Monday, September 28, 2015

Textile print development - Inspiration: Southern Tasmanian rainforest and rivers

I am lucky to live in a place which is bursting with natural inspirations and unique colourings that feed into all of my creative work.  A few months ago now, I had the pleasure of house sitting for a friend who lives in Franklin (about 45 minutes drive from Hobart CBD).  The quiet, ever-changing beauty of this location served as a real reset for me after a particularly busy time of year.  There really is nothing like being in a natural setting to de-stress and relax, especially if you are like me and rent a house next to a busy highway!  Revisiting this peaceful time near clean rivers, creeks and dense bush in my mind has been informing much new mood boarding, print development, textures and colours for new work.







Sunday, September 20, 2015

Happy Accidents - Free E-ZINE

Very excited to share HAPPY ACCIDENTS today - a fun zine to ignite or rekindle your passion for experimental mark making! The free PDF is available for download online via www.yolandazarins.com
This zine was made as a teaching tool leading up to my last workshop with Launchpad Workshops.  I was thrilled by the joyful approach everyone in this group took to mark making. Beautiful results were made by participants, some of whom had no experience painting or drawing previously. It was truly inspiring. There were no kids in this group, but many techniques would be great for ages 7+ 
Feel free to share this free resource with friends and family online, or print it out and have a play!



Thursday, September 17, 2015

Ponder-ings and new colour ways of Pozo and Frond designs

Perhaps it is something about the slight spring we are getting down here in Hobart, but I am feeling newly refreshed and finding different views and ideas about the way I work; specifically how I am going to evolve my creative practice and business over the coming months.

I am a believer in learning from doing and having a go, and the past year working creatively has been a huge learning curve (admittedly full on!).  It is not the long hours, or my permanently dye-stained hands that is exhausting.  In fact, I love that I get so much time to make textiles and learn that these aspects have been quite joyous.  It is tiring to try to 'keep up' in a world where textiles are produced in huge quantities with new designs released  seasonally.

It was never my intention to make a mass produced product.  What I make is clearly, quite the opposite.  My approach to printed and dyed textiles has been a really considered process with diverse outcomes in colour and appearance of each print because of the unique methods I use.  Even through I know this, I have been fighting against this fact and aiming to make constricted collections of textiles and products.  This is partly because it is familiar and it feels safe to follow an expected formula.

Pondering these thoughts, I decided to temporarily take down my web shop, make some one off and limited edition pieces to re ignite my passion for textiles with plans to relaunch the online store in a few weeks with small batch and one-off products only.

As soon as I made this decision, I felt incredibly energised and motivated to put all my effort into this new approach.   I am so looking forward to being able to invite customers to this new online space which feels one-hundred times more true to my work...




New textiles and pillows made this week that will be stocking the new web store, as well as best selling Bush Pearl and Trail prints in Indigo from the recent Knocklofty collection.  The bright blue really 'pops' as a highlight against the other moodier hues.