April Fool’s Surprise

I went out onto my balcony this morning to give my cat her breakfast. I tipped out yesterday’s water from her bowl and refilled it, and suddenly noticed a package on the chair under the outdoor table.

I went over to investigate, mystified, for I wasn’t expecting anything. There was a box of my Avant Card postcards! They have been sent to me way ahead of schedule, although I am not sure when exactly they are going to be distributed around the country.

What a lovely April Fool’s surprise. 

The Inter-Universe Beauty Pageant

I am delighted to bring to you this evening a remnant of my youth. Not my extreme youth when I used to draw on the blank pages – or those with only a few lines of print – of my sister’s Enid Blyton books, but from the time that I had been brought to a sense of the iniquities of defacing other people’s books and graduated to clean sheets of paper – which was sometimes stolen out of my next older sister’s college folders. (I am not sure where this obsession with drawing on stolen papergoods came from.)

Anyway, this delightful exercise book, covered in floral wrapping paper, is full of drawings of girls participating in an inter-universe beauty pageant being held on earth. Each girl has a series of stats accompanying her portrait, such as planet of origin, occupation, skin colour etc. Miss Minor-Planets’ skin is an arresting shade of acid yellow, and Miss Bottlestar’s is, er, bottle-green. Every colour of the rainbow, in fact, makes an appearance.

Introducing your hostesses, Orrielle Starlight and Andromeda X

A word about our gracious hostesses, Miss Uranus and Miss Jupiter: these lovely ladies were actually drawn by my older sister. Hers was the brain that conceived this splendid project, but she grew bored after drawing two contestants. I managed to fill an entire exercise book, and appropriated her superior beings as hostesses.

Miss Uranus, despite the handicap of extra-long arms is impeccably attired in a sunray-pleated dress and is the proud possessor of yellow over-the-knee boots. Miss Jupiter, (Flight Attendant, 3rd Squadron), on the other hand, is conventionally blonde, and models a saucy midriff-baring dress. Perhaps Jupiter was colonised by a bevy of belly-dancers? 

Perhaps Jupiter was colonised by a bevy of belly-dancers?

Next time on the Inter-Universe Beauty Channel, we’ll hear from Miss Earth (model and air hostess), Miss Venus (gardeness [sic]) and Miss Neptune (‘skindiver’ – ???). I obviously had never heard the term ‘landscape gardener’, and I do not like to speculate what on earth a skindiver could be!

For now, tuning out.

Note: You’ll be able to find these contestants all in their own Galaxy Gallery so you can chuckle over them upclose and personal.

Drunken Hipstas

Super Lurched! A view of Melbourne from Morrell Bridge, South Yarra :: John S // Cano Cafenol // No flash

I have a series of Hipstamatics that I call my ‘Lurch’ photos… Why ‘lurch’? It means ‘an abrupt or uncontrolled movement, esp. an unsteady tilt or roll’ – and these do look like drunken photos! 

The images are distorted to some degree, and are created when just the right shift in angle – coupled with very slight movement – occurs at the exact moment the shutter goes off. It is not so easy to recreate deliberately: either the result is movement blur, or it doesn’t work at all.

(I was afraid I would be cuffed by an angry resident at any given moment)

I used to often snap them by accident, and I realised it was when I was furtively taking my ‘Scenes of Suburbia’ series (I was afraid I would be cuffed by an angry resident at any given moment). Yesterday I was very excited when I managed to capture some on purpose!

It helps that my iPhone is getting old, ie, slow and dodgy. There is a noticeable delay between my pressing the big yellow shutter on the Hipstamatic and when the camera actually takes the photo. Those precious milliseconds are what are required to create the distortion.

It will be very fun to experiment with this effect when I go overseas!

I'll be loading up a new Hipstagallery in the next week or so of my favourite Lurches. Look out for that.

