On your desk

I've got another new print up in my store that I wanted to show you.  It's a nice little collection of things you might find on your desk, available in three colourways.  I love this one and I've even hung it on my own wall, hope you like it!

Red and Blue

Orange, Blue and Green

Happy New Year New Prints Yadda Yadda

Happy new year everyone!  Hope you had a lovely festive season.

In the lead up to Christmas I was insanely busy.  I had the fantastic opportunity to work at Donna Wilson's studio, helping them prepare for their ridiculously busy festive season and sample sale.  It was such a lovely place to work, and a really inspiring experience.

After finished up at Donna Wilson I was lucky enough to have a quiet, uneventful Christmas and new year.  Just what the doctor ordered to recharge the batteries!

Now, back down to business!

I have some new prints for sale in my store.  A couple of colour variations on my scandi houses print and another, an amusing motto for your wall.  Check them out, hope you like them!

Scandi Houses - Primary Colours

Scandi Houses - Black 

You Won't Feel the Benefit

Season's Eatings

True story.  Merry Christmas.

Bzzz

Just a quick doodle I did last night!

Autumnal

It's warm this weekend, but this week there's been a hint of Autumn in the air.  Summer was late this year but after 3 solid months of rain we've had some beautiful weather here in London, but it's exciting to think about wearing scarves and coats again!

A New Print!

Hi folks!  Have just added a new print to my shop.. first new one in a while!  It started as a doodle on Saturday night, sort of a loosening up doodle at the start of an evening's drawing but quickly escalated into a print in my favourite colour scheme.. so here it is!  It's available in A3 and A4 sizes. Hope you like it!

Kidlings

Here's a few quick doodles I did today, coloured in photoshop.

ANZAC Biscuits

I’m not a very good cook.  I don’t know how to crack an egg without getting the shell in there, I burn a lot of things, often myself.  But there are a few easy recipes that I love and if I can manage them then anyone can!

This ANZAC biscuit recipe is the first one I wanted to share with you.  In case you don’t know, I was born and grown in Australia and these biscuits are often baked and eaten there.

ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and the story goes that during the first world war wives would bake these and send them to their chaps overseas because they wouldn’t spoil and I guess these ingredients weren’t rationed.

They are delicious.  

I usually make a double batch otherwise they last about five seconds around here.  This recipe is from here.

Ingredients

• 85g porridge oats
• 85g desiccated coconut
• 100g plain flour
• 100g caster sugar
• 100g butter, plus extra butter for greasing
• 1 tbsp golden syrup
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method

Heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Put the oats, coconut, flour and sugar in a bowl.

Melt the butter in a small pan and stir in the golden syrup.

Add the bicarbonate of soda to 2 tbsp boiling water, then stir into the golden syrup and butter mixture.

Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour in the butter and golden syrup mixture. Stir gently to incorporate the dry ingredients.

Put dessertspoonfuls of the mixture on to buttered baking sheets, about 2.5cm/1in apart to allow room for spreading.

Bake in batches for 8-10 mins until golden. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Tomato Soup

Love tomato soup with some nice crusty bread.  I just made myself hungry.

A Walk

Went for a walk to Brockwell Park and Herne Hill today, here's a few photos.

It's that big photo post..

Spent a little time on the weekend going through photos I've taken over the last few months.  So here goes it, that big (too big?) photo post...

On my birthday back in may we walked along the Thames from Vauxhall into town.  One of my favourite London things to do.  Standing across from the houses of parliament I snapped this moss.  I always seem to be more interested in small details that the grand scene.

Tape dispensers on my window sill.

My Mum made this great bag for me from some of my fabric.  It's a great overnight bag and I take it with me when we go away.

We spent a weekend in Brighton last month.  Terrible weather so we stayed inside most of the time.

Last week we discovered Dulwich Park and fell completely in love.  Can we live in Dulwich please?  

Got some succulents from Ikea a while back, they are going great!  About the only plants I manage not to kill immediately.

Great clock also from Ikea.  They had it in yellow too and it took everything in my power to buy both.. and now I'm thinking.. I should have just bought both!  

Got these very nice trays from Habitat, discounted to £2.50 each! 

Finally, my new Spoonflower fabric samples arrived the other day, so you can now purchase the fruit and berry fabrics here.  I'm very pleased with how they turned out.

Limonata

Just another doodle.  Love this drink, so refreshing!

Summer!

