Monochrome Inc in NZ House and Garden

My favourite interior designer (and lovely friend) Andrew Loader has been featured in this months NZ House and Garden. Monochrome Inc is a fabulous interior design business based in Auckland.

I was lucky enough to have one of my artworks in the photos (above - caption reads - Called Wahine Toa, this red torso by artist Sophia Elise features a Maori koru pattern rendered in dots). Andrew and Mike bought my torso as a feature artwork for their bedroom a few months ago and I was stoked that it was photgraphed and included inthis feature - what a huge honour!

The rest of the beautiful artwork you see in this article is done by Mike Galvin (another wonderful friend!)

To read the full article go and grab a copy today! :-)

School Art Day

A few weeks ago my daughter (year 4) asked me if I could come to school and teach art for the day. Apparently she had told her class I'm a "famous" artist because I'm on google - and of course I run this "huge" art organisation across NZ. Wow - after that kind of lead up how could I say no. lol


I have to say the thought of teaching groups of children art for a whole day terrified me - trying to think of an activity they could complete in an hour - and of course having never taught children art in my life! arghhh! What was I going to do - aside form freak out and have anxiety attacks?


Anyway - once the panic subsided I thought about the things my kids liked doing - and one was when we did a mini collaborative project artwork like the NZ Art Guild does each year. Perfect - that's what I was going to do. Only thing was I didn't want to use paints (my medium) because of the mess and time constraints. So I decided a dry medium would be better.

I nearly died when they sent home the form telling the kids I was teaching drawing skills - what the ...? Anyone who know me and my art knows that I do abstract - drawing is well and truly out of my sphere of things I do. And as my kids put it - "mum does abstract cos she can't draw real stuff" Thanks guys! lol




The day was a great success - the kids were an absolute delight - and I have a renewed admiration for teachers - man what an exhausting day - I really don't know how they do it - thank you to all the wonderful teachers out there!!







All the children had the same image and colours to work with and were given the same set of instruction s and theme to create to. I really wanted to see how they all interpreted it and I wasn't disappointed with the results - they let their creativity and imaginations go.







Many of you have asked what the finished artworks were like so I have added them here. The best thing about it was hearing them go "wow, awesome, amazing etc" once they saw it all put together. They really were gobsmacked at what they had all managed to achieve together.

Pink and Blue hair

no ... not me before you all panic. Several weeks ago my daughter asked if we could dye her hair - she really wanted to have blue and pink streaks in it. I agreed that we could - but suggested that we only dye the bottom few inches just in case she hated it - that way we could easily cut it off and it would be back to normal.

I asked my friend Helen how she had done her daughters hair (which looked AMAZING! Totally rainbow colours - very funky!) And bought some dye from her.

So off we set on this adventure - my very scared as I'm no hairdresser. Anyway - we had to bleach it to start with- and while the bleach was out my son and fiance both decided that they wanted to join in with the hair dying - so they had blond streaks through the top of their hair.

Hey - who am I to judge - I've been dying my hair since I was 16! And after all - it's only hair - and it's their hair - their choice - it will grow back - and I really think we have more important things to worry about with our kids like, drugs, teen pregnancy, suicide, binge drinking etc than what colour our children want their hair. Anyway - I'm sure most of us would have loved to have had pink and blue hair when we were 9 too - after all by the time we were old enough to do that it wasn't the done thing.

So we finished the dying and the next day my daughter decided she wanted more done - yes she loved it that much. So out with the hair dye again (no bleach this time) and we dyed it again - she didn't want to go all the way to the roots - so we had about 6 inches of natural hair and 10 inches of multicolour streaks.

It's been amazing how positive everyone has been about it - including the school Principal who loved it - in fact we have only heard of three people who haven't liked it - and hey that's their choice to make. So for all the people that asked for photos - I have the stage one's here. Unfortunately I didn't take any of stage two dye and as we didn't bleach it first it has washed out really quickly (mainly because her fathers girlfriend, unfortunately, really hates it and has made her wash her hair heaps when she is with them in order to get the dye out as quickly as possible) Never mind we still have heaps of dye left to do it again and I will be sure to take photos after :-)

I think the best thing about this was seeing how happy my kids were - my son saying he felt and looked like a rock star - my daughter feeling so beautiful and being able to express her creative side through her hair - and seeing the increased confidence in them both. Amazing how a simple thing like allowing them the freedom to decide what they do with their hair can have such a positive impact on their self esteem.

RAK Day! ( Random Act of Kindness )

Today is officially RAK ( Random Act of Kindness Day ) - So I would love to hear all your stories about the RAK that you receive and that you give. Of course RAK don't have to be limited to today - they can be any day of the year - and every day if you feel like it. They don't have to be big - they can be as simple as giving someone a hug who needs it ....

Today 15 artists are doing a RAK - they have donated artworks to be auctioned to raise funds for the North Shore Women's Centre. (See event details below for "Inner Strength" What a perfect day to have this event too! And of course as with many events it's reliant on volunteers so they are all performing RAK's today too ...

Already heard one lovely story today from a friend who's 11 year old did an RAK for her ... yay!!!

To read more about RAK day - www.rak.co.nz

Your invitation to Inner Strength - Charity Art Auction and Exhibition

The NZ Art Guild and North Shore Womens Centre (NSWC) are proud to join together to raise funds and awareness for the NSWC with the Inner Strength Charity Art Auction and Exhibition.

The NSWC are the only holistic service for women, by women on the North Shore. The funds raised from the charity auction will assist in the administration of their core services: low-cost counseling, family support service, free legal clinic, clothing exchange, low-cost courses and support groups and the Go Girl Youth programme. Donations enable NSWC to continue to offer their services at little or no cost to women.

Please join us on September 2nd 6:30pm at the Bruce Mason Centre, Takapuna Auckland where the month long exhibition "Inner Strength" will open with a fantastic charity art auction. Our guest speaker is Catherine Livingstone who has inspired many women over the years and was recently the last woman standing in the NZ Apprentice

Top NZ artists - Jess Foote, Lisz Bodsworth, Angela Laby, Sophia Elise, Rachel Olsen, Sharlene Scmidt, Nancy Frazer, Michele Courage, Merle Bishop, Lorraine Beattie, Liz de King, Lauryne Hart, Jane Santos, Beate Minderjahn, and Amy Walker have also generously donated artworks to be auctioned on the night. 100% of the proceeds will be donated to NSWC.

The theme of this exhibition is "Celebrating and Strengthening Women" and it brings together 33 very, talented NZ female artists from around NZ.

We would like to thank the following sponsors:
Tony Laugharn - Barfoot and Thompson
Tineswari Maruthamuthu - Graphic Designer
Kip Brook - Word of Mouth Media

For more information about the NSWC of NZ go to www.nswomenscentre.co.nz

To view the Online Auction Catalogue -
http://nzartguild.blogspot.com/2010/07/auction-catalogue-inner-strength.html