Like my melons?

During the five months that I was employed as a props and graphics assistant in the art department for the television show Winners and Losers, I had to make many things.  I cut and pasted pictures into scrapbooks, wrote fake letters, baked strangely shaped cakes, reheated pizzas, fried mountains of eggs and wrapped a lot of presents.  But my proudest moment was learning to carve watermelons in a matter of hours for Callum's 21st birthday, a brilliantly realised 'Full Moon Party' theme which was filmed at the St Kilda Cricket Club last November.  I watched the episode carefully this week, and while my banana 'hash' cake was featured, the melons did not seem to make an appearance.  Never mind.  Like my go at macrame which appeared briefly in the hands of Denise Scott in episode one, I was paid to learn a new skill.  And that makes me feel like a winner.

Knitting: winners and losers

No, this isn't a post about teams that didn't get into the AFL Grand Final.  (Nor is it a post about strangely heavy rubber baby props with machinery inside them, much as that would be quite an interesting topic.)  I have been working casually as an assistant in the props and graphics departments of the Channel Seven TV show Winners and Losers for a little while now.  The third season is presently being filmed, but for my very first task last season I was asked to knit a football beanie tiny enough to fit onto a newborn baby's head.  (Hence the slightly creepy dummy/ model/ prop creature.)

On the evening of October 2, my little beanie made its debut on national television.  I was pretty worried about whether it would fit, but baby Harrison's (Madeleine & Chloe Taylor's) mum Bec (Zoe Tuckwell-Smith) did a great job, and stepdad Matt (Blair McDonough) seemed slightly impressed too.  Another knitter made the scarf.

Meanwhile, my own shawl collared jacket/cardigan thing is not progressing as I am frustratingly stuck on the 'shawl' part.  So close and yet so far....I'll finish it mid summer no doubt.

On the line

Further to my final post from last year: I made a blouse.  I am pleased to say that I used 1970s madras cotton fabric that was originally in my mum's stash, purple buttons and thread from the estate of Mrs Betty Collins.

 I feel a bit proud of my scarves as they dry in the summer breeze.  I am almost ready for my next knitting project, although knitting in the heat is not always an appealing prospect.

I feel a bit more ambivalent about this lot, photographed as it receives some fresh air after having been folded away in a little wicker suitcase which wasn't as dust proof as I had hoped.  Samples from my first ever design job at Davenport in the mid 1990s.  I feel a bit brave showing these on my blog, but they are what they are and from a design point of view I am actually still proud of a few of them.  I was hired initially to draw the licensed characters, had no design training and had barely ever touched a computer.  I received an excellent grounding in design, manufacturing methods, meeting tight deadlines, and making products to entice a particular market.   I try not to think about the trials and tribulations of terrible bosses and a bunch of hormonally wired and badly paid twenty-somethings: that's another story not fit for this polite blog.  

Goodbye Seed!

Artwork for a musical set above, and the finished product below. I really enjoyed working on this, and I feel a bit nostalgic looking at it now, as
I left my "proper" job at Seed about a month ago. It's been a strange month: on my first day in the studio a panic set in, and about ten days later my back gave out. So it has been forcibly slow getting used to this new life, but I have been kept optimistic by new surprises every week. Ongoing freelance illustration work, running to the post office to send sold items and then replenishing the etsy shop, trying out ideas that have been waiting in my sketchbook, sewing scarves for Craft Victoria and a generous greeting card order from a lovely friend which I am just finishing off. I miss the camaraderie of the workplace though, and often wonder just what my colleagues are doing as I sit alone. They are working hard too, no doubt, in between having a laugh and a gossip and discussing where to go for lunch.

I really don't miss the bland corporate nature of St Kilda Road, nor do I miss HAVING to be at work at a certain time and then the day pretty much set out for me. I do miss walking home via the Botanic Gardens, and sometimes I miss being part of a brand like Seed, having been there for over five years. (Three stores when I started, over 50 now.)

I don't panic as much, and mostly I am really enjoying this new life, though I can't say that I am anywhere near used to it yet!

Working 9 - 5: Grey Days

When I designed the graphic for the t-shirt above (way back at the end of last year) I think I was just looking for an excuse to draw some stationery. Now I'm not sure what kind of crazy kid would want to wear a t-shirt that's actually about homework.

Above: here I think I was in a Japanese-y mood. I like how the motif has been angled slightly differently on the t-shirt, so that the bird looks more like it's winning.

Above: This reminds me of the house and legs of the previous post. I get a strange sense of satisfaction when the designs that I come up with at work start to resemble the designs that I come up with outside of work. And now you all know my trick: stick a pair of legs on an inanimate object and voila! you're done.

