Thursday, April 28, 2011
Handsome Frank
We have some exciting news to share, MaricorMaricar have signed to the wonderful UK based illustration agency Handsome Frank! We're really stoked to join the family and be part of an amazing roster of creative and unique illustrators. If you are interested in commissioning work please get in touch with them or directly with us.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Playing with type
Last week we went to Easter School at Central St Martins. For three amazing days we got to play with lead and wood type and live out our type geek dreams. Years ago while at UTS we had the chance to go on exchange to CSM and being the naive silly girls we were, we didn't pursue it and regretted it for a long time. Thanks to the British Council's grant we received last year we finally got the chance to make good and study at CSM if only for a few days.
Letterpress is enjoying a revival at the moment, (Maricor posted last week about the letterpress cards that the Hungry Workshop made up for us) we're fans of the tactility and craft involved with letterpress especially in the movable type variety. In the class we were taught the fundamentals of setting up lead and wood type and creating short runs using the medium sized Farley press and the smaller Adana press. The thing that struck us the most about the process was how much it felt like you were solving a jigsaw puzzle when setting up the type blocks and spacing. And since we both really enjoy fiddly things like puzzles we were having an awesome time.
The downside was we didn't have enough time. Set up and cleaning takes so long that we really only printed for about 15 min out of the 10-4 class time we had each day. And I don't know how we can continue the new letterpress fascination we've now developed.
Our uni lecturers used to tell us stories of lead type being dumped onto the gutter when the huge presses were shut down. Helen Ingham our instructor told us a lot of the CSM letterpress type were salvaged from those dumping days. The history in the corridors, stairwell and workshops at CSM is overwhelming and to think it will all be gone soon, shafted all over to new campuses to make room for a luxury hotel development makes me sad. I hope all the letterpress equipment we used survives the move and continues to be used.
Letterpress is enjoying a revival at the moment, (Maricor posted last week about the letterpress cards that the Hungry Workshop made up for us) we're fans of the tactility and craft involved with letterpress especially in the movable type variety. In the class we were taught the fundamentals of setting up lead and wood type and creating short runs using the medium sized Farley press and the smaller Adana press. The thing that struck us the most about the process was how much it felt like you were solving a jigsaw puzzle when setting up the type blocks and spacing. And since we both really enjoy fiddly things like puzzles we were having an awesome time.
The downside was we didn't have enough time. Set up and cleaning takes so long that we really only printed for about 15 min out of the 10-4 class time we had each day. And I don't know how we can continue the new letterpress fascination we've now developed.
Our uni lecturers used to tell us stories of lead type being dumped onto the gutter when the huge presses were shut down. Helen Ingham our instructor told us a lot of the CSM letterpress type were salvaged from those dumping days. The history in the corridors, stairwell and workshops at CSM is overwhelming and to think it will all be gone soon, shafted all over to new campuses to make room for a luxury hotel development makes me sad. I hope all the letterpress equipment we used survives the move and continues to be used.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
The Hungry Workshop are awesome
For our trip to London we really wanted to get some proper cards done (finally!) and wanted to do something a little special and something fitting to the tactile work we do. Luckily we stumbled across the letterpress work of The Hungry Workshop run by the awesome duo Simon and Jenna. Letterpress is something we've been dying to try as we've been interested in printmaking for a long time (we did a short course in stone lithographic printing at COFA a few years back and we've booked ourselves in for a letterpress course at Central Saint Martins while we're in London which started yesterday - so much amazing stuff to share about the class so we'll make sure to write a proper blog post about it after it wraps up).
Please check out their site, it's chockas with some amazing prints they've collaborated on with other designers as well as custom designs they have created themselves. They were tremendously helpful with getting our business cards done and ready in time for our trip and we couldn't be more happier with the results. Below are the cards, we chose an uncoated, thicker card that suited the handcrafted feel of our work.
Beer Matt Board 390gsm
Pantone Black 5
Please check out their site, it's chockas with some amazing prints they've collaborated on with other designers as well as custom designs they have created themselves. They were tremendously helpful with getting our business cards done and ready in time for our trip and we couldn't be more happier with the results. Below are the cards, we chose an uncoated, thicker card that suited the handcrafted feel of our work.
