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 

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 ♥

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.

Miss Krystal's Kitty Whiskers

Until very recently, I was a dyed-in-the-wool crazy cat lady.

It's not my fault; as I say, my Mum is cat-mad, and her mother before her. Probably the women in my family have been mad feline fussers for centuries now. Probably we are actually part cat- God knows I shed hair like one, don't much care for being dirty, and have long fingernails the thickness of sheet metal that completely contradict zero interest on my part to look after them at all. As of yet, no whiskers, but I'm sure that will change in another 3 years or so when I hit 30.

I can hardly remember any cat I've ever met that I didn't like. When I was very, very young, my Mum taught me how to approach a new cat: slowly, with hand outstretched, and at their eye-level. Only when they chose to come closer to me, and had been given a few minutes to have a good sniff, explained Mum, should I pat them. As I grew older I learned that there are a few things cats almost universally love: getting scratches on the spot where their spine meets the base of their tail, having their noses rubbed, and a very gentle tug on their tails as they slink past.

I love that a cat's respect must be earned. Which is totally fitting, since most of the time mine make me feel like a glorified handmaid whose sole purpose in life is to feed them when they're hungry, cuddle them should they be feeling particularly magnanimous, but otherwise, to just sod right off- especially if I've just vacated a pre-warmed seat for them to jump into.

I also love the way cats play with complete abandon. My normally very dignified and often quite pompous bobtail Willow was only twelve months ago an ungainly little ball of legs and tumbles, falling all over herself to chase her rattly ball. Or climbing the clothes-horse like a regular chimp, just because she could.

Cats are the most self-serving, narcissistic creatures we congratulate ourselves for 'domesticating'; just because they don't scratch our eyes out on a daily basis and occasionally plop themselves in our laps for a bit of a purr, doesn't make them any less calculating. I love the sheer audacity of cats: even when they are caught in the act of doing something naughty, they will still look at you like you are a complete halfwit. 'Do you mean to say I shouldn't have my face buried in your dishwater? Perhaps you shouldn't have made it so tasty by flavouring it with spaghetti sauce from the pan. I am merely cancelling out your wastefulness here.'

And not an hour later, when I am in bed and peacefully snoozing, I will feel a little paw on my nose; not unlike someone knocking on a front door. This is Daisy's code for: 'Mummy, be a good human and lift up the blanket so I can take advantage of the bed you have spent time warming for me. You may scratch my belly also, but put some effort in or else I'll just get sick of you and jump off and guilt you for not being properly devoted to me.' And what can I say- I fall for it every single time. 

All said, R-Patz had it almost right: fluffy kitty bellies are like my very own brand of heroin, albeit a more health-conscious choice and a little hairier. So without further ado, here's a fun little tribute to everything I love best about my meowing machines, and the crazy cat-lady that lives inside me.

 

If you've got any stories about the cats in your life, I'd love to hear them!

Have a brilliant day poppets,
Mel x

amy

Hullo poppets!

I've kept you in suspense for long enough, so finally, I'd like you to meet 'Amy':

As I mentioned a few weeks back in my post 'in progress this week', 'Amy' was a commissioned imagined-portrait piece for a lovely Darwin lady who just happens to be a vet. She has told me all sorts of stories in our discussion of this piece, about her 'dog whispering' days, taming a particularly aggressive German Shepherd and generally letting naughty puppies everywhere know who dishes out the dog biscuits.

But of all dogs, the Whisperer explained her particular affinity with chihuahuas. Hers especially have such distinct personalities; their particular genetic make-up makes them animated in a way that is both comic and human.

Of course, you'll know from recent posts I'm well aware of these ideas of the domesticated food-chain, and that I am not at the top of it in our house. No, I sit just below Willow who is determined to proclaim herself 'Top Cat' and merely tolerates me because I feed her and have proved myself such a faithful servant. This past week just gone, a well-timed swipe on Daisy's rear ankle earned our baby a day at the vets and us a $340 bill to pay!

When we're not banging our heads on hard surfaces bemoaning the fact that our biggest fur-kid can't accept our littlest, it is fascinating to watch the breadth of emotions that cross our kittens' faces as they go about their days. And I guess this is why we have pets, and most commonly cats and dogs: both are capable of the uglier human emotions like jealousy and anger, but so too are they capable of giving with their whole hearts when you most need it.

