a chat with our cover artist,
loveis wise
Tell us a bit about yourself, please. My name
is Loveis Wise (also my birth name) and I’m a
freelance illustrator and designer from Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. How do you describe your style of
art? Vibrant, femme-focused and shape-based.
What kinds of materials do you use? I typically
work digitally, because it’s quick and more accessible
for me, but I enjoy working with gouache, oils and
coloured pencils when I want to explore texture
and get more tactile. What do you listen to while
you’re drawing? A mix of music like Mitski, Nick
Hakim or Jamila Woods to get inspired, and I love
listening to podcasts, too, like Creative Pep Talk,
Small Doses and The Read. Who are the ladies in this
image? It’s funny, because originally this image was
to correlate with a poem I read about a couple on
the beach, but the two ladies are in a relationship with
one another, and we (as the viewer) are just peeking
into an intimate and sweet moment shared between
them. What’s your connection to the ocean? Water
symbolises transformation or a new beginning for
me, so I often try to use it in my work. Summer
is nostalgic and always reminds me of my favourite
childhood memories of feeling carefree! What are
you working on at the moment? Two picture books
and a few other secret projects!
eco tan
for rafiki
mwema
Rafiki Mwema is
an Australian charity
helping littl’uns who
are the victims of
sexual abuse in Kenya.
They offer medical
attention, education,
therapy and emotional
support, which we
can all agree is
pretty bloody great.
The folks at Eco Tan
certainly do, so they’ve
teamed up with the
organisation to create
an organic, moisture-
bringing hand and nail
cream (rrp $24.95).
One hundred per cent
of profits from its sale
go directly to Rafiki
Mwema, so you can
lend a hand and keep
it soft while you’re at
it. ecotan.com.aucrate job
On the one hand, these plastic crates from Danish
brand HAY are a swisher version of the ones you
might find stacked up behind your local green grocer.
On the other, they remind us of fancy Lego, ready to
be constructed into a pretty, pastel tower. Either way,
they’re rather nifty for keeping bits and bobs from
messing up the place – and they also come in a heap
of nice colours and sizes. hayshop.com.aubonnemaison
Bonne Maison may
mean ‘good house’ in
French, but the house
is the last place we’d
choose to wear these
cotton pretties. Rather,
we’d want to trot
them all around town,
showing them off to
each person we meet.
“Oh hello, have you
seen my new socks?”
we’d ask. “Good day!
Please inspect my face-
sporting foot-covers!”
If this sounds like a
smashing day out to you,
head to bonnemaison.fr
with around $30.know it all pencils
Let us begin by stating an important fact: we don’t condone cheating
in tests. But just SAY you’d run out of time to study because your
dog HAPPENED to chew your notes to bits, and there was simply NO
time to find the information anywhere else, well, these Know It All
pencils from Present & Correct may help. It can’t hurt to remind
you that the largest mammal is the blue whale, and water boils at
100°C or 212°F, right? They’re available from presentandcorrect.com
for around $20 a set – we trust you’ll use them wisely.
frank bits