BarneyStreet on Etsy

Hi Readers

Come on down to Barney Street, my new Etsy shop. It's March Madness, but not for much longer!

Free Shipping world-wide on all products.

Here's some of my fabulous and funky caps, designed and made by Barney Street, Australia and available now.


See you there! :)

Fabulous caps available on Etsy at BarneyStreet

My new Etsy shop is open!

Dear Readers

I hope you are well! Some exciting news.....

My new Etsy shop opened a few days ago. It is called "Barney Street". It's my new label in head wear, and (coming soon) hand printed textiles.

Check out my new shop and see what funky caps I've designed for everyone. Unisex style is the order of the day, plus comfort and portability. Fisherman's caps or fiddler's caps, you tell me! 

You can fold Barney Street caps into your coat pocket and keep going! Great for busy, stylish people on the move. They keep your head warm, too.

See you on Barney Street...

My new Barney Street logo

Me modelling the charcoal velour Barney Street cap!

Hot summer

Dear Readers

In Australia at the moment it is hot. VERY hot! The grapevine which grows all around the back covered area of the house is growing crazily. Every few days I have to go out there with scissors and cut a way out into the garden, making a green doorway. There are bunches of grapes forming, too. They will be juicy red table grapes, and will be ready to pick in mid-Autumn.

Sometimes, when the leaves are newly forming on the grapevine, I make dolmades. How delicious! I feel very lucky to be able to grow such an amazing plant where I live.

This image I painted depicts just a tiny section of the grapevine, with all its twists and turns.

PS Happy New Year to you all and thanks for checking out my blog! You can also find me on Instagram: @alisaperks  

Grape Leaves. Gouache image by Alisa Perks.

Snow gum forest

The New England region of New South Wales, Australia, is high country at 1,000 metres above sea level. Here you can find forests of eucalypt trees such as snow gums. Near Bendemeer is a huge area of eucalypts whose iridescent trunks reflect gold of the early evening light. Their shapes are gnarled - no two trees the same shape. They grow wild and to their own, individual form.

The image below is a painting in gouache, where I depicted these forests in their beautiful depths.

Eucalypt Forest by Alisa Perks. Gouache on paper.

Painting a cathedral

Dear Readers

I hope you are well.

The image below shows a painting of a cathedral in Armidale, New South Wales (Australia), which I completed a couple of years ago. The fancy brickwork of this building was really challenging to depict, and took all my concentration! It was fun to do, though....

Cathedral in Armidale, NSW by Alisa Perks. Gouache on paper.

Rainbow Cake

I'd like to try and make a rainbow cake. They look so beautiful! It might have purple icing, like the one I've illustrated below. That would complete the spectrum.  This picture is actually a snipped-out detail of an illustration I painted for a storybook character I invented earlier this year, who is a bit of a gourmand and adventurer.

Rainbow Cake by Alisa Perks, gouache on paper.

To Canberra

A road trip to Canberra was the inspiration for this image below, which I painted in gouache on paper. It documents winding mountain roads, meals and accommodation, the car, things we saw on the way. I wanted it to look like computer icons, as if you could press one to get more information.

It's fun to try and get the gouache to portray other substances and surfaces, like computer screens or even sometimes, biscuits! But more about that another time...

To Canberra by Alisa Perks, gouache on paper.

Motel Carpark

Dear Readers

Here's more evidence of my fascination with motels. This is a motel we've stayed at numerous times, although we don't need to now, because we moved to the town where this motel is. 

Motel 1 by Alisa Perks. Gouache on paper.

The owner of this painting said, "This painting tells me all I need to know about motel carparks".

That reminds me...

I must clean the bathroom!



Bathroom by Alisa Perks. Gouache on paper.

This was our bathroom in a house we rented in Lismore. How glamorous.

Woollen cakes in Queensland

Our recent travels in the "South Western Area of South East Queensland Western Country" (I think that's what it's called?), were incredibly interesting.

At Jondaryan Woolshed, the biggest working woolshed in the world, I found a glass cabinet full of knitted wool cakes and sandwiches. What a delight! They are so beautifully made.

Here are some of them:

Yummy woollen cakes and sandwiches at Jondaryan Woolshed, Jondaryan, Queensland

And we searched for the ghost town at Koorongara, south of Milmerran, but couldn't find it. It remains a mystery to us.