Beer Matt Board 390gsm
Pantone Black 5
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Viral dancers
Great view from outside our window on Queensway the other day, watched a production crew and two prankster pop-locking dancers hidden in cardboard boxes jump out and freak out passersby. Trying to read the logo on their shiny orange and purple tops, one of them has a ranga up fro a'la Kid 'n' Play.
Will no doubt see the video up on youtube soon.
This week we managed to get away for some proper tourist fun times and spent a few hours at the Victoria & Albert Museum but unfortunately the Textiles room was closed! And won't re-open till 2013!! Bummer, but there was still heaps of things to occupy ourselves with and we will no doubt be revisiting again..and again.
Afterwards we lost ourselves in the amazing scarves hall at Liberty, drooled over a couple, the patterns, the colours!! Oh well, first excuse we get to reward ourselves you know where we'll be heading.
And just to prove we haven't been slackers, here are a few snaps our friend Catherine took at Kensington Park over the weekend. The sun was out and it was WARM, dare I say hot for London in the spring so we packed up our sewing bags and took our work to the park. Here's a sneak at the sewing we're currently working on, there's a few commissions on the go so in between house hunting and quick trips around London seeing the sights we've been busy bees again sewing up a storm.
Will no doubt see the video up on youtube soon.
This week we managed to get away for some proper tourist fun times and spent a few hours at the Victoria & Albert Museum but unfortunately the Textiles room was closed! And won't re-open till 2013!! Bummer, but there was still heaps of things to occupy ourselves with and we will no doubt be revisiting again..and again.
Afterwards we lost ourselves in the amazing scarves hall at Liberty, drooled over a couple, the patterns, the colours!! Oh well, first excuse we get to reward ourselves you know where we'll be heading.
And just to prove we haven't been slackers, here are a few snaps our friend Catherine took at Kensington Park over the weekend. The sun was out and it was WARM, dare I say hot for London in the spring so we packed up our sewing bags and took our work to the park. Here's a sneak at the sewing we're currently working on, there's a few commissions on the go so in between house hunting and quick trips around London seeing the sights we've been busy bees again sewing up a storm.
Monday, April 04, 2011
London Calling
So long Sydney, we're sad to say goodbye but hello London!
We arrived early Tuesday morning at around 5.30 and after 24 hours flying thank goodness we opted for a cab transfer from the airport. I doubt we'd have made it to our friends' place otherwise. The flights themselves were pretty good but any extended period of time suspended in halfway time between your old timezone and your new one is always disorienting and exhausting. On the second leg from Hong Kong to London we somehow managed to score first row seats which meant we had extra leg room. I felt a bit guilty though. Since we're small asian girls we were in the least need, especially as there seemed to be a whole fleet of giant rugby fans/players crammed in nearby.
Our first week has been a mix of work and exploring.. sadly more of the former. We sorta nerded out and made sure we hunted down an art supply store, fabrics and craft store and grocery shops nearby. No denying where our priorities lie :)
On Saturday we checked out a couple of Markets around east London. I scored a rope necklace at the new Designers Markers Market and we ogled the beautiful food (and people) at Broadway Market. We're hoping to find a rental nearby since the markets are so amazing. I miss living in Newtown and it feels somewhat similar, a cross between Newtown and Surry Hills.
This week we have a commission to finish that's been keeping us from exploring more. I shouldn't complain about being busy but it's a bummer we're stuck indoors. Oh well we'll just have to sew like crazy :)
Maricor and I have also put up a massive update on our site. The full series of embroideries from our Turns of Speech & Figures of Phrase exhibition is up as well as the latest Global Village artworks and an illustration we made for Anorak Magazine's Food is Fun series. We are also proud to share our latest animation that we created for British Council Australia. Together with Republic of Everyone we created an animation to help launch Big Green Idea, a great funding initiative by the British Council. We worked on it before we flew out and had to multitask more than usual for this project. Making the props, rigging, lighting, camera ops and post production. It was a bit of a stretch at times! Although it was a busy two week we had a great time working on it, coming up with the cute paper characters and learning new techniques.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Non-stop stop motion
We're very excited about the latest project we've been busy working on which will go live very soon, in the meantime here's a sneak peak. A paper based stop motion animation...in two weeks. No tag teaming on this one, all hands on deck!
