NEW PRINTS

A small ode to strength and magic.
New limited edition (10) A5 fine art prints of the well-loved artwork ‘To hold up the moon’ are now available in my online store here.

HAPPY TRAILS…

She never shook the stars from their appointed courses,
But she loved good men, and she rode good horses.
– Margot Liberty

FOLLOW THE MOON

Follow the Moon 2019 calendars are only available for a little while longer, because the year is already rolling away at a steady pace… If you’d like one, grab it here.

THE BLACK ACE

Late last year we spent a lovely girl’s weekend of swims, chills and good food at the cooly renovated Black Ace in Yamba. For the first time in a long time, I had a little time off from commercial work (plus a little second-trimester reappearance of energy) to just draw whatever… so I took a little inspiration from the old, bold, peaceful ocean vibes of the black and white beach shack.

Such a great place to chill out and let the mind wander…

NOCTURNES

A quoll and a hawk fight it out over some Mottlecah and wattle flowers.

I sent this piece away to an exhibition and it never returned… I wonder where it ended up?

FOLLOW THE MOON RETURNS

One of my favourite things I made for 2018 was a simple lunar calendar, so I decided to revisit it again for 2019. I’m no lunar expert, but I love keeping track of the movements of the moon while it holds it’s sway over tides, emotions, dreams and sleeping patterns.

Available for pre-order here.

The Follow the Moon calendars are only available for a limited time — orders will close in February 2019.

RAIN PONY

We had a bit of a rough roll through central-western NSW recently. Something was wrong with the car, and a queue of different mechanics each failed to diagnosis and fix it. So there was a lot of swearing and sadness in the front seats, fraught phone calls, and tense road-side waits. 

One such road-side wait was halfway between the drought-racked towns of Gunnedah and Quirindi, a road lined by cotton fields, with their rows of ghastly, seemingly-dead brown bushes, spilling forth unbelievably white, fluffy crowns. And in the golden afternoon light, as we tried to make it from one town to the other beneath a gently merciless blue sky, the fields were creamy, blushing, soft. The perfect palette rolled orderly and straight out into the night. 

So when I started to draw the rain pony, I thought about that light, those colours. I thought a little bit about the sad, tense frustration of those little everyday-life setbacks, held against the backdrop of harrowing, desperate drought. And I thought about the big and small things that ebb around us and distract us and remind us. And the hopefulness of making a wish, of trying to will something to be, to draw up a spell or a summoning or an acknowledgement of what is at the very heart of the thing. 

I hope the rain pony brings you some magic. 

Rain Pony one-of-a-kind original artwork can be purchased here. 

PONY POSTERS

I don't need to tell you why horses are magical. It's about the same as dogs, really. What's not to love about sweet, curious animal friends that try their little hearts out to impress humans, who, by-and-large, are just pretty bad at everything?

Shop new pony posters here. 

SKETCHBOOK: FLIP-THROUGH

At the end of last year I compiled a little stop-motion flip-through of a sketchbook I infrequently visited throughout 2017. It really got me thinking about how much time goes into filling a little book that takes only moments to browse through. And it also made me realise that after my first year of full-time freelancing, that time – which the book required so much of – has become very rare and precious. 

So, with all the renewed vigour of any good human in January, I'm trying to spend at least a half-hour each morning working on personal projects or in sketchbooks, just warming up, recording ideas, and drawing for the hell of it. That is, until I decide that that half-hour is better spent exercising, playing the banjo or drinking coffee in quiet contemplation...