Past & Present: Paisley on Design*Sponge
If you’re interested in the history of the [...]]]>
Print & Pattern
This book has been curated by Bowie Style, the author of the Print & Pattern blog which was one of the first blogs I ever subscribed to via RSS!

Past & Present: Paisley on Design*Sponge
If you’re interested in the history of the paisley motif and issues of cultural appropriation, you should check this out for starters. You might get an insight into why I find paisley so fascinating!

Tibetan sky burial photographs
A huge warning here – these photos depict death and gore, do not click if you prefer not to see photos of that nature. I’m fascinated with death and ritual, and how different people have developed their traditions in line with their worldview and environmental considerations. This Buddhist burial ritual is shocking to me as a white person in a first world country, whose only dealings with death have been quite sanitary and polite, however I can also see the beauty in the sky burial. I don’t believe in resurrection or an afterlife or reincarnation, but I do believe that we are all returned to the earth and this tradition is very much in line with my worldview.

SP 2010 Speaker – Jessica Hische from Semi Permanent on Vimeo.

I love Jessica’s work and her sense of humour. I wish I’d been at Sydney’s Semi-Permanent conference, the line up was fantastic!

Unretouched Photos: Empowering or Just More ‘Empower-tainment’?
A really interesting commentary from the Ms. Magazine blog on the slew of unretouched photos and plus size models seen in mainstream magazines recently. I haven’t said much on the issue because I’m curious to see what happens next, but for a lot of media observers it has just been a bunch of “empower-tainment” porn rather than meaningful progression and discussion about body image.

Adventures in Feministory: Estelle Getty
I miss seeing Sophia Petrillo on tv. Why don’t we see any amazing stereotype-busting roles featuring older women these days, especially after Golden Girls?

Also Roseanne. Just because I felt like it! How amazing was she? Wait, don’t answer that, just repeat after me: VERY.

The Alot is Better Than You at Everything
Let Hyperbole and a Half help you with your pesky Alot problems! I get so many chortles out of this blog – if you’re not subscribed, what the hell are you still doing reading my blog?

Yesterday I attended Semi-Permanent 2009 in Brisbane at the Convention Centre. I left feeling overwhelmed, inspired, intimidated and SORE… my head was so full of ideas that I was a little scared, truth be told. I guess if you are scared of ideas, [...]]]>

Yesterday I attended Semi-Permanent 2009 in Brisbane at the Convention Centre. I left feeling overwhelmed, inspired, intimidated and SORE… my head was so full of ideas that I was a little scared, truth be told. I guess if you are scared of ideas, you shouldn’t go to these things :P

The highlights of the day for me:

Timba Smits is a co-founder of Wooden Toy magazine, a marvelous publication that I’ve only just heard about this year in the backwaters of Brisbane! So much of what he talked about I could relate to: working obsessively, being anally retentive about certain projects, hand lettering, going the long way around instead of using shortcuts… seriously, the guy is doing exactly what I want to be doing!

Ron English was inspiring because he has balls. I would be too nervous to go paste up my own versions of billboards but the guy has nerves of steel! I have a terrible memory for names, so I didn’t realise exactly how much of his work I was familiar with either. Most of the anti-theistic/ atheistic billboards I had seen before, not to mention the fat Ronald McDonald and Obama Lincoln!

I was looking forward to the session from XYZ Studios because I’d seen several of their advertisements before and was way into it because of all the hand drawn animation. I loved seeing just how much effort the guys put into their projects, and I was surprised to hear that Tim Kently, the founder of the studio, taught himself animation! Self taught people always seem more approachable and down to earth, and they give me hope :P

It was also awesome to listen to Scott Dadich from Wired talk about their typographic systems at the magazine, mostly everyone was scribbling furiously when he reeled off the font families the publication uses! Also filed under “What an Awesome Freaking Job” was The Glue Society – a collective of creatives that do cool shizz. They’ve done said cool shizz for “The Chaser’s War on Everything”, ESPN, 42 Below vodka, Virgin Mobile etc etc etc. When I grow up I want to make money from ideas!

Unfortunately, I can’t speak rapturously of the venue. The seats at the Brisbane Convention Centre are not for people with hips! I’m keenly anticipating a bruise on my right hip… I know I’m fat, but I have never encountered stingier seating! I was seriously uncomfortable about 70% of the time, and I couldn’t get up and move around because people were stealing seats and there was never enough time! Debbie Downer also reports that the breaks were too short, there weren’t any activities that fostered participation or networking, food and drink stuff was too far away, our lunch break was too short, etc etc etc. I think Semi-Permanent events can be more than just talking heads, and I’m hopeful that the organisers will see just how awesome the scope is for the conference!

Today I volunteered to pack swag for Semi-Permanent, and we were done in super record time. See, we were moving like ninjas, my phone/camera couldn’t catch up :P

I was excited to see my drawing in the book! It [...]]]>

Today I volunteered to pack swag for Semi-Permanent, and we were done in super record time. See, we were moving like ninjas, my phone/camera couldn’t catch up :P

I was excited to see my drawing in the book! It started raining as I was waiting for Nick to pick me up so my book got a little damp :(

Swaaaaaag. My fingernails are buggered now after handling so much paper. They used to be terrible at my old job when I’d be dealing with freshly printed stuff all the time!

aaaand I have to show you these pens that are in the swag bags… There are SO many different colours!

I was just recommending Illustration Friday to Tea when I thought I’d check out this week’s word. SIMILAR! It’s pretty awesome that I’ve done something that ties in so well quite by accident twice now! I am the IF psychic.

If you click on the picture it’ll take you to

I was just recommending Illustration Friday to Tea when I thought I’d check out this week’s word. SIMILAR! It’s pretty awesome that I’ve done something that ties in so well quite by accident twice now! I am the IF psychic.

If you click on the picture it’ll take you to the Red Bubble page where you can enbiggen it to see the subtle variations in the hand colouring. Basically I printed the drawing out on my inkjet four times, hand coloured each girl, and then scanned them in and lined them up. It’s funny how I incorporate second generation scanning sometimes, maybe it’s the graphic designer in me? I do wish I could be one of those artists who plans everything out so that the final piece is all traditional, but it seems I like to take drawings on a journey of digital and traditional mutilation.

In which I admit that I don’t suck as much as I like to think

In other news, I just got an email this morning advising me that Heroine will be published in the 09 edition of Semi-Permanent. Props must be given to @mimobase and @annarchy for encouraging me to submit some pieces. I very nearly didn’t because I have a knack for predetermining my own failure, quite incorrectly in many cases it seems!

I am still hoping that my husband can spare the time to help me code the new layout for this here blog. I’m so sick of this layout!