My Creative Space

For a while now my creative space has been taken up with teaching myself Adobe Illustrator. I'm sure lots of you smarty pants creative people have been using it for a long time, but we only bought it a few months ago so I am a late bloomer. I borrowed 2 books from the library, and I have renewed them about 20 times now as I have slowly worked through most of the lessons.

It is quite amazing, once you get the hang of it, and although these patterns are fairly simple ones, I am working on a few more complicated things as I get more cleverer. I know that's not a real word by the way, just in case you think that I think that it is a real word. It has been hard learning something totally new like this though, but good for the brain....

It reminds me of when I used to take flying lessons when I was 26 (feel free to tune out for a while). It is a big workload for your brain and it feels like you can't possibly remember to do everything at once. How can I steer, and look at the wind, and think about the flaps, and maintain speed, and get off the ground ? It was the same with Illustrator, but now that I have persisted it all makes sense. The only problem is that, just like watching Chilean miners being pulled out of the ground and getting emotional, I could do it all day and not do anything else.

Can't wait to see what you more productive types have been up to at Kirsty's xoxoxox

My Creative Space

Hello creative types out there. This is my first participation in this fantastic idea of sharing creativity. I only found out about the whole shebang from my associate and friend Beck a couple of days ago, and what a ripper idea it is. So anyway, here's some creativity for you......

This is a cushion made out of one of my fabric designs called peacock (surprisingly). It was printed by the clever people at ink & spindle in Melbourne on bamboo /cotton fabric, and naturally they are for sale at

my etsy shop.

In my fantasies (not those type of fantasies, the other kind) I would love to have fabric printed in a million different colours....some of which you can see here. At the moment, though, due to cost factors, global financial issues and the value of the dollar I am sticking to one colour prints.

The idea for this print came from a drinking straw that we acquired at the ice-cream shop at Point Lookout on Stradbroke Island in Qld. My friend's son ordered a whopping milkshake with an ace straw that had a paper peacock which folded out. I guess you had to be there to get the full impact, but at the time it made an impression on me. "Jeez that's a nice looking straw" I thought to myself.

Anyway, I'm quite exhausted now from typing and uploading images, and just from being over 40, frankly, so I will say good-night. Thanks to my 3 loyal followers (Charlotte, Beck and Michelle)

Fippa

Hello world,

It's me, Phillippa. Welcome to my blog, which I have to say, I have resisted setting up for quite a while. A few of my friends are bloggers, and although I love reading theirs and others (which I will get to in the next post) I have always thought blogging would be like doing homework.

Do I need more stuff to do in my life? Probably not. However, I have started designing and printing fabric and I have been convinced that a blog is almost compulsory in the craft and business world, so here I am.

Mostly my blog will be about my creative pursuits....fabric, clothes, homewares....and attempting to make these things in a sustainable and non sweat-shop type way. It will probably also be about other stuff too, so hang in there people. There may be the odd whinging session about those close to me, my insightful comments on reality TV and its contribution to the cultural landscape, and stuff I like to eat. Mmmm fascinating.

Anyway, it must be time for a photo because who wants to read a heap of writing anymore?? Attempting to insert photo now.......

Whoops...the photo is up the top of the page. Not sure why that happened but i will figure it all out eventually. The picture is one of my fabric prints, not a self portrait or anything.

So that's it for today. Talk to you soon, even if there is nobody out there....

Phillippa xox