oh Audrey!

I've had one of Audrey Kawasaki's images as my desktop background for quite a while now, I like it so much I don't think I've changed it for about 6 months! Audrey is an amazily talented person who's work focuses mainly on illustrative portraits of young women full of lust and... alluring innocence? They have a mix of vintage drawing & painting styles with japanese manga like figures. I love how she paints straight onto wooden blocks instead of canvas -it appears smoother and adds a really appealing texture to the works.

Take a peek here.

Kareena Kareena

Came across another great illustrator who's talent I'm equally jealous of.

Kareena Zerefos creates great images of stories from her childhood, things she remembers and those that remind her of life growing up in the rural outskirts of Aussie. A lot of the images are based on children in animal disguise, bird's, deer, horses, bats heads & wings mixed with playful whimsical children. I also love her use of colour -watery layers with inks combined with sketch.

Harps back to a time when you believed you could grow up to be anything -absolutely ANYTHING.

Johnny boy

I was doing a spot of shopping this arvo with my mum and we wondered into Kimberly's where I fell in love with these gorgeous necklaces by Johnny Ramli. Did you fall in love with them too?!

He's taken antique coins and religious icons -cut them up into geometric shapes and placed them within oxidized silver and gold mouldings. I would not be complaining if one of these stunners happened to find it's way into my jewellry box...

He also has a pretty range of classic design clutches and bags.

hello hello

Very talented illustrator Catherine Campbell who hails from Australia and studied at the University of NSW. Check out her blog here and her portfolio here!

Side note: I've had a bit of fun overload when I first started this blog so now that I've explored and experimented with 'several' text colour schemes I'm doing an overhaul and am going to try stick to one theme! watch and see... but if I slip up now and then it's really not my fault. I can't help it I like colour too much.

So a couple of things today to make up for the time between posts...

First off -how is it I've never heard of 'Sunprints' before! This is an awesome idea and I'm seriously considering ordering me some of the paper! check out these amazing prints by Deirdre Hawthorne -oh so pretty! The paper comes out blue but Deirdre creates digital prints from these hence the colour range in her pieces.

ok so the low down -It's a photographic paper that you place objects on and sit in the sun (for a certain amount of time -my googling hasn't told me just how log yet...) then you rinse with water and vollah! you have a great print!

hmmmm very tempting to purchase but I think I need to explore my gocco before I try anything new again. Must stick to one thing at a time! I get distracted far too easily.

Next up is just a little random thing -my impression of a chicken... a ceramic tile made when I was about 7 or 8??? Actually not entirely sure of this age -I should have taken a photo of the sign but I didn't so we'll just take a wild guess. Any who my sister and I both made one, I rememeber it was during a holiday break and we went to a pottery place and got to play around with these tiles, I had no clue what to draw on mine until I looked around and found chickens wondering around (we were on a farm), my sister drew a book.

I don't think I knew at the time what was happening with these tiles but they ended up in the town centre on a massive mural wall. I walked past it today with my trusty camera and thought hey I should probably take a picture just in case as you never know it may be torn down tomorrow. So there you have it. My first chicken drawing. I'm sure of it.

Have been playing around a bit again with some pencil drawings scanned into photoshop... not too sure I like them but are good to practice my colour combos with... as garish as they are.

I'm supposed to be coming up with a print design to use on my brand new -second hand- Gocco! I can't wait to use it but I don't want to rush into it too quickly as there aren't a lot of supplies for it. BUT I keep getting distracted and off on a tangent, I'm over thinking it. I need to just draw a scribble and print that!

RightO back to the drawing board.

VA L E N T I N O

want.

Am liking this slashed open back t-shirt with bow from the Valentino Red collection!

It's all about the kNee HigHs!

Exactly what I'm going to be ripping out this Winter!

Brilliant!

Stephen Burrows -has some unusual designs but I really like the bright baby blue of this and the pattern on the top, I particularly Love this dyed dress -Gorgeous!!!!

Am in love with this great collection by Blumarine's label BluGirl, would kill to have an outfit!

(note: 'kill' is a slight exageration...).

