Travel, Art & Photography

Dark Souls artwork in progress 09/2018

September 25, 2018yggdrasille

The background is finished! Compared to the previous piece I’ve done for my brother it was easy-peasy, but then I suspect that every artwork I do from now on will be short and sweet in comparison.

Every one of my artworks involved some luck along the way, and this time I was stoked to find the crinkly silky fabric of just the right ochre shade (finding the right colour can be a bitch). Another unexpected bonus was getting the air bubbles effect on the gold fabric I’ve used for the sky; in any other artwork it would have been a disaster, but with this one the more texture the better. Now it’s time to begin on the main figure and the real fun starts.

Bali

September 6, 2018yggdrasille

Last time I went to Bali I was so determined to have a purely relaxing holiday I deliberately left my big camera at home and didn’t bother about photos. Though this recent week was also mostly about relaxing and pampering (hot stone massage, mmmm) I did take some shots of a few beautiful places we visited.

Bali Botanic Garden, a green oasis of calm

Bali Botanic Garden

Bamboo grove… now that’s proper Neighbours-Be-Gone hedge

Lake Beratan

Local market

View on the rice fields from our hotel in Ubud

Ubud Monkey Forest

Macaw at the Antonio Blanco Museum

Antonio Blanco Museum – the roof

No idea what the deal is here, but it’s a striking sight

New artwork is officially a thing

August 6, 2018yggdrasille

I’ve started on my next fabric artwork project, once again requested by my brother. This time he wanted me to base it on a video game called Dark Souls III, featuring this rather intimidating gentleman who seems to be experiencing serious wardrobe malfunction:

This will be an interesting challenge; it’s not the easiest image to execute with fabrics and will most likely require a mix of materials like leather and paints and some thinking outside the box.

For now, I’ve finished creating the template. From my previous experience I knew better than attempting to do the drawing in Illustrator straight from the image – I reduced the opacity of the image, printed it out, traced over it with a pen, scanned it, then did a vector drawing in Illustrator. Now it’s time for trawling through the fabric stores.

Temptation – a drabble

June 21, 2018yggdrasille

A short humorous drabble I wrote a while ago.

“Go on then, have a bite,” said the Serpent.

Eve looked down at the fruit. Contrary to the popular paintings, it was a tangerine.

“Come on, don’t you want to be kicked out? An eternity of raw food and this moron for company?” The Serpent pointed at Adam, who scratched himself as he struggled to name a horsey creature with a single horn in its forehead. His beard was caked with the remains of last night’s meal. He hadn’t said thank you for dinner, then or ever.

Eve glanced at Adam, sighed, and began to peel the tangerine.

Sydney – Vivid Festival

June 12, 2018yggdrasille

Sydney is always great to visit, and this time I got to attend the annual Vivid Festival, when Sydney is illuminated by some amazing light shows. We were also lucky to catch the Archibald Prize portrait exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, spend some time at the Manly Beach, and enjoy some great food. I tried non-alcoholic beer for the first time, which was surprisingly nice (real beer still gets a no from me though).

Sydney Opera House is of course the most spectacular light show on offer

Light installations in the park

Manly Beach

Archibald Packing Room Prize winner, the portrait of Jimmy Barnes

Sail Artwork Finished

May 1, 2018yggdrasille

I finally finished the artwork for Mum. It’s easily the most cheerful and bright artwork I’ve done so far; I hope it brings happy vibes and reminds Mum of her good old sailing days. It was also a nice breezy break after the previous epic undertaking that took me two years to complete.

Tasmania – Bruny Island

February 5, 2018yggdrasille

I’ve been to Tasmania at least five times before, and seen most of its major attractions, but never made it to Bruny Island off the south-eastern coast near Hobart. This beautiful spot exceeded all of our expectations and was very much worth the trip.

Sail Artwork in Progress 01/2018

January 29, 2018yggdrasille

I’ve procrastinated for longer than I would have wished, but I’m still pretty pleased with the progress having completed most of the fiddly sea area. It doesn’t matter how many shades of fabric you have, you still end up making endless trips to Spotlight for more.

Mt Macedon Gardens

October 30, 2017yggdrasille

I’m usually on the ball when it comes to sorting through photos, but for some reason I left these pics from our trip to the beautiful Mt Macedon gardens this past autumn sit on my camera for months. Then again, it’s kinda cool to look at them later on the other side of winter and get a mini-blast from the past.

My dear and entirely selfish wish is for my local council to chop down the evergreen trees in my area, and replace them with the European ones instead, so I can get spectacular autumn foliage at my door.

Finally starting a new artwork

October 18, 2017February 5, 2018yggdrasille

It took me two years to complete my previous artwork, and though I was very proud of the result the amount of detail and effort I put into it was pretty draining. So after a year’s break from all things fabric I’m finally starting a new one. This one was requested by my Mum, who asked for a nautical theme with a sail boat. A straightforward image of a sail boat would be a bit boring, not to mention hard to simplify, so I found this blocky cubist-style image as an inspiration that could be fun to execute with fabric: