Pencilled Pretties, Pastel Pilgrims and Peculiar Pets

Most. Exciting. Update. Ever! (And, also, a little bit cringe-worthy, too!)

 

I made an itty-bitty film! If you have twelve minutes to spare you can watch it- that is, you can laugh at me making a giant tit out of myself and also, talking a little bit about my work. Oh, and there's some super-cute footage of my puppies the day after we bought them home! What's not to love about that, hey?

 

A huge, squishy thanks to my gorgeous fella Dave, who, as well as filming the whole thing, has spent weeks worth of evenings staying up until the wee hours putting this all together for me. I think he's done an awesome job- hope you do too! ♥

mad hatter's tea-party grand opening

We had quite the whirlwind weekend, with the very grand opening of our show, 'Mad Hatter's Tea-Party: A Curious Art Exhibition with Marita Albers, Kate Bussey, Andrea McKey and Mel Macklin'. Let me take you on a little tour of our mad morning!

 

By 10.30, the gallery was crammed full of people!

 

 

 Gargantuan ceramic flowers beautifully made by Kate Bussey.

 Gorgeous mixed-media sculptures by Kate Bussey.

Me in one of Andrea McKey's mad mirrors. 

Andrea McKey's gorgeous neck-candy. Andrea has been a huge influence on my own artwork over the past ten years, and it was she that taught me how to make fimo beads, many moons ago! She is as fantastic and dear a friend as she is an incredible artist. 

You can see more of Andrea's gorgeous work on her website: http://www.artbyandreamckey.com/

 

Gorgeous mixed-media sculpture by Kate Bussey; 'The Lady's Mad Hair' by Marita Albers. 

 'Lionel Rich Tea' and 'Much More Curious' by the marvellous Marita Albers. I can't help but smile whenever I see Lionel, he's such a sweetie! That pink sweater just melts my heart!

 Beaut babushkas by the marvellous Marita Albers.

Fabulous felt finches made by me, and just a snip of some of Marita Albers' gorgeous paintings. I always think of her canvases like glittering little jewels, with all sorts of secrets hidden in them. Every day I look at them, I see some new, wonderful thing. 

A little tableau of my art dolls, and a very fancy garland made up of watercolour miniatures by one of my all-time fave art heroes and very dear friend, Marita Albers. 

   

My pastel pilgrim art dolls, inspired, amongst other things, 

by Wednesday Addams and gelati.

 Lucie Diamonds, my star art doll.

Our exhibition was opened by former Chief Minister for the Northern Territory, and TactileARTS patron, the lovely Clare Martin. Just over ten years ago, Clare made a speech at my own high-school graduation, and I have always remembered how warmly and fondly she spoke. We are so lucky to have Clare such an active part of our arts community, and I was absolutely delighted when she accepted our invitation to open our show. 

My very dear friend, and an absolutely incredible illustrator, Sandra Kendell. Sandra has been a huge source of support and encouragement for me in my own dreams to illustrate picture books, and hers are some of the most unique, detailed and downright beautiful I have ever seen. You can see some of her work right here: / http://www.sandrakendell.net/

Our very wonderful Ingrid Gersmanis, who quite rightly took home an artist prize for her fantastic Wonderland threads! Ingrid is the marvellous manager of Darwin's art-supply store, Jacksons, as well as an artist herself, and a keen mermaid fancier. She is also the very proud adoptive mum to quite a few of my dolls and prints! I will really miss people like Ingrid, who so proudly support their local arts community.

Just a small sample of some of the mad hats that frocked up to our art show! Kate's styro hearts made a curious 'doinking' noise every time they wobbled around in the breeze!

 Our gorgeous Kate.  

My friend Sonia made my absolute year with her fabulous princess outfit! She looked so gorgeous I got an extra artist prize together just for her. Alice would be so proud (and jealous!)

Feeling so darn lucky to be exhibiting with such awesome friends and artists! Thank-you SO much to everyone who supported us- it is you, sayers of sweet things, fabulous friends, and adoring adopters of our work who keep us smiling and dreaming.

'Mad Hatter's Tea-Party' will be showing at TactileARTS til Sunday, August 4th, 2013. 

Mad Hatter's Tea-Party

This all kicks off tomorrow! Complimentary cakes to be nibbled, tea to be sipped, awesome artist prizes to be won and art to lust over. Hope you won't miss my last show in Darwin ♥

ham-bunny

This little bunny was inspired by a number of things. 

Firstly, the very great John Tenniel, who illustrated the very first editions of 'Alice in Wonderland'. 

Also, hamburgers, because I love them, and recently discovered on a three-week stay in New York that I could, in fact, eat them every single day and never grow tired of eating them.

And buck teefs, because actually, teefs are a lot of fun to draw. 

You can catch my ham-bunny in an upcoming exhibition, Mad Hatter's Tea-Party, which opens at 10am, Saturday, July 20th, at TactileARTS in Darwin ♥

greetings, and some sweet new cards ♥

Hullo poppets!

Well, as always, I'm buzzing about like a busy little bee, occasionally fitting in some much-needed gym time between ginger-cake quaffing, market merriment, manic drawing and mad-cat taming!

