splooshin and a' splashin

OK! So we're moving house tomorrow... I start my new job on Monday... and I gotta awesome idea for a picture this afternoon so instead of packing, cleaning or pulling my hair out I decided to get paint everywhere and generally make a mess. Yeah!!! (N is not pleased). (I am.)

grey little town

Its official! N and I are moving to the country! After toying with the idea for rather a long while we will be removing ourselves to the rolling hills of South Gippsland before the year is through. We are filled with joy and excitement! And being just 1-and-a-half hours from the smokey metropolis we will be welcoming visitors too.

top dog

Yesterday morning N and I arrived back in Melbourne and what was waiting on the doorstep? A beautiful box of Mandy Sayer's new book Coco in which I drew all the pictures. The book is an absolute riot and it looks so pretty (and shiny) in the flesh. And it might just convince you to buy a chihuahua, which is always a good thing (I'm still having trouble convincing N, who has his heart set on a border collie. Sigh.)

history lessons

Being a pathetic lady-fan of period dramas I was so tremendously excited to hear about Sam Wallman's Australian History Comics Anthology. Being a Bellarine Peninsula native, I thought I'd have a go at smashing out a part of the William Buckley story, with requisite silly-BBC-period-drama-style ship captain dialogue and a speedy montage to end this rather complicated and lengthy story! Submissions are due at the end of September.

***UPDATE*** Submissions are now due at the end of the year!! ***

par avian

So! I finally finished my zines for Sticky's Feed The Animals Fundraiser at TINA - my hands are sore from cutting, my fingers are covered in glue and I've just paid an exorbitant amount to post them to Australia from across the ditch. I ended up doing a little illustrated zine that takes many a cue from a this beautiful exhibition of Graham Percy's work that N and I saw a coupla days back in town.

into thee wild...

For the past three weeks N and I have been living in a little caravan, at the edge of a frosty wilderness in the "far out" far-north of NZ. This strange place we've been staying in gets stranger at night: when the morpork's start their hooting, and the wind goes icy cold, and everything must be done by candle light. To make things stranger, amongst the rumpty forest in which we live, there are a number of other caravans - each in a differing state of disrepair, dotted amongst the long grass and the straggly trees. In the daylight, they're unoccupied, but at night time my imagination fills them with all sorts of creepy fly-by-night characters, or the ghosts of those who've inhabited them before. And its then that I thank my lucky stars I've sensible N beside me, with his sensible torch, to aid in any moments of irrational terror!

fare thee well...

As of tomorrow N and I will be setting off on a journey to the land of the long white cloud for a bit. I am taking my sketch book and some inky things and some pencils too, so hopefully I can find the time to write you.
xxx

treetops

If there's one lady I'm in awe of at the moment its Miranda and her Observertree. Miranda has just clocked up 150 days (that's 5 months!!) living on a platform, high above the treetops, in Tassie's threatened forests. And last week it started snowing. She's looking for donations for winter supplies if you have a few spare coins and feel so inclined.

Snap

all filled up with what other people mean

Lately its been hard to find time to smell my own armpits, let alone the roses. I've been so snowed under with this and that and just trying to do the dishes in a reasonable fashion that I've had little time to do the things of importance, such as: hugging boyfriend when he gets home, cooking nice things to eat, drawing and listening to music. So in an attempt to improve the mood tonight I put on a Silver Jews record and sat down to draw. What is it with those guys? Halfways through Suffering Jukebox I was feeling the relief.

instructions

Some time last week I was talking to a friend about the time I taught kids to play the ukulele for a job. I was saying how the grade preps were so crazy - they barely even knew how to be at school, let alone learning an instrument. My friend was like "yeah, no one has given them the backstory"... which made me think, right, when do we ever get the backstory? The step-by-step instructions? The trouble-shooting manual? It so happened I was reading the wonderful Matte Resist's 'How & Why' at the time, so's I was in the mood for a bit of resistive thinking about unschooling and the like. At any rate, I figure, not having the instructions gives you a pretty good excuse for later, when you're not in prep, and you muff things up.

library tour

What are you doing on Saturday? This is what I will be doing. If you want to come you have to email Sticky to say that. I hope you can come. It will be pretty much fun.

no no no yes

Why its Sticky Zine Fair time-o-year again, and (once again), its the eleventh hour and I've decided that I would like a new zine to sell come Sunday week. After the initial panic wore off in the form of manically-scribbled-bad-ideas I decided it was high time to revisit my four-square comic project begun way back in October and see if it could be brought together in one charming whole. All afternoon appointments were cancelled and though its not yet done I've hope yet that next week I will have a brand spankin' new zine for my stall at the Town Hall. Stay tuned. Or just come to the zine fair and find out for yourself, its set to be the biggest and best yet!

dirty shitty things

'Clean Coal' may be to some a dirty lie, but to me it is an endless excuse to poke fun at this silly idea that has yet to be proven in the actual real world on a commercial scale. Ever. In the actual real world, however, the increasingly desperate coal lobby is dreaming up more and more crazy, cost-ineffecient and often dangerous methods of capturing carbon dioxide and pumping it deep into the ground. Seriously, if you've had enough of doom and gloom just take a quick squiz at the the DPI's brochure entitled 'Putting the Carbon Back' or my personal favourite for Most-Shameless-Business-Name-Ever-Award Environmental Clean Solutions. I guarantee it, you will be ROFLing on the carpet with bitter tears streaming from your eyes.
On a more serious note however, the next few weeks will be make-or-break-time for the dodgy HRL project that has been limping along for the last 7 years. There is a rally (Feb 1, 12.30, Parli). You should go there.

year for hanging out with books

Happy new year! I'm so excited! Why? Because 2012 is the National Year of Reading! Not that I need that as an excuse to spend time with my nose in a book, but somehow it seems to justify the little pile of Too-Many-Books-To-Possibly-Read-At-Once beside my bed. At the moment I am dividing my attention between Radical Melbourne, one of SLV's recommended summer-reads, and Janet Frame's The Carpathians. I've been on a bit of a Frame kick of late and have been trying to convince N to watch An Angel At My Table for the third time. Apart from the fact it is amazing, I just adore that scene where little-Janet has won a year-long membership to the Athaeneum Library, and she goes there and is overwhelmed by all these amazing books. Its a tearjerker, that's for sure, not to mention a reminder that libraries are super important and lovely.