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.

♥ Time for Rabbit-Tea ♥

Hullo you wonderful people!

Well, after a few weeks filled with all sorts of pleasant diversions and distractions, I can finally share my 'Time for Rabbit-Tea' series with you, as promised, whittled down to 3 and in full colour.

While the Blogger format dictates that I must put these in a particular order, I originally drew these with the idea that viewers could create their own order and narrative for these characters. They sort of began a full year ago, in their black-and-white forms, as a surreal interpretation of the way I often feel, waking up groggy from a long afternoon spent dreaming and napping. I wanted to create something beautiful and fun, and of course impossible in the way that only dreams can be.

These are of course available in my Etsy and market shops; $50 each or for a special price of $120 for the full set!

I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts on these. Which is your favourite of the three? Do you have a story of your own about these characters you'd like to share?

Love and bunny snuggles,

Mel x

little dollies sweet as lollies ♥

Well hullo there, and a very happy start-of-the-weekend to you!

So, I've been spruiking off for nigh on a year now about dolls and my textiles background. And, after three months of prototyping and experimenting, these little poupées are ready for anything! Each and every one of them is one-of-a-kind (OOAK), developed from my very own pattern and design, and unique in all the world.

Meet Beatrice, wearing her happy jumper and frilly skirt- the perfect outfit for frolicking in the sunshine on a Dry season day.

. . . And Harriet, whose love for all things polka-dots is rivalled only by a weakness for cute shirts and liberty prints!

. . . Katy, inspired of course by rockabilly retro and the lovely Miss Perry.

. . . Daniella, who loves peaches, bunny rabbits and her twin sister Sophie.

 . . . And Sophie, an auburn little rose of a mermy girl, just a few minutes younger than her sister Daniella, her bestest friend in the whole world. 

You can catch these beauties at 'Outside the Square', opening 5.30pm, Friday 6th July, Territory Craft, Darwin.  

If you can't make it, I'll be sewing my little fingers raw making more to share with you here really soon. And, in the meanwhile, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Have a beautiful weekend,

Mel  ♥

♥ sweetheart sale! ♥

Good morning petal cakes!

I hope you're having a beautiful Easter holiday wherever your hearts might roam, and hope that they are warm and full of love and chocolate.

Speaking of hearts, I thought I'd celebrate the last day of Easter by popping my Sewn-Up Sweethearts on sale. These little beauties were $70, now down to a bargain price of $50 each!

Each art doll features a completely hand-drawn face, patchworked head (very neatly machine-embroidered by me), and a wild assortment of found trinkets and charms and handmade beads. They look gorgeous hanging on a bedroom wall or door, and there's a secure hook sewn onto the back of each for just this purpose.

They are very much original works of art in doll form, and I had a lot of fun making these three (their sister, Pomegranita, in a pink colour scheme was the first to go some time ago, so there's only four presently in the world).

I am, I confess, prototyping other wonderful dolls as we speak, and with only so many hours in my days, I'm not sure I'll be making any more of these. Don't wait until it's too late to decide you have to have one! 

All nice things my friends,

Mel x

their hearts ran away with the circus

Meet Gabrielle and Rosalina, the star act at the Patchwork Circus!

At the precise moment I captured them here, Gabrielle and Rosalina have just performed their famous Glitter Jitterbug dance. Their little cheeks are flushed with happiness as they curtsey and are showered with roses, heart confetti and wild applause. Wherever the circus may go, everyone who sees it cannot help but fall in love with the sweet dancing sisters and their rosebud smiles.

It was a lot of fun as I drew them and got to know them to imagine how they live, and their hopes and dreams. They've been a part of the circus for as long as they can remember. Though they're orphans, they have hardly wanted for anything at all in their young lives: they love the circus and are utterly adored by their patchwork family. Gabrielle is about 15, and Rosalina 13. They looked much more alike when they were younger, and perhaps they don't share the same two parents, wherever they might be, but in each other's eyes and hearts they will always be sisters and the very best of friends.

They have always shared everything in life, including Gabrielle's Roberts Revival radio she got for her 8th birthday. When Rosalina reached double figures at the age of ten, her circus family presented her with a tiny little bundle of blue-grey fur with a heart-shaped splotch over one eye. Louie got his name later on that evening, when the famous Toots and the Maytals song, 'Louie Louie' came over the radio and the sisters discovered their new little kitten loved to dance! Every night he sleeps exactly between Gabrielle and Rosalina, at the foot of their huge feather bed, where they dream of singing and dancing and running away with the circus.