These t-shirts are all available here.

Working 9 - 5: It's raining cats and dogs!

It's been a while since I have written a work related post. It's not because I haven't been working 9-5, more that I have been doing enough work outside of those hours to chronicle here, which is pleasing. I am quite proud of this bunch though: I like it when we go a bit nutty at work, and that's usually towards the end of the season* when there's less pressure to be commercial. Perhaps. Umbrellas print, above, raindrops and handles drawn in biro, scanned, auto-traced and completed in Illustrator. The umbrellas were drawn separately.

Above: Lady Cat, who will grace both girls' t-shirts and greeting cards from April. She is a bit grumpy, as I often am, especially when working 9 - 5.

Above: houses are a winning motif as far as I am concerned, and birds are a winning motif as far as the company's bottom line is concerned. Everybody's happy.

The boys get a funny dog wearing a long scarf on their t-shirts and greeting cards. Isn't Autumn just lovely?

* yes it is ridiculous that we consider April to be almost the end of the winter season in the fashion industry (in the Southern Hemisphere that is). I haven't even been to the shops to look at winter things yet. But maybe I'm the odd one. I'd love to know what you think about this system.

By the way, super Jaboopee AKA Elaine Prunty has completed her 7 Aesthetic Themes post and it is a gorgeous and encyclopedic aesthetic treat! Thank you Elaine!! And take heed slack ladies who have not yet completed theirs. They will not be named by me here but I will link back to my original post so that readers can work out who they are -- and find what the others did come up with! Definitely worth doing.

Thanks again also to Sandra from Pass the Parcel for her tag.

Working 9 - 5: A Magnetic Girl

Having a play with an item that I designed for seed a few months back. The little girl is actually an 'extended version' of the Lady's Face which I first designed for November '08. The clothes in her holiday wardrobe are all from the current summer range, albeit in tiny magnetic form. (That was the boss's idea: if it had been left to me she would have had a red beret, a sailor suit, a Liberty floral dress, argyle socks and a Fair Isle vest. Sometimes the boss has a point.)

I like having her in my house. It's a nice way for me to keep a tiny souvenir of my toucan and horse t-shirts too! Funny how tiny= cute.

Working 9 - 5: Painted Eggs

Above: I designed these A G E S ago and couldn't wait to show them here, and now that they have arrived in stores for the Christmas toy rush, I can. They are small handpainted wooden eggs that make a lovely sound when you shake them. Below: the artwork which was sent to China for the manufacturers to interpret in three dimensions. I think that they did a good job. (There was a fourth design -- a flower -- which was deemed boring by the higher powers and cancelled.)

Working 9 - 5: Vacation in Hawaii

A Hawaiian vacation print for Seed. The scenes were all painted separately in watercolour on textured A4 paper. I used colours which were not correct but as contrasting to one another as possible. The pictures were then scanned into Photoshop, and each colour was 'picked out' (made easier as they were contrasting), placed in a different layer and re-coloured until it looked right within that month's range. My favourite image above, and the finished repeat fabric artwork below. The resulting shorts will be posted onto this page in the last week of October.

Working 9 - 5: A Dear Toucan

Above: just to completely contradict the previous post, I present a little toucan which is not yet available but will be appearing in Seed stores shortly as a girls' t-shirt print. Although I have designed many many a bird print, I am particularly fond of this one as he is quite exotic and not a little kitsch in a late 70's/ early 80's way.

Speaking of this era, I think that my bird would go particularly well with a listen to The Models' Two Cabs to the Toucan from 1981. This 7 minute + YouTube clip includes my favourite Atlantic Romantic too and is great fun.

Working 9 - 5: Curious Bird

Above: I generally wait until my work arrives in store before I can post it. This is because obviously there are thousands of people out there who read my blog and are going to immediately copy my designs otherwise. Ha! The problem with posting designs at least four months after coming up with them is that I can't remember what my thought process was anymore. Here I offer physical evidence: it's my first version of the fabric print below. All of the painted bits were done separately -- in black ink actually -- then they were layered over one another in Photoshop. The bird silhouette, then its wing, the three layers making up the flower, etc. I am no more technical than that, and I admit that with some shame.

I would think the final birds a little bit Collingwood magpie-like if it wasn't for the fact that they are actually navy and white. See them flitting about on a dress or some very funny little pants here.