'Amy' is a lighthearted little portrait of the potential in harmonious relationships between pets and their humans. Because, at the end of the day, wouldn't it be wonderful to do away with cars and buses and just ride your faithful pooch to work? Amy did discover these benefits, quite by accident, when she found some ChiChi grow at the back of a cupboard. It did what it said on the box, and the rest is history!

Limited Edition, Fine Art reproduction prints of 'Amy' are now available in my Etsy Shop for everybody who wants to share in the fun.  

Have an awesome day wherever you are!

Mel x

one more sleep . . .

So looking forward to seeing you there!
Happy Thursday everybody!
Mel x

the woodchopper's daughter

My Auntie Cheryl and Uncle Steve have a wonderful sprawling house in Tyers, in the Gippsland region of Victoria. I spent almost half my childhood in this house, and it is one of my very favourite places to be in the world. 

From the lounge-room window at night-time, you can see all the lights in the LaTrobe Valley, like so many fallen stars waiting for the morning to return home. In the summer, the cicadas chirp and the air crackles with hot winds and the whispering of the pine plantations my father’s family have forested for so many generations. The backyard backs onto a gully, verdant with grass and blackberries my four-year old self would happily stain her fingers and mouth with, once I'd tired of petting Mitsy, my Aunt's pet goat. When I was five, my grandpa and Uncle Steve built me a cubby house with a view of the gully, and it was here I'd eat my Coco-Pops before Auntie took me to school in the morning.

There was always a friend for me to play with: Sam, the first of many faithful labradors my Aunt and Uncle have loved over the years, who would patiently sit anywhere he was told to whilst I stroked his velvety ears. There was dear old Skippy, so named for the leg he lost in a rabbit-trap as a kitten. Never was there a fluffier, happier little rag-bag cat, a marvel to watch as he hopped along at a quicker clip than most of us care to walk. After Sam went to doggy heaven there was Jake, who had eyes only for Uncle. Auntie and Uncle would always talk to him like a real person, and Jake seemed to understand them: he knew the word 'rabbit' meant sit up straight and proud like a setter and scan the lounge-room for any possible hoppity interlopers. He also knew the word 'bike' meant real and proper adventure in his elderly years: Jake had been trained as a puppy to sit in a (rather largish) crate my uncle had attached to the back of the motorbike he used to check on his cattle. Roaming around on the property was Jake's favourite thing, besides his 'Dad', my uncle.

The house itself is huge. Uncle took it upon himself about ten years ago to renovate parts of it, starting with a beautiful black slate floor to run its' length. At the time there were three mini-lounge rooms, which Uncle turned into one. The supporting beam is a sleeper from the old Melbourne docks, now festooned with gas lanterns to hang from the arm-sized nails that still stick from it. Backing onto the lounge room is a wooden deck, where I loved to sit as a child and listen to storms as the rain pounded and bounced in a deafening roar off the fibreglass canopy.

But my favourite of all is the wall by the front door. This has become a kind of family tree photo album over the years: hand coloured black and white, my beautiful late Grandma and my Grandpa on their wedding-day. Their features alike and ghostly with the age of the paper, my Uncle's family, the Richards, when they used to run the mill on Mount Erica. My beautiful cousin Kylie in her twenties, with freckles on her nose and the sweetest little pixie-cut. My Uncle's sister, who to me was always 'Auntie Pat', her lovely heart-shaped features framed by a silky-grey mane of hair, spilling down to her waist while she made something sparkly and delicate with her hands. Me, blonde and five years old on my first day of school.

But my favourite picture on this red-brick wall is of my Uncle Steve. Here, he is twenty-two, laughing hugely and balanced confidently atop a man-sized log; his hands gripping an axe that is forever caught in mid-air, mid-chop, hair bouncing thickly to his shoulders. I can't imagine he's changed all that much in the forty years since this photo was taken, though his hair, even in black and white, seemed closer to a crimson than the strawberry, pepper-flecked tones he keeps in his sixties, and much longer. But there is that same twinkle in his eye, of mischief, of a face that smiles often; a face that looks at home with a deep rumbling belly laugh or a few bars of an Elvis song, pitch perfect. In photos I've seen of Uncle a little later, he lopped his curls off into an Elvis-style pompadour. And when I came along, we'd spend afternoons in the sun room, he on the keyboard and backing up my broken little vocals to 'How much is that doggy in the window'.

'The Woodchopper's Daughter' is a little tribute to all of this: a landscape of gum and pine, of crackly summer days, of a house- you can't see it yet, but just over that hill yonder, of childhood adventures. And the hum of an Elvis song.

Mel x