And here it is!

After weeks of procrastinating and weeks of work, here it is: my first little print in my etsy shop!

I spent Sunday afternoon trying to make friends with my husband's camera and lenses. I am not sure we will ever be best friends but I would like to think that we could come to some kind of arrangement where I speak nicely to it, and it does the work! Unfortunately it doesn't matter how flash your camera is or even if you switch it to the auto mode - you can never take a great photo unless you know what you are doing with it and what is is you are trying to photograph.

As I have probably said before on this blog, photography was never my best subject at uni and I still have visions of doing whole assignments and having the slides developed only to discover the battery in my light metre was flat and my readings were all out!

The weather was not the greatest yesterday and although I picked the brightest room for the job, by the end of the shoot I was chasing the light and reaching for the tripod. The images are far from perfect but for now I will be content with what I have produced and keep working on improving them.

From here it does not matter what happens - it is just the fact that I have started that is important. Now I have to keep going.....

Almost out of Excuses!

What a week it has ended up being. Who would have known last Monday in Japan as eveyone trudged back to work for the week, that by Friday their houses might be floating on water and they might be running for their lives. Few things shock us on the news anymore but the images coming out of Japan at the moment are truly horrifying. It is so surreal for us to sit and watch from the comfort of our homes these images of loss and devastation; trying to empathize with people when we really have no idea. I have felt a couple of magnitude 5 ish quakes while living in Japan which had me running for cover under our kitchen table but I really can't imagine how frightening an earthquake of this magnitude must have been.

Fortunately for us, most of our family and friends are located in central Japan and have not been affected by the quake and those that are near Tokyo are also okay. It really puts our lives back into perspective. We run around in our material world climbing imaginary ladders and filling our homes with all the latest thinking we are quite in control and quite clever. Nature knows better and recently has been reminding us of our vulnerability. These are the times when we feel helpless but can at least take the time to reflect on things that are really important to us. Life is affter all very precious.

On the work front this week I had a long list of things to achieve and have crossed off a good third of them. I am pretty happy with that. My husband keeps asking me when I will put my first print in my shop and I am now excited to say that I am running out of excuses as to why that hasn't happened yet. Some packaging arrived this week and I have just spent tonight updating my shop policies and shipping details to include prints. So really now I have just two things to do: take some photos of a real print and make a listing for it. So it will be soon, very soon.....

The Start of Something New!

Recently, I find myself caught up in the admin side of running a little online shop. I spend the little time I have to work searching online for supplies, appropriate packaging and estimating postage costs etc. I am itching to get started on a new drawing and would love to start on a piece in colour, however, progress is also slowed by my littlest poppet who occasionally still wakes in the night and will not go back to sleep without a hug from me.

Since March has arrived, a crispness has crept into the night air and I wonder if Missy Muffet wakes because she is a little cold. The other night I was working away when her desperate little cries came from her cot. Yes, it was time for a hug from Mum and as I sat with her I started to imagine how that image might be represented graphically. A hug is such a simple gesture but so warm and comforting. It got me thinking this might be a theme for my next print. I made a few quick rough sketches and have filed them away for a time when I can see past all the little jobs I need to do first. Hopefully soon, very soon I will be able to list my very first print in my Etsy shop. If it doesn't happen in March then it will definitely be April - I hope!

Cushions for the Couch!

Belbird by Melbomba

Mari by Kalla

Orla in lemon by Skinnylaminx

Cloud birds by Skinnylaminx

Karlstad lounge by ikea

Aah, this is the time in my week where I assess what I have achieved in the last 7 days; this week, I have to admit, there is no progress to share. It has been a week filled with an unforseeable chore that stole my work time but, instead of feeling bad about it, I am just going to focus on all that will get done next week.

And so I have decided to blog instead about my ongoing search for cushions for our lounge. When we moved here from Japan we shipped some of our furniture but in general we had to start from scratch and so, an impulse buy on a trip to ikea saw us ordering the Karlstad lounge with the removable covers which I thought would be very practical having two little ones who don't always have the cleanest of hands. We have had the lounge almost a year now but it is still in need of some cushions to make it really comfortable.

