Children's Festival Badges

I have been very slack. I figure I just have to post something - anything to get back into the swing of things so here I go..

The pictures I drew then scanned and did a live trace in CS3. 

I see it in my head

The idea is there.. I just can't draw what's in my head!

I am so envious of people who can illustrate..

A Shrubbery!

Walking to my car from work the other day I noticed an over grown hedge type thing and thought "how pretty". Off comes my backpack and out comes my camera. I was trying to get some macros of the hedge just vaguely aware of someone walking past. I only turned around when a college called out "if I were another person I would be wondering what on earth is this strange person doing, but don't worry, it's only me."

Here are some of my snaps:

The whole time I was snapping I was thinking of ways to turn this into a print for Gocco.. stay tuned!

Intentionally Impersonal

Insultingly practical isn't it! But that's why it's meant to be funny. Hopefully the receiver(s) will accept it in the spirit that it's given :) 

I've now discovered how tricky it is choosing colours. Here's today's best shot at colouring a Raffee badge.

Would like to get Raffee working on nice blue/orange/green background so will keep working on it..

Raffee

So I'm just starting to play a bit with Adobe Illustrator. Thought I'd fiddle with a design for my next gocco print. I came up with a giraffe. While this isn't the exact design that's going to print, it's a silhouette of Raffee.. 4 silhouettes actually :) 

I did lots of experimenting before I came up with this, and if I get a little braver I may even post the mess that I made in AI. It's kinda fun to look at the progression.. for me anyways.

"MacKenzie"

Went to the park to soak in some sunshine today as it was such a lovely afternoon. The park + my notebook + pencil + eraser + camera + a few chocolate easter eggs = MacKenzie

.. can often be found contemplating life in this pose

.. is often a very silly dog

No spots on this last Kenzie as yet but still a very Kenzie yawn.

First print dramas

When I was at Eckersley's, the girl behind the counter assured me that Canson's Montval Watercolour 300 would be perfectly fine to print gocco on - but this was not the case. While it was a nice weight and texture, I couldn't get a clean print on this card. The edges of my design just seemed to bleed a bit too much. 

So here's a picture of my first print on plain paper -

It's meant to be a lil fun for a friend's birthday. We photoshop'ed his face over Al Pacino's :)

Looking forward to trying another print with one of my own designs next time on some different card stock.

2008 Sydney Royal Easter Show

Had a great day out at the Easter Show yesterday. I particularly like walking around inside the food pavilion looking at all the cleverly constructed food and fruit displays every year. My favourite thing about the food pavilion though is sampling all sorts of jams, fruits, chutneys, mustards, chocolates, lollies etc. Everything that I tried this year was actually very good! As always it was choc-a-block in there so hard to take photos, not to mention the terrible lighting. Instead I have a few pretty photos of some carnival classics..

 

HAPPY EASTER!

Easter Egg

I love easter eggs that come wrapped in cute deco foil..

Yay, it's here!

I wasn't expecting it until after Easter to be honest. Eckersley's had said it would take a week to come in and a week from last Friday would mean it wasn't due until Good Friday - which as we all know is a public holiday! So I was very surprised indeed when I got the call from them yesterday saying it had arrived.

Now the problem is finding something "good enough" to print. I've scribbled a few drawings, but nothing worthy as yet..