I've seen several pieces in magazines and online from Blumarine but I've never really taken the time to fully appreciate just how great the designs are! I love the colours and silhouettes, especially the beautifully tailored pencil skirts with little bow accents, their range of belts just make the outfits pop. The cherry-red Poppy dress is a-mazing!

Also take a looksie at Marchesa, these are some incredible pieces of perfection, kimono and origami inspired garments of embellished beauty!

Been playing around again with the filters and copy paste with some of my old flower images...

It's actually rather addictive, I highly reccommend it!

I've always been intrigued how it is Kaleidoscope patterns are made(ie: see Alexander McQueens amazing dresses such as the one Camilla Belle wore to an event, google it), so I had a bit of a play with some of my old flower imagery to see what I could come up with, it's still in the very early stages of experimentation but I'm discovering all the different filters I've never bothered to use in Photoshop.

I imagine a bit more cut and pasting and rotating, reflecting here and there then slicing a bit and piecing back together again and I might have something rather workable, possibly a digital fabric repeat in the making? hmmm we'll see...

You know the seemingly harmless little button in the top left that says 'Next Blog'?

DON'T CLICK IT!

I know the immense desire to do so may occur, but do so at your own peril.

I thought I would be okay, it's just a tiny wee button, it can't cause any trouble. Oh How wrong I was. Curiosity got the better of me.

I clicked it.

I was intrigued to see what the next blog would be -would it be similar to mine? What category had I been dumped in? Perhaps right next to a popular design blog?

Wrong.

The next blog was about farming and new born baby goats; -Extremely cute by the way but not exactly what I had in mind for my blog grouping.

If that wasn't bad enough I got hooked. That little button and I played a war of 'the next one will be more in keeping with what I blog about...' again with the Alas nope. There were several following blogs on Farms, the weather and vegetables??? Just when I was about to give up it suddenly changed! Yup you got it! Parenting! oh so much closer.....

Hey maybe I'm getting there, I'd better check, just in case. It could be the next one, or the one after that....

This girl is amazingily talented, I'm about to just about die of jealousy. She's an Aussie based in Melbourne who creates these gorgeous illustrations, they are so intricate, detailed and fragile??? Take a looksie. Elly (Eleanor) Yap.

I love the creativity of this band! Depiciting iconic paintings throughout the centuries.

Hold your horses -70 Million

got sidetracked again at National Geographics pictures of the day!

check out these great close ups of coral and the amazing patterns they take on!

YAY!!!

This is a very exciting time for me!

I've just made my first initiation into the world of ebay, how exciting!

My first purchase is a Gocco! I can't wait for it to arrive! (could I possibly use any more of these!!!! why yes I do believe I can)...

It's so exciting, now I just have to play the wait game and hope it gets here from the States in less than a month... wishful thinking?

Anywho, for those of you wondering what the bejeebers a Gocco is, I suggest you google it... nah here you go -it's a japanese screen printing system, apparently it was huge in the 70's and 1/3 of households in Japan owned one, BUT thanks to all the new tech out there these days the gocco has unfortunately been made redundant and is no longer being manufactured; so it's a race to see what you can get hold of in the way of supplies, BUT I have discovered after a fair amount of hummming and harrring whether or not to buy it, there is an alternative to the current supplies which is great!

So I can begin to create awesome cards and prints all hand done and speedy! yay!!!!!

Want! This is a little old now by fashion industry standards but I still want an item from her collection with asian florals and the beautiful reds/purples from her 2009 Summer range!

Vivienne Tam is a fashion designer who has been collaborating with HP by creating designs for the casings of their HP Mini Notes, (got to see her first one a little while ago as a demo from HP).

she has now just released a second edition casing to coincide with her Spring 2010 range featuring designs based on an Asian story -Butterfly Lovers. I have to admit I'm more of a fan of her first one which was a brilliant pattern! but this still rocks.

Also check out some of the gorgeous dresses in her Spring collection with giant prints of butterfly wings on silk drapped around the body-Beautiful!

I'm on the fence.

Actually the more I think about it -the whole juxtaposition of detailed hand embellished craft and tradition with hard edged leather and simple shapes I actually quite like them and would definitely wear a fun highwaisted mini in leather covered in them!

Whoops should probably mention the designer -Christopher Kane. Beautiful, modern, femine and rich.