Hi there!

I managed to find some time to sneak in a little post! I've been away still, traveling out in the countryside, along the coastal region and up to the hills. We went berry picking yesterday. And came home with 5kg worth of berries! We spent last night making boysenberry jam along with a berry chocolate cake. Rather yummy, but oh so much sugar! Today we're going fishing and having a barbeque. Having my family around is just too much fun. I hope everyone's christmas holiday is going nicely. For all those in Australia and in the warmer countries, have fun in the sun! For those who are in the colder parts of the world, wear lots of layers and drink lots of hot chocolate! I promise to share more holiday pictures with you guys when I'm back!
x

Merry Christmas!

Back from the mountains and Sydney, with a bad sunburn and blisters on my feet. From all the walking! Haha. Now off to the market to buy ourselves a big chicken and seafood, to celebrate the festivities as a family. And then to the countryside we go! So see you around again whenever I have time to sneak a post in! Have a super merry Christmas and a great new years'! You all have been great. Thanks for reading, commenting, emailing and laughing along with my posts. You are super!

See you around soon!
x

Family

I told my family to pack summer clothing and they ( my sister ) really took my word for it and packed only leggings and shorts. And Melbourne's been so cold, it's like winter all over again. So they've been freezing their butts off. Oops!

Best of 2010

I went to Bangkok, fell sick and stayed sick for half a year. Grew my hair out. Said bye to my family and best girlfriends in February. Haven't met them since and I miss them so much! I started drawing every single thing I ate and drank. Frankie Magazine picked it up and featured me and I got to design Harvest Magazine's Winter issue. I had numerous group shows, won some art awards and cash. Taught myself how to sew huge-ass sculptures. And later on embarrassed myself in public wearing those sculptures. Handed in my final ever essay. Completed art school. Made new friends. Sold my first ever tea towels, made a giant amount of art. Had an all-girls sleepover party. Took several road trips and went skiing for the first time in my life. Ice skated again after having a phobia of it. Ate so many bowls of pho and ice cream. Bought our first ever real christmas tree.

Well, so much to say! The list goes on, but yes, It's been a terrific year and I wouldn't want to change a thing! (Okay maybe just the bit where I got sick and stayed sick for half a year) My parents and sister fly in to Melbourne tomorrow so I will be spending lots of time with them for the next three weeks! Won't really be at my computer, as we're headed to Sydney next week! So blogging will be a bit slower and not that regular.

If I don't see you before Christmas, have a great one! Merry Christmas to all of you out there!
And Thank you so much for being part of my super year! You guys are awesome!

Frankly quite Frankie

Some of you might remember this post I did a while ago. Sorry I couldn't say much about it then. But yay it's out now! The lovely Lara at Frankie asked me if I wanted to draw some yummy ice cream for the newest issue some weeks back. Of course I said yes. It's Frankie, we're talking about, and ice cream. I am a big cream cream-aholic! In fact, I just had a cornetto cone today. Oops! Apart from ice cream, Frankie also featured some Diana World Tour Lomography cameras. Again, it was another project that I was kind of hiding some weeks back. And it's out now! So go have a read and guess which camera's mine!

Oh and I know I'm kind of slow but I also did an illustration of some Kit cosmetics in the previous issue of Frankie. I realize I got so busy with grad show, I didn't even show you the page. So here it is! You can also view the close ups of both the ice cream and kit illustrations on my portfolio.

I must admit, seeing my name under 'illustrators', made me jump and and down in my room a bit. I'm always secretly dreaming of being part of the wonderful team at Frankie. So yes, you can say it's a big dream come true! I had to rub my eyes a couple of times. Close the cover and open it again to read and make sure my name's there for real! I know, so silly!

Alrightyo, lots of talking about Frankie today. But it's such an awesome magazine, and no I am definitely not biased. Go out and grab yourself a copy if you don't believe me!

Food Diary Surprise

Somewhere out there, a year 7 class (aged 11-12) are doing a food project at the moment. For a recent homework, their teacher introduced them to my work and asked them each to create their own food diary. These drawings were sent to me this morning. How sweet is it!? I woke up and in my half-asleep state, checked my inbox and this was the first thing I saw. Totally made my day!

Ah, I really miss teaching! I've been trying desperately to find an art teaching job the past couple of days, but no where near finding anything. I really want to work at art organizations, museums, schools and conduct art workshops for kids in conjunction with the current exhibits, curriculum. But well, nothing at all. At least nothing that doesn't require a diploma in education! And so, the search continues...

bits and pieces

We went to a farmers market again over the weekend. This time round, there were a lot more stalls and we bought lots of yummy vegetables. I even had my favourite lebanese spinach and ricotta wrap for breakfast, while Darren got a buffalo hotdog sandwich. We shared a chai iced chocolate. I absolutely hate chai, so the ice choclate was a bit of a impulse buy. But it was rather good and really icy. Perfect for a nice warm day.

We got 2 new plants for the house too. An orange looking 'pom pom' and Darren's new obsession, a mini venus fly trap. I've been catching teeny flies for it, but no, it doesn't work that way. It only eats live crawly insects. Like spiders. Not so much flying insects. Interesting to observe it up close though!

I hope all of you had a nice weekend too, with good food and good company!
x

At my desk

I was originally planning to take a big holiday and not make any art at all. But guess what, art making was all I could think about! The more I told myself to take a break, the more I found myself wanting to make art. So here's what's been going on at my desk this morning. That's until I got a bit carried away and spilled paint water all over my desk and lap top! Oops!

I've been job hunting as well, but no jobs on the market for an artist. Sigh. I hope maybe by some luck or something, illustration jobs open up for me next year and that I can afford to pay my rent and buy groceries through freelance work. We'll see how it goes. Till then, I'm in the midst of a new little project, which was meant to only begin next year but I'm too excited about it, I'm already starting to plan and make tiny sketches. It's going to be a little recipe book, filled with different yummy recipes by 25 super creative people! And of course, lots of nice drawings and cute things to read about each artist, designer, shop owner, crafter, and so on! It's going to be fun and really delicious I think!

More on that in the coming year!