the thing is done

It is done. The thesis has been examined and passed. And as weird as it sounds (to me at least), I am now a 'Dr'.

It's been a wonderful experience. I know not many people say that about doing a PhD. Most talk about the torture of it all, the marathon that it is. And of course there is plenty of hard work, a fair proportion of pain, and the journey is long for most, but oh how much I have learned!

My thesis is titled Creative practice, value, and the teaching of art and design in higher education. If you want to see a digital copy of the entire document click here. 

So many thank yous are needed and most have been covered in my thesis acknowledgment section. But I want to say another huge public thank you to the University of Melbourne who funded me to do the PhD through a scholarship. I am very honoured and utterly grateful.

And now for non-thesis writing weekends. And more printmaking!

happiness is...

I've been really enjoying catching up on some of the Creative Mornings Melbourne video series, so I thought I'd mention another recent one that provided me with quite a bit of food for thought. Designer/Illustrator and 'multi-disciplinary' maestro, Beci Orpin, spoke about happiness and creativity in this lovely video.

Beci speaks with lots of examples from her life about what keeps her happy, and links this all very closely to her ability to maintain a work life driven by design. She mentions the following happiness points important to her:

+ her sketchbooks
+ making mistakes
+ riding her bike
+ breaking the rules
+ having her cats around
+ diversity
+ finding inspiration
+ community
+ running your own race

Two things I found quite wonderful to hear her speak about were 1. making mistakes, and 2. running your own race. Beci shares a very honest tale of what she feels was probably a business 'mistake' earlier on in her designer career. I found it refreshing to hear how she viewed this and the learning she drew from it. It would be easy to write something like this off as a failure and dwell on it unproductively for ages. Instead, she used the experience to figure out what she is better at and used this to propel her forward into other design adventures.

The second point, about running your own race, was communicated simply, but holds a powerful message. Beci talks about not getting caught up in what your creative peers are doing and measuring your progress against this. Feeling envious, jaded or ripped off 'is a really big waste of energy', she says. Which is so true when you think about it. And turning your thinking around to see it like this totally changes your perspective from being a negative one to being positive. So run your own race is her main message here.

What brings you happiness in your creative world? Enjoy the video!

the new image economy

Recently I watched this fascinating and inspiring talk by the very talented Lucy Feagins from The Design Files as part of the Creative Mornings Melbourne series.

What I loved is the way Lucy talks about something she calls 'the new image economy'. She does in the context of the publishing industry having been thrown on its head of late and talks about what this means for image makers, and how they might make this topsy-turvy space work for them, rather than against them. As well as describing the way the image making industry works in publishing (both print and online) she argues how the new image economy enables image makers to 'be in the driver's seat' and wrest control, despite appearances to the contrary with the proliferation of images on the internet.

The main take-home message raises quite a few questions regarding traditional ideas about intellectual property, something image makers have had a hard time hanging onto over the last 5-10 years, particularly on the internet. Lucy speaks about this issue in relation to her super-popular blog, The Design Files. I was intrigued by the different phases she says she has traveled through to reach a space where she says she has become 'quite zen' about it all, understanding as she does that the image economy has a way of paying back, even when her images are pinned on say, Pinterest, or re-blogged. It's an interesting notion, one with much value and enormous dollops of generosity. And one I think I like very much.

See what you think. Go watch the whole talk now.

Thanks to Erin Wilson's blog for helping me find the video in the first place. 

creating 'snow gum'

Guess what? More screen printing!

These are a few pics of a new design, 'snow gum', in progress. I was inspired by the beautiful shapes of eucalyptus snow gum tree leaves. They're so soft and round and very different to other eucalyptus leaf shapes which are often much longer and more pointed. I also wanted the print to have the appearance of floating on the linen.

I ended up making it a 2 colour print on the flax coloured linen even though I like the single colour (turquoise) on the linen also. I was keen to experiment with some overprinting which is how the 2 colour print (in turquoise and white) came about.

The last pic is of the design in progress with a layer of drafter's film over the top. This is what I've been using to create stencils because it's reusable even though it's harder to cut than paper. I really like it as a material for creating stencils.

Snow Gum in the 2 colour format is now available in the shop. Happy dish drying!

botanical and textile happenings

I've been drawing. Without realising it I've been absorbing the garden and the summer weather resulting in the production of botanical sketches. Which then morphed into a set of three botanical cards printed on post consumer recycled card stock.

And this morning I was able to hear and meet Clara Vuletich speak at Harvest Workroom. Clara's the designer in residence this week at Harvest (visiting Melbourne from London) where she's focusing on the idea of 'local cloth'. She showed us the ideas that she's worked through over the week in both visual and verbal forms. We were also able to hear her talk about her interest in social innovation in textile design. Really fascinating and inspiring stuff! Clara's blog 'love & thrift' can be found here. Enjoy the rest of your stay Clara and thanks Harvest for a fab session!

block print your own wallpaper

We're getting things in motion in preparation for the block print your own wallpaper class with Harvest Workroom in June. Would you like to join us? All levels of printing ability are welcome including beginners. Let us step you through how to design and block print your own wallpaper. It will be so much fun! More info here.