Monday, March 07, 2011
Muscle On
A few big things to blog about this Monday so this is going to be a long post!
First up, our first ever solo show opened at Mart Gallery last week. Huge thanks to Mel for having such an awesome space and hosting us, Sam for lending us your muscles for bump-in, Ly for coming early and helping set up and Ben and Michael for manning the drinks table and to everyone who came and made it such a great night. "Turns of Speech & Figures of Phrase" will be up for the next 2 weeks until the 19th of March. Also Ca and I will be at the gallery this Wednesday (the 9th) from 1:45 - 3:45 if anyone wants to drop by and have a chat. There are a few more pieces still up for grabs, we'll have pictures up soon.
We'd also like to thank these sites who have posted up our work, its awesome to know that our work is liked! Cheers Sick of the Radio, Design Work Life, Graphism, Walk the Sand, Portable.TV, MrXStitch, August Empress, Las Teje y Maneje, Banana Meet Cute, Jessica Swift, Might & Wonder and The Brag for the very kind words.
We mentioned in the last post that we we're madly tag-team sewing the last piece for the show. Well, in between the sewing we also took turns whipping up an illustration for Anorak Magazine's Food Is Fun project. Our paper illustration is now up on the Anorak site, it's bursting with fortune cookies, fruit and vegie kebabs, cursive hummus and more yummy stuff. Here's a process pic of some goo-ey glue paste type...
We're prepping for our trip to London so we're sorting out what we can take with us and what we'll have to leave behind. As we're not going to be able take all our prints with us our Big Cartel store is now on sale! Our risograph prints are all reduced and I've put the sewn piece "Get All Up In My Goat" up on our store too.
We're heading to London at the end of March, please get in touch if you're in that part of the world and could use a couple of nimble fingered illustrators/designers.
First up, our first ever solo show opened at Mart Gallery last week. Huge thanks to Mel for having such an awesome space and hosting us, Sam for lending us your muscles for bump-in, Ly for coming early and helping set up and Ben and Michael for manning the drinks table and to everyone who came and made it such a great night. "Turns of Speech & Figures of Phrase" will be up for the next 2 weeks until the 19th of March. Also Ca and I will be at the gallery this Wednesday (the 9th) from 1:45 - 3:45 if anyone wants to drop by and have a chat. There are a few more pieces still up for grabs, we'll have pictures up soon.
We'd also like to thank these sites who have posted up our work, its awesome to know that our work is liked! Cheers Sick of the Radio, Design Work Life, Graphism, Walk the Sand, Portable.TV, MrXStitch, August Empress, Las Teje y Maneje, Banana Meet Cute, Jessica Swift, Might & Wonder and The Brag for the very kind words.
We mentioned in the last post that we we're madly tag-team sewing the last piece for the show. Well, in between the sewing we also took turns whipping up an illustration for Anorak Magazine's Food Is Fun project. Our paper illustration is now up on the Anorak site, it's bursting with fortune cookies, fruit and vegie kebabs, cursive hummus and more yummy stuff. Here's a process pic of some goo-ey glue paste type...
We're prepping for our trip to London so we're sorting out what we can take with us and what we'll have to leave behind. As we're not going to be able take all our prints with us our Big Cartel store is now on sale! Our risograph prints are all reduced and I've put the sewn piece "Get All Up In My Goat" up on our store too.
We're heading to London at the end of March, please get in touch if you're in that part of the world and could use a couple of nimble fingered illustrators/designers.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Tag teaming
Our first solo exhibition is happening later this week and we're so close to finishing. We're cutting it a little fine again, but we couldn't resist doing one more embroidery. A week out from opening night we decided it would be a great opportunity to work on a larger piece so we're madly sewing to get it finished for bump in.