I shall in a week or so, fingers crossed, have a few new prints to show you. I'm working on colouring a series of drawings I started last year, and, quite typical to every stereotype about artistes, I am happy to keep you all in suspense a little longer until I finish them all for a grand unveiling! If you are on Facebook though, you can catch a few teasers either on my personal timeline, or the Grumpy Star Studio page.

In the meanwhile though, I've been attempting to develop my photography skills with some snaps of my brand-new Set of 5 Art Cards and Envelopes! You can snavel yourself a set of these for only AUD $10 on my Etsy Shop. They are blank inside, so perfect for any occasion, even just a special letter to put a smile on the face of someone you love!

All nice things,

Mel x



for the love of butter

We all have vices. Anyone who says they don't is either telling porky-pies of epic proportions or else dangerously deluded.

I've kicked my smoking habit more times than I care to remember, and a month ago for the last time. I have pretty much substituted this filthy habit with an addiction for gallons of tea, which isn't so bad except I drink way too much coffee as it is and am so immune to caffeine I can fall asleep half an hour after a cup of the stuff at midnight (I honestly do just love the taste and smell of it). Dave is an excellent cook and I've been known to polish off an entire cheesecake, unaided, in a weekend. This is basically my sole reason for a gym membership and running habit. It's a dirty vicious cycle.

Most vices answer to a kind of need I think, and some of us (me) just have addictive personalities. But there are some that fly their own little freak flag; dorky vices, not really malignant but that raise their weird little heads in public situations (or, as the case may be, on a blog) to make us blush and raise the eyebrows of those who love us best.

So I'll just come out with it: I love butter. I smother the most disgusting amount of the stuff on anything more solid than butter. I eat butter with crumpets on the side. Plonk a bucket of it on a mountain of pumpkin mash and I'm yours. It's an absolutely necessary ingredient for shortbread, which is incidentally, the perfect accompaniment to my tenth daily cup of tea. It smells amazing when it gets warm and melty. When my metabolism slows down and I need the help of two fat blokes and a winch to get me out of my chair, it will be for the love of butter!

Lewis Carroll very famously used the irony of the word 'butterfly' to brilliant effect in 'Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There', creating insects made from slabs of buttered toast, who live on weak tea with cream. This sort of butterfly would be wonderful I think, but I'd have to snatch a fair few of them to slake my butter-thirst! I wanted my own to be bigger and nice and drippy; kind of like a flying breakfast.

'brown-bread-and-buttered-flies' is available now in my Etsy Shop for you to gaze on while you munch thoughtfully on your breakfast. And, unlike real butter, this picture is calorie-free.

Blessed be those who love butter!

Mel x

alicia of hearts

Hullo again dear readers!

My show 'Strange Creatures, Sweet Allsorts' has now been hanging merrily for a little over a week, and I am very happy to tell you that it has been received fabulously well! Friends, family and everyone else in between came from all corners of our fair city to support me, wish me well and make my night so wonderful.

After sixteen months of working towards it, it's so satisfying to know I don't honestly feel I could have put on a better debut show. Everything looked so smashing thanks to Paul and Don at Don Whyte Framing, who have spent weeks working with Dave and I comparing and ordering mouldings, talking tonal values, offering framing advice and just generally being wonderful.

To accompany these gorgeously framed pictures, I wrote stories about each of the images and how they came from being ideas in my head to pictures on paper. So many people commented on my writing, which is humbling and wonderful, because I do love words, and it's nice to make good sentences when one can manage it.

Everyone lingered long and attentively, reading and looking at my pictures carefully in the same way I look at my children's books. This, I think, is the very highest compliment- to watch people give themselves over to something, to stop whatever else they're doing to study something- to know it's something I've made myself that they're looking at- is so affirming. It is wonderful to know I can do something I love and to be able to share it. A couple came into the gallery yesterday and the gentleman said to me by way of goodbye: 'I came in feeling quite grumpy, and now I feel really relaxed. Your work has taken me somewhere else'.

Dave was not without his fair share of admiration on the opening night either: toiling well into the previous Thursday night to prepare no less than 150 macarons, (only one of which was left uneaten at the end of the night very probably because it was smooshed up in the crush to stuff salivating gobs Darwin over); he was rewarded with the sound of many ladies sighing in plaintive tones: 'I wish my husband made macarons for me!' Dave and I are so compatible that way- he cooks and I love eating, so all is as it should be.

And now, with around half the exhibition promised to happy buyers at the end of the week when it all comes down, my mind is already on another, and other projects besides. Stay tuned!

In the meanwhile, here's a little something I managed in between times that didn't make it to the show. 'Alicia of Hearts' is already on my market shop table in a limited edition of 30, and would make the perfect present for every little girl from 3 to 103 who has a fondness for all things pink. She is of course inspired by that wonderful little girl who falls down a rabbit-hole and captures the heart of everyone who remembers what it is to be a child in a world of adults who talk a lot of nonsense.   

All nice things for a wonderful weekend wherever you and your heart might roam.

Mel x