Green Books

When I was at uni, I really wanted to become a book cover designer.
I did a project where I put little tips I'd picked up while researching the industry on posters.

 

 

Bunting Birthday.

I had some fun this afternoon decorating the dining room for my sisters birthday.

Baby sitters Club-arama

This movie was on tv the other day, it was released in 1995, and just looking at the clothes made me fully realise what a huge 90's revival fashion is going through at the moment as nearly all the clothes wouldn't be out of place at the local hipster hangouts.

This was my favourite screen grab, very very cute ^

 I really dig the pink pants in this shot, it reminds me of the 2010 Miu Miu print ^

Plaid-a-palooza ^

So in conclusion, I'm definitely going to try and make those pink daisy pants, and those round tortoise shell glasses pushed me to the very edge of becoming one of those people that don't actually need glasses but wear non-prescription ones as fashion accessories. Who'da thunk that watching the babysitters club movie on a Wednesday night would prove inspiring.

La Briche Photos.

 

Can't wait to get back there.

Brichey.

While I was in France I did some logo development for the recording studio that Sam is planning to open. Just thought I'd show you guys the development stages of it, it's still not completely finished yet. The recording studio is on the farm which is surrounded by a forest and so the idea of nature needed to come through the design. Another point to remember was that the buildings on the farm date back quite a fair way, so there's a real traditional French feel to the place. Sam wanted to combine old and new, and also not have the logo only represent the recording studio but have it be versatile so it could represent any other venture that he plans to embark upon.

Can't decide whether it'd be the bad kind or the good kind of twee, if on the website the branches represented the current season, perhaps a few green leaves in summer, a flower or two in spring, barren like it is now in winter and maybe some dead leaves on the baseline for autumn, it's a thinker...

Clean Hands. Dirty Hands.

When I was in France I really truly missed the Australian landscape and kept day dreaming about Sam and I going on a long caravan trip across the outback. So eventually I started drawing this red dusty picture. I don't think it's a particularly outstanding picture but drawing it was so much fun, I think I'd prefer the picture without the 'lone bushranger' in it, but still this drawing reminds me that I was looking forward to coming home and that I should make the most of it whilst I'm here.

A Word in Your Eye.

A book cover I designed. It's an anthology of experimental short stories, so I took the idea of a collection of out of the ordinary things that are all different but belong to the same group and created a school of crazy fish. I also created my own typeface for this project.

New Face.

I haven't finalised him yet but as the scrawled caption says it's a cross between Nick Cave and John Travolta circa Pulp Fiction. I never set out to draw anyone in particular, they usually just end up with features of the people that I've been surrounding myself with at the time.

New tee shirt ideas.

 I always doodle these faces , am thinking they have tee shirt potential.

 I mocked one up and I think I may embark on this new project.

I printed some tee-shirts.

 

I found this tee shirt at the farm, it had been scribbled all over by Sam and his sister when they were little, I really liked the absolute randomness of the colourful scribbles, and so in keeping with the craziness of it I did a sort of all over print of lots of different scientific illustrations of animals and plants.

Sir Mister Johnny Cash, I stumbled upon this awesome illustration of him and so printed it on an old tee shirt, and copied his signature at the bottom of it. I always cut the collars out of my tee shirts, makes them look less dweeby and store bought, I like my tee shirts to look as old and worn out as possible! Also in this pic is me Mando(lin) and an illustration of the James Towne Forte in Virginia that I found in a second hand store.

My friends Mum is a teacher and her school was throwing out these huge old maps of Australia and I managed to get one, It's one of my favourite things. It's got all the old shipping routes and railways on it. This tee shirt's print is a scientific illustration (I'm a sucker for them) of a White Tailed Black Cockatoo. Also in the shot is a Koala soft toy made out of Kangaroo fur - amazing. A Paul McCartney figurine that my sister got for me when she worked in a toy store, on hindsight I would've chosen John or George, but I think I was going through a Paul phase.

Bedroom Wall

 

This print is from the 1974 George Harrison's 'Dark Horse' tour, I could only ever find really small versions of it as a logo in the corner of his tour tee shirts, so I traced it in Illustrator so I could enlarge it and then with a permanent marker drew a big circle around it, I love the home made-ness that it exudes. The backpack was from my recent travels to Portugal.

Nick Cave. Nick Cave. Nick Cave. Nick Cave

Coolest dude ever. I've read both his books and own all his CD's and have seen him live about three times. The third time was last week, and for me seeing any musician live always reinvigorates my loving of them so I've been on a Nick Cave bender for a couple of days now.
For some reason I love the idea of him and Kylie having an amazing torrid affair in the 90's, I love his butterfly shirt and Kylies hair in this picture, and how much taller he is than her. They are both babe-ing it up big time.

Bed hair.

I love the ampersand used here, I wonder what font it is...

Chose young photos of Mister Cave as it feels weird having a crush on a man that now looks like this:

Although I do still think he's still truly charismatic and although I've never actually smelled him I'm sure I'd totally be into his pheromones (creepy?) anyway regardless of his animal scent I have a huge intellectual crush on him.

Read this lecture he gave in Vienna called 'The Secret Life of the Love Song':

Then watch this hilariously cringe worthy / sexual tension soaked interview with him and Our Kylie circa 1995.

My grad show.

The project was called Cake Stalls and Bullets and explored the paradoxes between the masculine and feminine aspects of rural living and sought to combine them to form a new kind of Australiana. When I say feminine I'm referring to iconic symbols that have come to represent country living such as doileys, wild flowers, home baked scones, knitting, aprons, Dorothy Mackellar and tea. Masculine symbols would be; bullets, rust, road kill, sweat, corrugated iron, Mad Max and beer. The whole project took about 4 months and I traveled to several isolated little towns to conduct interviews with locals and take a million photos. I knitted stubby holders, made a double sided quilt, a book and four teatowels for the final show.

Project title

book and business cards

business cards

teatowels hung up using real stuffed kangaroo paws

stubby holders

Typographic side of quilt

Knitted flower side