I keep spying great cushion covers or fabrics on etsy which I love but I have no idea what colours or patterns to choose or whether to just make an eclectic mix of my favourites.

On the top of my list are some of the designs by Heather Moore from her shop Skinnylaminx. And then there is another of my favourites called Mari from Kalla. Recently I also discovered Melbomba in Melbourne who makes some beautiful fabrics. All these shops have wonderful patterns and so many colours to choose from. Perhaps I will never be able to choose and may just keep on admiring and adding to my wish list!

A Celebration of Diversity

Last night, I finally finished my first drawing for the year. I sat down for almost two hours straight just inking in the circles at the bottom which were the last part to go. These are just a couple of snaps from my phone camera so not the best images but a record of sorts.

A Celebration of Diversity is something that has been sitting in my sketch book for a long time. It celebrates the fact that we are all different and yet live and grow side by side and learn from each other. Sometimes we try to make people more like ourselves when in fact we should just appreciate and celebrate our differences. I think this one came to mind recently when I was shocked by some very narrow views of a person who was unable to continue a relationship because the other person was from a different culture. How sad, I thought. How much that person has missed out on.

I can only speak from my experience as an 'Australian' married to a Japanese. I have been asked a number of times if I think international marriages are difficult. My answer to that question is that all marriages or partnerships can be difficult at times but more importantly they can be wonderful. I think how much richer my life is that I can share it with another being regardless of nationality; a person who is kind, warm, generous and loving. And how fantastic that I have been able to experience the beautiful culture that he is from and how that has influenced my life.

There are no doubt many differences between us all.

Let's celebrate that....

The Fun Part

This is the part I love. When all the sketching and rearranging of elements is finished; when all the pencil lines are in place and I all I need to do is ink in the black areas. It is tedious and time consuming and a bit nerve wracking when you only get one chance to create a single, permanent mark with that pen; But this is the part I enjoy the most.

My husband often tells me, "You know your style of drawing could be created in Illustrator and it would be really quick and accurate". "Aah yes," I reply, "but it is not the point". I go on to explain that it is the process that I love. I love that it takes a long time and that it really is not perfect - it is touched with a human hand and we are imperfect. It is the best part about creating when you get to the part where all the design is worked out and then you just have to go ahead and make it. That is my time to myself and takes me completely away from everything else I do in my day.

I guess that is the sort of person I am. There are many ways to get to work and many would choose to take a car or ride a train. For me, if I have a choice I would probably walk or cycle. If I were a bug or insect it would be romantic to picture myself as a butterfly or dragonfly but in reality I would be a snail. When a plane lands and the doors open and everyone rushes to exit, you will most likely find me at the back of the queue.

And so while I realize there are faster and more efficient ways to do things, this is the medium I choose at the moment and I love it!

Sketchy progress.

I have decided to make Friday or Saturday night 'blog night'. It is a chance for me to reflect on the week and by writing things down I can hopefully quantify what I have achieved rather than thinking of all the things that I haven't finished yet. I did spend some time this week on a new black and white drawing but most of the week was taken up with admin and computer stuff as I continue to work out how to reproduce my work and then package it. I narrowed down my choice of 12 kinds of paper to two that I really want to work with. Firstly, I have chosen a bamboo paper which is only 10% cotton and 90% bamboo and I think I will use this for colour prints. For the black and white prints I have chosen the Hahnemuhle Museum etching paper. In all honesty the prints probably look better than the originals.

So I ordered more paper and was strangely nervous doing so. I have spent thousands of dollars over the years buying silver and other materials to make jewellery and yet spending a couple of hundred dollars on paper felt very indulgent and for a minute or two the old doubt bug crept in and I wondered if I would end up with a stack of very expensive paper that I would end up having to cut into squares to write phone messages on.

Pushing that feeling of doubt aside, I have moved on to retouching the scanned images for the drawings I have from last year just to remove the odd specs of dust that sneak in; so soon, very soon I may have something new to put into my etsy shop. Next week I will have to work out postage costs and order supplies for packaging and hopefully above all else try and finish my first little black and white for the year. I will finish here and upload some of my sketchy progress.