Need a Tea Party

Hi All!

I hope you have all been well. It's Friday Yey! It's a bit of an admin bomb site in my lounge with endless reams of paper that I must put together for my permanent residency application to remain in Australia! How exciting & scary, I've waited nearly 4 years for this day to come. You may or may not know this but one day I packed a tiny backpack and ventured to Australia for a 5 month holiday, little did I know I would meet my future husband on the day I arrived & spend the rest of my life here :-) Lucky him! So this brings us to the present day with me trying to rack my brain on the last ten years of my work life, travel habits and qualifications all to be noted down on paper for someone to tick off and say "G'Day Mate, you're allowed to remain in Australia".

It's safe to say when this gets a bit too stressful I'll reach for a good cuppa tea, how typically English of me. This also relates to this personal commission I created this week for two best friends who grew up together in England but now live worlds apart in Amsterdam & Australia. They both share the fond saying of "Need a Tea Party" when it's time to have a cuppa and de-stress. The windmill and tulips represent Amsterdam and the hugging koalas represent Australia. The blue dog and pink suitcase signify fun, memorable times they have had together. I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed creating it.

Have a super weekend & let's chat again soon!
Chrissy x

The Golden Winged Lady

Hello! Thought I'd share this golden lady bird with you today - I found her whilst sorting out my illustrations into presentation folders. She's probably about a year old and never seen the light of day. Seeing as I draw/sketch/doodle every single day you can just imagine how many pieces of art are lying around or stuck on notice boards or walls of my lounge, studio and bedroom. I'm not really one for drawing in sketch books - I'm not sure why I just think a nice pretty sketchbook like those moleskins are just too pretty to draw in and always feel too pressured into not wasting the paper by drawing something that's not that great. I work best with loose sheets of A5 or A4 paper resting on a closed sketcbook atop my lap in front of the telly :-) But maybe if I assign a topic/theme to each sketchbook I'll be able to fill a whole moleskin. It's rather funny as most people use sketchbooks as a starting point but I seem to see it as the finished product. Who knows maybe by the end of 2011 I'll be able to show you a themed-filled moleskin.

I hope you are all having a lovely weekend. It's scorching in Sydney and we had a delicious Mexican Lunch in the city then we decided to head home for a relaxing day where I'm going to continue working on some illustrations for magazines and also for my portfolio. Chat soon! x

Plain Jane

Say hello to PlainJane - she's part of a series of pencil studies I have been working on, just a small dash of colour for her cheeks. I wish I had brought back my whole pencil collection from England where I have all the different hard/soft leaded artist pencils that create different textures and colours. Maybe I will have to buy some tomorrow.

I saw the extremely terrifying tsunami engulfing the coast of Japan today, how very sad. Sending my thoughts & wishes to Japan!

~Home Sweet Home~

Check out my blog header - can you see that Ms. Hearthead is winking??

Hello How have you all been?I've just realised it's been nearly 3 weeks since I last blogged! Oops. Thought I would share this Home Sweet Home poster with you - it's part of a series of vintage inspired text posters that I have created for a new coffee shop in England. You can see another part of the series here - entitled "All You Need Is Love" here.

Lately I've been finishing some illustrations for magazines. This colourful bicycle rider is for a new Aussie magazine which is due out in April. She's also part of a series of stereotypes. Hopefully I can show you the full series soon as they're a little different from my usual style.

Besides drawing I've also been writing about my artistic inspirations. I was recently interviewed by a fashion-journalist student who is creating a magazine for her final year university project so I will be featured in that. I've also been working on my bio for some awesome sites - they'll be creating a link/feature of my work which I will be able to share with you soon.


I've also got my online shop up and running again and sold quite a few prints last week, so please check it out when you have a spare moment. It's free postage worldwide - I like to keep it simple. All prints come signed and printed on delicious 220gsm cartridge paper. I'm thinking about running a giveaway (my first one!) so check back soon!