august birds

August birds... are flying off to somewhere slightly warmer. Not too hot, not too cold... somewhere nice and in between.  New gouache bird work.

August Birds

I miss you angle

The fascination with angles, and geometric shapes has been abundant, and a fixation of sorts since art school and a subject I periodically walk away from, then back to  like a co-dependant relationship, but a nice one.  I like the tactile aspect of canvas and paint, and the infinite potential of shape.  With painting I'm really more abstract, and structure, form and texture play a big part. Here's a couple of oldies.  I am hanging out to do some larger scale painting soon hopefully. 

Nightshade

It's so cold in the country - so much colder than the city, but I do love it. There's a certain freshness in the air, and that smell of a wet and decomposing autumn.  The gum trees look beautiful in the morning with the dappled sunshine coming through, and it looks like most of our trees have buds - the promise of Spring for sure! I can't wait to see if any are flowering.... I'm totally in love here.  Jase and I have been busy pulling apart our kitchen. It's rewarding learning, and wonderful to see the slow, but sure transformation. The other day I dug this lamp out of our studio (amongst the many still unpacked items) and it now resides on our fridge in the kitchen. Such a wonderful additional light! It's definately my favourite corner of the house right now. 

And the play with the new symbols continues. This is a bit of an extension in some ways.... It's called "Nightshade" and the title is courtesy of the rather ace Mr Jase! (ha! that rhymes - sorry).  I imagine it larger than life printed as a giclee on linen. Might have to get me one of those!  More later in the week-  we hope you're all having fun. xo

one million

one million. could be one million voices, leaves, moments, thoughts, sentences, paragraphs, or ideas. The title hasn't been decided - yet. That's coming, but this is a NEW work, soon to hit the stands as a Giclee print, and possibly something else? Will see.  I've been in the house all day working on the computer, while Jase has been enjoying the shops, sunshine, outdoors, and running inaluxe errands. We are both having fun, and hope that your Friday is as relaxing and productive as you'd like it to be. Have a super weekend all! I promise a proper explanation of the inaluxe changes, and a real intro to Jason next week. 

+ seeing as winter has definately arrived, here's my idea of what 'perfect snow' would look like - sort of.  I played around with this piece today, and it makes me smile.  Now it's off to do some baking - gotta keep those fingers warm somehow!

shape

Not much to say right now, but here are some hand painted gouache patterns I worked on yesterday (as well as my own cross hatch background - that was fab fun!) which all need some work, and some sort of design process, placement etc. I've thrown them together in a pretty much haphazard fashion for now - it's nice not to be precious! Hope you're having a great weekend.

birds + blogs + bulbs

Well, if you're a regular visitor to my blog, you may have noticed that every time you came by in the last week, the header keeps changing.... what can I say? I'm going through "header blues" rather than heather blues. (bad joke, and not even funny. so it's a "bad" non-joke really). Ah ha ha ha - still, I'm laughing. Such a sociopath!  The blog needs big work, and for that I have a Graphic Designer in mind... more on that soon! So I will stop molesting my blog html, header, and size of things and just try not to let it all bother me in the meantime. So that's the blog update.

I bought some bulbs. Mostly white, some cream and some blues, and well, that antique blush apricot colour too. I bought them from garden express and I can't wait to plant them.  And last but not least, more bird news.... Some new birds - pigeons infact! One of these sweeties is very lucky to be going onto a blog header for a pretty cool new blog! More on this when it's all ready.

Hope you're all having a great week... xo

Fathers Day Sticker Book

I was very excited when I recieved an email from Yaelfran inviting me to take part in a collaborative sticker book. The theme for the Sticker book is Fathers Day, and I've had an absolute cracker of a time working on this. More on the sticker book when it's ready.  I decided to keep with the fox theme, and while I did want to do art work like "dad wearing mums wig" and "dad in mums dress" and "dad in really wrong disco clothes" these came out instead!  Focusing on portraits - such madness and fun. 

dad in hat

twice the man

i love you dad

roccoco dad

secret agent dad

 and last but not least - dad in bear suit!

Have a great easter-long-weekend everyone. xo

new bird

some new work + news soon.

waiting for rain

Foxy is waiting for rain. This is the first painting I've worked on in ages, and you know what, I really really missed it! I just have not had the time. It's interesting working on different projects - you start one, have another idea, go into another direction, and before you know it, you've done nothing. I have too many things on the go, and I'm behind, and I'm not really getting the things I love done - ironically. The Fox and cloud, flowers are all gouache on paper. Foxy is huge, taking up a whole A4 sheet... I put him here on this lovely linen background as he's not quite finished yet.  Off to rest.

a white weekend

I had a very white weekend, as opposed to a wild weekend. I don't think I remember what those are like - feeling so old these days! 

Anyway, back to my white weekend.

