Howdy Partner!

I've been a busy little bee today, finishing some work for my agent Wild Apple including a few snowmen designs - check out my Wild Apple profile here. I also worked on my second assignment for Lilla Rogers MATS. This week it was a cowboy theme for the children's apparel market. I challenged myself this week with a very limited colour palette. I found this quite challenging as I usually like to work with lots of bright colours. I think it works though and suits the simplicity of the icons. I hope you are all having a lovely weekend. Until next time.

MATS Part B - Penguins and Igloos.

I'm back on board for Lilla Roger's Make Art that Sells e-course, part B. I really enjoy her design briefs and love the community of artists in our class. This week we had to design a card for xmas, our subject matter being Penguins and Igloos. This is the final design I submitted. I used a combination of watercolour, pencil and digital for this piece. I wanted to use a bright, cheerful colour scheme and steer away from the traditional christmas colours. Since I enjoy working on kids illustrations, my aim was to have the card jump out and appeal to a young child if it was sitting on a shelf in a shop. I'm looking forward to the next assignment. Hopefully it's something just as fun as this weeks.

Weekend Projects

Here are few new projects I have been working on this weekend that I thought I would share.

The Snow Queen and Happy Day art prints are available on my hardtofind store or can be purchased on my big cartel store.

Mood Boards

I asked a talented friend of mine, Alex Butta, to create some mood boards for me. I needed some inspiration for my next few projects.

Alex is the visual merchandising manager and interior decorator for Freedom Furniture in Preston and runs her own business, Alebi Styling and Design on the side. You can find Alebi here on Facebook

These boards are a collection of some of her favourite things. I thought I would share them on my blog as they are just too juicy not to! Thank you Alex :)

The Tropics

Table Cloth and Tiles - Bonnie and Neil

Banana and Leaf cushion, constable dining table and Tropics canvas - Freedom Furniture

Coloured moss balls - Mister Moss

Crosses and Pineapple tiles - Jai Vasicek of Ahoy Trader

Watercolour paint, gold palm, water ripples and people swimming canvases- Urban Road

Flying Flamingo striped cushion - Our Lieu

Jewellery - Emeldo

Tutti Frutti

Pineapple tile - Jai Vasicek of Ahoy Trader

Tutti Fruitti Pillow Cover - Rachael Castles

PJ's - Peter Alexander

Banana Pillow and bed linen - Kipp & Co

Jewellery - Eatmedo

Monochrome Pineapple cushion - Our Lieu

Watermelon Door Mat - lulu on Carlisle St Balaclava

Dragon Fruit - Alex's favourite exotic fruit!

Work like a Captain. Play like a Pirate

Red Feather cross - Jai Vasicek of Ahoy Trader

Cactus and Pool Canvas and cushions in chair - Urban Road

Yellow rope cushion - Freedom Furniture

Anchor door matt - Milk & Suga

Always Forever, Sea and Spot Cushions - Blacklist

Sink or Swim, Hope flag and Don't Give Up - Blacklist

Coco Loco and Anchor Striped cushion - Our Lieu

Caravan and Tepee - Glamping Inspiration (look it up) :)

Getting back to Nature

My little boy Jackson was very sick last week with a nasty flu that just wouldn't quit. Poor little guy. But he's on the mend now and we had a lovely weekend enjoying the beautiful spring weather in Melbourne. Here's a few pieces I have been working on, inspired by the beautiful shapes and colours of nature. X

Late night Owls

It's been a busy few weeks for me, freelancing for an amazing company here in Australia. I feel absolutely exhausted when I get home each night and after spending a few hours with the kids, I usually collapse into bed. But tonight I decided to whip up some owls. Hoot Hoot!

I hope you are all having a lovely week. X

Spoonflower fabric8 winner!

Ok so this is kind of old news now but I won the fabric8 contest with Spoonflower! I've been meaning to update my blog with the news but have been so busy! So, winning the contest now means that I get to release my cosmic voyage fabric collection with Robert Kaufman fabrics very soon. As you can imagine, I am very excited! 

I have been working on lots of new things lately including some detailed pencil drawings and also playing around with lots of patterns using pencil and watercolour.

Here are some of my recent works. 

Recent works

Here's an update on some of my recent work. I have been really enjoying playing around with watercolours, paints and ink lately.

Abstract art, who knew?!

I've been working on some more abstract art paintings in both watercolour and acrylic. I never thought 'abstract' was really my 'thing' but I'm kinda addicted now!

You can find these pieces and more on my new hardtofind store which is now live, yay!

And finally, here is my third design idea for the fabric8 comp on Spoonflower. I have one more design to go that needs to be submitted by the 17th of July for the final voting round, eek!

New designs on a quiet weekend

I had a kid free weekend this weekend as Grandma and pa took the kids to the beach house for some fun so I got stuck into some work! Firstly and most importantly, I worked on some designs for the next round in the Spoonflower/Robert Kaufman Fabric8 competition. Did I mention I got into the top 8!? SO EXCITING. I still can't believe it!!

Also, I have made it through all the review processes with hardtofind, an Australian online store similar to etsy but much more curated. So I have been crazy busy filling my new store with lots of designs. I'm getting there slowly. You can find my hardtofind store here. Check it out and let me know what you think :)



My Constellation design that got me into the top 8!

My second design for the fabric8 competition. 

New print designs for my hardtofind store

Pencil and Watercolour

I love pulling out my pencils and doing some drawing and shading. I find it so therapeutic, sitting there, listening to music while I slowly work away at a sketch. I decided to team these little sketches up with some watercolour. What do you think?

Abstract Watercolour

When my friend Alex calls to asks me to join her on a shopping trip, I always jump with excitement and groan at the same time because I know my bank account is going to take a serious beating! But I'm always glad that I go because Alex is just one of those friends that inspires me and gets me working on all sorts of different projects. This time it was abstract art. I decided to dig out the watercolour paints and brushes and have a play.

The Yeti and the Bird

Not much work got done over the weekend. My two little ones discovered the joy of riding after we purchased a new saddle for our miniature horse. I did manage to get a little bit of work done last night though (staying up till the early hours of the morning) and got this cute Yeti and the Bird illustration finished. This is another design for my HardToFind store, opening soon...

Day 4 - Elephant, Bird and Balloons

Day 4 and it's another print design for my HardToFind online store that is opening soon.

More Budgies!!

I worked on a few more budgie prints last night. I really enjoyed doing these. It's a nice break from working in vector.

Budgie Illustration

I needed to take a break from creating cute animal characters today. I find that if I work on one type of illustration for too long, I get bored and lose the joy of creating. I believe that 'joy' is something that shows in your work so I try to keep the joy levels up. So today I decided to work on a budgie using lots of paint splatters, digital painting and hand drawn elements.

Day 3

A Pirate Bear for day 3 of my print design a day challenge.

Pretty Pink Bear

Sailor Lion

Another design for my 1 print a day for the next 2 weeks challenge.