I actually was listening to the radio before, and heard Little Red’s new song ‘Rock It’. Umm. yeah. It’s harmless fluffy catchy and kinda like bubblegum MGMT but I CAN’T STOP PLAYING IT.

Okay so the band and people in the video look a bit hipster-y. And the lyrics are kinda lame. But cmon, doesn’t it make you feel really happy and fuzzy inside? It reminds me of high school actually. Like a high school dance, or just hanging out with friends at lunch or something. Ahhh memories.

Anyway, I’ve pretty much finished all my designs for dotdotdash. I might do one more, just coz. This issue’s theme is FOOD, which is very exciting, because I LOVE food. Deadline is in a week so gotta get cracking on to that!

Other things I want to do this week:

• Research used cars
• Make Red Velvet cake
• Edit IKEA’s video for the Catalogue Party
• Finish some sketches and work on new ones
• Sell some stuff on ebay
• Play the Sims 3 (I haven’t played this in ages. I want to build a cool house.)
• Make some posters for D3
• Buy more nail polish remover and yoghurt covered sultanas!
• Paint something pretty
• CLEAN MY ROOM

I’m starting with the cleaning bit today. Woo!

….and I totally want to watch the movie again. Is it not the most awesomest video ever? Even after this long, I don’t think I’ve come across an anime as good as GitS. I haven’t even seen much of the tv series but I think I’ll start watching all that now since I’ve kinda stopped watching True Blood and Dexter!

Some of the imagery in GitS actually really reminds me of the walled city in Hong Kong, which is something I find incredibly fascinating. When I see photos and videos of the place, it’s like watching something out of a post apocalyptic sci fi movie, and it’s kinda amazing how recent the place was before it was torn down. I’m sure if it were still there today, it would be incredibly scary to go in:

When we were forced to play Second Life for uni, I think the only thing I was interested in doing in the game was visiting the walled city this guy had created. I went in, and it was cool, but simulating something as amazing as that just isn’t possible. The feel of the place is really intriguing though, and I really wish it were still here today as like a preserved historical monument or something so you could walk around in it and take a look at how they got lighting and the rooftop gardens and stuff like that. It’s so dystopian like and CREEPY inside i think that’s what’s so fascinating about it.

I was also looking at macabre japanese kids art earlier, and as much as I hate stupid/morbid takes on kids fairytales and such, I thought these were pretty cool.

I just really love stuff like THIS- urban decay and grungey imagery especially.

I don’t know if you’d classify it as a lucid dream, but it was another one of those where I could hear things going on outside my room, and I could taste the dryness in my mouth while I was dreaming.

Anyway.

What happened was, I woke up in the morning, and immediately curled up in a ball and nodded off again. At the time I woke up, my mouth was really dry and scratchy like I needed a glass of water or something but I couldn’t be bothered getting out of bed. This must’ve transferred to the dream, because I was suddenly in a giant shopping mall with my friend Pam, who I haven’t seen for AGES, and her friend who I don’t know the name of.

We are wandering around in the shops, and for some they’re all gated up-like yellow and green garage doors over all the entrances except a huge woolworths which had no one in it. It was eeriely creepy and for some reason I keep having these creepy dreams. Anyway, I ask out loud ‘why is innaloo so dead now?’ because I somehow knew we were walking around in the innaloo shops. And Pam replies: ‘i don’t know, I think it’s because they closed all the entrances except for over there’ and points to a MASSIVE entrance where white light is shining and groceries are stacked on shelves miles high, and it just looks amazingly consumertastic, only there’s no one in there but a few cashiers looking bored. We walk past the shop and past a few food court type shops who have no customers. It’s all very dank and there’s dodgy fluorescent lighting everywhere, and I’m thinking ‘GOD I’M THIRSTY’.

So we walk outside, and by now WHILE I’m dreaming I’m thinking to myself, ‘god my throat is REALLY dry. I need a drink but I can’t be bothered getting out of bed. Can I just dream some more?’ And this part was weird. Because in the dream we are walking on a gravel road to the street; kind of like in a backalley; but as soon as I think I want to continue the dream, Pam exclaims something along the lines of ‘omg let’s try this new drink place! It’s korean and has bubble tea’ and walks backwards down the street and kind of ‘into’ the  brick wall perpendicular to us, which magically now has a bamboo reed partition. I follow and so does her friend, and we find ourselves a glass door, leading into a rather swanky bar/drinks place like utopia, except it’s all made of dark wood like mahogany or something. Like, EVERYTHING. Chairs, seats, tables, benchtops.

