Pigeons

In some ways cities are all the same, in almost every city in the world there's a statue of a man on a horse and no one ever knows who he is. But the pigeons love it. They really should make a statue specially for pigeons, they are after all big statue fans.

Coroico, Bolivia

This is me after my first Spanish lesson, all Espanoled out.
It is so hard to learn things again, I realised I haven’t really learned anything new in ages. Spanish grammar is tricky I had homework and everything just like being in school again. And just like in school I found myself procrastinating, I’ll just draw this picture and then I’ll do my Spanish homework. Shameful that I’m still exactly the same.

Even so I had a great time in Coroico, learning Spanish, drawing, eating and reading not a bad way to spend a few days. That's why I’m happily floating above the trees.

Hippylitus

Hippylitus, a severe infliction that turns one into a hippy.
I never thought this will happen to me, 6 months ago I was wearing pencil skirts and heels. My outfits sometimes coordinated down to my underwear. I judged other people by what they wore, brown and black together? I’m not sure we can be friends anymore.

But here I am 6 months into traveling and I’ve lost all right to judge.

Right now I’m wearing hiking boots covered in dust and what might or might not be bird poo. Khaki combat pants that's gotten low in the crotch, a grey and blue Peruvian jumper, you know the kind with llamas and patterns all over it.

And like all good backpackers I’ve got accessories, a leather cuff from Brazil, a ratty tattered wish ribbon that's supposed to make my wishes come true when it falls off, I wish it would bloody fall off now and a blue beaded bracelet my friends got me for my birthday.

To round off this random look I’m also wearing a bright yellow sarong as a scarf and I’ve got a pretty pink embroidered handbag from Peru on my person. It’s a whole lot of look. But this is what happens when you have limited options and you get cold, you just layer on whatever is at hand. Patterns and colours matching is distant memory.

People are starting to judge. My friends and family from back home have made some comments, but more disconcertingly I had a tiny local laugh at me. A little boy of about four pointed and laughed at me. And this is a people who happily embraces colour and pattern, the more of it the better.

The problem is that deep down I still love fashion, I fantasise about my wardrobe back home the way fat girls on a diet dream about chocolate...

Oh well only six more months till I get back in heels. Meanwhile that little Bolivian better watch out I’m bigger than him.

Like a bloody snail

So I´ve been travelling for 6 months. That means six months of carrying everything I own (on this continent at least) on my back. Living out of a back pack. wearing the same outfits over and over again. Sharing rooms, bathrooms and generally not having a space to call my very own. Now I know one cannot really complain when you are travelling all over and seeing and doing amazing things and meeting (mostly) lovely people, but it does get a bit much. I now know what snails must feel like.

Which is why I´ve taken a few days out and am currently in Coroica a little place outside of La Paz in Bolivia and I have my very own little cabin. It´s the most space I´ve had to myself in six months. I have a bed, bathroom, kitchen and even dining room table all to myself! Crazy luxury! And all for a steep R49 a night.I love Bolivia.

Who would´ve thought that my own bathroom and being able to make myself a cup of tea could make me this happy?

Eat, Pray, Love

Ola amigos! So I have recently re-read, for the third time, Elizebeth Gilberts,"Eat, Pray, Love" three times, I know. But I was stuck, if stuck is the right word, happily stuck on an island with nothing to do and nothing else to read. Not that I minded it, it´s one of those books you can read over and over again. Up there in my faveroute book bracket along with The Little Prince and Shantaram.

Anyway one of the parts of the books I like is where she says that God is not some guy in the sky but that he resides in our hearts. I can just picture God kicking back with a beer watching Haas Das se nuuskas in my heart. Picture of a llama on the wall, because lets face it if you created something as hysterical and awesome as a llama you´d also have a picture of it on your wall.

Also saw the movie of "Eat, Pray, Love" the other day, not as good as the book. I thought it was a bit disjointed. But then movies hardly ever live up to the books they are based on. Enjoyed it anyway. It´s such a treat to see a english movie whilst travelling in South-America and the fact that it went with a coke, chocolate covered peanuts and popcorn made me a happy lady indeed.

