Diamonds on the Soles of Their Feet

aka the Mushies.
First bunch of illustrations from the new series we're working on together. To paraphrase Paul Simon, they had diamonds on the soles of their feet. The fae folk danced 'til dawn and left these behind.

More to come, maybe some in colour!

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A new animation

We've got a new animation in the works, it's a stop motion one with miniature sets. We're experimenting with a few techniques with lighting and lenses and we've done all the animation in camera. This piece is a joint collaboration with co-director Michael Blanche and our super talented friend Becky Freeman aka Sui Zhen is providing original music.

We're just putting the finishing touches on it so in the meantime here are some progress shots. The process has been interesting and to describe it as hectic would be a huge understatement! The turnaround for the whole project has been 2 and a half weeks but we're all chuffed with the results.

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Murder By Death "White Noise"

Here is the finished animation for Murder By Death's "White Noise", the band were awesome to work with! We had fun with some stop motion in this video but the majority of it was created in After Effects using hand drawn graphics, built props, bleached chicken bones and bits and pieces we scavenged from our garden and our clothes.

Murder By Death - "White Noise" from MaricorMaricar on Vimeo.

Smiling Flash

New pics of my latest drawing. This was actually based on an old drawing I had done back in my uni days.  I was hell bent on clearing up some space and was sorting out old work to chuck out. I came across this drawing (the old piece of cardboard on the lower left of the photo) and I thought I could do something with the girl in the striped top. I had to discard my first attempt, I wasn't happy with how I had dropped in the pattern behind her and I also wanted to make it a full figure drawing. I've included it in here just for kicks, I actually dont mind the pattern so much now...

The text is taken from a Broken Social Scene song "Anthems For A Seventeen Year-Old Girl"

Biennale Of Sydney

The 17th Biennale Of Sydney opened last week and I was able to spend an afternoon at the MCA taking in some art. It was a lot to squeeze in a few hours so I'll definitely return for another visit as well as check out the other venues (I'm looking forward to taking a trip out to Cockatoo Island and seeing Cai Guo-Qiang's installation).

One artist that stood out to me was Fred Tomaselli, the first time I had seen his work was actually on the cover of The Magnetic Fields' "I" album. Up close and in person his work is so amazingly detailed and vivid.  His technique of suspending elements in resin makes it a hypnotic experience when you stand in front of his large scale paintings.

Detail from the cover of The Magnetic Fields' "I" album.
Gravity in Four Directions, by Fred Tomaselli. 

WIP - "White Noise" music video

We've almost finished our latest project, an animated music video for Murder by Death's track "White Noise". The band have been awesome to work with, they came up with the idea for the video and asked us if we would like to work with them after they saw our animation "Say Hello to the Ground".

These are some style frames for the animation and I've also posted some photos from the mini stop motion shoot we did. Thanks Michael for building us an amazing animation stand!

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Miniatures

Did some quick-ish miniature lace patterns, one for a birthday card for my boyfriend. I think it looks better reversed out of black. (On a side note we went to Pendolino's for dinner, their veal ragu is amazing. I can't stop thinking about it and am trying to think of good reasons why we need to have another special dinner soon.)

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Enredado

Here's a pic of a new illustration, I'm calling this one "Enredado". Initially I was going to add this to the Muchachos family, but now I've got plans to base a new series on this mandrake character.

Dimensions: 11cm x 14 cm

New Site Live

We've said it for a while, but now it really is happening. Our site is live, check out our new home - maricormaricar.com. Our blog will still be updated with assorted behind the scenes happy snaps and creative bits and pieces.

Built by the very friendly and talented dudes at GEA. Thanks Adam and Sam!

Recommended reading material

One of my favourite art and design blogs is Meighan O'Toole's 'My Love For You Is a Stampede of Horses'. Meighan's interviews give a good insight to each artist's process and whenever I visit there's always someone new to find out about, each one absolutely amazing and unique.