It's a little different to the rest of the works (we're calling it the bonus track of the playlist) and is a hint to what our future embroidered projects might look like so I'm pretty excited to see how it turns out. Co took some photos of the set up we McGyvered up for it. To handle the size of the design (75x75cm) we improvised a frame/stand by pinning it to the top of an old clothes horse we had lying around and it's done the trick so far. We're literally working around the clock to get it done in time. Tag teaming sewing shifts so one of us sews while the other naps. It feels just like uni days and our final year Major Project!
Also for those in Melbourne, Matt Huynh's latest exhibition of work Aurora sounds like it's going to be amazing. I'm pretty bummed that we we won't be able to see it. There's more info on his blog and site but here's a little excerpt that got me very excited. "This installation is a very large-scale charcoal and pigment drawing on 100% cotton watercolor paper running down the length of the entire gallery." Woah.. i'm usually overwhelmed working any larger than A3! The show opens March 10 at Lamington Drive Gallery.
And another project well worth supporting is the "What Song is That" project by Little Gonzales and Michael Wilton - a book of quirky pictograms. They've set up a pozible (fundbreak) project. Click here for more info on how to support them and help get the book published.
It's a little different to the rest of the works (we're calling it the bonus track of the playlist) and is a hint to what our future embroidered projects might look like so I'm pretty excited to see how it turns out. Co took some photos of the set up we McGyvered up for it. To handle the size of the design (75x75cm) we improvised a frame/stand by pinning it to the top of an old clothes horse we had lying around and it's done the trick so far. We're literally working around the clock to get it done in time. Tag teaming sewing shifts so one of us sews while the other naps. It feels just like uni days and our final year Major Project!
Also for those in Melbourne, Matt Huynh's latest exhibition of work Aurora sounds like it's going to be amazing. I'm pretty bummed that we we won't be able to see it. There's more info on his blog and site but here's a little excerpt that got me very excited. "This installation is a very large-scale charcoal and pigment drawing on 100% cotton watercolor paper running down the length of the entire gallery." Woah.. i'm usually overwhelmed working any larger than A3! The show opens March 10 at Lamington Drive Gallery.
And another project well worth supporting is the "What Song is That" project by Little Gonzales and Michael Wilton - a book of quirky pictograms. They've set up a pozible (fundbreak) project. Click here for more info on how to support them and help get the book published.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Macho Distrust - process
Thought it would be nice to share some of our process work in the lead up to our exhibition. I really enjoy 'making-of' videos and looking at process work and seeing how ideas develop. Not to mention it's always great when artists/designers share tips, I hope we can do the same.
This piece is one of co's and is inspired by Blondie. The words aren't meant to be taken too seriously. We were drawn to them because our work has often been described as cute, feminine etc and we used to think that was a bad thing. We've realised we do what we do, trying to act differently (in this case macho) or be something else is a waste of energy and also maybe insincere. I was reminded of this after reading a blog post by Lilly Piri this morning.
Co worked up the type in a series of pencil and pen sketches. The type is then refined using water colours with some adjustments in Photoshop. Sometimes we'll start a piece knowing what colour combinations we'd like to use but the water colours help add some randomness and some interesting gradients we'd not usually use.
This piece is one of co's and is inspired by Blondie. The words aren't meant to be taken too seriously. We were drawn to them because our work has often been described as cute, feminine etc and we used to think that was a bad thing. We've realised we do what we do, trying to act differently (in this case macho) or be something else is a waste of energy and also maybe insincere. I was reminded of this after reading a blog post by Lilly Piri this morning.
Co worked up the type in a series of pencil and pen sketches. The type is then refined using water colours with some adjustments in Photoshop. Sometimes we'll start a piece knowing what colour combinations we'd like to use but the water colours help add some randomness and some interesting gradients we'd not usually use.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Busy Bs
Hello! This week has turned out to be pretty hectic so the usual Monday blog post is terribly late. We've finally finished the pieces for our Mart show and they are at the framers now. We'll be posting up some process work soon.
