Sunday 21 July 2013

A new toy that John Cooper would be proud of

I've gotten myself a new toy, tentatively dubbed the "Kaos Mobile", my little JCW Mini is such a joy to drive at the moment. A heavier car than the Corolla that I had before, more power and of course she is manual (who would want to drive a Mini with an auto transmission?).


It is such a gorgeous morning here in Melbourne, bloody cold, but gorgeous. Tempted to take to the hills with the Kaos car and my DSLR ...

What are you up to today?

Friday 12 July 2013

Come one, come all to the Night of Intrigue Bazaar

I am very excited about my first market in ages ... It has been quite liberating to throw myself into the process of dreaming, planning and then creating products that I love.

Often they tend to start off as something that I would like, and then they evolve into something that perhaps you might like.


Tomorrow night at A Night of Intrigue, I will have my Alternative Nursery Prints available for purchase for $40 each. They have been all printed on photo lustre paper with professional archival inks. They will look fabulous in your nursery or in your office. A3 size, it fits perfectly into the Ikea RIBBA Frame.


I'm very excited about these "Horror Movie" brooches. Funky and retro!



And equally excited about getting back in the game again. It's been too long between markets and whilst I teach and do other things, this part of my life ignites a creative fire that basically keeps me sane!

Monday 8 July 2013

Comparing print quality: Giclee vs. Photo Lustre prints

It has been an exciting week picking up some print samples form Lantern Printing in Middle Park.

I was convinced that the Giclee print was the way to go, but comparing a sample against some photo lustre prints, the black is definitely blacker in the photo print.



The print on the left is the Giclee print and the left is photo lustre print. The shiny print is lovely, nice and crisp.



Framed up in an ikea Ribba print, it will look gorgeous on the wall of Nicholas' bedroom.

I can't wait to get the goth and steam-punk version of this finished, but I keep on getting distracted by other shiny things on the internet!





Saturday 6 July 2013

What colour do you like your frames? Red or Black?

Having tremendous amount of fun with Illustrator. I love the fact that with Society6 you can play around with different styles of frames to see what the print will look like on the wall.

I have ordered a print from Society6 to check the quality and after playing around with framing options online, I am tempted to spray paint an old ikea frame red for Nicholas' room.


But which one do you prefer? Black or white?


Can't wait to see this up on the wall of my son's bedroom, I still prefer the black print though.

What are your thoughts?

Thursday 4 July 2013

Are you following us on Facebook?

My blog posts are few and far between at the moment. But I tend to post my ideas, musings and thoughts onto the Konstant Kaos Facebook page.

For example prototype art pieces such as the Nursery Space Poster, do you think it would look better in white? Personally I think that it loses some of the effect, but some people don't like that much black in a nursery.



What about my new spider? 

I am currently working on a Gothic A-Z Nursery Print, sneak previews tend to occur via the Konstant Kaos Facebook page.



We will try not to spam you too much, tell us what you think of our new products.


Tuesday 2 July 2013

Spaced Out Nursery Art Print

New to the Konstant Kaos range is this gorgeous Nursery Art print for those parents who are a bit sick of powder blue and pink.



These can be purchased through Society 6 in whatever size you want them in. They do printing onto archival print paper.

Take a look and let me know what you think!

Monday 1 July 2013

Experimenting with Shrinkable Plastic for a knockout neckpiece

A crafty friend set me a challenge to help her with a neckpiece for Supernova.


She sent me through an illustrator file with ZZAP on it, but I wanted to try some other ideas. My groovy Year 11 class provided me with some ideas;  Splosh, Gooey, Kaboom, Crash, Crack, Splat, Vroom, Bam, Sock.



Biggest challenge with shrinkable plastic is to understand the shrinking characteristics of the plastic. Do what the instructions say, make a ruler, understand how it shrinks. Also to understand colours, make a graduated colour sampler with RGB or CYMK listed so that you can understand how the colour changes when you shrink it.

For example, below are a few shrinkable neck pieces done on inkjet. The colours look washed out, but when you actually shrink them the colour intensifies.


As you can see the colours become richer and more vibrant.

After they have cooled down, coat them in Diamond Glaze or Modge Podge Dimensional to give them a more luxurious feel. I prefer to drill my holes in after I have shrunk the plastic, so that they are nice and neat.


My daughter has also had a ball with shrinkable plastic. Experimenting, playing with colours and making her own pendants and brooches. Great holiday fun!