However, I am back to give you a brief summary of the Picasso exhibition that was just here in Sydney at the Art Gallery of New South Wales!

Of course, since it was a temporary exhibition, I wasn’t allowed to take photographs, but I will try to list a couple of the ones which were featured in this post!

Note: If you were expecting to see Guernica, you can probably stop reading at this point since it was not one of the paintings featured in the exhibition, not because it wasn’t taken into consideration, but the painting is actually part of the Bilbao Guggenheim collection and not the one from the Picasso museum in Paris!

Now I will be honest and say that Picasso is not actually one of my favourite artists. There, I said it. There are particular pieces of his which I adore and love, such as The Portrait of Dora Maar (featured in the above advertorial for the exhibition), the aforementioned Guernica, and his Bull series which is a very clear and concise example of how to abstract objects/people/animals from real life, but he is actually not my favourite Cubist. That honour actually goes to Juan Gris. In actual fact, most of my favourite Picasso works come from his Blue and Rose Period.

I was a little disappointed that there were not that many of his Blue and Rose period works featured in the exhibition, but overall I felt that the exhibition was balanced in that it had examples from different stages of his life. The most fascinating part of the exhibition was that whoever curated it did a good job of demonstrating Picasso’s changes in style and artistic progress. It’s really interesting to see how someone evolves into their own style from the fundamentals of drawing which they start off with.

To finish off this post, here are some of my favourite pieces from the exhibition:

Bull series (lithograph, 1945)

Les baigneurs (bronze, 1956)

Jacqueline aux mains croisées (oil on canvas, 1954)

and of course, The Portrait of Dora Maar (oil on canvas, 1937)

The Finders Keepers Markets are a bi-annual event that showcases the work of emerging designers and artists from all around Australia & even New Zealand! Our first markets were held in December 2008 at CarriageWorks in Sydney. in 2009 we successfully launched our first interstate Markets in Brisbane and in 2010 we were proud to be also launching in Melbourne.

With a passion for bringing independent design to the forefront and encouraging the Australian emerging art & design scene, we’ve created markets that maintain a grass roots level however maintain to have work of high standards in both quality and innovative design. (Source: The Finders Keepers website)

I always enjoy going to the markets to see all the interesting wares of local designers and craftspeople. In the past I’ve gone by myself or with my boyfriend (who is not as keen on ‘shopping’ as I am), but this year I took along my friend Asuma (who moved here from Bangladesh to study Medicine), since I knew she would love the sort of things that were being sold at The Finders Keepers, and I’ve made it my mission to show her the cool, arty side of Sydney while she’s here.

Here are some photos that she managed to get of the markets on the Friday night:

One of the highlights of the night was stumbling upon this adorable presentation of cardboard props by dani m designs! I loved it so much that I actually asked them if I could have the cash register and since they were going to dispose of them on Saturday before they went back to Melbourne, they told me to swing by when the markets were closing on Saturday to pick it up! I’m not sure if you guys will ever see this blog entry, but if you do, thank you so much and you should know that it is currently sitting in my room on my workbench desk!

This year’s Finders Keepers Market also had some cool workshops by Rizzeria and Lomography Australia for people who were interesting in Rizzo printing and photography with Lomo cameras. I picked up some 100ISO slide film from them, and also got many compliments on my Lomo La Sardina Cubic throughout the night! And of course, In An Instant Photography was there and you could see everyone flocking to get some crazy Polaroid shots of themselves. It’s definitely not a proper visit to the Finders Keepers Market for me if I don’t get one! Here’s how Asuma and I looked all silly-ed up:

It was very nice to walk around observing all the interesting and quirky wares, but I really did enjoy chatting to some of the stallholders as well. I’m aiming to be able to make enough artworks and craft pieces next year so that I can start applying for a stall of my own at the markets. I think it would be an interesting experience just because of all the opportunities available to network with other artists, designers and craft enthusiasts. And of course, Asuma and I did not part ways from the markets empty-handed! Asuma bought herself an adorable DIY cross-stitch necklace from Delilah Devine. And here’s a photo of my wares below:

A Cut & Stitch Doll from TMOD, a Matryoshka craft panel from Kristen Doran and a super-adorable bow-tie from Marcello Neckwear (I should also mention that the gentleman who sold me the bow-tie was wearing the most awesome three-piece suit ever. What made it even more awesome was that he found it in an op shop for $10.00!)

