Chrissy Lau Art | Decipher The Day

Happy Australia Day!

2012-01-26T11:09:00.000+11:00

Even though it's quite drizzly in Sydney, I'm sure everyone is still hosting a BBQ and downing ice cold beers whilst listening to Triple J's Top 100. My illustration above is inspired by Australia and all the animals & fauna that exists here. She's holding a snowglobe with the Sydney Opera House inside - one of my favourite landmarks in the world, it still takes my breath away every time I see it.

Sydney Opera House taken by me!

I just wanted to give you all an update on the dragon I illustrated for the City of Sydney's Chinese New Year celebrations. I've seen it everywhere, I nearly fell of my chair when I saw it on SBS as a TV ad....

There are also event programs that detail all the special CNY Sydney events that will be going on until the 5th Feb. If you live in Sydney you can pick one up from the stands that look like this one outside Townhall...

Here's the program front cover:

A nice little paragraph about me:

Pretty flowers and street furniture:

My dragon on street furniture - a map of the events:

Year of the Dragon - Sydney

2012-01-14T09:00:00.000+11:00

Townhall, George Street

Hello! Well here is my first outdoor illustration project. I was commissioned by the City of Sydney to design the dragon for the flags & street posters to celebrate Chinese New Year. There are 2 different designs on the flags, one with the full length of the dragon and one smaller horizontal dragon. Both designs come in opposite colours - red dragon yellow background and vice versa. I got a surprise when we popped into the city as I wasn't sure when the project would be launched.

Kings Cross

I'm extremely happy with the finished project - the quality of the posters and flags are mind blowing! It was so exciting to see them all around the city from Central, Townhall, Kings Cross, Haymarket and even on Erskineville Road (between Erskineville & Newtown). One of my favourites is seeing my flags around the iconic Coca-Cola sign in Kings Cross, I think I'll have to go back at night to take a shot when the sign is illuminated. All in all I'm very proud to add this one to my portfolio!

William Street, Kings Cross - looking towards Sydney City

William Street, Kings Cross

Entertainment Centre/China Town, Haymarket


China Town

China Town

Dixon Street, China Town

George Street

QVB & Galleries Victoria, George St, Townhall

Outside QVB, Townhall

It was so hard to pick which photos to post, there's plenty more on my Facebook Page here.

It's All In The Stars - Women's Weekly Horoscopes Illustrations

2012-01-13T10:09:00.002+11:00

Hello! So you're probably wondering why I'm posting a nude lady from the Jan edition of Women's Weekly, well there's good reason as it contains my horoscope illustrations. The brief was to create a set of horoscopes that weren't predominantly female orientated as the article also predicts the horoscopes for men. There's a lot of detail and pattern work in the illustrations so it was a rather large project that took me a good few weeks to finish. Here's a few photos from the mag:

Easy Like Sunday Morning

2012-01-04T08:30:00.000+11:00

Hello! As promised here are the illustrations that featured in Sunday Magazine's horoscope section a few weeks ago. The final editorial shows my illustrations in a light contrast, so a little different from the original black and white drawings. Enjoy!

Featured in Grazia Magazine

2012-01-03T09:00:00.000+11:00

Remember those illustrations I did a few weeks back for Pocketto Magazine that illustrated Kuwaii's new clothing range? Here they are featured in Grazia's January edition out now!

Happy New Year 2012

2012-01-02T23:14:00.002+11:00

Happy New Year! And I hope you all had a fun filled festive period jam-packed full of food and all things merry! I've been a bit quiet on the blog front but I have certainly been busy with the illustrations. My horoscope illustrations for Women's Weekly magazine are now out in the Jan edition and the same goes for some illustrations for Sunday Magazine. Will post soon about these! Above is the first illustration for 2012...it's part of a series of ladies that represent cities around the world.

Anyhoo....I wanted to introduce you all to a lovely talented lady Ashley Cressey -

who has just completed a Bachelor of Media Arts, majoring in Graphic Design. Ashley contacted me a while ago for permission to use my work in her final uni project where she created a magazine.

I have to say Ashley's graphic design skills are impeccable, I love the crisp, clean feel of her work. She's definitely one to watch and I've no doubt she will be snapped up in no time. Amongst the featured artists is one of my favourites Si Scott. So here are a few snippets from the magazine that I hope you'll enjoy.

