La La Land Cards

I'm super excited to announce that Australian Card Company, La La Land, have just released two cards featuring my designs, Dip and Fat Batman!! 
It was really fun working with the La La Land team, throwing around taglines that would go with these images. 
You may start seeing these in selected gift shops around the country. I just saw them at my one of fave designy shops, Lulu, in St Kilda East!

To celebrate, I'm giving away this double card pack over on my facebook page, so head over there to enter this weekend.

You can buy these cards at La La Land, and of course, my original Dip and Fat Batman cards are also available at my etsy shop.

Eternal Guardian of the Dad Jokes

Father's day is coming up in 2 weeks here in Australia, and I just designed this new card. It had to be about dad jokes of course.
The first skill men develop as soon as they become fathers is the ability to tell cringey dad jokes. I've seen it, you've seen it, we all know it's true.
These dad super skills are not always appreciated as much as they should be, and I thought some dads surely deserve an official title and a medal for their life's greatest work, the dad joke.
Will you bestow upon your father the title of "eternal guardian of the dad jokes"?

Have a lovely weekend!

Eva and Jem Custom Portrait

I just framed and delivered this custom illustration to a very happy client! She commissioned this portrait of her niece and nephew as a special gift to her sis. So sweet!

It's been really lovely working on custom illustrations for clients this month. Makes me happy to think that these one-off works will be hanging in their homes.

Lullaby for Seren

I was commissioned to create a custom artwork recently. It was for a little girl called Seren, whose name means Star in Welsh!

Shiny shiny records

Here's my piece for the Illustrators Australia A3 show, which is opening this Friday at Northcote Town Hall.


By chance, it also fits with Illustration Friday's theme this week 'Shiny'.
This sentimental bun is not one for tiny white headphones with tiny dead sounds. He prefers his tunes on big, shiny vinyl.

I must admit, I love vinyl too and have a little record stash, mostly collected from one favourite record store in my teen years when it was cheaper to buy records than CD's, and I was into old rock bands anyway.
Here are a few of my faves (it's so hard to choose!)

From Top Left: Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde. Bob looks like a fixie-riding hipster on this cover. Except he's not. He's frigging Bob Dylan. I love the blurry photo.

Pink Floyd - Obscured by Clouds. Not the best album, but I absolutely love the cover.

Beatles - White album. Words are not enough. I've listened to this about a million billion times. Amazing to think how daring this cover would have been at the time.

Roberta Flack - First Take. This one was a present from Matt when we first started dating. What an album! Roberta kills 'Compared to What' and 'Tryin Times'.

There are so many more, I could go on all night, but I've already geeked out too much. Do you have a stash of records too? What are your faves?

North Melbourne Market

 

I will be at The North Melbourne Market this Sunday, from 10am to 3pm, at the awesome Lithuanian Club on Errol St. Get your mittens on, and come down to say hello!
Carpenters tunes have been promised. Err.. I hope that's a good thing. Why do birds suddenly appear?

Midnight Apparition

A midnight sketch.
I really love working late at night, but my morning self does protest.

Sunday

This Canadian short, Sunday (or 'Dimanche'), was one of my faves at the Melbourne International Animation Festival last year, and I was happy to see it nominated for an Oscar earlier this year.
I loved its humdrum and fantastical memories of childhood Sundays spent at Grandma's. Not to mention the beautiful character design!

Calendar sale!

Can you believe it is already the middle of Feb?! The ides of Feb! If you're still looking for a calendar to pretty up your walls, my 2012 mini calendar is now on sale. Only $12!
I'm looking for a new calendar for my studio too. Leave me a tip if you have a fave!

Print Love

One of my lovely customers pointed out to me that my Sushi Love card was featured in this month's issue of Shop Til You Drop Mag! It was under the glorious heading, ' Totally non-cheesy Valentine's Gifts'. Is such a thing possible? Let's just say it is. I'm pretty chuffed to have one of my Milk and Cookies goods in a glossy mag!

 

Another mag that featured me recently was, believe it or not, the Malaysia Airlines inflight magazine! They featured my 2012 calendar in their calendar spread. How cute is the fabric radio calendar on the right?