Working 9 - 5: A Swedish Dala Horse

Above: I love folk art and I have always been particularly fond of the traditional Swedish Dala horse. I visited Sweden last year and loved it so much that I wanted to keep reminding myself of its wonders after I got back to work. This was the first thing that I did in Sweden's honour. I hope that I haven't messed with its horse too much.
Above: work in progress. Of course my main resources were the photos of actual Dala horses on the left, but I also copied and pasted a more realistic horse to refer to for the headgear and tail. The tail especially is a bit of poetic licence, as Dala horses don't really have one except when they are sometimes painted onto the back of the body. My sketch is on the bottom right.

Above: the finished t-shirt, which can also be found here. It looks nice in pink too!

Working 9 - 5: A Lady and a Robot

Above: the now famous doll face which I first posted here last year has a new sister! She is a bit of a flirt with her winking eye and Parisian beret. I like days at work when coming up with a new design means 'evolving' an old one, to put it kindly...

...Perhaps because it leaves more time to draw something new? Robots are not new, admittedly, but mine is a my own combination of about three or four of the most charming vintage tin robots that I could find on the internet. I like his lo-fi buttons and gadgets. His grin reminds me of that eager-to-please-stunned-rabbit expression that children sometimes wear in school photos.

The beginnings of a scarf

Recently I started gathering up some balls of wool in the colours that I like to wear when it's cold, declaring that I do not have a scarf which goes with my current wardrobe (a lie). I am actually feeling quite stressed at the moment, and thought it would be appropriate to make a start now. Because my idea requires combining quite a few disparate colours, I thought that I should sort out the design first. This morning I have been busy on Illustrator, re-colouring and combining bits of graphs from Seed baby sweaters that I designed years ago, and others that I had created for my own projects (e.g. the dogs). I wonder if it will be a bit boring to make a scarf which has already been worked out? Maybe I'll enjoy it more because I won't have to think.

For those who are not knitters: knitting is addictive. I am convinced that that is due not only to the fun of creating something, but because the physical act of concentrating on looping and counting stitches is quite meditative. Just what I need.

Working 9 - 5: a French truck and an air balloon

Cars are never far from my mind when I am coming up with ideas for Seed boys' t-shirts. They are usually a guaranteed hot seller, but that's only part of why I like them. Maybe it's in my genes? After all, my brother works as an automotive designer. Occasionally I even get to enlist the master's help. When Seed's head designer suggested that "an old French truck" would go well with the nostalgic European theme she was working on, I called my brother and asked which car models would fit the bill. I then scoured the net for photos. He tweaked the most decent shot that I could find into something that would be suitable to re-draw in the sharp side-angle that is a trademark of Seed.

Above: the finished product, which can also be seen here.

Above: speaking of hot sellers, this is a current one. I have always wanted to do an air balloon: I love watching them fly over my house in the mornings and have always dreamt of actually spotting my house from one. Besides, as a designer you can make them look so decorative. I also thought it might be mildly funny to have a bird hitching a ride in it.

Some Greetings Cards for Seed

Above: one of the enjoyable things about the day job lately is the opportunity to design new products. It is relatively easy to translate my appliques into greetings card designs, especially as the "real" Seed graphic designer* is the one who actually sends off the final art with all the cropmarks, etc., included on it. Choosing which designs to print and which ones to leave out is harder! That's generally a decision shared by about 3 - 4 people. So really, I don't do all that much but provide the initial design and ideas for what colours it should be in.
Here, a motif based on a couple of photographs of model aeroplanes found on the net. To see how it appears as an applique, click here.

Above: the chicken which appears on bright blue and grey marle girls' t-shirts, has been changed to a more greetings card-commercial shade of pale pink. His colours had to be modified slightly to suit.

Above: this little owl is in sombre neutral colours for the customer who is presumably buying a gift for a baby which is still in utero. I have ceased to be surprised by the number of customers who still expect and adhere to the old "blue" and "pink" baby gender identifiers. So this is where my study of feminist theory at university has led me! Oh dear...

* "real" graphic designer, you ask? This is the person who looks after the signage in the stores, designs the carry-bags, labels, tags, gift-boxes, updates the layout of the website and sometimes even elements of the visual merchandising (during the tennis in January our little store mannequins made special Seed tea and in the springtime they gardened holding packets of Seed seeds). I look after the graphic elements for the products themselves.

Working 9 - 5: Another Babushka!

Above: yet another babushka, this time for a girls' t-shirt and a matching greetings card. For the t-shirt the babushka was printed onto cotton poplin, turned under neatly and then sewn onto the garment. (Some sequins were added to the flowers for a bit of babushka-bling, but they are not shown on my artwork.) The result can be seen here.
Here's a secret: her face is exactly the same as the one I made for this previous t-shirt!