Happy Christmas!

Wishing everyone a very happy Christmas - full of fun, friends and lots of food! jookiku is looking forward to 2013...it will be a year of lovely collaborations, lots of new jookiku characters...and the opening of the jookiku shop - yay!

Happy Christmas everyone! 

retro wrap

how cute is this wrap??? i was going through my 'stores' of collected patterns, illustrations etc. and came upon these 2 pieces of very old christmas paper that a friend gave me many years ago...had to share. aren't the colours used and the illustration style just beautiful?

getting in the festive mood...part 2

...and a couple more festive scenes from my home....i made my little 'japanese angel' wreath quite a few years ago now, but she has really aged well and is happy to be out of the suitcase and adorning our front door. As for my little white ceramic cat: he is pretty comfy in his glass vase filled with tinsel, looking towards the heavens.

getting in the festive mood....part 1

I do love a good, colourful bird on a tree for Christmas...love a bit of quirky decorating at this time of year...with the 'not-so' traditional sorts of decorations.

the 'efuto' drive

Look at these funny little envelopes?? What are they for? Well, i'll explain....one of my fellow surface pattern design graduates, Gill Eggleston (you can find her over here), had this great idea. it is called an 'EFUTO' drive: (efuto is japanese for picture envelope). The plan was to design 2 envelopes in your style, send one to a fellow surface pattern designer friend. My recipient is Karen McGregor (you can find her gorgeous blog here) and the other envelope, you mail back to yourself (complete with stamp and postmark). Gill is then going to compile a little book, containing the envelope artworks that we have sent back to ourselves (they will be digital artworks of course). It will be a great little directory of surface pattern designers. Can't wait to see the finished product! Will keep you posted...pardon the pun :)

Thankyou Majo!

Thank you soooo much to the super-creative Maria Jose Bautista Vargas (a.k.a Majo), for featuring me on her gorgeous blog yesterday. She is one of the very talented designers i have met through the fab course i did during the year: The Art & Business of Surface Pattern Design. One of our 'projects' was to come up with designs for nail art. Majo has managed to paint my "Kitsch Chicks"designs (so accurately) on her nails!! I really don't know how she did it - pretty clever!
Thank you Majo for the lovely feature. For much more of Majo's talents, here is her website...lots of yummy 'designy' treats here!

fly free my lovely

Here are sections of a pattern i have been working on. I have really been thinking about the concept of 'freedom' a lot lately...freedom to evolve into the person you are meant to be; freedom to choose how you wish to live your life; and freedom in pursuing the goals you have set for yourself. These little characters, above, kind of...appeared, as i have been thinking about these issues surrounding freedom. I have named this pattern: 'Fly Free My Lovely.'

Without getting into all the ugly 'nitty-gritty' details, not too long ago, this idea of 'freedom,' for myself and the way i was wanting to live my life was threatened...in a nutshell...a manipulative, controlling man + the 'rules' of the family court = no say, no freedom for the person on the other end (me). This idea of freedom was something i have to admit, i had never really thought about, i had taken 'freedom' for granted. Not anymore. Now, 4 years on and 4 years of being strong, persistent and determined, it's all over....that part of my life is finished. Chapter closed. I have learnt an extraordinary amount. I have learnt about the person i am; how i wish to live the rest of my life and never to take for granted my freedom.