stock clean up

My stock for my online stores sits on a clothes rack behind my desk. Lately it has been disturbing me while I am trying to study. So I have packed away all summer stock as winter is fast approaching and packed away most blank tees.
I would love to be dyeing and painting, but uni is priority as I have field experience to do in the classroom before I finish. I have also packed it away to keep it safe as I am thinking of starting markets towards the end of the year. Here is the summer stock packed in a storage container, and the rack now looking quite empty. So great to not have heaps of white starting back at me - out of sight, out of mind.

pad stash

so it's not the biggest stash around, but my pad stash is definitely growing, that's cloth menstrual pads for those who may be new to them. I use the diva cup mainly each month. It is an amazing invention and I wish i knew about it years ago. Best of all, they can last up to 10 years! Stash favourites are the rainbow Girly Bits liner which has butterflies on the other side, Obsidian Star cowprint pad, and I think my new GBs bamboo, hemp, silk combo pad will be a big fav.

trying out new things

I am trying out some new finishes on my tees. This is one finish which incorporates words or a simple symbol on the sleeves. This finish is for toddlers who do not suck on the sleeves of their tees for obvious reasons, paint isn't great to suck on LOL. I tend not to stencil with fabric paints at all for newborns because of the potential toxicity. Rather, I stencil with fibre reactive dye, which is also soft and pliable for sensitive skin.
This custom tee is hand dip dyed and stenciled in fabric paint.
Stencils are hand cut from 100% consumer waste plastic.

butterfly garden

finished - 2nd custom for Feb/March, but quite overdue.
Hand dyed in scrunch method with two tones of pink, bubblegum and fuschia fibre reactive dyes, and then overdyed with pink. Gives the tee slight tone definition, rather than one flat colour. Hand painted with artist quality acrylics.

child-like art

Z decided he would decorate the floor the other day with dye crayons! luckily, 30 mins of scrubbing with carpet cleaner got it off, but I wish now I had taken a photo of it.
He did this decoration on the couch the other day - I am much happier with this one and it is still there. He has so neatly arranged these star stickers, each half the size of a 5 cent piece.
I was amazed by how neat it is, truly beautiful work for a 2 year old!

and this is his latest painting. He has such a great style. No matter how much he misses the colours (which usually makes mud), or he uses colours like red, he still manages to keep some softness and dreaminess to his work.
A real impressionist in my opinion.

peace

hand dyed and painted tee. I love the style of the painting, I was aiming for a crayon look, also pulling heavily on Warhol's stuff as he is one of my art inspirations. Truly a OOAK, and if it doesn't sell, it is my son's size :)!!!
This painting is inspired from my incidental art from a while back, photos of my hands when they came out dyed rainbows from my day of dyeing (look back in my blog).
Will be available on Ozebaby in the next few days.

terra - more than a pretty picture

and more than an inconvenient truth. Our planet, so large and majestic, yet so small and fragile. Inspired by Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.
Hand dyed and painted - Coming very soon to Ozebaby

inspirations

It's funny when I try to think of where my art style has developed from, and what are my inspirations. I completely love Cezanne, he is a master of colour and light techniques, the forerunner of cubism. And Matisse is another master of colour and form. Freda Kahlo has such depth and power, and Esher is the master of perspective.
But I live in the 21st century and two of my biggest influences are from this century. Now don't expect anything profound here, my influences may well be laughable to some, but indeed they have influenced my creative vision, the way my mind's eye sees.
Disney and the Simpsons! As funny as it is, I don't see skys as blue and trees as green. I see rabbits as purple and sunsets or orange and green. I see trees as orange and clouds as pink. These colours are again developed from my love of surrealism and thus kaleidoscope eyes arrive.
Here are two example of my cartoon influenced style. The tree at the top left is an untitled work (although i am pondering 'Land of Milk and Honey'). It was my first acrylic painting and is on ply wood. It is still a work in progress and may never be finished.
The painting below is called 'Ganapathi', and is of the god Ganesh represented in leaves. It is maybe the second or third acrylic I painted and still one of my favourite pieces.

View a flash gallery of the full series here

natural beauty

I took these photos at the touching pool at Underwater World, Mooloolaba, Sunshine Coast QLD when we visited this week. How gorgeous are those colours! I especially love the sea cucumber, and the blue starfish is amazing.
Nature is so beautiful and I was so happy to see here glorious rainbows. The Great Barrier Reef is also very beautiful but in drastic danger of coral bleaching. It will be a true disaster if this type of beauty is lost from the natural world.

Giraffe

This is my 1st February custom finished. It is dip dyed in fibre reactive dyes, and hand painted with artist quality acrylic paints.
I really love the innocence and childlikeness captured in this painting, which is synonymous with my style. I like to call it 'naive lines'. Naive lines gives the impression of movement, and a certain awkwardness to the painting reminiscent of surrealism. There is also a pop art element in there with the bold colours, lines and shapes similar to illustration techniques.
I think my style doesn't quite fit in the definition of other art styles, therefore I am still trying to define it.

dying to dye

I have been so busy lately with study, and it seems to rain each time I get a change or time to dye. I have a curtain to dye for DS's room, and also some tees to dye for customers and friends. Hopefully I will get some time over the easter break.