I'd love to hear your thoughts! And, if you love it, you can snap a print of 'A Patchwork Circus' for yourself for $50 on my Etsy Shop; just click on the link marked 'shop' at the top right of this post.

Have a wonderful day my little dancing liebchens,

Mel x



♥ kitty cat in a party hat ♥

time for rabbit-tea

Hullo poppets!

If you haven't already perused my 'exhibitions' page, chances are you missed this little series. I drew these last year to submit to the Illustrators Exhibition at the Bologna Children's Book Fair. Of course, competition is stiff, so like 2,000 other hopeful illustrators, mine didn't make it this year. After so many rejections, the Capricorn in me has reared it's sadistic little head and I have kept my promise to myself that I will enter every year until I can get in there- even if I'm old and grey!

Anyways, enough of that, here's the little story to accompany 'Time for Rabbit-Tea':

For better or worse, I work best after 4pm. It’s funny; after so many years working jobs that forced me into the habits of an early bird, my brain still refuses to work before midday. Early-morning starts coinciding with a shortage of coffee are so much the worse for everyone in the house!

 If I’m working on a very detailed painting, a large body of work or thinking a lot about the pace and flow of a storyboard, I find myself getting very tired after a few hours. Napping in the afternoon is the only way I can switch my brain off.

 Of course, it’s not really natural to sleep like this. Humans have something like a 90-minute sleep cycle, which goes through the motions of R.E.M., then a deeper sleep and then that sort of shallower window when you can resurface and feel refreshed; your body’s natural time to wake and use the stored energy in a useful way. Alarms interrupt all of this and can leave you feeling, well, alarmed. When I finally acknowledge the snooze button I’ve already punched in a variety of inelegant ways particular to drunks and the sleep-deprived, it is dark outside. You wonder, for a moment, whether it’s morning or night and it dawns on you that it doesn’t matter anyway since sleeping most of the day has not helped tick things off that growing to-do list.

 ‘Time for Rabbit-Tea’ is about a mischievous rabbit and the mad things that happen inside your brain when time becomes fluid.  

Have an awesome day wherever your heart may roam.
♥ Mel

the goose girl

Greetings poppets!

Say hullo to this little treasure I've shared with you before on the blog and in  my debut exhibition 'Strange Creatures, Sweet Allsorts' last December, and the latest addition to my Etsy Shop!

'The Goose Girl' was a very special drawing for me. She was one of the first drawings I did upon my return home to Darwin in late 2010 after eighteen months of living in London. I was feeling, most understandably, hot and tired and very much like a fish out of water. Coming back to Darwin wasn't really a decision we had control over, given that our visas were due to expire in early 2011 and things were already getting very cold in London- in fact, we left on the first day of snow and just in time to fly out!

I had a wonderful job at an all-girls school in the South-West, beautiful friends, a great flat and the company of my best friend Dave, who I never tired of sharing every second with, exploring our beautiful adopted city. I forgot I was Australian sometimes, and so did the girls I taught: an English accent is one of the nicest in the world and quite naturally, my nasal drawl became much nicer for the exposure to rounded vowels and semi-posh Cockney. Weekends were spent eating in Soho or with our friends Samu and Doug, who loved cooking and 'Come Dine with Me' just as much as we did. Brick Lane on a Sunday provided me with every reason known to woman to burn my savings on trinkets, or, if the weather was bad, Westfield. I spent a ridiculous amount of money on Japanese silk wool and knitted myself the maddest rainbow scarf to cheer myself up on bad-weather days. I felt like a proper Londoner.  

I was so used to feeling like a brave little snail in a strange land, being an Australian in a huge foreign city, that I didn't really know how to feel. Returning back to Darwin after so long away made me think, as I did when I arrived in London, what it means to feel 'at home'.

I'm more than happy here in Darwin, don't misunderstand, but I still feel like part of me is there, in London. I'll probably never be so lucky to live there again, though I hope sometimes soon to go back and visit.

I know now, wherever I might be in the world, 'home' is really what you keep in your heart, the bricks and mortar of memories, and maybe, the secrets in the eyes of a Greylag Goose.

♥ Mel



pink hearts and brollies

Darwin might be a small pond, but I am realising more and more what a lovely place it is for us artists and how lucky we are to have such a fantastic creative community. Tonight Dave and I toddled along to the Artist Trading Card Exhibition opening at DVAA (well, actually, we had to get there early so I could hang my work and then reward myself with some tasty Spotty Dog ice-cream from Trampoline!).

And, in other exciting news, here's Miss Rainy Day, all finished and splendiferous in the rain!

Nighty-night!

Mel xo