Sweet Allsorts
A mixed bag of pretty painted poppets to satisfy the sweetest tooth
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Alicia of Hearts
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'Alicia' is of course inspired by that wonderful little girl who falls down a rabbit-hole and captures the heart of everyone who remembers what it is to be a child in a world of adults who talk a lot of nonsense.
Here she is resplendent in red and frills and little hearts running down her front; her big eyes ready to soak up the marvellous things in her imaginary world.
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Alicia of Hearts
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'Alicia' is of course inspired by that wonderful little girl who falls down a rabbit-hole and captures the heart of everyone who remembers what it is to be a child in a world of adults who talk a lot of nonsense.
Here she is resplendent in red and frills and little hearts running down her front; her big eyes ready to soak up the marvellous things in her imaginary world.
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Available for sale in my Etsy Shop:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/grumpystarstudio
To see more of my adventures in illustration, swing by the blog:
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Rosa and the Warm Shiver
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 'Rosa' is my own incarnation of that wonderful story, 'Little Red Riding Hood'. As a child, I always preferred these traditional folk-takes, and 'Red Riding Hood' probably best embodies that necessary quality of a good story: to be taken somewhere else entirely. For this reason I like playing visually with the idea of a 'warm shiver': that delicious crawling down your spine, the precarious feeling that your world might be toppling, that something might be 'off the leash' so to speak, and not so nicely watching you just out of your line of vision . . .
Rosa and the Warm Shiver
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 'Rosa' is my own incarnation of that wonderful story, 'Little Red Riding Hood'. As a child, I always preferred these traditional folk-takes, and 'Red Riding Hood' probably best embodies that necessary quality of a good story: to be taken somewhere else entirely. For this reason I like playing visually with the idea of a 'warm shiver': that delicious crawling down your spine, the precarious feeling that your world might be toppling, that something might be 'off the leash' so to speak, and not so nicely watching you just out of your line of vision . . .
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Available for sale in my Etsy Shop:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/grumpystarstudio
To see more of my adventures in illustration, swing by the blog:
http://melmacklin.blogspot.com.au/
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The Woodchopper's Daughter
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My Auntie Cheryl and Uncle Steve have a wonderful sprawling house in Tyers, in the Gippsland region of Victoria. I spent almost half my childhood in this house, and it is one of my very favourite places to be in the world. Most marvellous of all in this house is the red-brick wall by the front door. This has become a kind of family tree photo album over the years and my favourite picture on it is of my Uncle Steve.
Here, he is twenty-two, laughing hugely and balanced confidently atop a man-sized log; his hands gripping an axe that is forever caught in mid-air, mid-chop, hair bouncing thickly to his shoulders. I can't imagine he's changed all that much in the forty years since this photo was taken, though his hair, even in black and white, seemed closer to a crimson than the strawberry, pepper-flecked tones he keeps in his sixties, and much longer. But there is that same twinkle in his eye, of mischief, of a face that smiles often; a face that looks at home with a deep rumbling belly laugh or a few bars of an Elvis song, pitch perfect. In photos I've seen of Uncle a little later, he lopped his curls off into an Elvis-style pompadour. And when I came along, we'd spend afternoons in the sun room, he on the keyboard and backing up my broken little vocals to 'How much is that doggy in the window'.
'The Woodchopper's Daughter' is a little tribute to all of this: a landscape of gum and pine, of crackly summer days, of a house- you can't see it yet, but just over that hill yonder, of childhood adventures. And the hum of an Elvis song.
Here, he is twenty-two, laughing hugely and balanced confidently atop a man-sized log; his hands gripping an axe that is forever caught in mid-air, mid-chop, hair bouncing thickly to his shoulders. I can't imagine he's changed all that much in the forty years since this photo was taken, though his hair, even in black and white, seemed closer to a crimson than the strawberry, pepper-flecked tones he keeps in his sixties, and much longer. But there is that same twinkle in his eye, of mischief, of a face that smiles often; a face that looks at home with a deep rumbling belly laugh or a few bars of an Elvis song, pitch perfect. In photos I've seen of Uncle a little later, he lopped his curls off into an Elvis-style pompadour. And when I came along, we'd spend afternoons in the sun room, he on the keyboard and backing up my broken little vocals to 'How much is that doggy in the window'.
'The Woodchopper's Daughter' is a little tribute to all of this: a landscape of gum and pine, of crackly summer days, of a house- you can't see it yet, but just over that hill yonder, of childhood adventures. And the hum of an Elvis song.
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Available for sale in my Etsy Shop:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/grumpystarstudio
To see more of my adventures in illustration, swing by the blog:
http://melmacklin.blogspot.com.au/
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Available for sale in my Etsy Shop:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/grumpystarstudio
To see more of my adventures in illustration, swing by the blog:
http://melmacklin.blogspot.com.au/
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Amy
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'Amy' is a lighthearted little portrait of the potential in harmonious relationships between pets and their humans. Because, at the end of the day, wouldn't it be wonderful to do away with cars and buses and just ride your faithful pooch to work? Amy did discover these benefits, quite by accident, when she found some ChiChi grow at the back of a cupboard. It did what it said on the box, and the rest is history!
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Available for sale in my Etsy Shop:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/grumpystarstudio
To see more of my adventures in illustration, swing by the blog:
http://melmacklin.blogspot.com.au/
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Available for sale in my Etsy Shop:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/grumpystarstudio
To see more of my adventures in illustration, swing by the blog:
http://melmacklin.blogspot.com.au/
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Gwendolyn and the Space Between
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Growing up as an only child is a lesson in resourcefulness. After cats, books were my best companions. While other girls of eight were obsessed with horses and dolphins, I was collecting myths. Weekends were spent sitting cross-legged on the study floor, surrounded by encyclopaedias as I chased up one reference after another to the many wives of Zeus, to the sad fate of Persephone, to the birth of comely ladies on the froth of yonder seas.
Of course, I was lucky enough too to grow up with the wonderful school adventures of a certain young wizard named Harry. Younger generations are relieved of the agony we endured in the wait between instalments, but robbed of the delicious moment when, after another twelve months (twenty years in kid-time), the piggy bank was gleefully smashed and another tome was ours for the relishing. Lewis Carroll, Enid Blyton, Antoine de Saint Exupery and Shaun Tan were just a few of my favourite authors growing up; all masters of pens that wrote words that took you somewhere else while you sat in your comfy chair, all offering up a wonderful parallel reality that you could live in long after the last page was turned.
Of course, I was lucky enough too to grow up with the wonderful school adventures of a certain young wizard named Harry. Younger generations are relieved of the agony we endured in the wait between instalments, but robbed of the delicious moment when, after another twelve months (twenty years in kid-time), the piggy bank was gleefully smashed and another tome was ours for the relishing. Lewis Carroll, Enid Blyton, Antoine de Saint Exupery and Shaun Tan were just a few of my favourite authors growing up; all masters of pens that wrote words that took you somewhere else while you sat in your comfy chair, all offering up a wonderful parallel reality that you could live in long after the last page was turned.
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Available for sale in my Etsy Shop:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/grumpystarstudio
To see more of my adventures in illustration, swing by the blog:
http://melmacklin.blogspot.com.au/
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Available for sale in my Etsy Shop:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/grumpystarstudio
To see more of my adventures in illustration, swing by the blog:
http://melmacklin.blogspot.com.au/
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
