Spray

It’s been awfully quiet around here. But this week’s looking up and I have been inspired to do some stencil art using some old spray paint we used to fix up an IKEA cabinet. We only had antique white and fire engine red in the shed so my first (very simple) attempt is a little limited but I am off to buy some more colours and, now that I know my technique works, to cut out some more elaborate stencils.

After battling with a nasty piece of acetate I ended up using tracing paper to make the stencil which did the trick but it is a little flimsy. Does anyone know something that I might have more success with? It needs to be thin enough to make delicate cutting not too stressful but then heavy / resistant enough to handle enamel spray paint and repeat use. I am not sure how many street artists read loobylu (at my guess… none) but any ideas would be useful!

Seriously inspired by Banksy (via Boobooksausagedogs)

Lily with the pumpkins

Hello Dooce readers! - and thank you Heather for a lovely write up.
I am pleased to announce that I am listing another gocco print in my Etsy shop. This one is from an illustration I did of Lily playing out in the vegetable garden. It’s a limited edition of 30 again.
if you are a repeat customer please note that my shipping cost has gone up slightly (due to the fact that I made a little calculation/weight error last time).

Thanks!

Pi-ahh-no

Amelia started piano lessons on Wednesday. We hired an old bomb of an electric keyboard for $12 for the term - how can you go wrong with that?? Piano practice went swimmingly until we discovered the Hip-Hop button and then it dissolved into one of those slightly hysterical, over tired, pre-dinner dance parties where we all tried to out do each other with moves we’ve gleaned from Hi-5.

And we have a new plant which arrived in a cardboard box labled “Live Plants” from Diggers. It’s a “True Curry Tree” - which sounds pretty awesome when you read what Kurma has to say about it. I like the bit about all the groaning. Must be good. It’s just a wee little thing at the moment - about a foot tall - but it will grow to two metres and has lovely lush looking (groan inducing) foliage. We planted it outside the back door and fed it organic chook poo and lots of water. Now I hope it manages to avoid those pesky possums and we’ll be having curry for dinner in 2009!

Eyes right

I started working on some small canvases in oils yesterday. This is the first coat. Really, it’s just blocking in colour and form and covering up the white of the canvas. I haven’t done any oil painting in about… hmm.. 15 years! I’m old! Oils are nice. I like the way they smudge and slide.

On my desk… fabric and a novel

On my desk today is a little pile of Japanese fabrics from Patchwork on Central Park — the strawberries are very, very cute. That’s also a bit of Rosa’s ribbon draped casually across it. Under that is a Moleskine dedicated to “ideas for my online store”. Under that is a canvas for a painting I am going to start working on today. Under that is my folder of patterns which needs to go back on the shelf.

To the right, sitting on my sketch books, is a little removable thumb drive which contains my NOVEL. In moments of enthusiasm I am writing a modern Chick-Lit tale of love, loss and umm.. bad writing, mostly. I started it last September and haven’t written very much since. However, I have just finished reading Melanie La’Brooy’s Serendipity which was quite fun, and was inspired to read Room with a View again, so now I am contemplating tackling chapter two, in which my heroine (and her two children) move to the mountains. The hero is a rugged, forest dwelling type. The bad guy is a washed-up television writer with stone washed jeans and nicotine stained fingers (of course). Her mother, who is gorgeous and bohemian (and looks like Miriam Margolyes), is a botanical artist (I might have to pick your brains some time Prue!), and her father, a retired country doctor, (who looks like Bill Nighy) is a pessimistic old bastard who has lost his joie de vie, and plants seeds of doubt as he has nothing better to do. I think he might be healed through vegetable gardening. That could work.

Thanks!

Thank you so much to those who bought a print last week and thank you to those who left supportive comments regarding my first foray into Etsy selling - I really appreciate it. It was lots of fun and really not too terrifying so the plan is to do some more in the not too distant future. I’m thinking prints, goccos, original art and maybe, just maybe, some soft toys.

Speaking of soft toys… I’m tired tonight, the kids have got my virus from last week and I’ve been up most of the night, so I don’t want to write a crappy post about this and I also realise that I am a bit late to the game - but in efforts to raise awareness (especially if you are a designer or Australian), I would like you to click through to Hillary’s post from last week. And there’s an ongoing discussion which is worth reading at Jennifer’s blog. It makes me feel sad.

