Modish & Friends this weekend!

Well, if one market was not enough next weekend, I've just found out I'll be doing another!
The Friends Who Make Things Market is run out of a lovely lady's backyard in Brunswick.
It's on Sunday the 5th, 12-4pm at 21 Dunstan Avenue, Brunswick.
Yes! It really is in a backyard! I hope Melbourne will be nice to us and grace us with some sunshine.
Should be a nice afternoon, so come and visit if you are a Northsider!

I thought I'd check out the Modish Creators Market last weekend, just to get a feel for it before I do it on Saturday. Well, I came and looked, and walked out with these two little pinch pots from Golden Brown Fox. It was the first market she had done, and her ceramics were just too lovely to walk by twice!


I also walked out with some indian spice mixes, of all things. It was the last thing I planned to buy, but once you start sniffing all the yummy aromas of the spices, your wallet magically opens and you find yourself eating curry all week!

I must say thanks to the Indie Tot for featuring my work on their blog last week!

Market + new cards!

photo by Kim from Craft Victoria

I did my first market over the weekend - the lovely Craft Hatch at the City Library.
It was very exciting to launch my works in a market setting, and all the sellers and buyers were so friendly! Overall a great day.

I'll be doing one more market before the end of the year - Modish Creators Market in Malvern Town Hall, on December 4th. If you'll be there, sneaking in some xmas shopping, drop by my stall and say hello!

I was busy busy leading up to the market, making calendars, and some new goodies - badges and greeting cards. Here are two brand new designs!



I really wanted to create some xmas cards that weren't TOO christmasy. What do you think?
These cards and a bunch more are now up in the shop.

Saari

I wish there were more episodes of this adorable animated show 'Saari' online, it's too cute!
It's great to see a kids show with such beautiful design, animation and lovely music. I'm probably not the target audience, but I would watch the whole series!
Check out this episode, 'Crepes'.



via cartoon brew

To market, to market!

The awesome craft hatch logo above was designed by Adam Cruickshank

I'll be doing the Craft Hatch emerging designers market at the Melbourne City Library this Saturday from 11-4!

This is my first market - so very exciting! And just a little bit scary...
I've been busy slicing up calendars, getting prints and frames ready to go, and making a few new goodies that will be launched at the market.

If you're around Melbourne CBD, do come and say hello!

I have to say a big thank you to Amy from Pikaland who featured my calendar in her illustrated calendars post this week. I'm really happy to be mentioned amongst other illustrators that I love.
And another thank you to Petite Carousel, for posting about Milk and Cookies on her pretty blog.

Friday afternoon

I sold my first 2 calendars this morning!
After doing a little happy dance, I put some thought into how to package them, and this is how they turned out.

A big thank you to Holly of Decor8, and Irene of Bloesem, who both mentioned my calendar on their lovely blogs. Thank you ladies!


I've recently started hand drawing little thank you cards to send off with my orders.
Just little sketches of appreciation.
You can't tell their size in the photo, but they are only tiny - about 3x3cm.
I can't help it, I really love drawing tiny tiny.

Have a great weekend!

Two new prints up in the shop!

It was a marvelous sunny weekend in Melbourne (a rare occurence!), so I managed to photograph and list two new prints in the shop, on Sunday afternoon.

Bird Radio

My Feathered Attorney

2011 mini Calendar!

Just a quick post to let you know that the Milk and Cookies 2011 calendar is here!
I've had my little print store open for a few months, and lately I've been wondering where else I could apply my illustrations other than prints.
With the new year fast approaching (arghh! Here it comes!), calendars seemed like the perfect new project.

Each month has it's own little illustration, displayed on a 3.5" x 5" card (8.9 x 12.7cm), professionally printed on smooth, heavy card stock, and hand-cropped to size.
Oh yes - I have to watch my fingers when I slice up these little buddies! The perils of paper goods!

Octogirl

Lily was just your run of the mill three-eyed, mint-flavoured octogirl.

What a beautiful day in Melbourne today! All this vitamin D is making me very happy!!

Spacecadet Lullabies video

Here's some video from the Spacecadet Lullabies CD Launch a couple of weeks ago. It was a lovely night.
Thanks to all our buddies for coming down! x

Beneath

Before ipods and whatnots, we all used to get around with birds under our hats. It's true.

