digital inspirations

Well, here's a super-massive post for ya, peeps!

If you follow my adventures on Facebook (and I certainly recommend you do; what with the hours in the day being so limited, I do end up posting on there much more than I can here!) you might already know I've been experimenting a lot with digital illustration techniques these past few months. 

Like all of my color pencil illos, I start these off in just the same way: with a fully-realised black and white preparatory sketch, which is either photographed or scanned in at super-high resolution, like 600 dpi (I like the option of making them bigger if I can, without compromising the quality of my mark-making). 

Then I add a series of layers and transperencies in Photoshop, which effectively creates a sort of digital collage, which I blend, manipulate, mask, warp and tint to create an entirely new artwork. Using a texture~ let's say it's something really simple like some paper for instance~ I think for my work, is a million miles more convincing and interesting than colour-blocking with flat digital colour, which can look, well, overly digital. 

That said, I love that digital allows me to be so much braver and bolder with my mark-marking: good art and photography, I have learned, is almost all about good lighting. I am trying to learn how to be braver in the way I light my characters; that was one of my personal goals for moving forward this year.

I'm really after a handmade look to my pictures, so I love textures with imperfections, with a 'tooth' or grain. I make a lot of the textures you see in my work myself (the one below, for example, is about 50 layers worth of my scribbles, splatters, doodlings and colourings, which culminates in a lot of weird and sometimes grubby looking scrap-papers floating around my studio!) I use alllll sorts of strange and wonderful things to create the colour and patterns you see in my pictures, and have been collecting them for years! One of the textures in my texture bank was a rubbing I took from the fireplace of a house we lived in in Tooting, London!

Below each picture you'll find some helpful links and websites where all sorts of wonderful people go about researching, collecting and photographing all sorts of things that fall into the realm of Creative Commons. 

Copyright is always something I consider very, very seriously~ as should all artists, especially those of us who collage! ~ and there are a range of really good resources out there, written in plain English which I recommend you familiarise yourself with if you create stuff too. The laws are very different depending on where you live and create in the world, and also where and what time the stuff you're using was made. If you're in Oz, the Australian Copyright Council is an excellent place to start learning about Copyright. 

 

'vanilla meow and the cardamom foxlet'

Very special thanks and acknowledgements to the following people for so generously making such wonderful resources for artists like me to use:  

~ CG Textures for their glorious photographs of antique patterned wallpapers, fabrics, stained and coloured papers and a whole range of other awesome stuff;

~ Lost and Taken for their gorgeous damask fabric textures and stained papers; 

~ Obsidian Dawn for their incredible Photoshop eyelash brushes (hehe, really great to help make my charaacter's eyes pop!)

~ Photos Public Domain for their excellent array of colour paper textures (much more convincing than just colour-blocking with Photoshop flat colour; these ones especially have a really nice 'tooth');  

~ rainbowd00dles for creating a stellar freckle texture (oh, but I do love me some good freckles!);

~ Jen Furlotte at Pixels and Ice Cream for her gorgeous damask pattern.

 

'freyja'

Very kindest thanks to: 

 ~ The Graphics Fairy for the beautiful antique floral engravings and decorative frames and labels;
~ CG Textures for their glorious photographs of antique patterned wallpapers, fabrics, stained and coloured papers and a whole range of other awesome stuff.

 

'poppy'

Best thanks to: 

 ~ The Graphics Fairy for the beautiful antique engravings and scientific illustrations she collects;

~ CG Textures for their glorious photographs of vintage fabrics, and stained papers.

 

 

'beatrice'

My very nicest thanks to:
~ CG Textures for their glorious photographs of antique patterned wallpapers, lace trims, and stained papers;
~ Obsidian Dawn for their uber-awesome eyelash brushes;
~ rainbowd00dles for her awesome freckle overlay.

 

'the future's so bright, i gotta wear shades'

My goodest acknowledgements to:  

~ Timbuk3 for creating such a cool song with such sassy lyrics!;

~ CG Textures for their excellent flower photographs;

~ rainbowd00dles for her fabulous freckle texture;

 ~ The Graphics Fairy for the beautiful antique floral engravings;

~ Media Militia for some excellent watercolour splatters; 

~ Christopher Hansen for his wonderfully distressed font, Beyond Wonderland.

 

'monsieur toof' 

And lastly, thanks a bunch to:

~ The Graphics Fairy for the beautiful antique cards and labels on her lovely site;

~ CG Textures for their glorious photographs of antique patterned wallpapers and stained papers;
~ John Holmdahl for his fabulous font, 1942 Report.