Also, recently we've had some lovely write-ups about our show. We were pretty stoked to be on Booooooom! and also today the amazing Pip Lincolne of Meet Me at Mikes just posted up about our work too. Yay! We'd also like to give a huge thanks to Yen Magazine, Lifelounge, Frankie, Tough Titties and What Katie Does for writing up about us as well.
Also if you have time, we posted up some new work over at our site. There's a new Epic Battle and also the Sweater Letter co posted a sneak peek of a few weeks back is now finished. Hope you enjoy!
Also, recently we've had some lovely write-ups about our show. We were pretty stoked to be on Booooooom! and also today the amazing Pip Lincolne of Meet Me at Mikes just posted up about our work too. Yay! We'd also like to give a huge thanks to Yen Magazine, Lifelounge, Frankie, Tough Titties and What Katie Does for writing up about us as well.
Also if you have time, we posted up some new work over at our site. There's a new Epic Battle and also the Sweater Letter co posted a sneak peek of a few weeks back is now finished. Hope you enjoy!
Tuesday, February 08, 2011
MaricorMaricar at Mart Gallery March 3-19
Maricor and I are very proud and excited to be having our first ever solo show next month at Mart Gallery.
'Turns of Speech & Figures of Phrase'is inspired by song lyrics misheard and mixed up. We've swapped pen and paper for needle and thread to create a mixtape compilation of hand-crafted type, based on lyrics borrowed from bands featuring Blondie, Paul Simon and Pavement.
The show opens on the 3rd March 5.30PM, hope to see you there!
'Turns of Speech & Figures of Phrase'is inspired by song lyrics misheard and mixed up. We've swapped pen and paper for needle and thread to create a mixtape compilation of hand-crafted type, based on lyrics borrowed from bands featuring Blondie, Paul Simon and Pavement.
The show opens on the 3rd March 5.30PM, hope to see you there!
Monday, February 07, 2011
What we did this Summer
We've just had a week long heatwave in Sydney. At first I was rejoicing after complaining about the lack of beach worthy days over the Christmas /New Year's break but after the first 4 days of 30+ heat in an unair-conditioned apartment that absorbed heat and refused to let any breeze it got a bit much.
Luckily since we work from home and are flexible with our hours we were able to escape to the beach every few days to cool down. Balmoral beach has become our favourite spot. It's calm and stays pretty shallow for a good stretch so I can learn how to swim without getting dunked every few minutes and best of all it's usually not that busy.
I tested out my Christmas present from Michael at the beach - an old Polaroid sx70 One Step Sonar with some colour film from the Impossible Project. It's been tricky figuring out the best lighting. So far all our shots have had a very pink/purple cast. We created a protector for the film so it's shaded from sunlight as soon as it exits the camera but still no luck. Has anyone got any tips for using the Px70 Colour Shade push film? I'd really like to get the colours looking more even and some darker blues.
Over the Christmas Michael and I stayed for a week in the Blue Mountains and took care of Sheba, Charlie, Olive and Dennis. I've never had a pet so looking after two dogs and two cats was pretty exciting. It was nice having a full house and despite a few minor accidents I think they were pretty happy. Charlie and Sheba are a pretty odd couple, Sheba is so big and yet you get the feeling that it's Charlie calling the shots. He's pretty adorable especially with his mane of fluffy hair on just the top half of his body, he looks like he's rocking a Mad Max style outfit. (no photos of Olive and Dennis but M's cat Freya dropped in for a few days)
My gift to M was some lens attachments for his iphone camera. I'm amazed at the amount of detail the macro gives and the wide ispretty impressive too. Here are some test shots using the macro and wide on the same cactus plant to compare. The lenses are available from Photojojo.
Luckily since we work from home and are flexible with our hours we were able to escape to the beach every few days to cool down. Balmoral beach has become our favourite spot. It's calm and stays pretty shallow for a good stretch so I can learn how to swim without getting dunked every few minutes and best of all it's usually not that busy.