Ghost Songs Album Launch

Hey all - if you're in Melbourne, come down to Loop Bar this Thursday night, where my partner in crime, Matt, will launch his new album - Ghost Songs.
I'll be there, plucking the ol' gee-tar on a few songs :)

You can listen to some tracks here:
www.spacecadetlullabies.com

Featured on Illustration Pages

How nice to wake up on a frantic Friday and see that the lovely Lou at Illustration Pages just posted a feature on my artwork! Check it out right here.
Thanks Lou!!

Bloggy love

The super cute blog Kid Independent did a little feature and interview with me. You can read it right here. I'm so chuffed. Thanks Kid Indy!

Apparently, I met Mr Ricketts

Remember the film clip I told you about a few weeks ago? Well, here it is!
This is the clip for Tali Meets Mr Ricketts, by Spacecadet Lullabies.
I did some singing on this track a while back. Little did I know then that I would be roped into appearing in the film clip... eep! I much prefer to be behind a camera than in front of one. But it was a great shoot and the crew from Kick Kick Punch did a fantastic job.



If you like the track, go and visit the Spacecadet Lullabies site, where you can hear some other songs, read Matt's blog, or buy the new CD.
The album launch is coming up on the 23rd of September at Loop Bar in Melbourne, so if you're a Melbournian - come check it out! I'll be doing a little bit of playing on the night.. more eep to come!

Mel Stringer

Mel Stringer, Brisbane illustrator and comic artist extraordinaire has just written a little blog post about Milk and Cookies. How excitement!
I've been checking out Mel’s lovely work for a while, and some of you may have seen her illustrations in Frankie Mag.
I love her sweet angry girls with their big thighs.


Mel sells her artwork and zines on Etsy at her girliepains store, and she’s just opened a second store called sweetlittlefelt, where she sells cute mini felted critters!


It’s nice to get this little vote of confidence from an artist I think is tops. Thanks Mel!
Check out more of her delicious artwork on flickr.

New prints in the shop + waiting for Spring

Just posted 4 new prints up in the shop! Huzzah!
It has been so rainy and dreary here in Melbourne, that I've been finding it really hard to photograph these new prints. It's always too dark!
Well, last Saturday afternoon, the sun decided it would pop out from behind the clouds for 30 second intervals, during which I would quickly run to the living room, falling all over myself, and try to take a photo while some shred of sunlight shone through the windows.
There - the graceful mystique is shattered.

Can we please just skip the rest of this Winter business and go straight to Spring?

Bernhard Schnitzel - Attorney of Law

If I had to face court, I would have no-one but Bernhard Schnitzel representing me.

Lucille - finally online!

A few years back, I left my job and went to study animation full-time at the Victorian College of the Arts here in Melbourne.

It was an intensive year. When they said the course was full-time, they really meant it!
Working on our films, many of us pretty much lived in “the cave”, the VCA animation studio, animating in a caffeinated haze from 9 in the morning to 10:30 at night, at which point we’d get pushed out the door by the surly security guard.

I spent a few months working on a script for my final film, tweaking, developing and editing. Then at the last minute, just before I had to start production, a visit to a guitar shop inspired me to change plans and bang out a brand new script for what became ‘Lucille’. Readers of this blog may recall a few posts about the process of creating this film.

I’ve played in a couple of bands, and visiting guitar shops was always an excruciating experience. But it’s hard not to look at the funny side of them too. Those shops are full of odd little details, and characters who relish in living up to their own clichés.
A guitar shop is a concentrated mix of pent-up musical frustration, raging egos, trepidation and hope, and this is what I’ve tried to convey with this film.

Now that ‘Lucille’ has finished it’s festival travels, I can finally release it into the wilderness of the internet.
Hope you enjoy it!

Music is by Matt Lewin

Spacecadet Lullabies

Hey - you know that guy I live with? Matt? My... husband?
He's rather nice. And quite funny. And also - he's a musician.
We've collaborated on a lot of creative projects, and in fact, he wrote and performed the music for all of my short films.

He's got a solo project called Spacecadet Lullabies, where he creates ambient electronica using real instruments, vocals and sounds recorded around the house. This coming September he's releasing his second album, 'Ghost Songs'.

