Joining Forces Exhibition - Opening night this Friday 24th May in Melbourne!

If you are in Melbourne, please come along to the opening night of our collaborative exhibition! 

Myself and 5 other illustrators / artists have been working super hard on this and we'd love to have you come celebrate with us and see our work.

‘Joining Forces’ is a group exhibition by 6 talented artists and illustrators, combining their unique styles to produce imaginative, surprising collaborations.

A fantastical journey into kaleidoscopic imaginary landscapes. 
Two-headed cats dance alongside mermaid dogs, mystical men in business suits jostle with strange insects and surprising typography. Individual themes come together in a celebration of systems of collaboration, connection, co-operation, and community.

Combining works on paper, canvas and interactive pieces, this show is a display of the power of collective creativity. It aims to demonstrate how the whole can truly be greater than the sum of its parts.

The exhibiting artists are:

Zahra Zainal - http://zahrazainal.com/

Brendan Ninness - http://www.brendan-ninness.com/

Jeffrey Phillips - http://jeffreyphillips.com.au/

Gemma Flack - www.gemmaflack.com

Rhiannon Thomas - http://rhiannon-illustration.tumblr.com/

Sebastian Berto - http://sebastianberto.tumblr.com/

Opening Hours will be 12 - 7PM, Wednesday thru Sunday.

Opening night Friday 24th May 2013 6pm onwards in Melbourne

Please check out joiningforcesgroupshow.tumblr.com 

for some process photos and sneak peaks of the works!

Cat Pasteups

I've been doing some cat paste ups 

to try to start covering our house 

which keeps getting all lame tags on it

Here's Lil Bub!

Nelle May's Little Big Things

A wonderful sweetheart called Nelle May has a beautiful blog over at nelleslittlebigthings.blogspot.com.au and she did a little write up about the zine fair, including a review about me! Thank you so much Nelle, it means so much to me to have someone enjoy my stuff and want to write about it! 

You can read her post about Melbourne Zine Fair here, and don't forget to check out the rest of her sweet blog while you're at it.

She took this photo of me at the fair!

Thanks so much Nelle xxx

About The Artist

About the Artist is now available to purchase on Etsy! A big thank you to everyone who contributed and purchased it so far. 

I am now making issue 2, so if you are interested please read on below....

I'm making an illustrated zine about people and art and I'm looking for input from people about their creative lives. Issue one is out now and available to buy on Etsy here!

The zines will be a series of little artist bios of real people, exploring the art that people make and what goes on in the cool little brains of the cool little people who make it.

If you'd like to be part of it, please email me at gemmaflack@gmail.com including a few paragraphs (preferable around 200 to 400 words) as a response to these two terrible and awful open ended questions: 

What art do you create?

This can be one thing or many things. It could be drawing, painting, making music, knitting, writing, dancing, singing, photography, object design, wood crafts, theatre, animation, street art, sculpture, finding junk at the side of the road and making awesome shit out of it… I could keep writing this list for a really really long time. Anything creative that you feel is part of your art or self expression.

And why do you create it?

Here's what I'm really interested in hearing about. Why do you do what you do. It's a pretty hard question to answer, and there's probably a lot of answer that apply to every person.

If you've never really thought 'Whyyyyyyyyy?!?!'  then here are a few summaries of ideas and responses that I have found so far:

To process my thoughts, feelings and interpretation of the world

Because I enjoy the process of making something and having something to show for it

To make a record of my existence

Because I've studied skills and want to do something with them

To get people to think about topics that I am raising

Because I can't imagine what my life would be like if I didn't

As personal growth and self-discovery

Because I have art inside me and it needs to get out somehow

Because I just freaking like cute stuff ok?

Any contributions are most gratefully received and everybody who helps me out will have a little portrait drawn on a whole page, and your words typed up about you and your art and how super cute you are. You will also get a sweet discount on the finished full colour zine!

For some examples of writing from issue one, please visit www.gemmaflack.com/zines

Paper City Zine Fair

Paper City Zine Fair, February 10th 2013

About The Artist Issue 1 is now up on Etsy!

I had a stall the other week at Sticky Institute's Paper City Zine fair. The fair was awesome, and it was great to meet some super cool people and see their work! I got a great haul of zines, I haven't even got a chance to have a look at them all yet :)

Help Me Zine!

Hey guys!