I pretty much painted everything in sight that I could find that wasn't white - white.

A hall table that was brown, two frames that were brown, two ornate carved boxes that were brown, and lots of little hand cut rounds from cardboard that were brown.

I think this is due to the fact that I miss snow. And maybe I've been watching too many American Christmas films. There's always snow. Snow on rooftops, trees, people, snow in beards, eyebrows, snow on windowsills, snow snow snow. White all over the place. It's beautiful.

It's a rainy day here, and our house is dark, so taking photos of the frames, boxes, and hall table are out of the question, but here are the little white rounds - with trees, and park benches, and birds... in not so white.  I bought some rubber stamps, and they arrived yesterday.... so finally I had something to do with my little white rounds. I've decided to call these "little worlds" (for now anyway). Until I change my mind.  I don't yet know what I'll do with them. Any ideas you might have would be welcome.

some trees

Some new work, titled - some trees. Being printed as we speak!   Excitement +

I'm making the most of my weekend painting, as I've been flat out with work lately, but it's all for the greater good of my bank balance, and being able to pay my rent! ha! And of course, pay for my indulgent art endeavours - which I cannot seem to leave behind. :) Hope you're all having a blast of a time. xo As soon as time permits, I will post again.

the parts that make sense & lyrical tree

I'm not going to talk too much today, but here are some photos.

'the parts that make sense" one in a frame (which I will be keeping for myself! and some that will be available in my etsy shop for purchase in the coming days.  I felt it was important to put the actual title on the works, but will not be dating them on the front - it will just get too type heay in look. Instead they will be dated on the back, with "inaluxe" on them.

I am so happy with how they look framed. Even more alluring (I think).

As well as these works, I have some new hand painted one of a kind original art works (could double as a card) in my store for sale now! They are cheap as!  At only $12.00, you get an original mixed media painting, and a hand made envelope.  Am I mental, or is this an ok price?

Other news.... stay tuned for photos of the art work I created as part of the artist exchange, and next week I will be putting up a feature on artist (and lovely person) Brendan Halyday.

Excitement +

for the love of r e d

below is an idea I've been working on - it's all to do with tattoos, fabric, and well, psychadelic pattern. I have way too many projects going on at the moment, but I am enjoying this zig zag process. Sometimes you've got to go sideways to get to your destination - but then, who actually cares about the end of the road? It's the journey! the journey that matters!

bird in the hand

These little artworks are small enough, they almost fit in your hand. 

A bird in the hand is.... well, it's a very special thing! Unless it decides to go to the toilet on you, which these promise not to do!

I'm slowly adding to my etsy store... they are original little one of a kinds. Buy one, collect more... I think they would look amazing framed in a group - a row, or box or any way you like.  the textures are beautiful, and I'm really loving working with paint and paper at the moment.

life's little trials

I'm been a little

f  l  a  t 

lately.

Ever since we got the bad news about Mingus, I've been a little b l a h . 

I have mountains (okay, not that many) but quite a few emails to reply to, but I just haven't been in the headspace.  I'm working through it.  I did some little paintings/illustrations yesterday.  I like to think of these as "life's little trials" or  "having a not-so-great day" or "what the hell is going on?" or maybe "I feel kind of crap, but it's all good"

Really I have no name for them, but needless to say Mingus was an inspiration.... I think they're cute, tender and hopeful, rather than tragic, hopeless, and lost. 

*If you click on the image it will enlarge, so you can see the details and writing

nest pattern series

Nest pattern.

I can't get enough of this new series I've just started. It is so much fun - I can't think of the last time I felt so inspired, and had so much fun! The two images above are seperate works. You can buy these in my etsy shop. woo-hoo!

Nest Pattern

september birds

b  i  r  d  s
My bird explorations continue.
The process is interesting (to say the least).

birds

A friend of mine asked me if I'd be interested in doing a logo for her. I was flattered she asked me, and it's taken me some time to get thinking and start working on it. There's something of a bird in the logo, so here are my first explorations of a bird. The logo won't necessarily have a bird in it, but this is my process of working through it.  The first bird is black bird.  A little black bird with an odd and (rather large) beautiful wing. The second bird is red bird.  A red bird in flight, with a voluminous wing span. I like the one above best. But it's just the first day with the birds, so hopefully there'll be something else that tips the balance in terms of favourites. 

Botanika

I've admired the pattern since I was a child. If you're a Croatian woman, one thing you are taught from a young age is the glory of the pattern.  Flowers, leaves, all manner of plants - primitive beautiful forms. Unlike painting them, these had to be tediously applied to metres and metres of hand woven hemp. Super fine, dense needlework.  I have some of these passed down in my family. They are as striking and perfect today as they were fifty years ago. I've never had the patience for such detailed embroidery - But I have always loved paint.  This reminds me of my grandmothers.