We order our drinks but the line is massive. It’s obviously very popular. As we’re waiting we wander out the other door on the other side into the sun, and find ourselves in a grassy field. It’s kind of like a camp like area- maybe like the housing style in Lost where the Others lived, because there are various buildings dotted around everywhere. We walk through the field, and we seem to interrupt 3 teams of men in red yellow and blue colours. You know those people who pretend they’re in a fake english army and pretend to fight each other? Like in the war with Napoleon Bonaparte or something? It was like that. These men were pretending to fight each other in their different teams, and they had fake old style shotguns. They angrily ask us to move out of the way and we quickly get off the field, and we bump into a bunch of other people, who look like they’re from the hippie era.

I’m next to a blonde girl with a daisy chain in her hair and a white dress on, and she’s very ethereal like. She’s really cheerful and we start talking. We’re gravitating towards a big building now near the fake armies fighting, and she’s telling me about the war. I feel like I’ve been transported to another time, in the olden days if you will, and then we reach some stairs to go into the building. There’s only 3, and a ledge to cross but she suddenly says she’s pregnant and needs help. So I help her up and hold open the door for her.

Inside the building is a huge disco. Like the one I had at my year 8 camp. It’s very dark and dank and musty and gross, and all of a sudden the girl who looked like an angel is now belly dancing in a white indian sari type thing. I’m like ‘wtf?’. Pam and her friend have disappeared and my mouth is still really dry so I look for the drinks table. At this point I decide I can’t stand having a dry mouth for any longer, and wake up and get a drink of water!

Yeah. A really weird dream. It actually felt like it went on for AGES because so much happened but when I woke up and looked at the clock, I’d only slept for another hour. Which was..weird because it felt like I’d slept for years. Needless to say, my throat’s still sore and dry and it’ll take me days to recover from this dream!

• Clouds
• Dead trees
• Sunsets
• Underwater photos
• Half constructed houses and backalleys
• The creativity crisis
• Infinite darkness
• Infinite desert
• Infinite sky
• Toilet Paper Rolls
• Lightbulbs
• Intricate Wood Sculptures
• Industrial Spaces
• Oceans of sky
• Vines
• Cranes
• Reeds
• Egyptian woman with a skull headmask
• Windows made of branches
• Spinnerettes
• Post apocalyptic train stations
• Pirahnas
• Liquid Pencils
• Ash globes
• Snowglobes
• Powdered wine
• Tangerines
• Astronauts
• Skeleton Keys
• Hot air balloons
• Val Kilmer
• Y the Last Man
• Castles
• Voyeurism
• Ferris Wheels
• Birds on wire
• Treehouses
• 90 degree cliffaces
• Honeycomb mazes
• Ladders
• Flower Petals
• Concrete gardens

Yeah.

I’m off to work now to see more beauty in greasy chips and cheapskate customers

Toodles.

Finding the time and motivation to do things is hard. Especially when you have the whole internet, books and tea at your disposal.

I think I’ve done quite a bit today in terms of creating things though, and I actually feel quite lucky to have so much stuff around me to keep me inspired.

I still haven’t added much photos and stuff on here because it’s taking me a while to compress them all. It takes a lot of time! I’ve been busy with a lot of other things but because I have so much free time this week, I’ll probably get a lot of stuff done

I got some d3 submissions to design for the next issue, and they are pretty awesome. I’m doing 3 poems and 1 short story so far, and they are all quite inspiring. I love having the free reign to do whatever I want with the page layout and learning a lot at the same time- it’s a really fun experience! It’s gotten me thinking- if I were to do this as an actual career in the future, I think I’d probably want to do print work over web because I love having the finished product at the end…and seeing the process it made from screen onto a piece of paper. It’s also a lot easier for me to design something when I know how the page is going to relate to everything else…if you  know what I mean. I’m working on creating actual illustrated landscapes but it’s…a process. I actually did 2 designs yesterday for the poems, and I LOVE how they’ve turned out, but unfortunately I can’t show them off until the next issue’s been published!

I’ve actually been reading some other people’s techniques on Illustrator lately, and they’re quite interesting. I think I should make use of the paintbrush, pencil and art brushes more often. It’s really cool learning new tips and tricks about using the program though- it makes drawing things so much easier!

Post apocalyptic art is my favourite kind of art and it always amazes me to see what other people come up with. I was looking at this last night, and I absolutely love some of the stuff on here. The traintrack leading in to the ocean totally reminds me of Spirited Away(and how I really want to rewatch that!). The abandoned train station is also pretty cool. There’s something about train stations that evokes such a feeling of… eerieness. The ability to get away from everything but in reality everything is hopeless kind of feeling?

I made whoopie pies today(they’re like cake cookies) too. Apparently they are an Amish phenomenon. Heh. I was really hungry last night and found the recipe for them on some site. I decided to make them in my sleep, and as soon as I woke up it was BAM! Cake cookie time. They were chocolate flavoured with peanut butter frosting and pecans/coconut/choc chips in the middle. SO YUMMY. But pretty rich! I’ve got loads left over!! And now I’m reallly reallly full.