Before I go this is a little snippet of what I've been upto most recently, catch me on Instagram! Username: deciphertheday Today we went to Hyams Beach - which has the whitest sand in the world and clear waters, INCREDIBLE! I want to live here. Such a beautiful place, we went for a long walk along the beach and soaked up the sun. Below is also a picture of the lighthouse at Kiama and the blowhole...and also some new year fireworks thrown in.

Elle Girl Korea x Chrissy Lau

2011-11-29T21:35:00.001+11:00

Hello! I hope you're all well. Here are my Christmas Elves featured in Elle Girl Korea's December Issue. Not only is it a pleasure to illustrate for such a great magazine I am also featured along side the lovely Amanda Thomas of Here Comes The Sun (it's Amanda's 3rd Wedding Anniversary today - congratulations!!) and on the opposite page is talented Artist Caitlin Shearer!

I was always an avid reader of Elle Girl UK when I lived in England and I have to say to say Elle Girl Korea is a great read - when I say read, it's full of lots of pretty photos and inspiration. Wishing right now that I could read Korean. Today I wrapped up a 13 illustration project...it feels good to be compressing the file and sending the final versions to the client! I've literally been working on 3 projects the past couple of months and juggling a full time job so that's why I haven't been blogging very often. If you want to catch me on a more regular basis join me on Instagram - username: deciphertheday - I'm pretty much addicted to posting photos on there every single day (like below), purely because it's more visual and I don't have to think of something witty to say. This is my new teapot that Darren bought me. There's another little cup inside of this one. SO cute.

Kuwaii

2011-11-25T21:19:00.001+11:00

Cosmic Poetry SS 11-12 - Illustrations for Pocketto Magazine x Melbourne fashion label Kuwaii. I love their simple & beautiful dresses so I was conscious of representing that in the illustrations. It's a combination of outlines and super detailing in the hair & legs with a few little birdies.

Hanging in the Balance

2011-11-15T23:30:00.001+11:00

Here's a little sneak peek of an illustration I've been working on tonight. I still have a lot of the patterning to complete and also her long flowy dress. Come back soon to see the finished piece :-)

Where the bloody hell are ya?*

2011-11-11T20:45:00.001+11:00

*from that Aussie Tourism Ad that was banned in England. Well I have been blummin' busy the past few weeks. I've had some awesome commissions to work on that I am still in the process of finalising. The first is a commission for the City of Sydney - this is the biggest commission I have ever worked on in terms of scale. I have illustrated a dragon and patterning that will be used across bus shelters and flag banners for the Chinese New Year celebrations in 2012. I am SUPER excited!

It's also coming to the close of 2011 - so I am busy working on a series of horoscopes for a magazine in Australia plus another Sunday Magazine that would like their star signs illustrated. So above are a couple of sneak peeks that I've been working on. In total there will be about 20 illustrations I will have completed in the space of 4 weeks - how crazy does that sound?! Well I hope you're all doing well and apologies I've been away for so long, or maybe no one has noticed? For daily updates join me on Instagram - username: deciphertheday

TASCHEN Illustration Now! Vol.4

2011-10-09T18:31:00.000+11:00

Hello! Well here I am featured in TASCHEN Illustration Now! Vol. 4 - featuring "150 of the World's Most Exciting Illustrators". It's definitely exciting and an honour to be featured in a renowned & well respected publication.

Above is the Gary Pepper Girl in her Jeffrey Campbell shoes and also the educated lady illustrated for Pocketto Magazine. Below is the Bird Cage Lady illustrated for ZEST bar in the UK.

Aussie artist Kelly Smith is also featured in the book, which makes it extra special because she's one of my favourite artists. Look how amazing her illustration skills are. She was also kind enough to send me a peek of my page as she received the book before me - so thank you Kelly! (talented & kind!)

Nicoletta Ceccoli

Nicole Jarecz

Aussie fashion illustrator Kerrie Hess and Kareena Zerefos are also featured in this book. There's so much inspiration - I've bookmarked lots of pages to find out more about these talented artists.

In other news, I've hit 408 Likes on my Chrissy Lau Art Facebook Page so thank you for joining me! I tend to show regular sneak peeks on there so definitely join me there if you'd like to see more regular updates.

