The Perfect Toy

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is: toy. I asked L what kind of toy he would have if he could have anything in the world, and this is the result. It would be made of Lego, fully remote controlled, with several built in game consoles, and bristling with guns and rocket launchers. What ever happened to the good old days when children amused themselves with sticks and made wooden pegs into little dollies? (Not that I ever did, but it's a nice nostalgic thought).

My Fear of Threadless

Not a lot of blog action going on recently! I haven't felt very inspired by my own meanderings, and have maybe been watching the news a little bit too much. But I have been drawing, pretty much every day, the way I used to do when I was about seven. Drawing also involves designing kids' tees like this one. I first looked at Threadless about a year ago - it's a T shirt site where people can submit designs, and also vote for the ones they deem worthy of being printed. I found it a bit scarily cool and intimidating, and still do - I'm also shy and uneasy about asking people to vote for me, me, me (that kind of relentless self-promotion isn't really my thing), and the community can be pretty harsh in their judgements. But they do have great tees in a wide range of colours, and when a friend of mine suggested I give it a go, I did, and submitted this design for a challenge supporting Earth Day. Found this interesting post at Escape from Illustration Island discussing the pros and cons of voting sites such as Threadless - I'm still undecided (and still hate something I've done being voted on, especially when they give you a score of one and say things like 'meh'!)

Design for Japan

How do you deal with such an overwhelming sense of sadness and powerlessness? It has only been a few weeks since the shock of the most recent Christchurch earthquake, and now there is devastation on an unimaginable scale in Japan. I'm glad that Zazzle have set up an initiative to raise money for the disaster relief fund. They have released a T shirt of their own but also asked for community donations of designs. Today I made this flower heart design - it's available on T shirts, and a few other things. 100% of the royalties will go straight to the Japanese Red Cross. It may only be a tiny drop in the ocean, but it makes me feel as if I can contribute in some way. Visit the Japan Relief store to purchase items, or even to create and donate your own.

What I Did in February

This is the end result of February's Thing-a-day challenge - a grand total of 21 out of 28 days; somewhat interrupted by earthquake happenings towards the end. Now I can see the series as a whole, I notice how dark the images became in the last week or so - you can see them all here. It was hard going at times - not the drawing bit so much, but the pressure of posting publicly when I wasn't always happy with the result. Good for me though, and it's a great practice, this daily drawing - so often I'm caught up with the idea of creating something finished and perfect (haha) that all spontaneity goes out the window. I see these little images as starting points for other things, but maybe some of them are 'finished' enough, and possibly portfolio-worthy - what do you think?

Safe

There's a jittery feeling in the air, a nationwide obsession with staying safe, out of harm's way. Two smallish earthquakes have hit Wellington in the past two days and I can imagine how scary that must be; the feeling that you could be next. We worry about the chances of an earthquake in Auckland - not likely, but there's always the supposedly innocent dormant volcanoes that grace just about every suburb. We talk about what it would be like to move to Australia, but there are other things there, like floods, bush fires and crawly poisonous things. The forces of nature seem immense, inescapable, uncontrollable. Feeling safe at the moment is about the comfort of little rituals - Friday night pizza, the park every day after school, mundane telly and cups of tea. It has been a strange, sad and edgy few weeks. This drawing is one of the last from the Thing-a-day challenge - a grand total of 21 finished (out of 28)! In the last week the Christchurch earthquake happened and the drawings changed; influenced by what was going on down there and the endless avalanche of media reports and images.