Catherine Campbell

work in progress...

Sometimes the process of making new stuff feels never-ending! I am always doing images over and over again to get things just how I want them. It can get a little frustrating when you have the idea in your head and you just want it to appear magically on the page in front of you... oh I need some super powers! Here is a little work in progress image of what's cooking...

Excuse the dusty scan! I also have an exhibition coming up in June for a local arts festival called Northern Exposure. Each artist has been given two of the same format canvas to work on and I think it will be lots of fun... however I've got to get busy, only about 15 days to go...

mmm... hopefully I will be posting some finished work soon!

autumn...

Well I must admit I do get a bit jealous when reading blogs from the other side of the world, talking about spring and the coming summer. Things are starting to cool down here... so what better way to enjoy the chill than with a new coat! Look at my puff sleeves :) mmm you could hardly call them sleeves, it will probably be most inappropriate... but so cute.

Also, I finished this little crochet scarf the other day. I took the photo before I finished off the loose ends but here it is anyway, pinned with my favourite antique brooch...

inspiration...

This is an image from Another Magazine and it has had a big influence on my work at the moment, I love this image! I have been doing a lot of small bits and pieces lately but finally I feel a bit of inspiration coming on to do a big (hopefully!) series of work. I'm thinking a tribe of little girls who have stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine... but somehow got it a little bit wrong... bows and arrows and marshmallow colours... yum!

sign...

I just finished this little piece for illustration friday. The theme is sign, so I decided to make a little moody sign by painting both sides of a mail tag. Here is the front...

and here is the back...

I was intending it to be a little more clear which was the happy and which the sad, however they both became rather melancholy! Oh well instead of call one happy and the other sad... one will be green leafy and the other storm brewer...

prints and other lovely things...

Over the last week I have been uploading some prints to my etsy store, here are just a few...

They are all available in my shop. Also I have to say a big thank you to some lovely people who have made mention of my work recently... I'm am quite amazed and blushing a little, please take a look here and here and here and here... thank you very very much!

new labels...

I just designed some little labels for sending out my packages!

winter garden...

This afternoon, after I finished work, I came home with a box of seedlings ready to plant my winter vegetable garden. I haven't had veggies growing for a few months now and I was starting to miss it... so I went a bit crazy at the nursery.
If all goes to plan I should have celery, silverbeet, broccoli, bok choi, beetroot, lettuce, parsley, brussel sprouts (yuk! only growing them for the rabbits), snow peas, normal peas, rosemary, mint and strawberries!
Hopefully I will get lots of healthy strawberry plants growing... home grown strawberries taste amazing. Oh my goodness I'm going to turn into a vegetable!

quiet please...

I am working on a new series at the moment using straw board, old book pages and brown craft paper. This is the first pair I have finished and the work is called "Quiet Please". Rabbits are quiet, humans are loud... sometimes. Hopefully I will finish a few more little pairs in the next couple of days. If you would like to see it in more detail, I have made a gallery over on the left hand side called "strawboard stories".

crab apples...

We are quite lucky to have a few fruit trees in our backyard, one of which is a crabapple tree. Instead of watch all the fruit drop to the ground and be eaten by my rabbits, as I did last year, I decided to make jam! For my first attempt I think it went very well... it set properly and it tastes really good. I will hopefully be able to make another batch while there is still some crab apples left on the tree! Here is a little picture on a lovely sunny autumn day...

And here is one of my rabbits, Mr Bunny, who still managed to find many to eat amongst the grass!

little pin-ups...

I have been having lots of fun over the last two days making these little collages on some manila mail tags for my shop, I have them called "Little Pin-ups". These images have been inspired by my "Little Papercuts" series, however I think these girls have a more colourful dress sense! This is what clothes would look like if people wore confetti! These three are about 2" x 4.5" each so they are quite small, and they are available right here.

I had to keep one though as I wanted to give it to my Mum for Mother's day, which was Sunday in this part of the world. I put her in a frame with some green card as backing and I think she came up quite well!

hello...

Hello Typepad! Well I have given it much thought and I have decided to open a typepad account. I have a blog over at livejournal which I like very much, however I came to the conclusion that typepad is just so much more... pretty! Also, you can make lists! I like lists.

So here I am. This little blog will be for all kinds of things, especially my art and also the "My Folk Lover" shop over at Etsy.

I hope you can come and have a look every now and again. xx