 Phew! 

You can find all of these beauties very shortly in my Etsy shop, or from little 'ol me in the flesh, on the loose at a market near you! Check out my Facebook page if you'd like to catch me in Melbourne; I'm travelling all over and post regular updates about where you can find me out and about on the weekends. 

Have an awesome rest-of-the-week you sweet peeps!

♥  Mel x 

beauty in sadness

One of the greatest misconceptions about art, I think, is that sad subject matter cannot equal a happy picture. There is beauty in sadness, too ♥

Operation leaving Darwin

Darwin darlings, soon I will be leaving town forever, never to return.

These are just a few of my original drawings still available, much larger than my reproduction prints, and all sumptuously custom-framed by the delightful Don Whyte.

Do drop me a line if you'd love to pop round and adopt one of these beauties for yourself. Every adoption comes with an awesome coffee made by me, complimentary puppy kisses, and a few little extra trinkets just for you ♥

juicy sunshine and the purple parrot

 

It seems I'm on a wee bit of a food theme, here!

This was originally going to be called The Blood-Orange Breakfast, as I had initially drawn the little orange-girl with vampire teeth . . . I know, genius. But they looked a bit funny, and the aesthete in me won over. 

Instead, she's just a sweet little cannibal with a weakness for frilly petticoats and stripy straws. Her best friend, Pedro, is a very rare purple macaw, maybe even the last of his kind in the whole world. He understand what it's like to be a little bit different, and he loves Juicy Sunshine very much ♥

I like to think my blondes always have the best fun- Princess Lily makes macarons, the Cat-cher chases cheeky cardinals through the snow all day, and one is the heavenly guardian of all things holey and doughnut-related . . . They each remind me of the boundless possibilities and potential for happiness that art can provide us ♥

cameo lover

Here's a wee tribute I just finished of the very gorgeous Kimbra. I so admire her adventurous outfits that always seem to come together so beautifully and eloquently with that mischievous, infectious smile, like a small child plotting to rob the cookie-jar! 

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 ♥

parasols and paths cherry-scented

Of all the places in the world I have yet to visit on my bucket-list, Japan is right up there. 

This may have a whole lot to do with my many re-readings of Haruki Murakami novels, which are surely more of a surreal parallel to the Japan that exists in reality, but since I was a teenager, his is the country I imagine. And he loves cats, so he's clearly pretty awesome. 

It could also have a lot to do with a lifelong love of Hello Kitty, and my not-so-secret dream to visit Sanrio Land. I also think it would be rather jolly to find me a Totoro and sit on a strawberry-shaped bus-stop. Probably my heart would explode with happiness and I'd need a hug from Keropi to calm me down.

When I finally manage to save my pennies enough for a plane ticket, I would love, most of all, to see Japan in spring. In my mind, I cannot think of anything more beautiful than rows upon rows of cherry-blossom trees in full bloom. This little geisha seems to think the same, as she takes a leisurely promenade through the old city one spring morning.

There were a lot of things that inspired me stylistically with Sora, my little geisha. I am always fascinated to find those stylised, hand painted vintage postcards from Asia in the early 1900's. I know they were terribly unrealistic and manufactured mainly for tourists, but the geisha of yore are so compelling with their quiet, sweet faces and painted lips. 

Like my other girls, Sora is super-stylin'. I was lucky enough one Christmas to get a pack of kimono fabric from my excellent Auntie and Uncle, and I discovered that even in the plainest of patterns, it is incredible: heavy, and lush and so elegant. You might also notice that her okobo are a little like Dutch clogs; I really enjoyed playing with very heavy, pear-shaped forms in this picture. 

Traditionally, I know geisha spend many hours painstakingly styling their hair into impossible up-do's, but Sora is still quite young, and a little mischievous- the breeze is having a grand time ruffling her hair, and very soon, if it's keeps blowing about like that, I imagine her hair will soon be full of cherry-blossom petals!

 Hope you enjoy my little Sora as much as I did creating her x

mimi crinoline and the wonderful wabbits

 

For a very long time, I have vehemently denied being a girly-girl. 

Perhaps it was simply that it took me a long time to find the particular shade that suited me, but for most of my life I thought pink was revolting, frills were for babies and high heels were invented by Satan.

I still think high-heels are the work of the devil (though by golly, those hidden platform jobs look absolutely lovely. I can however, only admire and appreciate and covet in a vicarious sort of way, since I would look like an insane drunk attempting to walk in them). 

