I am so pleased to introduce you to the MEOWG. An extremely fun and silly cat synthesiser collaboration between electronics genius Cris Edwards aka Captain Beep Boop and illustrator Ashley Ronning.

Featuring:
🐾 polyphonic paw-friendly keyboard
🐾 six-way cat voice selector to suit your mood
🐾 built in beats with hiss and purrrrrcussion
🐾 responsive toy to keep you focused while playing

The MEOWG Synthesiser has been exhibited at All Cats Are Beautiful at Schoolhouse Studios and Assembly at Jacky Winter Gallery.

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I was delighted to be approached by the good people at Who Gives A Crap to illustrate their Christmas 2023 Limited Edition – the Stack-A-Tree!

This was dreamt up as an eco-friendly alternative to the traditional festive tree – simply stack your loo rolls into a tree in your lounge room (or dunny room).

The loo roll wrappers are covered with dozens of illustrated baubles, animals and fairly lights. Plenty to look at while taking a leisurely sit on your throne.

It’s all in the title – a plasticine zine! Just a fun little experiment from my silly brain – created with plasticine, photographed and then risograph printed.

Published in February 2024.

I want to share a little about the process of making my new zine Computer Is Your Friend, and some thoughts I have about the current state of AI and art.

This zine is about artificial intelligence, virtual assistants and privacy in this era of mass technology consumption. Your narrator is a virtual assistant named Compu-Pal who is an AI life assistant. They can learn your habits and adapt their service to meet your needs. However, their friendly face soon disappears to reveal a sinister presence beyond the screen.



My current take on AI is a mix of fascination and frustration. I first became interested in AI as a teenager playing around with the chatbot SmarterChild on MSN Messenger, and through movies like A.I. and Digimon: The Movie. This all seemed pretty wild! Technology can be quite threatening and powerful in these scenarios, but luckily something like Skynet won’t happen in our lifetime, right!?

I believed for a long time that this technology couldn’t effect my job as an artist, but it has been a scary year in this space and a lot has changed very quickly. This week someone won a photography contest by submitting an AI-generated image, sci-fi journals are closing submissions due to a glut of AI generated stories, comic and zine fairs are banning NFTs and AI-generated content, and a pretty convincing image of Donald Trump being dramatically arrested made the rounds last month.

I believe tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney can be powerful tools for creativity and accessibility. My studio mate Dan Elborne is working on an incredible project using Midjourney as one step of many in an incredibly beautiful ceramic art piece. I’ve seen many artists I love use text-to-image generators as a brainstorming tool and sharing their results on instagram. ChatGPT can help people who struggle with writing or language to communicate more easily. People are working on really exciting stuff using AI with accessibility in mind!

I’ve become especially jaded while playing around with Midjourney, which can be used through messaging platform Discord. The way MJ works means you can see what other people are generating in real time, along with their prompts. Most of the images I see appear in the public MJ feed fall into two categories: ‘fanart’ of very popular intellectual property (such as Batman), and versions of work that would be otherwise done by human designers, photographers, artists and illustrators. People on Midjourney forums are asking about how they can make logos for their businesses, print out images at large sizes and make some quick cash off MJ. My own work has been used in the data-set of at least one text-to-image generator without my permission.

Meanwhile, I’ve had a lot of fun playing around with AI. I used ChatGPT and Midjourney to find what the voice of my evil AI would be for this zine, and to fill out some ideas in the ideation process. I then took those ideas, and filtered them through my own brain, pen and printer. I found the dialogue with ChatGPT quite interesting, I felt like I was getting this AI to work against itself. And maybe it caught on, I got a warning eventually! I’ve shared some of the images from the process in this post.



All this to say – don’t just use text-to-image generators, chat bots, voice generators and their siblings to replace the work that you could pay a human to do. Absolutely play around with them, use them in your creative process, and keep an eye on news coming out of this space. Things are changing really rapidly and artists must stay informed so we can stay ahead of it. Support human artists. Never underestimate the magic that a human mind can bring to a piece of art.

(written April 20, 2023)

You can buy my zine in my online shop here.

A couple of animated illustrations for an article about weird and wonderful Food Trends for hospitality industry platform A+.

February is the season of luuuuuurve. And not just for humans... there's all kinds of species out there who wanna share some ooey gooey smooches. Slip and slide your way into your Valentine’s heart with these sweet and sticky cards.

Two lovey dovey cards illustrated and risograph printed by Ashley in February 2023.

