Saturday, February 26, 2011

Just a note to say

I'll be selling my wares at Kraftbomb tomorrow...It's going to be a busy sewing night tonight at Millicent Crow HQ!

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Quake


My heart goes out to everyone affected by Tuesday's earthquake in Christchurch; it is just so, so sad.

We have been trying to work out what we can do to help; from now until the end of March, I will donate all proceeds from sales in my Felt shop to the New Zealand Red Cross 2011 Earthquake Appeal. Mr Millicent Crow is going to donate 100% of his CD sales from the shows he's playing this weekend.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Lanterns and valentines

It's the lantern festival in Albert Park this weekend, seeing in the year of the rabbit. One of my favourite things about the lantern festival is when it's all being set up and mysterious creatures appear in the park. Like these ones:
It's quite magical having lanterns everywhere. This week I've been having fun taking photos of them during the daytime; it's kind of hard to get good photos of them when they're lit up at night...
Oh and it was Valentine's Day. Mr Millicent Crow made a heart-shaped pizza and we caught the train to Judge's Bay and ate it. Nice.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Duckwall

Isn't this pear box beautiful? I just love the colours, the duck, the font...
While I was taking photos of it, I also coincidentally found this:
Sorry folks if I looked creepy taking photos of your rubbish!

Monday, February 14, 2011

Crossing the ditch

We're off on a fleeting Melbourne adventure next month; I will be selling my wares at the Rose St. Artists' Market in Fitzroy on the 26th of March and Mr Millicent Crow is hopefully going to be playing a show and is definitely going to be having a birthday.
We lived in Melbourne briefly about 4 years ago, and while we had lots of great times, it was quite stressful, so it will be lovely to go back on business/holidaying. So far on the menu we have: eating stuffed mushrooms and drinking wine at the Wesley Anne, swimming at Brighton, boating at Studley Park, taking in the Gustave Moreau exhibition at the NGV and a children's book illustration exhibition at the State Library, gelato in Carlton, finally going to the Exhibition Building and lots of wandering around. And lots of photos - when we lived there we didn't have a digital camera and most of our photos from that time seem to be out of focus shots of cats!

Pictures are from Cedric Flower's Picture Book of Australia When... which is a bit of a dubious history of Australia but does have some great pictures.

Do you have any cheap and cheerful Melbourne recommendations?

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Botanical

I've got a banana passionfruit vine taking over my garden and I decided to draw some of its beautiful flowers to use in a new painting I want to do.

It has turned out to be a bit of a race against time - the flowers don't last long on the vine, and once picked they soon start to wilt and shrivel up. So you have to draw them pretty much straightaway.
I sat down and drew one of them yesterday:
Now I just have to wait for another flower to come out so that I can have another practice. And wait for the delicious banana passionfruit to ripen!

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Patterns



Featuring my new op shop skirt, which bears an uncanny resemblance to the tablecloth I use on my table when I do market stalls. And which I was considering making into a skirt. Nothing wrong with a bit of matching!

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Colourful corners, cryptic clue

'Scuse the bad photo; these are some pictures that I really love on the wall of my bedroom/studio/study. The colours help to balance out the landlord standard-issue mushroom colour that the walls are painted here at the Millicent Crow head office. Some of them are pictures my friend sent me from a German edition of Alice in Wonderland and Alice has dark hair in them...I had never seen that before.
This critter sits on top of the fuse box and watches the world go by.

While I'm at it, does anyone know the answer to this cryptic crossword clue I'm stuck on?
"Monarch gets around in part." Four letters, second letter f...

Friday, February 4, 2011

Magnolias in February

I started a painting of this old bearded fellow back in...oh, September or so. When I started it, the magnolia tree in our garden was covered in flowers, so I decided to give him a couple of magnolias. Other things got in the way of finishing it, so he has been sitting on my shelf since then, looking accusingly at me.
One of the things that was getting in the way of me finishing it was the fact that the magnolia tree had finished blooming, and I didn't have any more flowers to draw from. But just recently it started flowering again. I don't know if it's weird or not for a magnolia tree to flower twice a year, but it seemed serendipitous. Today I picked its last bloom...
Should give me the impetus to finish it off!