Pablo

This is Pablo clad in Peruvian knitwear. I love peruvian knitwear, that´s my jersey and beanie in picture with Pabs. I also have knitted llama mittens, leg warmers and arm warmers, although the arm warmers are actually just leg warmers I wear on my arms :)

We´re off to Bolivia tomorrow after 3 months in Peru. Took a whole lot of patience and fighting our way through jungles of red tape but got the visa in my passport and bus tickets booked. I loved Peru but am very excited about Bolivia, I hope its quieter and that the pavements are less slippery there.

Arequipan doodle

This is a doodle I did in Arequipa, Peru. We loved Arequipa such a pretty city and such pretty stuff to buy everywhere! If I had backpack space and cash to spend I would've shopped up a storm. Lucky I have to carry everything I own on my back so that made me hold back somewhat which is good for my bank balance.

I did however buy the pretty bag you see in the pic, they have the most amazing embroidery there, really beautiful stuff. Which inspired this doodle that I did sitting in the sun in the Plaza the armas.

Food fairies

This is bits and pieces of the cookbook I worked on when I started my trip. It's a cookbook for little girls and I did most of it from Rio de Janeiro with little monkeys watching me work. One even made a go for my computer mouse. Its finally about to see the light of day. Being launched this month at the bookfair in Cape Town. Available through Quivertree publications.

Doodles and things

Haven't updated in a while, this traveling thing keeps you pretty busy at times. But here's some illies I've done on this trip one is of an actual humming bird that really has a tail like that, we spotted in Peru. The other is the flooded forest in the Amazon jungle, Brazil, the dark bottom parts of the tree is the watermark, the water drops by 12 meters its pretty amazing. The third illy is just a little girl standing in the rain that I drew because it was raining.

Hairy cat

This is Jerry, he belongs to Charlie our Brazilian friend from Niteroi. Jerry enjoys sulking and stalking the computer mouse, sometimes in an attempt to attack and kill the mouse he may accidently scratch your hand.

Baby blankies and a business card

It's been a while since I've updated the blogg since we've been on boats and busses for what feels like weeks and in reality is weeks. We are now in Peru and was so happy to find a lovely little cafe that sells tea (haven't had tea in weeks) plays nice music (the music on boats and busses are loud and terrible) and has wi-fi, happiness. So while there is wi-fi and tea freely available let me update.

Here are the final products of the baby blankies and business card I did for my mom, I think they turned out quite nice. So cool to be able to work from South-America and see stuff happen.

Bunny tree hugger

I've been trying for a while now to put illustrations on i-stock (an image bank), being technically inept its been difficult. Think I finally have it all figured out. If so this will be one of the pictures available on i-stock.

The squirrels of love

These little squirrels I actually did ages ago. It was the wedding card for my friend Jenna's wedding in April shortly before I left Cape Town. And it was a pretty spectacular wedding, so glad I was still there for it!

High in the sky

This little girl was done for a pitch to do a range of greeting cards.

Blankies

These are pics for my mom, she is having them embroidered on baby blankets. She is a busy lady. If you happen to be in Cape Town and in need of a baby blanky let me know. Will put up embroidered blankies when done.

Love blooms

My mom is starting a little business, she's going to be doing flowers for weddings and other events. So I had to come up with a name and corporate ID for her, the name my travel buddy Bakes actually came up with, clever Bakes.

Bird Island

We've left Rio and are now in Paraty a ridiculously beautiful little place four hours out of Rio. Yesterday we went kayaking exploring all these little islands in the bay of Paraty. One of them was bird island, well its not really called bird island I have no idea what its called but it was covered, jam packed with birds, the sun was heading down so all you could see were these two big boulders, trees and a whole lot of birds in silhouette. Really pretty.

Susie's 30th

I've been very slack with posting things on my blog, apologies to all 5 my readers :)

Anyhoo here's a little drawing I did for my friend and travel buddy Susie who turned 30 in Rio De Janeiro. Not a bad place to turn 30, we celebrated by eating a whole lot of meat!