I first saw Allyson Mellberg-Taylor's work in the Process/Inspiration section and fell in love with the detail, colours, randomness and the fact that Allyson and her husband Jeremy create their own homemade inks! I experimented a few weeks ago with pomegranate peel and juice but didn't really know what I was doing. One batch went moldy soon after and the other one smells like wine. I'd forgotten about it and now i'm a little afraid of using it just in case I end up with a moldy drawing....although that could be interesting. After seeing reading Allyson and Jeremy's blog i'm inspired now to learn more and hopefully make some proper inks.

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MaricorMaricar website Coming Soon!

We've had the coming soon sign up at www.maricormaricar.com for a long time but now we can say truthfully that it IS happening and hopefully in the not too distant future. Our friends at GEA are building it and fingers crossed it will be live at the end of March/early April!

Global Village pitch artwork

Sorting out some old work and came across some concept art for the Global Village cd artwork that didn't get used in the end. Created while at Mathematics.

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Global Village compilation artwork - Americana, Balkans & Caribbean

CD artwork for the third instalment of the SBS/Universal series of Global Village compilations. Created for Mathematics.

Shout Out

We'd just like to say thank you to the wonderful people at Behance, Motionserved, AustralianEdge and Australian Infront for posting our work up and featuring us. It's nice to know people like our stuff!

Los Muchachos Bestial

Finished off those random doodles into a series called Los Muchachos Bestial. These are a mixture of pen (regular copic pens) and ink and nib scratchings. While preparing content for our website I came across some old illustrations where I had started using dots to build up contours. It inspired me to use the technique again -  check out "El Bandido", I've muscled him up a bit.

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Leche Derramada

El Bandido

La Mascara

La Babosa Hambriento

Illustrated Lace

Some new drawings i've been working up. It's been refreshing doing work on the fly but frustrating when you realise you've screwed something up and have to figure out how to cover it up or else make it work. The next challenge is going to be embroidering these suckers!

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Empire of the Sun - Live Visuals for Parklife 2009

Live visuals created for 'Walking on a Dream' by Empire of the Sun, for their debut live performance at Parklife 2009. This was the finale for their set and was also used as part of their Aria performance. Created with Michael Blanche whilst at Mathematics. 3D modelling by Ben Dunlop.

You can view their Parklife performance here.
The live visuals for the rest of the set were created by Michael Blanche, Matt Kamen and Ben Dunlop.

So What

My first figure drawing in a while. I've tried a few different things in this one, some ok results and some not so ok results which required some cleaning up. At the moment I'm experimenting with nib pens bought from Japan. They're awesome, but a lot trickier to use than the regular pens I'm used to. I've used them to create texture in the blocked in dark areas.

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Sketches

Still practicing my drawing. I haven't gotten the face and expression right so i'll be posting another version later. But I am happy with these colours and the amount of detail and roughness in the hair, so at least it wasn't a wasted effort.

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Sketches - faun version II

I wasn't totally happy with the face for our 'We Make Do' piece so I thought i'd give it another go...

Blue Mountains - looking for leeches...

Still experimenting with my holgaroid. I tried out some double exposures but since I don't have a tripod it's a little tricky getting crisp shots.

Random Doodles

The design for our website is done and we're about to begin the building phase. Which means in the coming month or so we'll have a proper home, but in the meantime we'll keep posting stuff up on our blog.

Here is a collection of doodles that I've been scratching out - I'm getting back into pen work and patterns.

'Songs to Make You Smile' by Justine Clarke

Animations created for Justine Clarke's 'Songs to Make You Smile' album and dvd for 'Creatures of the Rain and Sun', 'Doin' It' and the single 'Dinosaur Roar' while at Mathematics. Visit our vimeo page for more animations for 'Imagination, 'The Witches' Ball' and extra animations created for the DVD release.


Justine Clarke - 'Creatures of the Rain and Sun' Songs to Make You Smile from MaricorMaricar on Vimeo.



Justine Clarke - 'Doin' It' Songs to Make You Smile from MaricorMaricar on Vimeo.



Justine Clarke - 'Dinosaur Roar' Songs to Make You Smile from MaricorMaricar on Vimeo.