Chrissy x

Fashion Forward

2011-10-01T12:51:00.000+10:00

Hello! I'm having a very fashion focused day today finalising some illustrations I have been working on these past few months to broaden my portfolio. A dream commission would be to illustrate for Vogue Magazine. It's been quite hectic the past week having worked on a really exciting commission which involves my Chinese heritage & Sydney (where I live). If you follow me on Instagram (search for deciphertheday) you will have seen some sneak peeks of dragons! Can't wait to show you the finished piece next year.

Oh before I say bye, if anyone is popping out today - can you pick me a few things from Gorman? I'm a big fan of this Aussie label - I own their pom pom duffle coat which kept me super snug during the chilly Winter. It has these two great big coral pom poms that everyone asks "Can I squeeze them?" haha. It's a bit greedy to say I would like every single Gorman piece so let's just say, I ~~want~~ need these beautiful things below :-)

Smiggle x Two Birds Talking

2011-09-25T17:52:00.000+10:00

Hello! How are you all? It's been raining all weekend in Sydney so I thought a nice bright blog post would rid the weather blues. I was lucky enough to receive an invitation from the lovely ladies of Two Birds Talking to attend the Smiggle Xmas & Back to School Private Showing.

Here are a few shots of the awesome Smiggle Show. It's a huge array of new and exciting products starting from as little as a few dollars.

Unfortunately due to my day job getting in the way I couldn't attend but I did receive some cute little goodies in the post (below). I'm all set for 2012 with my new Smiggle diary and how cute is that little lady - she's a useful USB stick too! I've spent a good hours going through all the new Smiggle products due to come out in the next few months. I'd like to have one of everything in every colour please!

So here are a few of my favourite picks:

Colour Co-ordinated Goodness - You can never have enough notebooks & diaries!

Colourful Dinosaur USB Hubs

Fun watches!

So there you have it! I hope that's made everyone's day a little brighter. It's been pretty busy my way, I've just finished illustrations on a skatedeck for Mambo which will be featured in the Mambo Art Lounge at the Sydney Art Show. Come get your tickets & meet the awesome Mambo artists! I also have a couple of very exciting projects in progress, one is a surfboard design and one which will see my work up and around Sydney...more to come on those. Don't forget to follow me on Facebook - where I've currently been posting some sneak peeks :-)

Portrait of Yokoo

2011-09-09T21:01:00.001+10:00

Hello! This is Yokoo. For those who don't know her she is The Knitting extraordinaire. Think big, chunky, heart-warming beautiful scarves, hats & headbands, of which are currently featured in the new Nissan Car Ad! Yokoo's photographs are just as amazing as her knitted goodness, they're always quirky, whimsical, slightly amusing and inspiring. She's awesomely talented and I admire that - I don't have the patience for knitting. I can knit a rectangle and that is about it!

I bookmarked this video of her (below) a while ago, when I watched it I was instantly inspired. So I added her to my twitter & asked if I could draw a portrait of her. This was a few months ago and I've finally got around to drawing a portrait of Yokoo & more importantly I hope that I haven't insulted her...This is probably the second most realistic portrait I have ever drawn, the first was a pencil portrait of Picasso when I was 15. I hope you all like it...now I'm off to find another inspiring person to draw :-)

Shop Yokoo and Follow Yokoo on Twitter

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Midnight Feast

2011-08-27T17:51:00.001+10:00

Here's an illustration I worked on for the July issue of Virgin Voyeur - Virgin Airline's in-flight magazine. It was to illustrate an article about Flash Mob Foodies - the phenomenon started in San Francisco as a way for food geeks to get together and sell their wares without the fees – health permits and liability insurance – It has grown into a kind of indie movement and spread as far afield as London and Amsterdam.

This is the first time I have illustrated a night-time scene so I had to come up with a way of making it look like it was late at night. The majority of my work is hand-drawn so instead of colouring over the drawing I decided to overlay a dark blue layer in photoshop after I had finished the illustration.

Here's a day time version:

All this talk of food is making me hungry...luckily I'm off out for Vietnamese tonight with some friends :-)

Have a lovely weekend everyone and hopefully I'll be picking up my pen this weekend as I've seen some beautiful inspirational art from my fave Aussie artists Kelly Smith & Bec Winnel.