I tested out my Christmas present from Michael at the beach - an old Polaroid sx70 One Step Sonar with some colour film from the Impossible Project. It's been tricky figuring out the best lighting. So far all our shots have had a very pink/purple cast. We created a protector for the film so it's shaded from sunlight as soon as it exits the camera but still no luck. Has anyone got any tips for using the Px70 Colour Shade push film? I'd really like to get the colours looking more even and some darker blues.
Over the Christmas Michael and I stayed for a week in the Blue Mountains and took care of Sheba, Charlie, Olive and Dennis. I've never had a pet so looking after two dogs and two cats was pretty exciting. It was nice having a full house and despite a few minor accidents I think they were pretty happy. Charlie and Sheba are a pretty odd couple, Sheba is so big and yet you get the feeling that it's Charlie calling the shots. He's pretty adorable especially with his mane of fluffy hair on just the top half of his body, he looks like he's rocking a Mad Max style outfit. (no photos of Olive and Dennis but M's cat Freya dropped in for a few days)
My gift to M was some lens attachments for his iphone camera. I'm amazed at the amount of detail the macro gives and the wide ispretty impressive too. Here are some test shots using the macro and wide on the same cactus plant to compare. The lenses are available from Photojojo.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Mirazozo @ Sydney Opera House
Great inflatable sculpture at the Sydney Opera House forecourt - a maze of light chambers that kind of feels like a cross between being inside a womb/the colour fields you see when you have your eyes closed and you're sitting under a tree swaying in the wind on a sunny day/Tron. All the "lights" are just the sunlight shining through the coloured panels in the tents fabric. Go and check it out, I recommend pre booking a spot.
Mirazozo
Sydney Opera House Forecourt
3-27 January
Photos: Jon Zhu
Mirazozo
Sydney Opera House Forecourt
3-27 January
Monday, January 24, 2011
Hello 2011
At lot has happened already, I can tell 2011 is going to fly right by.
So far:
- Moved out of our yellow house in Newtown and bid a sad farewell to Faheems, Black Star Pastry, Delicious Rolls, Pastizzi Cafe, Art on King, Gelatomassi, Pho 236...
- Got burnt and a suffered a little heatstroke in an attempt to shed a few boxes of stuff before we store our belongings away for our UK trip. A garage sale in 30 degree heat is not a good idea, market umbrellas are essential, pack only one ute to the brim with loot for the market instead of 2, if it's a sunny day it's a good idea to keep your jewellery in the shade ...these are just some of the lessons we learnt from our garage sale and market days.
- We confirmed dates for our solo show which will be held at Mart Gallery in Sydney 3 - 19 March. We're just finalising some details now and will post up more info soon. Which means we've been busy sewing like crazy, more pics to come...
- And ABD7 is happening early this year. Once again we're taking part in the group show at Wedge Gallery Books Kinokuniya, it opens 2nd of February and runs until the 27th.
- Oh and by the way we've just opened up a Big Cartel shop to sell our prints and sewn pieces, welcome to "co & ca's cornershop"
So far:
- Moved out of our yellow house in Newtown and bid a sad farewell to Faheems, Black Star Pastry, Delicious Rolls, Pastizzi Cafe, Art on King, Gelatomassi, Pho 236...
- Got burnt and a suffered a little heatstroke in an attempt to shed a few boxes of stuff before we store our belongings away for our UK trip. A garage sale in 30 degree heat is not a good idea, market umbrellas are essential, pack only one ute to the brim with loot for the market instead of 2, if it's a sunny day it's a good idea to keep your jewellery in the shade ...these are just some of the lessons we learnt from our garage sale and market days.
- We confirmed dates for our solo show which will be held at Mart Gallery in Sydney 3 - 19 March. We're just finalising some details now and will post up more info soon. Which means we've been busy sewing like crazy, more pics to come...
- And ABD7 is happening early this year. Once again we're taking part in the group show at Wedge Gallery Books Kinokuniya, it opens 2nd of February and runs until the 27th.