Lurched. A view of Melbourne from Morrell Bridge, South Yarra :: John S // Cano Cafenol // No flashNo Lurch. A view of Melbourne from Morrell Bridge, South Yarra :: John S // Cano Cafenol // No flashA failed attempt, but I do like the composition and colours anyway. A view of Melbourne from Morrell Bridge, South Yarra :: Helga Viking // Cano Cafenol // No flash

On the Virtual Newsstand

Cover illustration by Christopher NielsenThis morning my first issue of Illustrator Australia’s magazine Outline was published! It’s a quarterly magazine, and was three months in the making; the last two weeks in particular a period of intensive work as all the material from my contributors began to land in my inbox (some of them skidding in at the very last moment). The last three days – really squashed into two – I spent laying out the magazine and completing the final edits, checking all the hyperlinks were working, proofing etc.

At 38pp, thank goodness I didn’t have to write the bulk of it: only one story, a book review and an exhibition review. Plus all the heads and standfirsts, the editor’s letter and a number of short news stories, and the back page… (Okay, I wrote quite a bit of it!) My contributors wrote the majority of the articles: either as interviews, or a few paragraphs on their chosen topic.

Opening page; Gregory Baldwin, whose illustration features on this page, uses both traditional and digital methods in his work

Five illustrators tell us that the digital vs. traditional illustration controversy is over!

That was always my motto when designing magazines: “Make it fit!”

However there was quite a bit of editing involved, including cutting on the page and some judicious squishing of text to make all the copy fit. That was always my motto when designing magazines: “Make it fit!” Editors loved me. It’s even more fun when one is both editor and designer.

Opening spread of profile on illustrator Gregory Baldwin

Second spread of profile on illustrator Christopher Nielsen

I kept the layouts fairly simple and straightforward to fit in with the budget. They were also based on earlier incarnations of the magazine: the same masthead, three-column grid and fonts were used; red, the corporate colour of the IA was kept, but I added a secondary taupe. Creating the Click! and Flick! boxes and icons was fun too.

A number of illustrators tell us about their 2011 IA Award-winning work

Second spread of ‘To market, to market’, a story about four illustrators who sell their work online or at designer markets

The back page was fun and not as gratuitous as it looks. As the magazine is published via PDF and emailed to all members, it doesn’t really need a regular back cover. It would have been a bit silly to include just a blank page with the IA logo on it, for instance – a waste of ink if anyone printed it. Instead, I decided to create a new regular section called ‘Vintage’ about illustrators from the past. It would be mainly image, with a little bit of descriptive copy. I chose Ida Rentoul Outhewaite, an Australian illustrator from the early twentieth century, famous for her fanciful and detailed fairy illustrations.

I hope the 300+ members who receive the magazine enjoy reading it as much as I did putting it together. 

The fanciful and detailed work of Ida Rentoul Outhewaite, an early Australian illustrator

Dreaming of Travel

Cat in Blue Land, by Andrew Ferrier; camera: Canon EOS 40D; from FlickrI have been so busy in the last week or two, working on my first issue of Outline magazine, the publication for Illustrators Australia. It’s finally finished and will be published tomorrow, yay! I have also started a part-time job in graphic design, so that takes me away from my home office for three days of the week.

In the meantime, I am daydreaming of my coming overseas trip to Spain, Portugal and Morocco. Just look at that picture of the blue city of Chefchaouen! The entire city really is that photogenic.

I love the light in the picture of Lisbon, the lavender sky, and all those orange tiled rooftops. As for the double exposure of Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, that’s just dreaminess itself. It’s an original view of probably one of the most-photographed pieces of architecture in the world.  Lisbon, by @rmando; from Flickr

I am already thinking I will have to take several more camera cards with me than I did to Vietnam two years ago; after all I am going to not one, but three countries. I almost hyperventilate with excitement when I think of it. The big challenge will be to capture unique pictures … but I think I am up to it!

Click on images for links.

Double-exposure of Sagrada Familia, by Filippo Lorenzi; camera: Holga; from Flickr