Athena and Camron

This past week @athenaandcamron launched their Homebody Presets 📷🎉⁠It was so fun to create this colourful illustration to help them capture this moment! I feel like this definitely sums up the 'homebody' side to Athena and Camron - coffee and hanging at their aesthetically pleasing home together. ⁠
They've spent a LONG time (like, years and years and years) developing their photo editing skills and it's so great that they're sharing presets with the world. You can explore their Homebody presets here. This illustration was made with Photoshop and my trusty Wacom tablet.

Wild Wind co

An illustration, logo, and colour scheme for Wild Wind Co photography. Brad is an incredible wedding photographer and it was great to work on his branding.

Hidden Polaroids

Polaroid photography is such a beautiful way of capturing special moments. Sometimes polaroids do not turn out how people plan, or perhaps they are left with photographs of moments they want to let go of. I wanted to bring new life to discarded, ruined, or secret polaroids and began my hidden polaroid series, painting little landscapes on top of these polaroid photographs.

Thank you to those people who have sent me polaroids, I have quite a collection now and am slowly creating these miniature paintings in spare time. All works are oil paint on mini polaroid photographs, created with tiny brushes and sometimes needles to push the paint around!

Frida Kahlo

Some wonderful clients from New Zealand contacted me to create a large portrait of Frida Kahlo, and I obviously jumped at the idea! There are not many artists (especially female artists) that have not been influenced by Frida Kahlo’s work and life. I was influenced by the beautiful Mexican festival Día de los Muertos and Frida’s own self portraits when creating the work.

The painting is 1.3 x 1m, gouache on paper.

My clients chose a mordern ornate white frame to accompany the portrait. It is a beautiful addition! Framing always completes the look of an artwork.

SYMBOLISM:

Colours - each colour in the work was chosen based on their meaning in the Día de los Muertos festival and a page from Frida Kahlo’s diary depicting her use of colour and their meanings.
Día de los Muertos decorations around her eyes, complete with large flower crown that is both used in the festival when dressing up as La Catrina, and quintessential Frida dress.
Three tears falling from Frida’s right eye (left as we see the artwork), symbolising physical suffering and emotional turmoil. Tears are used in her paintings “The Broken Column” 1944, “Self Portrait in Medallion” 1948, and “Diego and I” 1949.
Thorns wrapping Frida’s neck are used in her paintings “Self Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird” and “Self Portrait, Dedicated to Dr Eloesser”, both 1940. Once again these thorns have been included as a reminder of the suffering she experienced.
I have depicted Frida wearing her favourite magenta/pink Rebozo (traditional Mexican scarf) She wears this in a photograph taken by Nickolas Muray called “Frida Kahlo with Magenta Rebozo, ‘Classic’”, 1939. She is adorned with earrings and rings that appear in photos and self portrait. Rings were usually worn on her left hand as rings on her right hand interfered with her painting.
She is holding a marigold (or cempazuchitl) flower. She depicted a small child holding a marigold flower in her painting “Girl with Death Mask - She Plays Alone”. The child is thought to be representing Frida herself as a young girl. The marigold flower is used in the Día de los Muertos festival to guide the spirits of the dead back to their families. It has been included in this portrait as a symbol of Frida’s portrait of the child and to represent how Frida often returns from death to impact people all over the world today.

Personalised Illustration

I love creating personalised illustrations! They make such a lovely and sentimental present.
Some examples of personalised illustrations are below…

Green Glass Studio

Sue from Green Glass Studio creates sustainable fashion accessories from recycled materials. “All my pieces are sawn, annealed, filed, shaped, hammered, soldered and finally polished by hand.”
When Sue contacted me to create an illustration for her jewellery cards, I leaped at the opportunity. I am passionate about sustainable fashion and love Green Glass Studio jewellery!

The illustration is based off an image of the beautiful Sue herself. She cleverly uses the recyclable jewellery cards to display her jewellery. I love the affect! You can find more of Sue and her jewellery here: Green Glass Studio