- Oh and by the way we've just opened up a Big Cartel shop to sell our prints and sewn pieces, welcome to "co & ca's cornershop"
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Happy Holidays
Tis a little late but Maricor and I hope that everyone has and is enjoying a great Christmas and holiday break. We'll be a bit quiet for the next few weeks as we're also going to be busy moving house and preparing for our first ever solo show next year. But we'll be back!
Monday, December 20, 2010
Deep Fried Xmas
Co and I had our annual Christmas dinner with our uni friends over the weekend and it was a seafood feast as usual. We swung by the fish markets earlier and managed to buy about a kilo of sashimi but since we had extra guys this time round we figured we'd need the extra food. We also came home with some cooked and raw prawns for the bbq grill, oysters and pippies. Our group is obsessed with chilli XO pippies so it's on the menu every year. We also had spicy meat patties, beef Kofta and cucumber salad, white wine sangria and ice kachang for dessert. Sorry for the details, I get very excited about food.
Co and I were on a budget for gifts :( so we decided to make embroidered cards. I wish we'd thought of making them earlier so we could have made a bunch for our online store (check back in the new year for more details about that!) and I forgot to document them before we sealed them up but I do have one to show. I also made some dark chocolate rocky road with Michael, complete with homemade marshmallows, macadamias, glace cherries and dried cranberries (Michael's idea and a very good extra chewy factor). I used this recipe and made the adjustments..
I was bit heavy handed with the first chocolate step so it set with a real thick layer of chocolate that made it a bit hard to eat.
[Correction: sorry poste dthe wrong link for the recipe, here's the rocky road recipe]
Co and I were on a budget for gifts :( so we decided to make embroidered cards. I wish we'd thought of making them earlier so we could have made a bunch for our online store (check back in the new year for more details about that!) and I forgot to document them before we sealed them up but I do have one to show. I also made some dark chocolate rocky road with Michael, complete with homemade marshmallows, macadamias, glace cherries and dried cranberries (Michael's idea and a very good extra chewy factor). I used this recipe and made the adjustments..
I was bit heavy handed with the first chocolate step so it set with a real thick layer of chocolate that made it a bit hard to eat.
[Correction: sorry poste dthe wrong link for the recipe, here's the rocky road recipe]
Monday, December 13, 2010
Sunday sunburn
I'm a little sunburnt from the weekend after spending most of Sunday at the combined garage sale we held with our older sister and her friends. We've had a few good garage sales/market stalls before and I was looking forward to a good day yesterday but the combination of a slow Sunday crowd and the heat made it a very exhausting and trying day. We got so hot we'd take opportunities while no one was around to sneak a lie down under the tables. We might have had heat stroke in hindsight. Hopefully the market stall we've booked next month for Kirribilli will be busier since we really need to offload some stuff before our UK trip next year.
It's quietened down for the year in the studio so we've taken the opportunity to work on some small embroidered bits for xmas giveaways. We're trialling stitched patterns onto cardboard and i'm quite pleased with how they've turned out. We've had to adjust our process to work on card and also the artwork is much simpler but I like how it's more linear and geo inspired. And not to mention a lot faster to finish than i'm used to!
Also I finally copied over photos of the recent Art by Design group exhibition co and I were part of. Sorry for the poor photos I didn't manage to get all the angles so I have inadvertently missed some of the artists. Naomi launched her site with more info on all of the artists that were involved. You can check it out here.
PS we had our first swim of the summer!
It's quietened down for the year in the studio so we've taken the opportunity to work on some small embroidered bits for xmas giveaways. We're trialling stitched patterns onto cardboard and i'm quite pleased with how they've turned out. We've had to adjust our process to work on card and also the artwork is much simpler but I like how it's more linear and geo inspired. And not to mention a lot faster to finish than i'm used to!
Also I finally copied over photos of the recent Art by Design group exhibition co and I were part of. Sorry for the poor photos I didn't manage to get all the angles so I have inadvertently missed some of the artists. Naomi launched her site with more info on all of the artists that were involved. You can check it out here.
PS we had our first swim of the summer!
Monday, December 06, 2010
Liquid pencils, lace and other things
Been a while between posts, a lot has happened in the meantime.