I'm making an illustrated zine about people and art and I'm looking for input from people about their creative lives. The book will be a series of little artist bios of real and imaginary people, each set on a page like the example of Miles, exploring the art that people make and what goes on in the cool little brains of the cool little people who make it.

If you'd like to be part of it, please email me at gemmaflack at gmail dot com, or post here a couple of sentences (or more if you'd like to, as much as you'd like!) as a response to these two terrible and awful open ended questions: 

What art do you create?

This can be one thing or many things. It could be drawing, painting, making music, knitting, writing, dancing, singing, photography, object design, wood crafts, theatre, animation, street art, sculpture, finding junk at the side of the road and making awesome shit out of it… I could keep writing this list for a really really long time. Anything creative that you feel is part of your art or self expression.

And why do you create it?

Here's what I'm really interested in hearing about. Why do you do what you do.  It's a pretty hard question to answer, and there's probably a lot of answer that apply to every person.

If you've never really thought 'Whyyyyyyyyy?!?!'  then here are a few ideas and responses that I have found so far:

To process my thoughts, feelings and interpretation of the world

Because I enjoy the process of making something and having something to show for it

To make a record of my existence

Because I've studied skills and want to do something with them

To get people to think about topics that I am raising

Because I can't imagine what my life would be like if I didn't

As personal growth and self-discovery

Because I have art inside me and it needs to get out somehow

Because I just freaking like cute stuff ok?

Any contributions are most gratefully received and everybody who helps me out will have a little portrait drawn on a whole page, and your words typed up on a lovely typewriter about you and your art and how super cute you are.

Thanks so much for your help :)

No Escape

Here is a band poster that I did for a friend's band.

If you are in Melbourne, you should come!

I have also done CD artwork for them, 

and hopefully I will see the printed version soon.

This is me

I do a new self portrait of myself every now and again.

Here's one for how I look in April 2012.

Blue Turtle Shell

Here is a poster I did for another friend's band.

They are 'acoustic nerd rock'.

The event is in the past now so unfortunately you can't go to it.

But I promise it was good.

Tiny Jazz Venue

Swallow Me Whole

Girl Stealer From The Deep

Tattoo Show And Tell

They want to show you their tattoos.

If you don't like them,

you are just not cool enough.

Ms Bicycle Girl

I want this bike!

I also kind of want the hair...

The Girl With The Pigeon Tail

This is my favourite comic that I have ever done!

It's kind of the only comic I have ever done.

Still kind of pretty alright though.

I think.

An inspirational quote for you

All the internet loves inspirational quotes!

Here's a bit of hand-drawn typography

to celebrate a great quote by John Cage.

A few more illustrations

A few more bits of slightly older work that I am still very fond of.

 Grandad's Cardigan

H is for Handmade

I'm updating my blog with a bit more work

Some old, some new!

I hope you like it.

To start, here's a few of my favourite pages from my book,

H is for Handmade!

Singing Songs

What have I been doing recently? 

I have been doing much singing and playing of my guitar in fact, 

and I have a couple of songs to show you, 

and a couple more on my youtube channel which is here: 

LadyRhubarb

This is me singing a song by Kimbra 

Kimbra - Wandering Limbs

This is also me singing a song on my ukulele. 

If you are a really huge die-hard fan of Metallica, 

probably don't listen to it. 

Ukulele Metallica

My favourite thing about YouTube

 is how awesome the faces I make in the video thumbnails are.

 :|

About a penguin

Sad Alien Girl

Sad girl :(

This is probably self-explanatory

Special Box

It's been a while, but I've been drawing again.

Felt Purses

I have been busy busy with a new new project! These felt purses are great fun to make and pretty handy to either use as a coin/card purse to go inside your handbag, but also just big enough to be a clutch bag by itself. I am also working on a wallet version with credit card slots, but my prototype was a big fat failure because I accidentally made the credit card slots 2mm smaller than the size of a credit card. Ah, you live and learn. Once I have ordered some felt supplies and made some more purses, I will sell them on etsy. Pre orders welcome!

Screenprinted Fox Purse

These are my new purses!
The fabric is designed and hand screenprinted by me,
and each one has special illustrations on each side.
I'm trying to build up a product range
(as they say in barmy business land)
so I can start marketing my wares at Melbourne markets.

There will be a few in the series,
pigeon (of course), squirrel, cat,
a caged bird of some kind (possibly a budgie)
and some more that I haven't thought of yet
plus some other things too.
They will be for sale
once I have made a few more. :)