I also have this drawing which I want to get done by the end of this week- it looks amazing in my head but I hope it’ll look cooler on screen. I actually tried to start it last night but I had a huge major creative block and just did not know HOW. So…maybe tonight. Or I might just sketch it and scan it in.

I want to go for a long bike ride too. Maybe tomorrow, to the lake or maybe even IKEA :o I just really need to enjoy nature for a bit.

I made a better version of the IKEA video because they for SOME REASON they could not figure out how to play the file from the DVD AND USB STICK at the launch party so my manager wants the video by Friday to show to everyone at the daily morning meeting. Hurrah! Luckily that is all over and done with. I just need to give that to them tomorrow and hopefully that will be that!

I actually woke up several times during it, and quickly fell back asleep because I was in a state of half awakeness/half sleep. I don’t know if you’d call it exactly lucid dreaming…but I made sure the protagonist didn’t die and at the end I knew that everything was going to be ok because I would wake up…but it made me feel so many things at once I tried to write it all down and I COULDN’T. I usually have my phone on my bedside table, and this is what I wrote AS SOON AS I GOT UP:

Csn covtr time and space- parent tterap Luke but show abs friends make copies of thrmselves. H
They get sentences to self execution but she swings the flowerr swing put of the way into the rock wall, smashing it.
Super saiyan mode- logs tumbling down; labd fives way and now they’re floating, turtles dace them and titled are floating as they’re faking, qrtiting next to bushes.

Yeah. I know. I gave up soon after I wrote that.

My iphone can be pretty annying sometimes because it autocorrects stuff, but basically the whole dream centred around this girl who was kind of Promethea like. She also reminded me of Zena the warrior princess. Anyway, there are two separate storylines happening at once.

I’m with a few coworkers from work in one part- probably because I stayed up a good part of the night editing some clips for the annual catalogue party. We come across an old abandoned building and I feel really creeped out. Keith, one of the chefs, opens the door and peers inside. We all kind of walk around inside and its dusty and light shines through cracks in the windows. There’s another door, and we open that. And we step inside, and then there’s another door, and another door. It was like an inifinite amount of doors like when you look at yourself in two mirrors at the same time. It was kinda trippy and I felt more and more creeped out as more doors kept appearing out of nowhere. It was like I was trapped in an infinite amount of doors and I desperately craved to be outside in some greenery.

Then all of a sudden we’re in the middle of a forest and I’m standing there, watching an execution of a mighty female warrior by a native tribe of some sort. Maybe American indian. Only she’s lying with her face towards the sky, and the guillotine is actually a wooden plank adorned with colourful flowers. When the first attempt doesn’t harm her, they make her stand up and they swing the plank at her neck. At this point I’m kind of awake, and kind of asleep so I could feel myself getting really angry because- they were killing the flowers, they were killing her, and I got the idea they were just barbarians. So I “made her” push the plank away though the force of her psychic powers, and the huge plank flies into a clifface. The cliff breaks into hundreds of wooden logs and they start raining down upon everyone and I feel happy. The land gives way under our feet, and I can feel myself falling into nothing. Purple and blues and stars whiz by as I fall further and further.

Time then kinda slows down and it feels like I’m falling down a rabbit hole like in Alice in Wonderland. I pass by a lot of greenery and shrubs which I know the warrior princess saved, and there’s suddenly a lot of turtles, who have grey long beards. These turtles are writing on long manuscripts next to the shrubbery and as I’m falling I wonder what they’re writing about. I’m kind of in a state of…god knows what…because I can hear stuff going on outside my room but I’m still dreaming of falling and scholarly turtles and it didn’t really faze me at all. Then….I’m forced to wake up because I have to go to work.

It was a pretty epic dream. There was more, but I forgot a lot as soon as I woke up :/ Oh well…

The image of the wise turtle sounds familiar though. I can’t quite remember where I’ve seen it but I know I’ve seen the image somewhere before. It was really cool though!

Anyway I won’t dwell too much on it- got a whole load of IKEA shizz to do tonight. I have to edit a video for the party as I said earlier, and it’s looking pretty….uh….eclectic.

I may even post it here once I’m done! I won’t be at the party to see it played so I won’t know until next week if we’ve won (it’s for an inter-departmental prize thing). We totally have a great chance. Especially with my mad editing skills. Heh.

Yeah. Still working on that photography stuff for the site and other things I need to add. I’ve been pretty busy lately but I’ll have some free time reallly really soon!!! Yay!

This week…it’s PUFFINS.

Oh my freakin god. Puffins are the reason why I LOVE BEING ON THIS PLANET.