These cards are available in my online shop.

Midnight Snack was created for Risographomania – a risograph exhibition in Townsville, Queensland featuring 90 artists.

You can read more about Risographomania on the Helio Press website, or buy the print in my online shop.

When I was a child I once left my room and shut the door behind me, only to hear a small noise on the other side. I opened the door again and some of my toys had moved. I was convinced that they were waiting for me to leave so they could live in their own little world behind my closed door. We place so much history and meaning upon the objects we own, but we don’t think enough about what they get up to when we aren’t around.

Town Meeting 1 and 2 are duo of paintings for Natura Morta at Boom Gallery, Geelong in December 2021.

Where have shoe been all my life? This zine is simply a collection of illustrated shoes – comfy, tall, fluffy, small.

The first edition of this zine was risograph printed by me in February 2021. You can buy your own copy in my online shop.

Photos by On Jackson Street.

A pretty silly poster for my band Eat-Man and our EP launch which was also our last gig. I made the poster and EP cover out of plasticine!

You can listen to the EP and buy a digital version on Bandcamp.

A sweet and cheeky poster for Melbourne-based event Beers For Queers. We went with a theme that represented the wonderful and weird doll-part-littered interior of The Fox Hotel, as well as the 80s vibe of B4Q regulars The Real Hot Bitches.

A fun little painting for Still Here Still Life, an instagram based still life drawing challenge. Created with gouache and pencil.

I created the campaign artwork for local community radio station PBS FM’s Radio Festival in 2022. PBS approached me with the theme ‘Complete The Connection’, and I came up with this artwork based on modular synths.

The full set of graphics included posters, banners, magazine ads, social media images, compilation album artwork, a colouring-in competition and a tshirt.

A few illustrations for online hospitality industry platform A+. The article is about the extremely difficult juggling act of a hospitality career and parenthood, written by incredible cocktail master Cara Devine.

You pickin’ up Good Vibrations? This piece is dedicated to the importance of a good solo date night and was part of the beautiful Locker Room Talk group exhibition which took place in February 2022 at No Vacancy, Melbourne.

Gouache and pencil on paper. Fine art prints of this artwork are available in my online shop.

A comic about summer commissioned by Melbourne City of Literature for their Summer in the City Of Literature series in January 2021.

I wrote this in late winter, thinking about a time when lockdown is over and I’ll be able to unwind on a sunny patch of grass with my friends.

This is the full comic, enjoy!

I was commissioned by National Wool Museum to create a suite of illustrations for their exhibition On The Land. We created images that could playfully show the process of shearing a sheep.

The illustrations are displayed around a wool classing table which is then rotated as you view each step of the process.

You can see a video of the exhibition and the illustrations in action in this video on the museum’s youtube channel.

Illustrations for Punk in a Pandemic – an audio documentary by Mike Williams about a Canadian sharehouse that formed a band during the first weeks of the covid-19 lockdown. You can see the illustrations alongside photos and the audio story here.

An illustration for an article in RRR’s The Trip magazine in 2020. This article explains what it takes for broadcasters to present their shows from home during the Covid-19 pandemic.

My favourite activities during early Covid-19 isolation – Charles Dowding videos, passata, uno, coffee drinking, zoom hangouts, gardening, rajio taijo calisthenics, whiskey and Animal Crossing.

A portrait of gorgeous Dolly Parton early in her career. This is a limited edition risograph print, green and pink riso ink on vintage wedding invitation paper.

This illustration was originally a part of All Nighter zine.

An illustration and blog post written for frankie magazine about road testing many different types of online hangouts.

An illustration for frankie magazine’s article on how to build a darkroom at home. You can also read the article at their blog here.

For 24 hours in January 2020 I focused solely on making this zine. No work, no play, no sleep. What appeared was a stream of consciousness, random thoughts and room to play.

Risograph printed by me at Helio Press in green, pink and seafoam ink. This zine is sold out!

An illustrated poster for the third iteration of rock n roll extravaganza Country Daze. This event is put on by Poison City and takes place in Castlemaine, Victoria.

A simple and classic logo for Underground Love on PBS 106.7FM.

Helio Press is my risograph printing and publishing side project, founded in 2015. Specialising in illustrative risograph printing and DIY publishing, Helio is dedicated to the art of imbuing paper with the stories and experiences of authors and illustrators; capturing the fluid and abstract in the act of committing ink to the page. In the last four years we have published zines by Gemma Flack, Benjamin Constantine, Olivia Grbac, Carolyn Hawkins, Min Pin, Caitlin Shearer, Josh Simpson and HAM.

