Hands up those who have a habit of making lists! I write so many lists…I have a list for each topic!

Grocery list
New products to work on
On going projects for clients
Daily reminders
Current favourite songs
Books that I want to read
Films that I want to watch
Even a list of quotes!

I have my notes stuck on my table and it’s quite a sorry state to look at. So I decided that if I was going to stick notes all around my table, I was going to illustrate some cute and happy ones that would brighten up my work space.

So here is my Grow strong and healthy notepads. Each notepad is filled with 40 pages of full colour illustrations of Little Mo working in her vegetable garden. I love them and I am really happy at how good they turned out! I hope you will enjoy them!

Tell me what’s on your list of things to do today?

One of our favourite travels during our time in Asia was Hong Kong. It was a melting pot of culture, smell, food and arts. My biggest regret was not visiting Chungking mansion. If you are a huge Wong Kar Wai fan like myself, you will know about his cult favourite, Chungking Express. So it really was a shame that I didn’t venture into this symbolic place that had inspired me so hugely into taking an interest in film and arts.

Most of the time, I felt like I was walking in a scene from a Wong Kar Wai film or a Haruki Murakami novel (much of his films were inspired by the author’s writings). I found myself thinking about similar themes in their stories; long dark night, girl and boy meets, a slow jazz number, bright neon lights flickering above, seagulls by the pier, a ferry ride, when dawn comes girl and boy parts.

If only it was that easy to write a novel!

But it really felt like I was walking in one. You’ll know my exact sentiments when you read or watch any of the two artists’ works.

For the second shoot, we shot inside the studio, in the green screen room. We had some scenes that needed special effects in them and so the green screen was helpful for keying out these shots. This is a continuation of the factory scene and so once again our beloved conveyor belt is lapping up the camera’s attention.

The device you see on the picture is called a jib. Sometimes you see sweeping shots in a movie scene; where the camera sweeps across the floor in slow or fast motion, or sweeps up and moves away. This is what the jib does. The jib can also be used to shoot top down shots or low angles. Here the boys are fastening the camera to the jib to shoot a top down shot of the conveyor belt. Jibs can vary in sizes, the more ambitious your shots, the bigger and grander the jib.

This scene took us the whole day to shoot, but was relatively easier than the first shoot. I’ll post again when we head down to do location shooting for our next shoot.

Apart from working on Little Mo and Friends, I also freelance in graphic design and media production work. One of our first projects for this year is a music video shoot for local band, Blac Blocs. Shot in stop motion animation.

This is the factory scene, where the workers are working at the assembly line. We made the conveyor belt a day before by putting together a make shift table, some aluminum pieces and black rubber mats. On screen, when cropped, it looked pretty convincing…which was all that mattered to us.

On the day of the shoot, with the help of the band members, we moved each item on the conveyor belt frame by frame. Such is the process for stop motion animation. And if anyone has seen stop motion animation (like the RAC ad on tv), you’ll know that it’s really tough and grueling work and often takes up to two to three days to shoot one scene!

Ours took two days to shoot this factory scene. In my next post, I’ll show you some scenes where we shot inside the studio using green screen.

Not too sure what our best mate will say about this, as this is his parent’s place and he’s actually looking to move out! But to me, it’s perfect in every way.

Nothing is sweeter than walking under a roof of leaves and flowers and tending to your vegetable patch. And as you sit out in the porch after a day’s work, the horses are gently grazing in the garden.

Surely such places only exist in heaven?

When I was young I had fond memories of playing paper dolls with my mum. We spent hours playing with paper dolls, no larger than the palm of our hands. Finding cute outfits and accessories to fit onto our dolls was the best part!

So 27 years on, I am still pretty much obsessed with my paper doll memories. Last weekend I illustrated a set of outfits for Little Mo and created a Spring Love collection.

It’s times like this when you really wish for a little girl to play paper dolls with! Playing alone, isn’t as much fun as it used to be when I was a kid! And I doubt my fiance would want to sit around playing paper dolls all day!

Do you have someone sweet you can play paper dolls with?

If you haven’t already heard on the news, lots of lives and homes (and towns) have been lost in the Victorian Bushfire last weekend.

While we can’t replace the lives that have been lost in this tragic accident, we can help to donate some much needed funds to the Australian Red Cross / Victorian Bushfire Appeal. This will go a long way into helping the victims rebuild their homes, their towns and their lives again.

The wonderful members of the Dust Team have collectively organised and set up the OzBushfireAppeal shop.

The shop sells a variety of gifts, donated by the many talented and generous Etsians. So pick a handmade gift today for a very good cause!

Alternatively you can also donate directly to the Australian Red Cross

Yaay! I’m very excited about my new writing sets as they feature some of Little Mo’s cute forest friends! These two writing sets feature the adorable Wilco the cat, and Basil and her two ducklings; Salt and Pepper.

Each writing set comes in sweet coloured sheets, matching envelopes and cute stickers to seal your mail! All professionally printed! I think snail mail is the perfect way to brighten up your friend’s day as well as their mailbox! Do you like snail mails?

For Valentine’s day, I would love to be given this flower like plant! I think it’s more unique than a red rose. Don’t you think so?

I think this plant would make very sweet illustrated notecards. Will definitely keep them for my drawing board, after I have finished with my new designs!

- Use longer bacon strips as they wrap easier.
- Slice some capsicum into thin strips.
- Gather the asparagus into a bundle of 4 to 8 (if you have longer bacon strips you can use up to 8 asparagus)
- Wrap bacon strip around the asparagus and 2 strips of capsicum.
- Pan fry or grill.

Serve with sour cream