They’re like toucans or hornbills or rockhopper penguins, only cooler. And they’re SHO CUTE!!!!

Fun facts about puffins:

• They’re sometimes called sea parrots or clowns of the sea.
• They have penguin colour-age and are actually closely related to penguins!!!
• They can swim underwater to a depth of 200m and sometimes even eat fish underwater.
• Puffins often form nests on rocky terrain/clifftops or in burrows where they’ll lay one egg a year.
• Puffins swim with their wings, not their feet!

They’re pretty awesome!

[Source]

So I’ve uploaded most of the stuff I was going to this week- mostly new illustrations and drawings though, which I still need to update and add descriptions and stuff (something which I’m going to do right after this…or maybe tomorrow)! I’m working on adding photos but I have LOTS to go through, so it’s taking a while! I also have to upload all that ‘free stuff’ I promised – though I have to say, they’re not very exciting unless you’re talking about the Photoshop brushes/patterns I made a while ago.

I’m kind of sad though, because I’ve lost some original fireworks and ai files which contained the original illustrations due to me losing my USB, so I can’t make some images bigger than they already are!

I was also going through some old folders with some really old drawings in them, and it brought me back….waaayy back….to the Paint Shop Pro days. The days when I used to use rasters to draw instead of vectors because I didn’t know any better. It was quite cool though, and very nostalgic.

I found this old sketch which I drew when I was like, 12 or something, and because it was the first drawing I tried to make digital I thought it was funny it was still there on my hard drive. Funny story behind that too: I scanned it in the computer to try make it into a digital drawing but found out I actually couldn’t figure much stuff out after messing around a bit in Photoshop. So I signed up to some random Photoshop enthusiasts forum and posted my image and a question to see if any pro artists could give me a few tips on how to go about making it into a digital drawing and colouring it in and such.

I suppose my drawing must’ve looked extremely juvenile (it was an A4 sketch of a fantasy-type character holding a sword…I was very much into fantasy back then and still am!) because pretty much EVERYONE on the board laughed at me and told me not to bother- except for this one kind gentleman who took me through a few steps and how to use the basic tools in Photoshop and the best way to colour it in. I suppose the most important thing was, he was the first person that actually encouraged me to try doing something about me wanting to turn my drawing digital…instead of trolling me off the internet (which wasn’t hard back then because it was all dial up)! I can still remember that to this day and that has definitely taught me the importance of encouragement and motivation instead of intimidation.

I look at other people’s illustrations and artworks now and still get really intimidated about how I’ll probably never be as good as them. In fact, today I was just looking at this woman’s work, and they’re pretty amazing. I’m actually pretty jealous of anyone who can draw people, because drawing people are my worst nightmare.

I guess the only way to get better is to keep chipping away at that rock, and now that I have gotten back into all this, I am going to try get a million times better by this time next year!

I’m also using a new monitor today!! Well I got it about a week or a bit ago but I just got the cable to hook it up to my Macbook today. And it’s AMAZING. I’ve never had a monitor this big in my entire LIFE. And it’s all pretty much thanks to Cam. <3 I can draw stuff on a huge screen now!!! It is seriously the best thing ever.

I also rediscovered Fireworks!! I used to draw on Fireworks ages ago, before I realized Illustrator had a lot more features for print/web graphics, but the one thing that I really like about Fireworks is that the pen tool has a line coming from the cursor so you can angle paths better. I don’t know, I just think- why doesn’t Illustrator have that?! It’s so useful and makes things SO much easier! I know Fireworks is mostly for graphics/webpage integration but drawing on that thing is awesome. Maybe I’ll try using it again and see which program I like better.

Inspiration wise, I had another weird dream last night. It was kind of inception like because it involved a lot of elevators and going up and down into different realms, but the annoying thing is, I can hardly even remember where I end up because I forgot it all before I was about to write it down. You know that feeling when you’re just on the brink of remembering something important? That happened to me today- with that dream- but it wouldn’t come back and it was disappointing

Anyway I should probably go finish off an ad I need to do for dotdotdash and resize photos and stuff.

Goodnight internet!

I don’t actually have many favourite fine artists or influences in general, but surrealism is definitely my favourite genre and if I had to name a certain influence for anything I draw creatively, I would have to add Vladimir Kush to the list.

His paintings are simply sublime.

I first learned about him a few years ago when I was looking up some info on Salvador Dali, and his work has stayed in my mind ever since. I remember seeing this painting:

…and thinking if only I could draw like that. In fact the ideas conveyed in almost all his works contain some sort of mix between realism and whimsical dreams, which is something I like to add in most of the stuff I draw.

I was going through my old folders and saw some of his paintings, and still can’t quite believe how amazing his work is.

They really are timeless.