Find out more at the Helio Press website.

A poster for a gig celebrating my dear friend Rory’s 30th birthday.

This artwork was created for the Art For Bushfire Relief fundraiser, coordinated by Hound & Bone Studio in January 2020.

All print profits went to the CFA Public Fund – directly supporting the tireless CFA staff and volunteers at a time when resources are stretched thin.

Artist lineup:

Aaron Billings, Alex Hotchin, Ashley Ronning, Brian Cheung, Carla McRae, Cat Rabbit, David Booth / ghostpatrol, Frances Cannon, Hannah Rae Powell, Indigo O'Rourke, Jordan Debney, Julia Trybala, Katie Eraser, Lisa Dino / Elroseabel, Melissa Grisancich, Nathalia Suizu / Natsui, Rachel Ang, Samantha Curcio, Zac Fay

An illustration for the ‘school of frankie’ series in frankie magazine issue #94, February 2020.

Illustrations for the 2019 Wine Series cans by Hop Nation’s experimental wine arm Site Fermentation Project.

The Wine Series takes discarded grapes from the wine-making process, and add them to the sour blonde base from a foedr.

This illustration was published in the Spring 2019 edition of Meanjin accompanying a story by Paige Clark, Elisabeth Kübler Ross. You can read the story online here.

I worked with the team at Hop Nation to produce artwork for their Sweet and Sour series of beer.

Inspired by some iconic desserts, these beers are full of fruit with the addition of lactose, creating a refreshing and flavoursome sour. The series features Cobbler Peach Sour, Fool Raspberry Sour and Blossom Cherry Sour.

My artwork features tiny forest creatures feasting on a magical liquid and going through a drastic change…

The cans can be stacked to create the full scene of the layered forest environments.

I Wait Around was published in May 2019. It chronicles my struggles with depression at the time – feeling lost and overwhelmed but trying to find ways to feel better.

I Wait Around is risograph printed by me in seafoam green and blue ink.

A just-for-fun illustration about my struggle in settling on a new pair of glasses.

An illustration for frankie magazine – this article is about a project called Skyknit that uses a neural network to generate strange and bizarre knitting patterns which are then interpreted by humans into real knitted objects.

Poster artwork for the second annual Cable Ties Ball at Corner Hotel, hosted by fierce post-punk trio Cable Ties. The band needed a concept that could be adapted across social media, blog posts, street posters and tshirts. We also risograph printed an edition of posters to sell at the merch desk.

Illustrations for an article on how to fold a fitted sheet in frankie magazine, March 2019.

I was approached by Melbourne garage punk band Wet Lips to create the artwork for their self-titled record released in June 2017. The band sent me shots of their bedroom floor, and I used this as source material to create an illustration combining their floors and mine. The image of a colourful, messy, fun floor bounces off themes of the album; new and old friends, big nights, messing up, falling down and getting back up again.

Poster artwork for the International Women’s Day event at PBS 106.7FM. More info about the event can be found here.

Here are a few illustrations created for a three-part series on synthesisers at She Shreds Mag.

Forest Floor is a limited edition risograph print that was released in 2018.

Earth's first colony on a not-so-distant planet has been inhabited for just over five years. The residents within have made great progress, but with no return trip in sight, it is easy to feel lonely and homesick.

In this exhibition I took step back into the 1970s and examined what humankind's first colony in space may look like through the lens of post-moonlanding fervour. I also imagined the feeling of isolation that space colony life brings, and the role of personal possessions and effects when you are hundreds of millions of kilometres from home. For this exhibition I created a series of limited edition risograph prints and a zine.

No Place Like Space took place at Magic Johnston in Collingwood, Melbourne in February 2017.

My artwork Memento Oppie was a part of the group exhibition Bloomin’ Beauty at BSIDE gallery in August 2017, curated by Esther Sandler.

Inspired by traditional methods of botanical illustration, the history of collecting and archiving plant matter and our unique Australian flora, Bloomin’ Beauty is a celebration of floral iconography with each artist presenting a unique interpretation of the theme by using their medium of choice.

Photos by Michaela Barca

Resin artist Rosaleen Ryan (Mamoru) and I joined forces to make new work for group exhibition In Common held at Guild Of Objects. The exhibition was part of the annual Craft Cubed festival, and featured seven pairs of artists, crafters and makers collaborating to create exciting new work.

