SOUNDS and sights OF SUMMER

My cool neighbors just arrived home from holiday and reminded me that I'm in the Glassons mag/blog 'FESTIVAL' edition... alongside my super cute and super nice neighbour, model Danika Rooney . Here's a link to the blog post and heres the interview- but you should really go to the blog link to get the full experience! “I’ve been doing artwork for Ladyhawke [real name Pip Brown] since she made up the name in about 2004, at which point I was at art school,” says Sarah Larnach, one of Australasia’s most talented and prolific illustrators. “I’d already done some portraits of her then… So as long as she’s been Ladyhawke, I’ve been chipping in with my visual interpretation.” “We work together really closely. I guess you could say we’re joint art directors… We’ve done everything—posters, billboards, a couple of videos, lots of album covers, singles covers, merchandise…” Sarah’s work for Ladyhawke is strong and concise at its core, both graphic and intricate, but dreamy watercolour finishes lend it a fantastical and slightly retro edge. In short, it stands out, it stays in your mind, and it suits Ladyhawke’s aesthetic to a tee. You’ll have seen it on online, on t-shirts, on posters pasted on urban surfaces across the globe, on towering billboards in major cities like London, and forming the basis of two of Ladyhawke’s much-shared and highly-acclaimed music videos, ‘My Delirium’ in 2008 and ‘Magic’ in 2009. (Go watch them now, they’re amazing!) “I was shown really good story boards,” Sarah says when we ask about the process of making an illustration-based video, and how different it was to her usual work processes. “And then it was like repeating someone else’s vision back to them in my style.” “For ‘My Delirium’, the directors were two guys and they’d met at art school when they were studying illustration so they could tell me exactly what I should be doing, but I was totally a fish out of water, I was so overwhelmed! For the second one [‘Magic’], I did all of the artwork out of a hotel room… I really like the experience of being directed actually, its quite freeing to have someone else make the tough decisions!” Her favourite Ladyhawke creations? “From the new album I really love [the artwork for] ‘Blue Eyes’, because all the other things from this album have been black and white, and there we went psychedelic, really colourful. And both album covers, for Ladyhawke [for which Sarah was nominated for an ‘Album Art’ ARIA in 2009] and for Anxiety.” Having worked so prolifically with Ladyhawke, it was easy for Sarah to conceive of doing more music-related work, and she has—locally with album covers for Liam Finn and The Sami Sisters, both inspiring epic window displays in Auckland’s legendary music store Real Groovy, and internationally with two albums for British artist Passenger, with a third in the works. “Working with musicians is great,” she says. “They’re great, they have lovely imaginations and tend to be quite open to my suggestions, and they’re usually really happy to go with what looks good without any agenda.” Luckily, she’s a music lover too, naming Fleetwood Mac and Neil Young as her “favourite oldies” and newer bands Burning Hearts, She’s So Rad and Tame Impala as contemporary faves. If she could do artwork for any musician ever, it would be “Fleetwood Mac or Stevie Nicks. Or Rihanna, in a pin-up style. Or Jay-Z and Beyonce…” But music’s not always the best thing to listen to while getting creative… “I often listen to audiobooks,” she admits. “I’ve listened to hundreds—anything will do. It’s because I get so involved with music when I’m listening that it distracts me. I can listen to a musician I’m painting for, on repeat, to indulge that headspace, like, to live in ‘Liam Finn Land’.” “Otherwise, there are just a few musicians/bands I know so well that I can work and listen to them—Ladyhawke, Fleetwood Mac, Patti Smith, Neil Young, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Roxy Music… and when I listen to a band, it’s that band only for the entire day.” Sarah’s plans for summer? “For Christmas a few of us friends are going to Pip’s parents place. I’m not making plans for New Year’s so that they can’t be spoiled! Things seem to just come together at the last minute. And fingers crossed I’ll have my license by the end of the summer, then I’ll be taking myself on a road trip!” And her favourite summer things to wear? “All of my jeans as shorts— I cut the sleeves and legs off everything. I sometimes regret it come winter!” Words by Images from http://www.generation-streetstyle.com/