I’m looking forward to the next lot of Sydney markets, as well as preparing my own application! *fingers crossed*

I was pretty blown away by the Inkling and it has become my ‘must-have’ art supply of the year because of it’s versatility between the digital and hand medium. By nature I will always prefer hand-drawing as opposed to digital sketching, but sometimes I like the idea of digital painting/sketching for it’s ease of transfer across a wider platform. However I am somewhat still bad at sketching/drawing directly on the computer, so having a device which detects my hand-drawings and makes it friendly for the computer to read, is a BLESSING. Not to mention it comes up in a better quality than if I scanned it.

It was probably lucky that I checked up on the status of the Inkling being sold by Wacom Australia, otherwise, I would not have been able to get my hands on one, for they are only doing a limited run at the moment. I purchased mine from PowerMedia at Surry Hills, but you can get them online as well.

I took some photos of the ‘unwrapping’ process so you can see what it looks like:

It comes in a very nice black box!

 My boyfriend was mucking around trying to get silly photos of me during the unwrapping…

Ta-dah! You can see the pen and the case which contains the little scanner, USB cord and ink nibs.

A better view of the insides of the case. I’ve slotted the pen through the holder designed for it.

 GPOY

So when I saw the La Sardina camera being released by Lomography, I could not resist having a look! This particular model ticked off all of my criteria- takes 35mm film (for ease of use), has models that come with a flash unit, is able to take wide angle shots (so I don’t have to worry about cutting off the heads of people in photos) and has some very cute pattern variations. I finally got around to ordering one last week and to my surprise, it arrived in the mail today!

It’s so shiny! I love the Cubic’s pattern!

 It comes with your usual book of photography examples, warranty and set of instructions with a poster of sardine cans on the back.

It also came with this random accordion-fold book with the Sardina Cubic’s pattern printed on all the pages. I guess this would make good wall decoration?

And here we have the La Sardina Cubic itself. It comes with a Fritz the Blitz flash unit, a white diffuser filter and three colour filters.

I can’t wait to start using it! I must start stocking up on 35mm film tomorrow…

You can visit their website here and their Facebook page here.

Last night I also finished a logo design for a friend’s personal training business:

The initial concept designs (three designs in different colour schemes)

The final logo

I was quite happy with the finished result as I felt that it was the most appropriate out of the concepts I was working with. It’s simple, clear, and I like how the F and the P in the circle allude to the image of a bird (wings, and beak). I do believe I am also having a love affair with Bebas Neue at the moment (sorry Helvetica Neue!) since I found it to be the most appropriate font for the look since my friend wanted something ‘modern, but masculine *rawr noises*.

(There was low fluorescent lighting, hence why it all looks so red!)

There wasn’t a particularly large crowd at the markets, but I was happy nevertheless that I managed to sell a few of my prints as a first-time stallholder. I also bought a couple of prints from my friend Jessica (check her stuff out here), and was kept company by Tim and Edwin, who kept me sane and provided amusing conversation. A huge thank you also goes to everyone who came to visit and buy some of my works!

As a last addendum for this post, here’s the last two in the ‘Matsuri’ series, Autumn and Winter. It took a while, but all four panels are now done!

For this post though, have a peek at the vector illustration for ‘Summer’:

Autumn and Winter are on their way soon!

Well, on Sunday, UNSW’s College of Fine Arts (of which I am an alumna of) is hosting the MASHED Markets event, where various COFA students and ex-students are selling their wares. I’ll be officially debuting myself as a freelancer at this market, hence why all the fuss to get things made for the event. It’s pretty much similar to the COFA Spring Fair which has been held in the past, but since COFA is going through re-development, they’re hosting it at another venue. There will also be live bands playing after the markets finish, so for those of you who enjoy a good band, tickets are being sold here.

COFA Mashed Markets
Sunday 20th November
12:00pm – 5:00pm
Oxford Art Factory
38-46 Oxford Street, Darlinghurst

Come along and see all the cool stuff at the markets and say hello to yours truly!

In the meantime, you can have a sneak preview of what I will be selling:

In the meantime, here’s some recent design work I have done.

This poster was done for my local parish who are having a Christmas Festival fundraising event in early December. Since there was a lot of information they wanted to be conveyed, I used this as an exercise in making type treatment look both visually appealing as well as informative. You can all probably tell that I’ve been using Illustrator very often as of late!

Here is a preview of the illustration for ‘Spring’ from the ‘Matsuri’ series:

I love Japanese culture, and have always loved reading about Japanese festivals. I find them to be very vibrant and interesting in the way that they revolve around the seasons. This series was also a further exploration in vector illustration and playing around with a ‘superflat’ kind of style. I suppose the aesthetic is fitting considering Japan is home to the ‘kawaii’ look!

There will be more updates this week, but definitely pay a visit to the COFA Mashed Markets which are on this Sunday 20th November at the Oxford Art Factory from 12:00pm-5:00pm. More on that during the week!