Wow, what a wonderfully sunny week we've been having here in London.  Much needed after months of constant rain.  Back to rain next week so we're all trying to make the most of it.

Here's a summer-y doodle for you.

A table!

Check out this side table I found in a charity shop today, five quid!

The varnish on top is in pretty bad shape so I think I'm going to paint (just the top) a nice mid century mustard!

Here's an artists impression of how amazing it will look when I'm done...

Weird Weather

The weather is all over the place at the moment.  Here's a few shots I snapped with my phone from my desk this afternoon. 

Sushi Doodle

Here's some nori rolls for you.  One of my favourite things to draw and, let's face it, eat.

Tenuously relevant but I wanted to say that I was so sad to hear of the passing of Nora Ephron a couple of weeks ago.  I actually cried when I heard it on the radio.  She wrote and directed many excellent rom-coms (my favourite kind of com) as well as many novels.  Most importantly to me, Nora wrote my favourite film, You've Got Mail.  I know it's a remake but I've seen the original and for me it's nothing compared to the redo.  I love that film and so many lines from it live in my head.. "bouquets of freshly sharpened pencils", "I'm going to the nut shop where it's fun!", "closing the store was the brave thing to do, you're choosing to believe that you could have a different life"... I could go on... anyway, there's a bit where Kathleen and Frank agree on sushi for dinner and they both exclaim "sushi!".  I always think of it when I eat sushi.  

Summer Fruits and Berries

It's funny how inspiration strikes sometimes.  I read this blog post which lead me to this photoshop brush, which is a fantastic replication of a pencil.  I love drawing in pencil so I'm always searching for great digital versions, none I've found before have really been that great.  This one however, is amazing.  As soon as I got it I played around with it and fell in love.  We were away in Brighton for the weekend when I got it so I didn't have my Wacom to really take it for a proper spin.  Using it was all I could think of when I got home, but I had a load of other work to do and no time to really try it.  I honestly, truly, lost sleep thinking about what I could be doing with that brush.  Mental I know.  

Anyway anyway.. last night we got home from a music business conference we'd been at for two days.. I sat down on the sofa with my macbook and my Wacom (ergonomic nightmare..) I started drawing some lemons and I didn't stop until I'd created four different fruit patterns.. I went to be bed at three and I got up this morning and did four more.  Aaaand breath.  When I find something like this that I love doing I find I can't stop until it's done! It's like being hypnotised!  I love how the creative floodgates can be opened by a simple, unexpected thing!

Hope you like these patterns, I've put them up on Spoonflower where they'll be for sale as soon as I get the swatches back.  Hope they brighten you're day if it's as gloomy as the one here in London.

I've also put each one up individually on my new revamped website if you'd care to take a look!

thinking about a tshirt..

Would anyone be interesting in purchasing a tshirt like this if I had them made?  I've been thinking about getting some screen printed and I need a minimum of 10 orders to do it.  The shirts would be around £15.  Would probably do a choice of red or grey.. 

Anyone fancy it?

Desk Doodles

This is my desk.  Well, a small portion of it anyway.  I’m a prolific fidget, so I can’t really sit still while docs are saving, pages are loading etc, so I always sit with a small stack of A3 paper in front of me.  As the day goes on I end up with a strange collection of characters, foxes, patterns and whatnot.

I also use it to work out how to draw a certain thing, sometimes these doodles actually turn into a full illustration so I have to carefully cut out the part I need, hoping there's no tea drops in a crucial place.

If you follow me on instagram (amyalisha) you will have seen many of these doodles up close!  Can you tell from this photo that I’m left handed?

MV

Mike Viola asked me to do another poster for a gig, so obviously I made him into an octopus. 

He's also playing in London on Thursday 21st June.  I highly recommend you go if yr in town.  Mike is one of my favourite artists on the planet, a really, really nice guy and he hasn't played in London since 1995! His music is fantastic, he makes records on his own, and he also does the music for films like Walk Hard and Get Him to the Greek. 

String

Quick painting I did on the iPad while waiting for my dinner to cook.  

Circles

I drew this pattern last year and it's just been languishing on my computer since then. So this morning I decided to put it to use over on Society6, where you can buy it on phone cases and skins, as well as laptop skins and prints. It's available in three colours.  Hope you like it!

Pizza

Still enjoying mess free painting over here!  Tried to think of something ridiculous in a grandiose way.