Paddle

I'm having to sort all my screenprints out for the wholesale section of my website and this means giving them names and photographing them and having some sense of order to what I am making. My current screenprint process is a little haphazard and I need to Tim Gunn them all and make it work.

The print on the pouch shown here is called Paddle. It sounds much better than the unappealing name what I was previously calling it which was blobs at the end of lines.

This little pouch is listed over at Made It and the size came about a little by accident. It is long and thin, like a pencil case and the print suits it perfectly. I had not designed it that way but it seems some of my current prints are designed for a particular size of pouch but often end up working better when turned into something else, like a different shape pouch or coin purse.

Magic Jelly

I entered Magic Jelly's Haiku Poem Contest on her Super-Duper Mega April Giveaway and received an honourable mention for my poem. I got my prize in the mail today and it was great to open the envelope and see the surpise inside. I got a lovely little magnet with a bird and the limited edition gocco print Fox and Flowers. The ink in the print is beautiful and I can't wait to frame it and hang it up in the house. When I first joined Etsy, Magic Jelly was one of the shops I really looked up to and her artwork and design skills are outstanding. Her flickr page is also well worth looking at for this digital artwork alone.

Nine Bag Ladies

I drew these ladies to show how the straps on my bags work for the wholesale ordering system on my website. I thought I would share them on my blog as they look nice lined up together and they probably wont get a chance to be seen again. I've got a grey and red colour scheme for the site so I thought I would work with those coloured when colouring the images in. They look a little badge ladyesque with some interesting hairstyles, the lady with the biggest bag has some kind of mountain range going on.

I've started blogging on the Made It blog with Aussie Patches, which is an exciting opportunity and also a little intimidating. I have come up with a few ideas for things I can include starting with Sketchbook Sneakpeak, where the artists, designers and crafters on Made It share some pages from their sketchbooks. I'm looking forward to doing this as I love to see how ideas started and all the other little things that often just stay inside the journal and don't get seen. The first one will be going up tomorrow so pop over and take a look.

Georgie Georgie

Something very exciting happened today, I saw George from Seinfeld at the football. I went with my brother and he mentioned Jason Alexander going as a Collingwood guest and after spotting some Collingwood bigwigs we realised he would be in the area. As soon as I saw him I smsed Gareth and Jodie, the two people I knew would be excited. Both smsed back within the minute, Gareth suggesting I yell out Serenity Now and Jodie telling me to take a photo. My phone and my secret photo taking skills are not that great but in the second photo you can kind of make him out. I just put that first photo up because it shows how pathetic my skills are and the blurry sea of men in black suits is quite interesting.

Birds From The Sketchbook

This bird was a little drawing in my sketchbook that I coloured in with photoshop. I turned it into a print today using white on some red, blue and green fabric. I've almost turned one into a tote bag, but I have to change the bobbin over to blue thread and for some reason that extra little job seems to make me want to sit in front of the television and watch the three films we have out with the heater on high and a cup of tea and some needle and thread.

Drawing From Life

Waiting At The Station (Caulfield)

I was reading someones blog a month or so back and they mentioned the book Drawing From Life: The Journal as Art. I wish I could remember who it was, but I saw the book and went into a bit of a frenzy and ended up at Amazon buying it before I could remember who wrote about it in their blog. The book arrived a few days ago and I was reading through it the other night. My favourite stories so far is one about the 1000 journals project and Renato Umali's tracking system. I don't know why, but the idea of tracking things in your life then looking at the information on graphs excites me quite a bit. What I lack is the discipline to do this and would give myself 2 days and after that I would just stop.

Print Ideas

Looking inside sketchbooks is one of my most favourite things, I find the art a lot more interesting when it isn't refined and every idea and thought is in there. Have a look at Lara's blog for some lovely drawings from her sketchbook in her current post. I photographed a few drawings in my current sketchbook and put some up on Flickr with a couple in this post. My sketchbooks are a bit of a mess, lots of different ideas and not used as much as I would like.

Exciting But Boring

The last few weeks Gareth and I have been working on an ordering system called Stocklist for my wholesale accounts. While it is exciting behind the scenes it also a little boring as I can't share it with the rest of the world. It basically lets people design their own Anna Laura product so I don't have to tell people to look at my Flickr account to get an idea on what I am doing. If you are wanting a bag, you can select a print, a fabric colour, a lining colour and a strap colour with just a few clicks and I can upload it all very easily and change things with just a couple of clicks.

Gareth has finished all the coding and it is impressive. If you're looking for a man and you are thinking you want a musician or an artist try and refrain and go for a computer programmer instead. Sure they will turn you into a nerd who gets excited by a take away curry, a few beers and the X Files on DVD, but who are you kidding, that was all you ever wanted anyway.

Now it is up to me to get everything uploaded and looking pretty. Above is a bit of a sneak peak, but it is not anywhere near finished just yet. I have been photographing fabrics and uploading things to get it somewhere near completion and I am aiming for next week as the date to launch.

New Personalities

I spent some time on Saturday coming up with some new badge descriptions for the ladies. Henrietta isn't a new one, I came up with that one once before, inspired by someone I know. Speaking of reality television we have, after three whole months, finally got "normal" television. The house we shifted into had no aerial and the real estate advised us to get rabbits ears or pay for half the aerial installation.

We didn't do either and were not that bothered as we had plenty of other shows to watch on DVD. I think if I went back in time to December or early January and told myself that no television will result in me liking Star Trek I might have done something about it, but that would be going against the temporal prime directive. (I just felt the past me kicking me for mentioning such dorky things in my blog).



The Screened exhibition at Bamakko was great, although I didn't stay for long due to going to the worst football match ever. I got to see Bianca and Lara and also meet Kylie from Mizu Designs and the see some new works and smell some nice coffee.

Are Mushrooms Popular in the Country?

Some new little ladies I photographed this afternoon, these were the ones I fancied the most out of the bunch. I like the pink haired ladied face the best but there is something about the mint green hairstyle that appeals to me. I've done it before, but that little extra line seems to work for me.

I was in East Gippsland for a couple of days and went to Spotlight in Bairnsdale. Now what I am going to say MAY boost Bairnsdale tourism quite a bit, but the Japanese Cosmo Textile Mushroom fabrics were all $6 a metre (Reduced from $20). I thought maybe they were all on sale across all Spotlights but I checked out Spotlight in Sale and it wasn't on special. I'm guessing the Japanese Fabric craze has not hit the country yet or what is going on, but I purchased a nice chuck of it and have to admit I've not seen it in any of the city stores.

If anyone is wondering what to do tomorrow night in Melbourne, a quick reminder that the Bamakko screened exhibition is on. The opening is from 6-9pm at 358 Victoria St, North Melbourne.

Bamakko Screen Exhibition

I'm going to be participating in the Bamakko Screened Exhibition opening this Saturday, along with Lara Cameron from KirinCo and Bianca Van Meeuwen from Hollabee. I'm going to take the screenprints I've been doing on the brown cotton fabric with the white weave. The designs are quite simple but hopefully it will look cohesive and not a mishmash of different prints I have done as that is most likely what I would normally do. Below is an example of some of the items I will be taking.