Happy Mother's Day Janine

Janine and Sophie came for a mother daughter shoot the other day and we had such a good time.  As per our usual pattern we started with Sophie and went out and had a great time in the last day of sun before it all turned to custard. We posed on Graffiti walls, in gardens, and old bricks...I really love petone.  We decided that a trip to the beach was in order when Janine finished her shoot only to be met by completely gale force winds.  They almost got sand blast facials by the end of it.   I think we lasted about 7 minutes on the beach in the end and were afraid we were going to take off like kites but it was good fun and then we ran back to the car to warm up.  Janine I think is more of a kid at heart than Sophie and she got back to her roots riding my bike around the mean streets of Petone.  I so love doing mother and daughter shoots....but it makes me miss my mommy......

A Chocolate Story and a Lazy Sunday

I love lazy Sundays.  There really is nothing better in my mind.  Once in a blue moon the stars collide and I am given a morning of decadence.  This morning I used it to play.  When I am given unstructured time...as rarely as that happens I find that I want to paint...either physically or digitally.  Today it was a digital painting day.   I am taking a digital illustration class to learn how to do vector illustration.  We were given an assignment to create a vector mascot for a food brand.  I started off wanting to do a bit of a piss take on the Honey Badger, but then realized that I really had no interest in illustrating a badger...and the whole reason I took the darn course was to be able to push my feminine drawings and create a modern take on the beautiful graphics of Mucha.   So I changed my mind and decided that I would do something to help the new chocolate boutique that opened a couple of blocks down from my studio.  I would create a poster for them featuring their chocolate.  Something beautiful and inviting and luscious.   Who better to be a model for it than the glorious Salacious Sugar herself.   So off we went on Saturday after my official shoots,  I draped Miss Sugar in some flowy fabrics we had around the studio and stuck her against a beautifully distressed wall down a side road in Petone.  Late afternoon sun reflected off of the wall in front and gave a very soft lighting.  Beautiful!  She looked like a goddess.  You would never have known that there were some sort of animal bones to her right, traffic driving past every couple of minutes, and random shoppers walking by.  It was good good fun.....and we got to eat the chocolate afterward.  Yummmy!  The Chocolate Story is the name of the boutique and it is a lovely wee shop down on Jackson Street In Petone.  YUMMMMMMMMMMYYYY you need to go in and try their Hot chocolate....delicious!  This is the first stage of the illustration, I now am going to try and convert it to vector graphics...Not sure I want to but I do want to make a vector frame about it.  I will post the final one when I have finished for you to have a look at.