Lino Cuts

I have started to create some lino cuts out of a piece of lino that I found in a dumpster on Swanston Street. I've done a few so far with varying degrees of success both in the cutting stage and the printing stage. Its a really methodical and cathartic process that I'm really enjoying. I've been thinking about printing the designs from the lino cuts onto the Obi style belts that I have been making.

The Lino cut of the feather. One of my favourite i've done so far.

Printed verson of the feather.

I'm also cutting out one of the cameos i've been making out of felt to see how that goes.

I'll have some pics up of the belts i've been making soon!

Ron Mueck Exhibition

Ok, so one thing to see checked off my list. Today I went to see the Ron Mueck exhibition at the NGV. I was already a fan of Mueck and left the exhibition more so.

The exhibition is a fantastic collection of Mueck's works. All up there are about 9 - 10 works. Each one of them amazing. His use of proportion has the incredible ability to set the tone for each work. What amazed me was the power of some of his smaller works to be so intimidating.

These two old women were just under a meter tall and they were probably the most intimidating sculptures in the whole exhibition for me. Despite the size, their expressions seemed to command much more than their stature did.

As I was walking out of the exhibition I wondered why there weren't more descriptions of each of the works. I think that this may be because so much of it has to do with the individuals relationship wtih each of the subjects and how the individual percieves the change in proportion. You can't really be informed on how to feel about the proportion of something, it seems to me to be more of a personal expeirence thing. 

I'm sure there is an artists intent (in fact, i think Mueck details it in the book he has for sale in the NGV shop) but i'm glad that it's not particularly relevant when first viewing the work. 

 

A few more works that were in the exhibition.

Basically, if you appreciate the realism and amazing talent that is put into work like this, go see it in real life. It will blow you away.

Image Inspiration

Inspiration can be a hard thing to come by sometimes. Recently, due to my shiny new laptop, I have been constantly searching through many a blog, image share site and etsy seller page.

I thought I would share a few things that make my heart beat a little bit faster. These images are the kind of things that I have to save and have on hand somewhere so that if I am ever feeling flat and uninspired, they are there to pick me up.  

Meredith Dittmar - a flash artist turned sculptor 

I found her stuff on http://www.fecalface.com/SF/

there is also a really good interview with her on there and some really good shots of her work in her studio.

I am an absolute studio perve. I love to see other peoples working spaces. How they have it set up, what they use, how messy they are compared to me.

By an illustrator called Matt Taylor, really awesome colouring. Found this on http://www.ffffound.com - I check this site nearly every day

I found this on there today and think it's beautifully put together. Not too sure who the artist is.

Oh, and if you want to have a little perve on my newly, kind of clean studio, here you go

Pretty nice eh? And it's only going to get better, yeah!

It's been over a year......

It's been well over a year since my last blog. I have not felt my most creative, nor have I had a computer to actually blog on! After recently purchasing a lovely new laptop I am free to blog anytime I like!

The start of 2010 has brought about many changes. New house, new people, new ideas, new work, new studio. All exciting and beautiful. This year will be a year of change and development. I can feel it in my waters. I will be starting work soon for the same company we made the Kangaroo and Wombat for. This time making....wait for it, another wombat! But for the kids book Wombat Stew. Should be a fun little project. I am also working on getting some of my personal work up on Etsy.com, so watch out for that. In the process of taking photos of work and figuring out names, designs etc.

I have a very basic webpage up thanks to my lovely friend Laura Flowerday, designer extrodinare. So far it is being hosted through her site, but soon will be out there on its lonesome with updated photos and work.

Check it out and let me know what you think! http://www.lauraflowerday.com/laurenhome.html

and while you are at it take a look at Laura's beautiful graphic design work http://www.lauraflowerday.com/ as well as her awesome stationary range http://www.papercrane.com.au/

Here are some photos of little pieces i have been working on lately. I'm a bit in love with block shapes, silhouettes and interesting fabrics, so it revolves a lot around that. These are just preliminary photos of work, so there will be more to come. What do you think? I'd love a bit of feedback about them.