First print on Etsy!

WELL. I did it. I have a slightly stiff neck from the stress of putting up my first item, but my Gocco print is now for sale on Etsy. There are only 30 prints in this limited edition and my mum has one and we have another two so get in quick! (How exciting!).

Socking the Laird, and other knitting tales

I have been doing some vague research into my family history for a little art project I am working on and I found this fabulous photo In the Shetland Museum Archives of some folks in the Shetland Islands who may or may not be relatives of mine. They are Robertsons to be sure and while they look like a little… hmmm… how can I put it… characterful?… it is possible that I can even see some vague family resemblences… prominant ears, the worried brow on the gentleman second from the right and so on. But you know, I didn’t realise I came from such tough looking stock. I do know that my relatives had to leave Shetland (and hence eventually travel to Australia) because, as my dad puts it, one of them “socked the Laird, and if you sock the laird, you don’t hang around.” Socking the Laird involves putting rocks in a sock and knocking the lord of the land over the head. Tough folk.
I think my mob left the Shetland Islands at least a decade before this photo was taken so perhaps they are more like distant cousins.

The other thing I am interested in about my Shetland Island heritage is knitting. Doing a quick search for knitting in the archives brings up 148 items. One of my favourites is this group knitting shot:

An early Stitch ‘n’ Bitch. I am particularly keen on the outfit of the woman middle right - cute! But what is that large rocky structure in the background? A roof? A cairn?

And knitting was something you obviously did in all sorts of places at all sorts of times.

And another example:

while on the way to tend to the potatoes, you stop for a bit of a natter with a friend who is burning kelp and, as you lean on your shovel, right there is the opportunity to keep knitting that sock (woman at back on right). Look at that beautiful sock blowing in the wind.

And now is obviously the time to get Amelia and Lily involved in some of their cultural heritage:

(And that seems to be the second jumper she knitted!)

I could keep going… such great photos.

Wordpress 2.5’s new photo uploading feature clearly makes it far too easy to add a lot of photos.

Favourite rain

I can hear rain on the leaves outside. A friend of mine was telling me recently that her psychologist had told her that the “psychology of rain” has changed for us Australians in recent times. It used to be that rain brought sorrow and the blues but now after years of drought a good, decent rain has us dancing in the streets and smiling at one another in the shops. It seems to be true. I wonder how long it will last. I still love (and have always loved) going to bed while it’s raining gently on the roof. I know I’m hardly alone on that one. Even in more recent years when I have had to worry about leaking roofs or overflowing gutters I still love that soothing lullaby.

Everyone has gone to bed, including Phil who is fighting off that awful virus I had last week. He has it much worse than me, poor chap. But the house is quiet now apart from the chug of the dishwasher and the aforementioned rain so I am exploring flickr. How I could curl up and live in my favourites page! A fun thing to do is to click through favourite’s favourites, and then favourite’s favourite’s favourites. I then add my favourite favourite’s favourites to my favourites and my favourites grow and grow! Did you get all that? It appeals to my collecting-gene which I inherited from my mother. I can’t help it.

Ps. thanks for the mail advice yesterday!

Etsy angst

Last night I had a crazy dream where I discovered Matt Damon was a loobylu reader (and why shouldn’t he be?) and he had a daddy-blog at gracious.blogspot.com. I went and had a look there this morning secretly hoping to see the beautiful photos that Matt had included in my dream of his family running on the beach and some of their beach-related crafts… but no… nothing Matt Damon related at that url. How disappointing! Imagine if Matt Damon was secretly a daddy/craft blogger? However, it did occur to me upon waking that things are weird (and possibly a little out of proportion) when you dream about blogging. Especially when it involves a celebrity.

So here’s my most recent gocco print called “Hulahoop, Skipping Rope” which I am planning to list on etsy next week as my first foray into etsy selling. I have to find some light yet sturdy envelopes (does anyone know where I can buy Jiffy Rigi Bags #4 in Melbourne?) and work out the postage issues. I’m a little nervous but when I look at Emily and her 13,600+ sales I think I might be being a little pathetic. (13,600 ??? How exhausting! Poor girl! We need to send her a care package!). I had better get back to our Saturday — I have stock on the stove and it sounds like the kids are getting a bit wild.