"Liquid Pencil" tests: Fun times testing out a new typographic piece as an inked up poster before the sewing phase. I had bought a bottle of "Liquid Pencil" (Derivan) on impulse a while ago but haven't had a project to test it out on 'til now. It's less liquid than ink and more the consistency of globby paint but it glides off the brush smoothly and has a nice thick look to it with a graphite finish. I used it in combination with masking fluid which was a bit hit and miss. The bottle of masking fluid is quite old and probably past its prime but seemed to be working alright, although some areas dried too thin and ended up not masking at all. Overall I'm pretty happy with the results, I know I probably could have composited it digitally in photoshop with all the masking etc but its nice trying to do it the old fashioned way. The roughness of the edges where the fluid pooled at the corners and brushed edges of the mask add that extra bit of charm you can't emulate digitally. Or...I suppose you could but it wouldn't be half as fun.
Kevin Tran exhibition: We checked out Kevin Tran's exhibition at Mils gallery after seeing his work posted up online, the works up close are so vivid and detailed. Thanks to Catherine and Matt for the heads up on the show. (On a side note we went down to chinatown after the show for our favourite cheap eat at the Chinese Noodle House. Nothing beats special braised eggplant and combination hand made noodles!)
Lace Study Centre: We had a great time chatting to the extremely helpful ladies from the Powerhouse Museum's Lace Study Centre. They were nice enough to share their love of lace and give us a quick demonstration and pull out some amazing examples from the museum's collection. We went straight out and bought a book so we can start learning how to lace. So many possibilities.. so many things to make. First step, modify some chopsticks into bobbins.
Gaffa Gallery: Went to the exhibition openings at Gaffa gallery which were jam packed with a lot of great works. Anna Fraser's photographs and Linelle Stepto's flora/fauna studies are some of the works on display right now. After this show we also had a food odyssey, this time it was a reunion of sorts at KFC. We used to live on popcorn chicken while at uni. It's greasy and usually leaves me feeling a little ill afterwards but the smell always beckons me back!
"Liquid Pencil" tests: Fun times testing out a new typographic piece as an inked up poster before the sewing phase. I had bought a bottle of "Liquid Pencil" (Derivan) on impulse a while ago but haven't had a project to test it out on 'til now. It's less liquid than ink and more the consistency of globby paint but it glides off the brush smoothly and has a nice thick look to it with a graphite finish. I used it in combination with masking fluid which was a bit hit and miss. The bottle of masking fluid is quite old and probably past its prime but seemed to be working alright, although some areas dried too thin and ended up not masking at all. Overall I'm pretty happy with the results, I know I probably could have composited it digitally in photoshop with all the masking etc but its nice trying to do it the old fashioned way. The roughness of the edges where the fluid pooled at the corners and brushed edges of the mask add that extra bit of charm you can't emulate digitally. Or...I suppose you could but it wouldn't be half as fun.
Kevin Tran exhibition: We checked out Kevin Tran's exhibition at Mils gallery after seeing his work posted up online, the works up close are so vivid and detailed. Thanks to Catherine and Matt for the heads up on the show. (On a side note we went down to chinatown after the show for our favourite cheap eat at the Chinese Noodle House. Nothing beats special braised eggplant and combination hand made noodles!)
Lace Study Centre: We had a great time chatting to the extremely helpful ladies from the Powerhouse Museum's Lace Study Centre. They were nice enough to share their love of lace and give us a quick demonstration and pull out some amazing examples from the museum's collection. We went straight out and bought a book so we can start learning how to lace. So many possibilities.. so many things to make. First step, modify some chopsticks into bobbins.
Gaffa Gallery: Went to the exhibition openings at Gaffa gallery which were jam packed with a lot of great works. Anna Fraser's photographs and Linelle Stepto's flora/fauna studies are some of the works on display right now. After this show we also had a food odyssey, this time it was a reunion of sorts at KFC. We used to live on popcorn chicken while at uni. It's greasy and usually leaves me feeling a little ill afterwards but the smell always beckons me back!
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