Birds of paradise

I've been drawing some of my collection of feathers to make a new print for the Auckland Art and Craft Fair...and I had a little play with colouring them in Photoshop. I think for the print I'll colour them with watercolour.

In real life the feathers were a bit more drab than this...but I'd like to find a bird with feathers of all these colours!

Interviewed

There's an interview with me on the Auckland Art and Craft Fair blog today, which you can read here.

One of the questions we were asked was about our workspaces...at the moment my lounge is strewn with feathers as I've been working on drawing feathers for a new print to bring along to the Fair.  I've also got my sewing machine and overlocker out - I've been trialling a shift dress pattern to see if I want to make it in more elaborate fabric (turns out I do) and I've got a giant painting drying in my bedroom.  What a creative mess!

Manukau Heads

 I'm working on a giant painting of Mitre Peak at the moment, from when we went to Milford Sound on tour back in February.  And I've got another giant canvas sitting in my room, which made me think I should also do a giant painting of the Manukau heads.  So a couple of Sundays ago we took a drive out to the Otuataua stonefields to take a few reference photos and watch the sun go down.

 Such a beautiful and slightly eerie place.

There is an avocado orchard there that is part of the regional park and you can take five avocados per person.  Note to self to go back in avocado season!

Band craft

Since we started our band The Bitter Years, lots of my craft time seems to have been focused on band craft.  Lately I've been making ribbon bunting for stage decoration and flower crowns for human decoration.  

You can see us playing an old timey country song in our lounge here!

See you at the Fair!

I'm happy to announce that Millicent Crow will be at the next Auckland Art and Craft Fair, on the 28th of June in the Aotea Centre!  After some recent forays into making ribbon bunting for my band I'm hoping to have a ribbon bunting-decorated stall.  More info about the Fair is available on the Auckland Art and Craft Fair blog here.

The Bitter Years in Auckland

After traipsing round a whole lot of the country this summer our band has its first proper Auckland show this Friday night and I made us this poster.  We're playing in a beautiful historic church hall as part of the Auckland Folk Fortnight with Great North...expect banjos and flower crowns!

Green ribbons, tall mountains

 I've been experimenting with some new ribbons for my huia brooches and thought I'd try out some in my favourite colour, a mossy green (I have an embarrassing number of cardigans that colour).

 And I've been planning a painting of Mitre Peak, probably one of the most painted places in New Zealand, but after I visited Fiordland earlier in the year I thought I'd love to have a giant painting of it in my lounge.  I'm having a (legitimate) sick day off work with a cold, so I thought it was a good chance to steal some time and get started on it!