Pandora’s Box — A Spell for Returning

Pandora’s Box, one of two Light Grey Art Lab art swaps, has arrived, very full of postcards, stickers, pins, tiny sculptures, bandannas…

You can find the collections on the Light Grey website, and throughout the show, works will be available on the online shop as special mystery packs. You can check out the mystery packs here! And select pieces will only be available at Light Grey Art Lab in Minneapolis. 

I posted, before, about a design I didn’t use for my contribution. I still like it very much, but it didn’t work for what I wanted to experiment with, which was stickers (I used StickerApp, because they print on the backing paper as well).

After cutting out the silhouette skull above, I redrew the concept with a brush pen, with a looser wreath of strawberries, and a coin in the eyesocket.

I coloured it digitally, for the sticker.

And on the back, in keeping with the theme, I put a tiny hint of a story — a little braiding of superstitions for going back to enchantment (and obliquely part of a true story).

A Spell for Returning

I knew the strawberries were enchanted, so I ate them.

I promise —

I threw the last coin into the stream between night and day.

— nothing will bar my way.

Light Grey Art Lab — World Roulette

Light Grey Art Lab’s upcoming exhibition World Roulette brings together artists from around the globe to create unique, fantastical, sublime, and original worlds. Join Light Grey Art Lab (and their artists) in a celebration of the exhibition and a collaborative KICKSTARTER book & project, beginning Aug 28th-Sept 28th, 2020!

“We are so excited to be publishing this book with 150 new and exotic worlds, and 150 stories. Born from the idea that there are infinite kinds of worlds out there – all with unique attributes, cultures, social structures, and time periods, we took the idea of alternate universes and made a book/exhibition FULL of places rich with their own nuances, histories, and perils!
Join us in celebrating the unique worlds built by a team of exceptional creatives!”

World Roulette opens August 28-30th at Light Grey Art Labs in Minneapolis: opening Friday 7-10pm, Saturday 12-7pm, Sunday 12-5pm. The exhibition will be on display through September 28th, 2020, and visible on the virtual gallery on the website and online shop (shop.lightgreyartlab.com). The KICKSTARTER will be live AUG 28 – SEPT 28th! (Links to follow) The reception will include black and white originals or framed prints from each of the artists. The event is free and open to the public.

In the meantime, here is a link to the Facebook event: World Roulette, and a sneak-peek of the work-in-progress for my piece (which will be available as a print). It was fun getting back into some scratchboard again.

Sketching! (Surprise…)

(Edit: This was Friday 22 November)

As part of Cottage Street, Easthampton’s Grrl’s Night Out event, I will be doing some sketching at Book Moon Books. There will also be some original art for sale, for a variety of projects including (but not limited to) ornaments and illustrations for books by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare…

World Fantasy Art Show 2019

The art show at World Fantasy in LA is up! It is only up thanks to Aimee and Alex who helped me choose, my big sister who helped me mat it up, and Alex who helped me hang it all because I was practically non-functional by then.

If you are at World Fantasy in LA, then today (Saturday), I am on a fairy tale panel at 1, then giving a Sketchbook Tour (what does this mean? let’s find out together!) at 2:30. Then the art reception from 8. Be there! Buy art!

Be Bold: Small Art for a Big Cause

Light Grey Art Lab, as well as its many other marvellous exhibitions, is currently exhibiting and selling Small Art For A Big Cause, featuring many of their regular artists. You can find the images on their Instagram (always worth following in any event) under #smallartforabigcause or on their website, and framed prints can be ordered from the Light Grey shop.

My piece, Be Bold, was inspired by the heroine of “Mr Fox”, and other fairytale ladies.

It began, of course, as a silhouette:

With colour added subsequently.

It is available for a limited time through the Light Grey shop.

Update: The Light Grey prints have finished, and the original art has sold, but the design is now available in white-on-black through Redbubble as an art print, but also on notebooks, etc.

The Silver Well: Book launch (with art exhibition)

“One English village. Two thousand years of stories. Best-selling legends of Australian fantasy Kate Forsyth and Kim Wilkins have teamed up in this collection of 7 incredible stories, all original and never-before published.”

I’ve had the honour of creating the cover art and internal illustrations for this brand new collection by the inimitable Kate Forsyth and Kim Wilkins.

It is currently launching around Australia, with the Brisbane launch next Wednesday 29 November at Avid Reader (free, but bookings essential). That launch will be accompanied by an exhibition of the original cut paper/cyanotype cover (if I can get it to lie flat) and pen-and-ink internal illustrations.

The Sydney launch will be on 30 November at Galaxy Books, launched by Garth Nix (but the only art will be in the books).

SaveSave

SaveSave

Wanderlust – the Iceland art show

Wanderlust is Light Grey Art Lab’s exhibition of art from their 2016 Iceland residencies (which I attended). The exhibition is full of gorgeous art which, if you cannot get to Minneapolis, you can also see online – and buy in the art shop (including the originals of my paintings).

I sent in a set of four watercolour illustrations for a story I have been working on, which rose from the process of learning to filter stories through different landscapes.

I had been wanting to use more watercolour instead of digital colour over my line work.

I started researching a particular school of ink-and-wash illustration, and then went sideways into pencil and watercolour.

Here Our Heroine is set a task by three unusual ladies.

The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars

One of several dresses of unconventional material.

A Gown of Moss

This is a rock we stood on when looking for puffins.

She stood on a rock

She pulled him from the sea

They are at a pretty typical scale for my work – and the originals are available from Light Grey Art Lab.

Originals

 

Into the Woods: TOBEYOU exhibition

This is a cut paper piece (c 8×8 inches) that I made for Light Grey Art Lab‘s exhibition TOBEYOU: personal narratives, tales and memory.

It is called “Into the Woods”, and is about growing up reading fairytales when you live in the Australian bush. The protagonist of the illustration is far more willowy and on-trend than I ever was when I did this.

The original is for sale at Light Grey Art Lab (in Minneapolis, and on their website), along with many, many other beautiful works of art.

I also made a few cyanotype prints (sunprints) of the illustration.