We envisioned the busy desk of an employee at a space station - the tools they might use and also a little dash of plantlife. We created resin objects including petri dishes, a magnifying glass and a terrarium full of carnivorous plants and a glowing LED appendage.

You can read more about the exhibition and other collaborations at The Design Files.

Plants supplied by Plant By Packwood and electronics by Hamish Storrie.

Artwork for Melbourne-based music criticism podcast Analysis Paralysis.

Milk! Records got in touch to ask me to design the poster for their annual Christmas Party - a rock n roll afternoon and evening spectacular! They asked for a few cuddly Aussie animals and the rest was up to me. I also risograph printed limited edition posters that were for sale at the merch desk.

I designed a poster for Courtney Barnett’s Luxembourg stop on her European tour. Limited edition screen-printed posters were available at the show.

I channeled a bit of spacey magic from Courtney’s video Need A Little Time.

If you had to live in space indefinitely, what would you take with you? Something practical or a precious object? Nothing at all? Various Things explores this hard decision as well as our strange connection with inanimate objects.

This zine was released in June 2018 as a part of the Melbourne/Tokyo Zine Translation Project. There were four other zines released by four other zine makers in this project, and each zine was translated into Japanese by a Monash University student.

An illustrated map of Melbourne for the Scene Report in She Shreds magazine issue #16.

An illustration for an article in frankie magazine about how to run a top-notch market stall. You can also read the article online here.

A simple drawing of a smiley face biscuit just for fun.

Hidden Strangers was created in December 2015 and was a part of Hi, We’re New Here – the first group exhibition at Enough Space.

In 2018 I collaborated with Melbourne label Togetherness Design to create a limited edition clutch purse.

The handy Clutch Purse has been designed to hold all of your everyday essentials such as credit cards, cash and coins. Lovingly hand-made and topped off with a chunky zip closure and custom royal blue metallic leather tassel, this purse is a delightful number, great to give as a gift or keep for yourself.

Available at the Togetherness Design online store.

Poster artwork for Wetfest, an event hosted by Melbourne band Wet Lips from 2015 – 2018.

This is a print I made just for fun during a time when I was particularly fascinated with the range of incredible lettering on guitar pedals out in the world. Imagine having a guitar pedal for each day of the week? Risograph printed with orange and teal ink on leafbird green paper.

Cassie’s Bathroom is a limited edition print, created as part of a risograph exhibition at Tree Paper Comics. This edition is now sold out.

I was thrilled to be able to collaborate with the team at frankie magazine to illustrate a collection of writing from the first 12 years of frankie — Something To Say: Stories to make you laugh awkwardly in public.

Featuring witty words by Benjamin Law, Marieke Hardy, Sinead Stubbins, Justin Heazlewood and many more. 

The great people at frankie magazine asked a handful of Australian artists to create custom DIY band tshirts with a favourite band in mind for a feature article. I picked X-Ray Spex! I used screen printing and puff paint pens to nail the dream dayglo look.

Melbourne band The Pink Tiles asked me to create the album art, posters and merch for their second album #1 Fan, released in March 2017. I was treated to an early listen of the album and worked its themes into the artwork.

Poster artwork for Country Daze at Theatre Royal in Castlemaine, November 2017. Hosted by Poison City Records.

A poster for an event organised by Rachel Burke (@imakestagram), Kitiya Palaskas and Metro Arts in Brisbane.

T-shirt artwork for Melbourne band Eat-Man.

Welcome To My Studio is a small risograph zine that I published in 2017. I made it as a gift to visitors of my studio and a kind of portable paper tour for others too far away to visit.

I was asked to collaborate with letterpress studio The Hungry Workshop to design a card for their annual Valentines Day collection.

Sweet Tooth is letterpress printed in red a beautiful bubble foil on Colorplan Lavender stock. It is available in my shop over here.

I was asked by community radio station PBS to illustrate a poster for their Spring Clean Your Conscience fundraiser drive in 2017, along with a design for a screen-printed tote bag to be used for the drive and beyond.

A simple and fun poster for Melbourne band Pting’s mini residency at The Retreat.

Planting Guide For Autumn is a zine I released in May 2017. This risograph printed zine is an illustrated diary of memories of my life involving plants. Two limited edition prints were produced alongside the zine.

A poster for Girls Rock! Canberra for their winter holiday session in 2017.

Closest Approach zine was released in December 2016 as part of Mini Comic Of The Month Club. The zine follows the story of an anonymous human who is accidentally stuck on board one of the Voyager satellites. As they float through space they describe what they see around them.

