Monthly Archive

Just a quick note to let you know about my new Etsy shop and cards available at Redbubble.
Both are up and running and I will be adding more and more items and images as the weeks go by…. feel free to make requests!

Also some weeks ago I was featured on one of my favouritest sites in the whole wide world www.startdrawing.org, this site focuses on the work of asian artists and artists inspired by asia… I then recommended to them my friend Mikish, previously blogged here, and she got a plug too! Please take the time to sift through the posts on this site, there are some incredible works and the diversity of style is also a plus. (This may sound sad but I often spend my lunch time doing just that).

Oh and a couple of weeks back I was also featured in ‘Melbourne Living’ Magazine, see pic.

The photos above are of two cute pieces I picked up off an illustrator friend of mine living in Tokyo. His name is Josh Mckibillo and I first met him in 2006 at my first Design Festa. He stopped by my booth and praised my work and then by some bizarre twist of fate we were in adjoining booths at the next Design Festa so we got even more time to get acquainted. We then met for a chat and a bowl of noodles in Ueno later that month and chatted about all things illustration and Japan.
I jumped with joy last week when my two large boxes from Japan arrived on my doorstep and I finally could unwrap all my goodies, these pictures amongst them, and set them up in my studio. They now have pride of place on my mantelpiece and question each other from each end of it with “nani?”…”nani?” (nani, means ‘what’ in Japanese). The birds themselves aren’t actually painted but cut out from a black, flocked sticker.

I am also delighted to see the plum blossoms in my backyard blooming and have now made it a ritual to feed seed and old bread to the birds that sit in the trees in my backyard. There is ’stumpy’ the Dove, he has a kind of club foot, and his other Dove buddies and a bunch of Minors as well as Blackbirds, Sparrows, Wattlebirds and Whiteye’s.

Then there is this awesome book I found while organizing all my reference material. I can’t remember where it came from exactly, probably borrowed from my parents, but it has these awesome swap cards of Australian birds in it and appears to be a promotion for Tuckfield’s Tea company. It even has a list of parks where you are most likely to see the different birds, although there is a fair chance some of them my be endangered by now… and the parks are probably some kind of awful ‘Caroline Springs’ development … but I cynically digress. The colours of the cards are brilliant, almost polaroid like in their intensity, and the illustrations of the flora so beautiful too. Antipodean love!

Apparently it was around 40 degrees in Tokyo yesterday… what do you do when you are stuck in a tiny aparto sweltering away on a day like that? Head on down to the local pool of course!
I do remember having to adjust alot to the lack of personal space available to me at times while living in Japan, but this is just ridiculous… and more than a little ewww!

On the 25th of July last year, I wept for five hours on a plane back from Japan, the poor man next to me was forced to listen to my muffled sobs as I returned back to my home town after three years of living in the future. Why did I sob? Wish I could give a definitive answer but I am positive it would not make interesting reading and would be too self indulgent, even for me, to delve into. Rest assured though I don’t outwardly sob anymore, but am definitely always on the lookout for a new adventure…
One such adventure is now beginning to take shape, don’t quite know where it is leading yet but Melbourne is a great place for brewing stuff, for nesting, for hiding in caves and getting busy making stuff, there are some truly awesome things happening here and one is about to come up soon like The Melbourne Writers Festival…there are also several others but will keep them for another post.

So what brought all this on?

Two things contributed to my recent itchy feet, both are featured above : The first is a picture I found while heading back from a shopping expedition at the Victoria Markets, she was just laying there on the ground peeking out with her owl eyes to a horizon of her own invention, so I named her ‘Wanderlust’. Be happy to pass her on to her original owner if anyone knows who that might be BTW.
The second was, Owen and Sim, my partners in crime during my 3 years in Japan. Now married and living in the UK they set out this European summer for Japan, New Zealand, Australia and Thailand and tales of their travels got me searching websites for cheap tickets all of Saturday morning … escape was on my mind.

And with the media screaming about the lack of housing affordability and the median price for a first home at $420,000 here in Melbourne, there is even less incentive to curb the wanderlust I just can’t seem to shake.

Headed on down to ACMI today to see Tekkon Kinkreet, absolutely, breathtakingly, fantastically, awesomely good! I found myself a cozy little seat next to the most otaku looking dude I could find, turned off my phone and breathed in the musty smell of serious movie goers in a Melbourne winter. The two women next to me were discussing their schedule, they had seen two films and were off to three more after this one. I can only imagine the distorted sense of reality they would be walking around in later that evening.

Anyway on to what the topic the title of this entry suggests, I attended my second Dr. Sketchy a couple of weeks ago and found it just as awesome as the last. I feel right at home drawing to lounge and rock music and loved the casual banter of the model ‘Chikita Margarita’ this time, she was hilarious. The pics above are of her and a sketch for a new piece I am working on from the last session of ‘Miss Nic’ for her new tattoo.