Also, follow this link on Design Sponge for some Lynne Testoni wallpaper goodness if you need a little inspiration.

kyoto design house

A little glimpse inside the beautiful world of Kyoto Design House. There are things there so lovely that they will make you weep with joy. Promise! Located in a new building designed by Tadao Ando, this wonderful contemporary design space on Tomonokoji (just south of Oike) is a must visit if you're in Kyoto. And opposite is Benrido, the prettiest postcard shop you've ever seen. That's another promise.

Those first 2 pics are of boxes for sweets. So colourful! The ceramics could have burnt a hole in my pocket there were so many things I wanted to take home with me. Luckily, restraint ruled the moment and I left with just one beautifully crafted off-white porcelain cup.

small wonders

This beautiful piece of design in Madrid is called Unlimited Space: the Ceramic House and is the work of architect Héctor Ruiz-Velázquez. What I love about it is how space is used in such a wise way. There is clever layering of rooms minimising the need to have a large footprint. This is a topic I feel very strongly about as our cities continue to sprawl and suck up the natural environment on their peripheries. I am passionate supporter of designing and building smaller and smarter.

More pics here at the ever inspiring Daily Icon.

in blue

It never ceases to amaze me what a beautiful piece of software Photoshop is. I don't even know a fraction of what it can really do for me but the fact that I can take some rough hand drawn patterns like these dashes of mine and then make a variety of repeats in different colourways like this just fills me with joy. Is that nerdy or what?

There is a birthday in our house today. If I'm organised enough there will be a Jamie chocolate tart for dessert tonight. Got to get my skates on!

whiskers

trees with whiskers, edinburgh gardens, fitzroy north, melbourne

Last Sunday I had a drawing date with a friend in the lovely Edinburgh Gardens. We had so much fun sitting there drawing in that gorgeous winter afternoon light. We worked until our hands grew frozen and then wandered up the road to a cafe for hot chocolate and other sweet treats. It was a lovely way to spend the afternoon. We've decided it might be a semi-regular thing and we'll invite anyone we know who would like to come along and draw.

I've been totally drawn into Design for Life. Is anybody else watching this amazing series? French product designer Philippe Starck takes a group of young UK design folk and puts them through a series of exercises in the hope of finding someone who will get to work with him in Paris for 6 months. Thankfully it's not as painful or cheesy as most reality shows of this kind. From a teaching point of view it's absolutely fascinating and everyone at work is talking about it. You can see episode one here. If you're quick eps two and three are here on iview. And there's a good description of the series here.

a little bit deco

My design prep for a 3-colour repeat screen printing workshop with Harvest Textiles at I&S studios tomorrow. I think I'm going to use this motif I designed and put together using luscious black sumi ink. The repeat you can see in the background is what it looked like once I scanned it into Photoshop and played with the colour. I wanted to get an idea of how it might look in repeat before I committed to it big time on fabric. I'll be adding one more colour to the mix. Should be so much fun!

blossoms in repeat

Succulent blossom repeat in gorgeous blue

Succulent blossom repeat in rust red

Succulent blossom repeat in teal-grey

You might already know that I'm a bit obssessed with the weird and wacky shapes of succulent blossoms. Recently I designed a repeat pattern based on one of my favourite blossoms. I've been playing with colours and when I repair my large, but very broken screen I hope to screen print these onto fabric. Which of these three colours do you prefer?

succulent design in progress

The one good thing about having a 36 degree day is that you don't have to sit on your lino to warm it up and make it soft before cutting. In this heat is cuts like butter. I've been feeling a bit off colour but decided to start cutting this design today anyway. It's a pen and ink drawing based on some photos I've taken of succulent flowers. When I'm feeling up to it I plan on printing it onto some fabric. Somehow I don't think that's going to be tomorrow - it's forecast to be 37 degrees. A bit to warm for printing even when you're feeling 100%.

macha green

Work in progress.... I'm designing a new image for a woodblock print and so here are some snippets of how it's progressing. I'm fixated on macha green at the moment. Macha is the finely ground up green tea from Japan used for tea ceremony. It has this wonderful colour I'm always seeking to recreate. My moku hanga teacher in Japan actually used macha tea powder to make ink for printing so that it would be authentic in colour: tea ink!

The Melbourne Design Market was on today and it was jam packed with people and had a great vibe. The Bamakko stall looked amazing! A huge thank you to Ben from Bamakko and also Lara (lara cameron design) and Tim (tu wit tu woo) who staffed the stall all day in that crowd.