Last weekend, our buddies from Kick Kick Punch directed a music video for one of his new tracks "Tali Meets Mr Ricketts", which I did some vocals on.
Matt and I found ourselves awkwardly in front of the camera, with a dozen glowing, floating jellyfish made of wire, fabric, crochet tentacles and LED lights.


Photos by Ryan Humphries

A number of ladies spent countless hours crocheting and constructing these wonderous jellies, what an achievement! They looked amazing.


Photos by Chloe Gordon

Check out more photos on the Kick Kick Punch blog

The clip is coming soon, but in the meantime, you can hear some tracks on Matt's myspace, or check out his blog!

Double

Here's my submission for this week's Illustration Friday theme.
I've always found twins interesting. My grandmother had twins twice (!!)
That makes double the double.

Pikaland

My etsy shop got a little mention on the Pikaland illustration blog last week. Thanks lovely Pikaland!

Breakfast

Breakfast - If only it wasn't so early in the morning...

Featured on Etsy Front page!

Wow! While I was out, braving the crazy wind on this Saturday afternoon, my little bunny print made it to the front page of etsy! What a nice surprise! :)
Now, I'm not moving away from my heater for the rest of the day for sure. brrrrr...

Smile

It's the 1st of July today - the very middle of the year. How fast the year is flying.
Here's a little smile from the depths of winter to celebrate that at least it's not December just yet!

Shop!

I've been a bit of a secret squirrel this month, but now I have some exciting news!
Behind the scenes here at Milk and Cookies headquarters, I've been hatching a plan, and that plan was to open a little shop selling my artwork.

Today, after much fiddling, sketching, photographing and befuddlement, I can finally say I'm open for business on etsy. Yee haw!

I currently have 9 prints for sale in different sizes. Some that would be perfect for little kids, and some that would be perfect for slightly larger grown-ups.

They’re all professionally printed with archival inks on beautiful, heavy-weight, textured paper, which means they will last a lifetime.
Please head over to my Milk and Cookies etsy shop, and have a look. I'd love to know what you think! Any feedback or suggestions would be much appreciated.

Something Left, Something Taken

This is quite possibly THE sweetest animation I've seen in forever!
It was created by Tiny Inventions, a husband-and-wife team based in Brooklyn.

There's such a great mix of animation styles in this short, all with a cosy hand-made feel.

And if you want to know more about their process, the duo have written a giant behind-the-scenes post about the film on their blog. Inspiring stuff!

via Drawn!

Ripple

For Illustration Friday

The Red Eyes CD Launched!

I recently designed the album cover for Melbourne dub reggae giants, The Red Eyes.
They launched their album on Friday night at the Corner Hotel, and it was great seeing their fans walking around clutching the CD. (Yes, there are people that still buy CDs!)

Most of my design work has been web based, so every time I see my design on a real physical object out there in the "real world" it's still so exciting.

If you haven't heard it, the album is awesome. Big ups to King Charlie on the amazing mix and sweet delay dubby goodness.

bear aware

My entry for this week's illustration friday - fearless.

I find the concept of "bear aware" really funny, coming from a country that is unfortunately devoid of bears.

Despite carefully studying the "bear aware" guide in our hotel room in Yosemite National Park, my newly acquired knowledge disappeared when faced with a real live bear.
Yes - a bear. Looking right at me. And only about 3 metres away. (!!!)

What did I do? I turned around and said "Hey Matt, come here! There's a bear!"

Dip

Dip - for Illustration Friday.
Monsieur biscuit is having a relaxing dip in his earl grey tub...

notebook sketch

Friends of the Federation Party

Australian Design blog, Design Federation is hosting its inaugural event tomorrow night in Sydney.
There are lots of talented local artists exhibiting work, and some of my animation works will be screening so get your butts down there if you're Sydney based, and are into design, animation, or just boozing it up! :)

Some local faves of mine that will be exhibiting work:
Matt Hyunh

Kareena Zerefos

Portugese Custard Tarts

My first attempt at making portugese custard tarts. Luckily they didn't explode all over the oven, but inside people's mouths instead. yum!
Here's the recipe.

Focus

Focus - for Illustration Friday.
That moment when all you're focusing on is music. Isn't that a great feeling?

Happy 2010

New years day = purple lightning storms and blueberry cake (recipe from smitten kitchen).
Resolutions yet to be finalised! However, cake-related resolutions will NOT be on the list.
Happy new year!