New Website

Have just finished the redesign of my website. Any feedback regarding user-ability will be very welcome. Click here to have a squiz.

http://www.laurajane.com.au

Canvases, Crooners & Coriander

So I asked my partner to build an illustration workplace for me. What a sweety! This beautiful sunlit warehouse studio in Footscray is the perfect place to make pictures. No excuses now! Thanks Leon.

In the Jam - Arup Conference

So when my agent described a 'live drawing gig' I was quite thrilled.  The brief was to produce 20 minute drawings in synthesis with a soundscape, based on the wonderful Melbourne spaces my client Arup have been involved with. These engineering/architectural feats included AAMI Park, North Melbourne station, Icehouse Skating Rink, and of course the stunning Melbourne Recital Centre where the event was held. I loved the ballsy challenge that this illustration job required - so thank-you Melbourne and thank-you Arup.

Sketches: North Melbourne Station

Gotta exciting 'live illustration' project coming up... but in prep it requires practicing sketching some of the spaces within Melbourne....under 15 minutes...stay tuned...

Reiki Drawings: Head Space

Since coming back to Australia, life feels like I've been put in the emotional tumble dryer. I've been staying with my older sister in the ICU;  my sis came off her bicycle and sustained serious head injuries. How do you tell someone in a deep coma how much you love them?  How much you want them to wake up?  I feel hopeless, useless - so I've begun doing these sort of 'reiki' drawings for her - called 'head space'.

Sis - I love you.

Untold Stories: 9x5 Exhibition

Called the "9x5" in reference to an Australian Impressionists exhibition in 1889, the good people at Illustrators Australia have just held a very successful show in Melbourne. Held annually, this years theme was 'Untold Stories', and now makes its way up to Brisbane for the first time in October, opening on 6pm Monday the 11th @ Design College Australia, 200 Barry Pde, Brisbane.

This year my work 'Blossoming' depicts the untold secrets of a young girls growth to womanhood. Looks like she will remain a virgin too, with no 'sale' like all other years. Oh well...cheer up little lass...there's plenty of time.

Burmese Days

So before a few months ago I'd never really been overseas. I know - pathetic. I think task-master Saturn in my Virgo for so many years has had something to do with my unwillingness to actually take *gosh* a holiday. I have certainly made up for it, experiencing the ultimate exotic odysee to Burma. It was truly life changing. There were many beautiful stories from Myanmar, so I will keep it thematically painterly...this monk is preparing some party streamers for tomorrows full moon. The monks in the isolated northern Shan areas don't meditate - they just paint and play music to find their higher self.

Amen to that.

Process of a Lil' Minx

This Lil' minx was completed a while ago, and was entered in 3x3 as part of a series. Ideas of Goddess mythology and how these female archetypes are embodied within modern contexts interest me. 'Lilith' - the bad girl of biblical mythology who would not 'lie under any man' has been documented from process to finish. I was particularly inspired by the palette and other edgy gothic elements of Olaf Hajek's portrait of Fiona Apple.

Re process images: Have to make a mental note not to show process pictures, as the roughs are often open to weird critiques that really throw me - eg:

Brother-in-law: "Hey Laura, I like the picture of the sexy chic on the hot-dog"

Me: "It's not a hot-dog. It's a saddle"

Brother-in-law: "OK. I really think you should change it to a hot dog"