There is also two exhibitions coming up that you should check out if you are into amazing sculpture. Even if sculpture isn't a medium that you ususally connect with, these two artists have a beautifully technical and emotive style that is always amazing. First one is Ricky Swallow, exhibiting at the NGV in Melb http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/rickyswallow/ whose woodcarvings have always blown me away.

The second one is Ron Mueck who is on at the NGV International. He is a simply mindblowing sculptor who plays with proportion and incredibly life like subjects. Go and see it!

Long time no see

Ahoy, it clearly has been a ridiculously long time since I have posted anything at all. All due to moving house, having no internet, time and breaking my camera. Ah how the fates can work against you. I've seen months and months of exciting things, perhaps too much to mention. But an exhibition I saw recently truly amazed me. Julia DeVille is an amazing artist who works a lot in the jewellery realm, She recently held an exhibition at Craft Victoria (who also have a blog on here) and it was just amazing. The level of skill and artistry she uses to create beautiful pieces is so exciting. If you get a chance to check out her work please do.

Short post but hopefully I will be up and running again soon. Happy Christmas!

Inspiration comes at the most random of times. And then sometimes, i guess it doesn't come at all. After feeling incredibily uninspired lately I have now embarked on too many things when I am just about to get busy. A few days off can lead to trouble I tells ya.

There seems to be a trend at the moment of a general lull in everyones creative passions. Especially with a lot of production people that I know. It can be a really disheartening thing to have a constant sense of want. But never really being able to articulate what it is that you want or even what direction you think you should be moving in. Constantly working to someone else's creative views and inputting yours when you can can sometimes be a soul destroying endeavour. It seems to train people to ignore their own personal aesthetic and rely on a situation or project to instigate any creativity. Outside a structured project, it's hard to know how to start your creative flow when you have only really being doing it off someone else's steam. Hard times. I've had to deal with a lot of these things lately and it can be terribly hard to find that spot of inspiration that starts you on sometime, and that actually does start you, not just in idea form, but doing.

Feeling like you have to have a reason to do something is also a difficult one. Why does there have to be a reason other than I want to? It's easy to doubt why you should start something before you even have. gah. Constantly searching for that inspiration. Totally see why people need a muse. Perhaps I should start looking for one? Any suggestions?

On the other hand, this book has been a massive source of inspiration for me and never ceases to thrill me with its lovely content. It contains pages of sketchbooks from street artists from all over the world, and they all have massively diffrerent styles and use different mediums.

Alice is in my Wonderland

So Alice has opened, awesome, not quite how I imagined it, not so awesome. My puppets had a 2 mintue cameo, got altered and were operated by children even though they were made for adults. Despite that they actually looked pretty good and got a good laugh. The rest of the show, i'm not so sure about. Definitely didn't feel justified in spending 40 freakin bucks on this show. I'm still puzzling over why there was a projection of giraffes with their necks on fire.

Woodcarving class will be starting again as of tonight! hurrah! Perhaps I will actually finish my hand!? Have been working on it at home and succeded only at stabbing myself mulitple times.

Next Wave is in full swing. Get out there people! I reccomend Kids Can Get Lost a show based around site specific theatre and a hilarious watch. Book now though because seats for pretty much every show are selling fast. Heading out to see Please Hold next week, it is now completely sold out, so, sucked in if you didn't get a seat. Tomorrow night at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces there is an art opening of a friend of mine. All attend! Its from 6 pm to 8pm and is part of the Next Wave. Support of good work is vital, do it!!!

In other news, I have graduated, yes I did it. Awesome. Not so awesome is that some dick bag stole my wallet on the night of my graduation. Not having it is an absolute pain in the ass. I also had some momentos in there that I carried around. A 100 korun note from Prague, money from singapore, friends business cards. Gah, absolute dick bag.

As my computer is also being frustrating I will have to upload photos at another time.