Gone the way of the dinosaurs

 On my lunchbreak today I went down the road for a coffee and sat at one of those big tables you share with strangers.  They were all having serious businesslike conversations and I...was drawing a dinosaur.  It made me laugh.  I'm going to draw a whole lot of dinos like this brontosaurus and turn them into a pattern for printing on fabric...I wouldn't mind a pair of dino print pyjamas!

And this 80s velociraptor patch is from a child's t shirt I bought from the op shop to cut up for patches.  You can see one of the other patches here.  Now what to draw next...T Rex or Triceratops?

In progress

Real and drawn plants, being turned into a pattern for printing on fabric...

Left behind

With changing work hours and the need to declutter my house my op shop trips have been few and far between lately - I haven't had much of a chance to draw what I didn't buy!  But I want to get my "Left Behind" zine finished off so I popped up to the local St. Vinnies on Thursday and jotted down these things I left behind.  Looks like today's edition is brought to you by the colour purple!

Wolves and bears, oh my!

 

I was in town today wandering along taking a few photos of green things.  And triangles.  

 

And plants. 

And nice buildings....when I stumbled upon this beautiful mural I'd never seen before.  It's by Mica Still, who has decorated much of Wellington with brightly coloured animals I do believe. 

 

A good reason to take a little detour! 

Flourishes

The artwork I've been doing for The Explorers' Club lately has been mainly decorative flourishes and borders, making a kind of hand-drawn clip art that can be used in different ways for CD covers, programmes, posters and, most excitingly...screenprinted bunting!  Here are some of the borders and bits and pieces I've been working on - the lyre of Orpheus at the top of the border below is based on one of Mr. Millicent Crow's favourite brooches - our friends The Broken Heartbreakers brought it back from Poland.

And you'll be seeing this one soon on an album cover!

You are next in the queue...

I usually keep the things I'm waiting to draw on my drawing table in a loose sort of a queue, which can end up an odd assortment of things!  First in the queue I have this kakabeak branch, which Mr Millicent Crow kindly brought me on the plane from Wellington.  So far not too weird...  

 

But I've also got this gaggle of dinosaurs!

 

I want to make some dinosaur fabric, and seeing as I can't draw the real things from life I thought I'd draw them from some quite detailed dinosaur toys.  They probably wouldn't have had such a civilised meeting in the wild!

Wellington walls

 I spent most of last week in Wellington and while I didn't end up taking as many photos as I'd hoped I did snap a few Wellington walls on my way into town.  This exploding pohutukawa mural is in my old stomping ground of Mt Cook; I used to live above it in a house with scenes from Where the Wild Things Are painted all over the walls of the lounge and a cat with a metal leg.  The wild things are long gone but I'm glad the pohutukawa's still there.