New additions

I've just added a few new babies to my print shop here.

Houses of the Holy

Led Zeppelin shirt from eBay; op-shop skirt; markets/eBay/vintage jewellery; vintage sunglasses.

Edited with curves created by Julia Trotti, available here and here.

So I'm still on a bit of a maxi-skirt-and-boots trip, which is being encouraged by a steady run of +30°C days... consistent weather in Melbourne -- it's rare.

Artist // Miso

All above images belong to Miso. 

I had been aware of Miso's work for a while, but last year -- after somehow finding my work getting more and more caught up and associated with fashion/fashion illustration -- I stumbled across Miso's blog and my art-making-thoughts-and-feelings-reservations-and-anxieties all kind of clamoured together and then fell silent. 

It was an 'aha' moment: This is what it's about.

Because, around the time that I rediscovered Miso's work, I was really struggling with ideas about the vacuous, shallow nature of (a lot of) the fashion industry, and the fact that my work was becoming increasingly involved with that side of things. In fact, I was starting to see fashion illustration and related work as one of the only pathways to making illustration a career -- which has a definite ring of soul-selling to it. 

But anyway, seeing Miso's work -- from her beautiful street art and her homemade tattoos (always consciously delivered, friends only), to her poetic light-leaky polaroids and precise papercuts -- and the way her entire life and practice seems to be an extension of art, creation and beauty, made me think a lot about the paths I was taking. About taking a conscious approach to things, about creating beauty in lots of small things, and then eventually large things. About embodying your art, having it imbued in everything you do.

So, I'm not really done thinking about all that yet, but in the meantime, I'm just enjoying following an artist whose expression seems entirely pure and unfettered. 

Check out more of Miso's work here.

Rebel girls

Certain songs

kids out on the east coast - roughly twenty years old - got coaxed out by a certain perfect ratio - of warm beer to the summer smoke - and the Meatloaf to the Billy Joel - certain songs they get so scratched into our souls

Sketchy Fridays: What afternoons are made of

Some sketching, some printing, some motivational or moving words. 

Eclectic jewellery collections, dried flowers and spiced rum.

Pack up and leave

I've only been back at work for a few weeks and I'm already looking forward to packing up the essentials and heading off on an adventure... I'm keeping a keen eye on those long weekends that are coming soon. 

Artist // Ross Christy

All images by Ross Christy

I've only recently discovered Ross Christy's work (via Wesley Bird) but I absolutely adore it. Also, I can't seem to research anything about him... Maybe he only exists in the real world -- which, if he does, is a nice decision.

He has a dead-on eye for the kind of 2D shrine-building that I'm into, as well as a fearlessness when it comes to colour. And, as we all know, I'm sucker for anything with cacti.

Have a scroll through his site and soak up a bit of his folksy-nature-spiritualism. 

♉✡❍ Out here on the perimeter ❍✡♉

All images by Lauren Treece.
Where is this world that Lauren Treece inhabits?
Eerie, magical, perpetually dusky and overcast. 
Lauren's Flickr.

Valentine

Something sweet.

☽ Gemini rising ☾

It's kind of impossible to stay on task lately.

If they ask about Charlemagne

Charlemagne had eyes just like a lover

But last winter there was weather, and his eyes

they iced right over.

How good is listening to a band that you love, but you'd sort-of forgotten that you loved them?

Bambi

Tramps like us

Images: Bat for Lashes, Emmmilia flickr, Shop Tunnel Vision, Who the fuck is Mick Jagger?, Wolfcub.

Fringing, conchos, full-length everything. 
Boots, buckles, blondes in black on black and big Quaker hats.
Cars, horse, bikes, open roads.  

I've had 'Born to Run' stuck in my head for days.

Sketchy Fridays: Off-task

I've shrugged off commission responsibilities this week to work on some personal sketches and catch some ideas before they disappear... I guess I'll just have to be more disciplined next week and get back to work.

Artist // Anthony Lister

All work by Anthony Lister

So, I've been meaning to start this for a while... and here it is: the inaugural, weekly artists-who-inspire-me-and-have-shaped-how-I-work-and-think-about-art spot. 

I was originally planning on it being just one post, but I made a list of artists to include... and it promptly became a huge list.

So I'll start where I feel like I started, when it came to developing my own style and finding out there were other -- more irreverent, interesting and wild -- ways to engage in portraiture. That development and discovery was influenced a lot by Anthony Lister's style. 

And also, for me, Lister meant that not every great young artist came out of San Francisco or New York, or if they were Australian, Melbourne. I lived in Brisbane (which, as far as east-coast capital cities in Australia go, is often considered a bit of a backwater) for four years, and seeing his work around the place was a constant reminder that the culture of the place you come from is not directly proportional to the culture you cultivate or create.   

But anyway, all that kinda speaks for itself, I think.

Aloha

Mara Hoffman X Neil Krug

Mara Hoffman's Spring 2013 lookbook Aloha

Check out the video here.

Neil Krug has such a magic knack for capturing a long-lost sense of romance in images. 

Looking at his work, I often feel like I've opened a dusty box -- one that maybe belonged to my parents and was stashed under a cabinet, never given a second thought -- and unearthed a whole folio of late-60s psychedelia zines. Or even, discovered an envelope of photos that are totally innocent of the editing process, but look so crazy and saturated and hypercoloured because the world they were shot in actually just looks like that.

Anyway, add that feeling to Mara's ability to conjure up some mystical, powerful, ancient magic... and you've got something like the above. 

Aloha, magic beings. 

Luck.

∆ Stonefox ∆

Photography: christopher ferguson  

Model: bambi northwood-blyth
Stonefox #2
via fgr
I spent a few days recently working on illustrations of the above-pictured fine young lady (which hopefully I'll be able to share with you soon!), and I can say, she's an absolute delight to draw.

Also, how perfect is the combination of an orange light-leak on a blue summer sky?

Humble and the blue roses

Old Evil Twin shirt; op-shop skirt; Windsor Smith boots; old cheap-store sunglasses; necklaces via Ebay; market/pawnshop rings.

The first thing Humble did when I let her out into our backyard, on the day we brought her home, was to walk up to this blue-flowering tree and try and take a chomp out of one of the flowers. Now we're a week into living together and she's trying to take a bite out of everything with her sharp, tiny puppy teeth -- it's just lucky she's cute.