Scratched Sunflower

I can’t help but gush today. My friend Susan lent me Mixed Media Emulsions: Altered Art Techniques for Photographic Imagery by Angela Cartwright and I have spent the week huddled over its pages, drinking way too many cups of tea. I’m abuzz with ideas, but am trying to be methodical, working through the book’s inspirations from beginning to end.

This sunflower image (just in case you can't tell) has been sanded with an emery board and scratched with a book-making awl. I also used the latter to write words in the emulsion. After a few dabs of acrylic paint, I cut the image into close-up vignettes and re-arranged these like an unmatched jigsaw puzzle.

I find mixed media liberating. Its focus on freeing the inner child makes play and process more important than results — how perfect for my new quest to say “goodbye” to perfectionism.

Promotional Ransom Note

My friend Nerida has a business called Admin Bandit, which specialises in an accounting software for community groups. As a writer, I've helped with a range of brochures, press releases and other promotional material, so am absolutely au fait with how her product, also called Admin Bandit, makes keeping the books and meeting various government regulations easy in any organisation — from play groups to sports clubs.

Over a recent lunch of strawberry champagne and roast chicken, Nerida asked my husband Justin to use his illustration skills to come up with some ideas for a fun promotional postcard. Driving home, we brainstormed gags that played on the company name and its logo of an archer ready to shoot his bow and arrow — of course, Robin Hood and William Tell were obvious references.

Justin has to balance his creative efforts with "real" 9-to-5 work so, in the meantime, I came up with this ransom note (how could I resist also trying my hand at such an appealing brief?). I literally cut words and letters from a newspaper, then scanned and put them together in over 50 layers in Photoshop. What an effort for a result that looks so easy!