Arts and Witchcrafts

Ugh, I have not updated this for the longest time. >_<

So, I've been working at Liquid, which was great. But my contract ran out and there wasn't enough work. Which gave me plenty of time to make Christmas gifts for friends and family! :D

I'd just started getting into sewing, I'd been making myself bows to clip into my hair. Then I made this beauty. :) I even made the flower myself. The lilypad is made with felt and the flower is made from leaf shaped pink things that you add to your hat or hair fascinator for the races. To make to flower, you get each leaf thing and bring it in at the middle. This makes two petals. Make a bunch of these and then put it all together to make a flower. :D

I made another for my older sister for Christmas and that was going to be it...I'd decided not to get suckered into making a shitload of stuff like I always do...but then I made a shitload of stuff...like I always do.



My younger sister liked the hair stuff I'd been making, so she asked me to make her a headband with three owl heads on it.



Next, my housemates. I drew them pictures. :)





My housemates are sisters and my family and theirs have been friends since forever. So I decided to make their parents some Christmas decorations.

My older sister has a big family, so I made them decorations to, one for her, one for her husband and one each for their six kids.

For my Dad I'd put lots of photos together in a frame from a family trip. That was going to be his handmade thing, but it wasn't as arty as the other stuff I was doing, so I did a decoration for him too.

Also, sorry for the bad quality of this photo, I am a crap photographer.



A lot of these homemade things were being given to people with things that I'd bought. I'd already bought my Mum a gift but as I'd made things for my sisters and my dad, I didn't want her not to have something made too. So I made her this!



My boyfriend is way too hard to shop for, so I just made him lots of stuff. :)

Adventure Time with Finn and Jake! Man, this baby took about fifteen hours to make. O_O So worth it.



Totoro!



And last, but not least, a painting. :)




So yeah, plenty of arts and crafts this Christmas! I really dig working with felt now, expect more little crafty things from me.

Lex

Oops, haven't posted here for a while...and I promised myself not to neglect my blog. Well my art block seems to be gone, which is great because now I can really rip into commissions and other artly duties.

Here's a birthday gift that I painted:



Sadly the scan does not do it justice. I like to think that it looks better in real life. It was appreciated by the recipricant, which is always awesome. :)

I've also been on a bit of a reading binge. George Orwell is pretty great, I'm tearing through 1984. If you're into that sort of thing I also recommend The Chrysalids and Brave New World.

Also, I'm moving in a few weeks. Excitement! I look forward to living without parents, the way most of my friends do. I feel like I'm really lagging behind. But not for much longer!

Art Block and Ron Mueck

I've had art block for a little while now. It's driving me crazy. So this picture is me trying to work through it. I really want to do some painting, I have some spare canvases lying around, but I feel pretty uninspired at the moment.

Went to the Ron Mueck exhibit the other day with my sister. It's pretty damn awesome, I recommend it to everyone in Brisbane. You feel as though the sculptures are about to get up and walk around, or talk to you.

People are allowed to take photos in there. So about 80%-90% of the people are taking about a million pictures of each piece of art instead of really looking at it. They're so concerned with creating memories and collecting momentos that they don't really absorb what they're seeing. They don't experience it. And they don't watch where they're going, so they back into you all the time.

Anyway, I did a few sketches, these ones are ok-ish. I really need to find myself a life drawing class, I haven't been in SO long and you can really tell. While I was drawing the man's head, there was a little gaggle of children watching me and asking their mum questions. According to them I was drawing because I don't own a camera.

Just some REALLY REALLY rough sketches for my next film. Yeeeaaah. :D It's so far just an idea and a few drawings, I haven't even written a script yet. But so far I like it. Actually, I love all my ideas when they're at this stage. Nothing is nailed down, everything is possible, therefore it has the potential to be totally AWESOME. Of course, once I start refining things it bogs down and is never as good as I'd like. But I guess that's how it goes when you expect too much from yourself.

Oh yeah, the two characters above are sisters.

Showreel

Alexis Sugden - Animation Showreel 2010 from Alexis Sugden on Vimeo.

And it's aaaaaall the way down to the basement.

So I've been spending a lot of time in the basement. I live in an apartment and the basement is the storage area and carpark for the whole building. I really like drawing on the concrete posts that are down there. It's a nice way to loosen up...at first, then I get really into and spend about an hour on each picture.

They're just regular sidewalk chalk. I wish the posts were black like a chalkboard, it would really make them pop. They're all about my height because that's the easiest size for me to draw.

Here are a few!

Murders and Poetry

Sketchbook pictuuuures. Ink and watercolours.

I did the first one with the intention of it looking vague and ambigous. I wanted it to look like, did her kill her or just find her? What really happened? But as it progressed it became pretty clear that he killed her.

So I did a companion piece and tried to make it opposite. I made the dead man more angular and more sort of folded inward rather than smooth lines and opened up. There's also blue instead of red, he was drowned rather than stabbed or anything. And his killer is very remourseless. The woman's killer is filled with regret. FOREEEVER.

Also, when my dad saw these, his first reaction was to ask if I could paint them up on big canvases. Apparently this is the very first thing he would like people to see as they enter the appartment. I didn't think that Mum would be too thrilled with that concept, so I said no.

Anyway.

Went to a poetry reading the other night. It was everything I had imagined it to be. Every poetry reading that I'd ever seen in movies and TV shows turned out to be accurate portrayels.

It was in a tiny cafe in West End, packed with very bohemian looking people and a lot of wanky looking people in their early twenties. (I was in the second group.) Everyone took it all very seriously. After each reading evreyone clapped and looked at each other while saying things like, "Wow. That was so deep and profound." Everyone who read got really into it.

And. The best bit. There were a couple of people with an assortment of instruments, making noises as people read. There was someone playing a bongo drum. There was someone with a pan pipe made of plastic bottles.

It was pretty awesome.

Anyway, I did a few very bad sketches. I need to draw from life more. Also, I would just like to say that I was drunk when I drew these.