We’ve been busy playing with our Gocco this week. Our first limited run available to buy is Bernard the Bear. He’s available in 3 different forms - Blue Bernard, Yellow Bernard and Lucky Dip Bernard. Blue Bernard and Yellow Bernard are limited to just 15 each, and printed on a fine quality printing stock. Lucky Dip Bernard is limited to 30, and printed on high quality coloured card stock for extra colour! They’re all individual, as the print quality of the Gocco is charmingly unpredictable, as you’ll see in these pictures.

Prices: AU$10.00 each (or £5.00 for those in the old world) plus postage and packaging (which won’t be much, as we’ll just stick him in an envelope along with some stiff card to protect him). We accept cash, and also Paypal for those overseas. Contact us for details of how to pay.

Colours: Blue Bernard - limited to 15 // Yellow Bernard - limited to 15 // Lucky Dip Bernard - limited to 30. Colours may vary.

Size: Print - 95mm x 130mm // Paper (varies slightly) - 185mm x 150mm approx.

We put on a small show this week - 17 images taken in Japanese Shoe Shops! They’re on show at 113 Reservoir St, Surry Hills. We’re pretty sure I snapped all of these, so the words alongside the pictures read something like this…

“I’ve always been fascinated with shoes, though mostly not in a kinky way. It’s probably something to do with the massive collection Mrs Harnwell Jones has in her shoe room at home. The lineup on the wall contains photographs of some of the wilder creations on offer in Osaka, Japan, which were taken by me whilst faithfully following her into 350 shoe shops in Dotombori and Shinsaibashi. Whilst she scanned the shelves, my faithful Nikon D40X snapped the stock - mostly covertly, as Japanese shoe shop assistants take offence at you shooting in their shops. Whilst she didn’t buy the yellow plastic ones featured in the lineup, she did buy a pair not featured - black, flocked brogues that smell distinctly like bubblegum.”

Click any of the images above to see the full set on Flickr.

After a slow start, we finally got our first Gocco print out for a very very limited Christmas run. Please don’t be offended if you didn’t get one of our exclusive Corabella Christmas cards - we printed a good 200 in black, red and gold, but alas, because of a terribly planned first colour, we only managed to achieve 16 that were vaguely in registration! We also learned about the basics of ‘don’t use gloss paper’, meaning our glossy cards had to have matt prints mounted to them. A relatively successful print run (as it wasn’t a total failure), but now our only issue is attempting to locate 300gsm pre-folded cards within Australian borders. It’s proving rather impossible! Any help in locating thicker cards would be greatly appreciated…

Yes - we have secured a Print Gocco! After discovering that there are none left in Japan, we sourced one in Chicago via the wonder of Etsy. The only thing to work out now is how it actually works - because, of course, the manual is all in Japanese!

Twinkle has discovered a new skill set - she quite likes painting! First cab off the rank is a version of Up The Hill, Down The Hill seen in our last post. It measures 14 inches square, and is painted in acrylic.

Once upon a time, we went to Estonia. We stayed in a little hotel at the bottom of a hill. The receptionist seemed to (on a daily basis) respond to our request for directions with a stern ‘Up the hill, down the hill’. We figured that either she spoke no other English, or that our hotel was the only thing on our side of the hill. Everyday, we climbed the hill, and then descended the other side to our destination. Up The Hill, Down The Hill, just as she promised.

Twinkle clearly remembers this trip, and has become obsessed with drawing hills. Oddly enough, I don’t remember there ever being anything actually on the top of the hill in Estonia as Twinkle suggests here, but maybe I’m wrong. She’s drawing another hill right now.

Art Osaka wasn’t easy to find. But once we did, what we discovered was an amazing Japanese art fair held in 47 rooms across four floors of the Dojima Hotel. Amongst the hundreds of pieces to choose from, we singled it down to the wonderful work of Hiroyuki Toi, and this charming oil on canvas (which incidentally, was still wet). On our anniversary (2 days later), we went and collected her from the Tezukayama Gallery in Sumiyoshi-ku, whereby she was firmly fixed into a custom made box to ensure her safe transit back to Sydney. She arrived in perfect (and slightly drier) condition. Check out more work by Hiroyuki Toi here.