Play School Art Maker App

I'm so happy to finally be able to share what I've been working on at ABC Kids for the last few months. The Play School Art Maker App for the iPad has just been released!!

I was lead designer on this awesome project, and proud to be part of a fantastic team that made it happen.
If you have a toddler at home, and er.. an ipad, download the app for free and have a go! I'd love to know what you think.
Kids can make their own scenes and movies with Big Ted, Little Ted, Jemima, Humpty and their friends, as well as a huge collection of handmade Play School objects.

Download the app on iTunes. It's free in Australia, and free for a limited time overseas, so get downloading. And be prepared for a very smudgy iPad!

2012 mini calendar

My 2012 mini calendar is here!
This year, I'm printing the calendars on some lovely, heavy card stock that I've sourced, which is 100% recycled and has super eco-friendly credentials.
So even if I do kill a few pot plants around the house, at least I can try to save a few trees.
All of my greeting cards will also be printed on 100% recycled paper from now on. Yay!
It's all a part of making Milk and Cookies a little greener for 2012.
Hmm, Green milk? Green cookies? Well, why not!

I Dream a Highway

This year I'm participating in the Illustrators Australia 9x5 exhibition.
IA takes the idea from the 1890 exhibition in Melbourne by the Heidelberg School, where artists painted on 9 x 5 inch cigar box lids.
I was very excited and a little intimidated by the 9x5 piece of wood I got in the mail from IA, along with the theme 'rapture'. After much deliberating and sketchedoodling, I decided on an image and got to work with my poor neglected gouache paints.
It was really nice and relaxing holding a paintbrush again, instead of a wacom pen! Here's the finished painting, I Dream A Highway.


I got too carried away to take process pics, but here's the painting just before it was done. Just a few lines left.

Each time I dipped my brush, I wiped the excess paint off on a spare piece of paper, and this ended up as a crazy new image.. or is it a painting of the music she is playing? Or is it statistical data on the number of times a brush is dipped vs painting surface area? You decide!
If you'd like to come along, the exhibition open at 6pm on Friday 14th of October, at 39 Collins St, Melbourne. Right next door to Bar Lourinha!

illustration friday: Disguise

Here's a quick last-minute entry for Illustration Friday this week.
How could I go past a topic like 'disguise'?

This was drawn in pencil, then coloured digitally.

Featured in Yen Mag!

Oh my! I'm a featured illustrator on the awesome Yen Magazine site this week!!

Illustrators Australia Sydney Show

Hello Sydney friends! The Illustrators Australia A3 Print Show is coming to Sydney this weekend! It opens this Friday, and there will be 120 giclee prints on display. My Feathered Attorney print will make an appearance too!

A couple of my favourite prints from the Melbourne opening were:

New Dog, by Cheryl Orsini

The Clouds are lifting, by Anna Walker

Aren't they lovely?

Here are the details:
Friday 19th August, 6pm-9pm
Fraser Studios
10-14 Kensington St
Chippendale

Wish I could be there, but alas, I am stuck in rainy Melbourne. Let me know what you think if you go!

Hide and Seek

Phew, so glad I can finally share this new piece I've been working on called 'Hide and Seek'! It's for a group show I'll be in this weekend, hosted by the Melbourne design studio, Kish & Co.
I'm pretty excited to be in this show, alongside some Melbourne artists I have sneaky professional crushes on. I'm really looking forward to checking out the works by Melanie Matthews, Dawn Tan, and Belinda Suzette. Yay!

Clementine

New print up in le shoppe! Her name is Clementine.

and the winner is...

The random number generator picked commenter #11, who is.... Kirsty Lee!
Congrats Kirsty, Fat Batman is heading your way!
Thanks for your entries all!

Print Giveaway!

It has been a year since I started selling my prints, and I'm so grateful that 400 nice people have expressed their support by liking Milk and Cookies on Facebook! To say thank you to everyone, I'm giving away a free print.

To be in the running, simply like Milk and Cookies on Facebook, then just leave a comment on this post, letting me know which print in my shop is your favourite, and you will be in the draw to win it!

The winner will be announced on Wednesday 20th!