I LOVE clothes, and if it weren't for a bit of timely advice about the particular course on offer at my chosen university, I always planned to be a designer, not a fine artist. I do wonder how different my life might have been had I put my foot down and gone to fashion school.

Naturally, all my characters have clothes I would want to wear myself. And in the world of art, where everything is possible, why not?! 

Mimi Crinoline was inspired by all the dainty little illustrations I loved as a child; lots of silky hair with a life of its' own, perpetually surrounded by butterflies (again, because I love them and I can), and wearing, not incidentally, very, very high heels . . .

It may be time to admit that really, there might be just a teeny-tiny part of me that LOVES being a girly-girl!

the hand-blown heart brigade

 

Meet Carmen, and her little dog Bruiser. Carmen saw an ad in the paper one day, about  little puppy needing a forever home. She never really planned on getting a dog, but his lovely blue eyes seemed to be telling her, Carmen, that he needed a human to take care of. She didn't read the paper all that often, so she took it as a sign that they were meant to be the best of friends.

And from the first cuddle when she picked him up from the pound an hour later, they absolutely were.

and the rest is rust and stardust

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. 

Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea."

- Vladimir Nabokov, 'Lolita'. 

 

Number 33 for Cloud Park Corner

It occurred to me the other day that I have been thinking about heaven a lot lately. 

Don't worry; I'm not about to go all Natalie Portman and sprout wings and go all cray-cray at Mila Kunis. Nor, sadly, have I transformed into a statuesque blonde with the ability to intimidate loan-sharks a-la 'Angela'. I should also point out I remain staunchly agnostic about religious matters, and I am not questioning my mortality or seeking existential answers any more than usual. But still, there is this recurring fascination with a child-like interpretation of that fluffy place above us. 

My notion of the Hereafter is probably more like a sort of metropolis-come-funfair. I like the idea of angels with less-than angelic behaviours (not unlike Neil Gaiman's character Islington in 'Neverwhere', though perhaps not quite so malicious). Mine would have vices aplenty, and you'd find them doing all sorts of unseemly things, like scoffing whole bratwursts behind the moon, or relieving themselves as their cloud passed over Tom Cruise, or using their friends' halo as a basketball hoop. 

Very probably, Heaven would be a bit like London. It wouldn't just be angels that lived there, but all sorts of other characters too (though of course, I would love to see a Cockney chimney-sweep angel, that would be fabulous). There'd be bridges made out of rainbows, and mice on the moon, and cows mooching about in the Milky Way. Mary Poppins would be up there too, a pleasantly dotty old biddy with no teeth, carrying on about cough-syrup and her diabetes. Everything would be edible too: the clouds would taste of marshmallow, and each colour of the rainbow would taste of something different (the orange would be marmalade, and you'd think the red would taste of strawberry, but, FYI, it's chilli).

I always imagined my character the Cloud Princess lived in Heaven, or somewhere very like it; maybe a few thousand feet below in Cloud Land, or Fluffy Town, or Fairyflosstopolis. I had a lot of fun creating her character and, though I am long sold out of the small edition of 20 prints I made of her two years ago, I am still asked about her all the time. And so, I thought it was high-time to revist her.

As some of you might know if you follow my adventures on Facebook and Instagram, I am a relatively new slave to two Beaglier puppies, Sandro and Lily. At 5 months old they are quite the handful, and of course, I couldn't imagine what life would be like without them, and their sweet droopy faces. I have affectionately named these characters Princess Lily and Sandro Spottydog in honour of them, and I hope that I have conveyed just a little of the love and warmth between these two friends. 

The Cloud Princess, as I imagine her, loves to bake all sorts of cakes, but macarons are her absolute favourite (and not, incidentally, mine too!). She and Sandro have nipped up the shops for a few foodie supplies, and now are waiting for the Starbus to take them back home to Cloud Park Corner. The sun is just about to set, and Princess Lily always cooks her best macarons by the light of the moon!

I learned so many new things creating this piece, and I am particularly pleased with the slightly eighties, acid-wash look of the light on the clouds. All the best characters came out of the eighties for me: Lady Lovelylocks, Rainbow Brite, Strawberry Shortcake, and these were just a few of the inspirations behind Princess Lily's look. As always too- piles and piles of hair. And why not? Heaven hath no need of hairspray!

 

I hope you like this heavenly duo as much as I did making them.

Have a gorgeous day,
Mel x