A fairy and a ginger

These two are initial little characters I did for a book I'm currently working on. They've changed a lot since then. It's a fun project the monkeys in Rio think so too, they are always watching me work, making sure that I don't slack off...

Crazy/Brave

I'm in Rio De Janeiro in Copacabana to be precise. The hostel where we are staying has a graffiti wall so I had to do a little drawing of us. This is me and my travel amigas, Sue on the left, Bakes in the middle and me holding a little monkey. The crazy/brave is because whenever we tell people what we're doing they either say we are crazy or brave so we reckon we are probably a bit of both.

Another invite

This one for my friend Jenna's hen do. The theme was J as both their names starts with a J so I dressed up like a jam jar. Very excited for the wedding!

Off and away!,

I'm packing up my life in Cape Town and going traveling, to the lands where the llamas roam free of course! South-America. I counted and I only have 11 days left at work and less than a month till I fly, yikes! It is very scary but also very exciting I have constant butterflies in the belly.

This is the invite I did for our farewell, me and my friend Bakes that is. She's the blond one being chased by a little red bird and I'm in the yellow dress. It's a remarkable likeness so if you happen to walk past and recognise one of us please say hi. The only difference is that we do have noses, unlike our illustrated counter parts :).

Oh I am taking a laptop with me so am hoping to still be able to freelance and draw pictures and update my blogg along the way. It might become a travel/illustration blog.

Quiz

I did this invite for a friend who's church is hosting a quiz night to raise money. It was fun to draw a dorky chick with big glasses. Its also nice to do work for friends as I did once scamp got the go ahead straight away and then did the final, none of the usual back and forth. Lovely.

The Magical Garden

Our Strategy department at work ( I work in advertising) asked all the creatives to submit designs for their office wall the theme being a garden, this is mine. The winners gets a cash prize and their idea on a wall. I think mine might be a bit quirky for a strat department though.

Oh my

This is a little doodle of a bear who walked into his room only to find his bunny slippers at it. Naughty bunnies. This isn't of course real work this is me amusing myself.

The fish wears the scarf but the turkey wants the belt

No I haven't had a stroke I'm learning to speak Portuguese and this is one of the sentences I've learnt, handy I know. But the logic behind learning random sentences is that you actually learn the meaning of the words and grammar as opposed to just learning phrases like a parrot. It does mean that I look like an absolute nutter walking around my neighbourhood I-pod on talking about dirty jellyfish and free cupboards to myself.

Bunny and Clyde

So friday eve I went for a walk after work and walked pass a fluffy white bunny just chilling on the side of the road. The guy across the street was outside watering his garden so I asked him if he knows where the bunny resides, figuring that it got out. Seems the bunny as well as some of his friends did get out, 6 months ago, most of the friends have been recaptured and returned to the neighbours garden but two bunnies have been living on the run managing to avoid recapture. Sure enough a block down I came across bunny number two. So now we can add bunnies to the wildlife in my neighbourhood we already have guineafowl, squirrels (including an albino) and Egyptian geese.

Water colours

So I haven't had any freelance this year which means that outside of my day job I haven't done anything and its almost the end of Jan. So last night I got the water colours out and had some fun of my own. Its so nice to paint haven't done it in ages, I normally do line drawings and then work on the computer. Nice to do something without a computer for a change, also this way I can watch tv whilst working. Want to do some more non-computer stuff.

Bit of a story

Part of a story I illustrated last year, unfortunately the whole thing got cancelled before I could finish it.

Saving

Heres a few icons I did for a book on how to save, had to do little pictures to illustrate different chapters. The wedding one is my faveroute.

Maya's little book

Happy new year everyone. So I've been meaning to post this for a while and incidentally one of my new years resolutions are to stop procrastinating so much so here it is. Last year I wrote and illustrated a little book for my god daughter Maya ( I've published the whole thing in a previous post) anyway I wanted to have it printed and bound and made into a proper little book for her. This turned out to be harder than anticipated with the printers and binders messing it up first time round, eventually after a lot of time and cash got it right and it turned out really well. So cool to have something published even though I had to do it myself. So Maya has her little book and she loves it. My brother took some photos of it before I handed it over to those little destructive hands.