An illustrated logo I designed for local Melbourne record label Hysterical Records.

Animation by Hamish Storrie.

The Longest Wobbliest Silliest Guitar is a risograph zine made as a little experiment with zine formats, released in December 2017.

My piece for group exhibition Think Pink at Enough Space in November 2016. This limited edition print was risograph printed in red, pink and blue and then finished with glitter thermographic powder.

An illustration that went alongside a (very tasty) recipe for congee in frankie magazine.

Tachiyomi is a zine of drawings and photographs from a trip to Tokyo. Published in May 2016, it was accompanied by two limited edition risograph prints.

The magical North Melbourne creative shop Guild Of Objects commissioned me to create a map full of their favourite local locations. These were risograph printed and available to customers in-store. You can read about the launch of the project and see some snaps at their blog.

A few posters, tshirts and tote bags that I designed for New Zealand-based musician Fazerdaze.

The Small Zine Volcano Tough Bag Fundraiser was an exhibition and gig at The Old Bar in 2017 with all money going to zine distro Small Zine Volcano. Artists were invited to create art on an Australia Post tough bag.

Spot illustrations for an article in frankie magazine in 2016 about Dr Stephen Hughes’ cosmological cookbook.

To & Fro is a celebration of Voiceworks' 100th issue. Voiceworks is a national magazine that showcases the work of young Australian writers, and for issue 100, past writers and editors return to the pages as contributors, and mentors to young writers.

I contributed a handful of illustrations to Voiceworks in the first few years after moving to Melbourne, and I was lucky enough to be asked to illustrate their entire exciting 100th issue. I was given a lot of freedom and was able to interpret the stories in my style with few restrictions, under the guidance of editor Elizabeth Flux and designer Connor Tomas O'Brien.

Photography by Mark Lobo

Deep Space House Plant was my first solo exhibition, hosted by Rooftop Art Space in Melbourne from 2—28 February 2015. The body of work consisted of ten three-colour risograph prints, each in a limited print run of thirty. Each piece depicts a scene from a space-station murder mystery.

DEEP SPACE HOUSE PLANT occurs on an interstellar space station beyond our galaxy. The exact location has been unknown for three earth years. The space station specialises in the effect of gravity upon earth plant life, and the discovery of plant life on other celestial bodies. Images have been received by the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico of a seemingly abandoned station with overgrown experiments and small signs of struggle. It is unknown why the six humans on the station have fled, or if something more sinister has occurred. Investigation continues.

Poster artwork for the National Young Writers’ Festival artist callout in 2016.

I had the wonderful pleasure of working with the incredible crafter Gemma Patford on a new rope vessel guide for her DIY kit and workshops. Gemma guided me through the process, then I went away and created an illustrated guide and risograph printed it all here in the studio. The guide is available in Gemma's shop.

Photograph by Heather Lighton

This is one of my favourite projects ever – a custom textile design for my beautiful pals Jenny and James on their wedding day 🐓🐓

I've been lucky enough to know these two for about 13 years – they are the most gorgeous and generous humans. I was stoked when they asked me to contribute to a special piece of their wedding day – outfits!!! They wanted to include Barry the dog and his hen friends on James' shirt. Barry was there for the wedding though! He and a gaggle of children stage invaded during the vows. Barry has a particular crazed look in his eyes when he looks at Jenny/James/Ball and I think I captured it in these illustrations.

Berko made James' shirt, as well as Jenny's spectacular jumpsuit, and outfits for at least four other guests. The shirt went beautifully with James' custom chunky orange cord suit. It was 40 degrees on the day, so the jacket did not last long.

This whole day made my heart so happy. Congrats Jenny and James!!! I love you!

Photos: Keith Fletcher
Outfits: Berko Hale
Textile printing: Next State Print

A dream assignment from the good people at frankie magazine – illustrating some of our all time favourite Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book cakes alongside a chat with one of the book's authors, Pamela Clark.

Dolly Varden is my personal fave, one I was lucky enough to receive as a kid. Mum is devastated that a few issues ago in frankie (in another cake article) I spilt the beans that she cut off barbie's legs to fit her in the cake. Here I am bringing it up again! You gotta do what you gotta do, Mum. It's ok.

Were you the lucky recipient of any of these cakes?

Mum finally agreed to let us give her a makeover! Do you have what it takes to pamper mum and give her the makeover she’s always wanted?