt after being dropped a few times and thrown off the roof of my house). So I bought the current equivalent: the Canon PowerShot S100. And oooh lah laaaaaah what a divine little camera it is. I love it. And I've been pointing and shooting a lot ever since.

See?

I SO have to do something about that tired painted concrete at the back of my house. Big job though. We'll see. Adios, for now. XO

Printing and Stitching!

Yep, 2nd blog post in as many months, nothing unusal here folks. But this doesn't mean I haven't been having fun in the Juicy Zone. I finished the first of a 2-skirt-commission for my great buddy Amanda (although I like to call her "Eumundi" because it sounds a bit like Amanda, and thats a good enough reason for a nickname here in Aus)...I'm hopeless at taking photos of completed garments. So I opt for the pic that shows the personalized message attached to the final product and the interfaced bits in fun fabric that no one else sees, but when you are putting on the garment, you see it and it makes you smile!
Hope it fits her. Skirt #2 is under construction. More about that one soon.

And I made this VERY easy lined pouched, my first ever experience with French seams, I found the tutorial here. I needed a home for my new set of pastel pencils that I take to my art class each week. It turned out cute and very practical. I love a quick sewing project. That's why I've never made a quilt. I'm getting quilting urges though. They have been percolating for a while now. Anyway. Pouches! Here it is:

Speaking of art class, I decided to dabble in some printmaking after many many months of merely thinking about it.  I've been gearing up to do some silk screening for what seems like FOREVER and I'm pretty sure the fact I have nothing to show for this desire apart from a giant pad full of scribbles is because a) I can't decide with any certainty what to print and probably more debilitatingly b) I'm dreading the troubleshooting I will have to tackle when I start experimenting with emulsion and my lightbox. So when I was in our local art shop and spotted a piece of LINO...I thought "awesome!" no muss, no fuss, just a piece of lino with some ink and carving tools. Get busy, girlfriend. So I did. I literally scribbed a rough design on a bit of paper and FORCED myself not to obsess over whether or not the design was worthy....off I went to art class and printed half a dozen or so of these:

Yes there are things I'd do differently design-wise...but maaaaaaaaan printing is FUN! The only reason I stopped is because I ran out of paper. I remember doing a lino print (the one and only!) in high school (we're talking 20 odd years ago, sheesh!). I dont remember what I drew, but I recall the lino being hard and brittle and not very easy to cut. My how things have changed. The lino was super soft and cutting was very manageable in comparison. These days the inks are water soluble too, so the prints dried quite quickly and the clean up afterwards was a breeze. I'm hooked. I'm working on another design, finally fiddling with some creative words that my talented friend Christina sent so many moons ago. I'll keep you posted. I promise! xo

Hooray for Aperture Priority!

And HOORAY for tripods!

I've had my Canon Digital SLR 400D for...ummm...like AGES! Its embarrassing how long its taken me to figure out some really basic things with it. I bought a little Canon Powershot 320 back in 2003 (for about $1,000 LOL) and I have had the best time with it - so easy, literally point n shoot, and I have had many great photos from it. I figured upgrading to the DSLR would be easy enough. Well for this untrained puppy, it was very very humbling.

BUT! After a LOT of reading, I am finally experimenting again. When lighting conditions are good, the camera is excellent. But inside my house can be tricky with the DSLR. The old powershot was a very faithful servant to capuring the light exactly as it was - but the SLR seems a lot more sensitive, and if the natural light available was slightly low, it would want to default to using the flash. Annoying! I'd been experimenting with the Apeture Priority mode to try and let as much light in as possible, but was still having mediocre results. Until I decided to use a tripod. What a world of difference.

Anyway I was excited about this photo because this nook in my home is actually quite a dark spot. But with the DSLR set on the largest aperture (i.e. the lowest f-stop, a concept it took me a while to absorb!) I managed to get this snap that I'm really happy with. I think I'm about to start taking pictures of all sorts of inanimate things. So be warned.

Like this phone, that was given to me by one of the Directors of the firm I work for, after I declared over a cup of tea that I "really wanted an old bakelite phone". He said he had one in his shed that I could have. And then he said "I've got a box full of rabbit traps you can have too"! I graciously declined that offer!

Hey how's my form - 2 posts in that same month. Unheard of.

New Things

As usual, I've been busy doing just about everything but blogging. But today, just for a change, I actually took a couple of pics of things I've been working on, and I'd like to share them.

First up, my little niece Ivy turns 10 tomorrow. Amazing. She can get away with wearing just about any colour but I thought I'd do something cute in black. Why are black kid's clothes such a rarity? They are PERFECT for hiding the spills! I bought the tshirt and embellished it with the little bird. I really must do a tutorial on that one day, its super easy and the tshirt was $5 from Big W. Makes for a very economical gift! The gathering on the skirt was a little more time consuming than I expected, but I thought it came up very cute. Can't wait to see her wearing it.

I've had that curtain cable from IKEA attached to the wall in my studio for a while now. I thought it would be a great place to hang things to be photographed, but it in between photos it has become a place to hang pattern pieces, and lovely things. Like the lino print (on the right) from my talented and gorgeous friend Janine who I hope to collaborate more with...one day.

Here is a detail of the little bird...

So. I've been LOVING my weekly art class, and am taking a punt here that my Dad doesn't read my blog. Because I'm about to post a picture of his Christmas present. He loves Australian birds, and I love blue things. It only seemed logical to draw him a splendid fairy wren. How exquisite are these little birds? And I was very happy with my 2nd ever attempt at a pastel "painting". I even got commissioned to do another one for someone who saw this in our local student art show. FLATTERED!

And just for fun here is my lovely furry girl Isis, who just happened to take time out from eating grass to let me take this snap of her. And if she ever does something bad to a splendid fairy wren, or any other Australian native bird for that matter, she will be banished to the inside of my house. Forever. Can something really be "banished" indoors?

Oh, and here is a very scary snap of my garage which I am quietly trying to transform into a space where I can do some silk screening. More about that later. Not a small task by any stretch of the imagination. It's pretty gross in there. I've found myself reading articles about how to deal with "rising damp". Short answer: You can't. Unless you're prepared to rebuild your house. Which at the moment, I'm not! Surely its something that can be tackled temporarily with some exit mold, a bit of ventilation and a coat of paint?!? Sigh!