Falling Leaves

Nothing like a pretty bit of fluff =)

Kiwi

A still life study with steps from the initial line drawing to the finished fruit as part of a communal learning forum with the Concept Art website. It's been organised mostly by the artist Min Yum whose work I really admire.

La Petite Oiseau

Recently my tracky daks have been riding pretty low, hanging right off my arse almost so I decided it was time to buy a new bit of elastic for the waist band. Whilst measuring how much elastic I would need, the guy running the sewing stall at the market remarked that I wouldn't need much more than 50cm to fit around my waist because I was such a little bird, which inspired the above drawing. Seeing as I've been doing a bit of tai chi latley, so my version of the little bird is in a tai chi position known as the White Crane Cools Its Wings.

Some Kind of Landscape

It's been ages since I've drawn anything -- too obsessed with learning French, Chinse and German whilst keeping a small, wriggly infant under contol -- and I think the lack of practice shows, though I'm quite pleased with the mountains.

The Lion and the Unicorn

Well, this is what I've been doing with the copious amounts of free time I've had during the last three weeks...



Despite the rather affectionate embrace depicted in my rendition of them, the lion and unicorn are supposedly eternal foes, as both have the right to rule over the animal kingdom -- the lion through might and the unicorn through harmony. They are both present on the United Kingdom coat of Arms, (this was a fairly recent occurrence, when some Scottish king somehow became ruler of both England and Scotland, I think through no English successor being available). The lion represents England and the unicorn, Scotland (note my unicorn is a ranga), though I wonder if they also represent each country in the old nursery rhyme...

The lion and the unicorn were fighting for the crown,
The lion beat the unicorn all about the town.
Some gave them white bread and some gave them brown,
Some gave them plum pie and drummed them out of town.

The Window In My Room

The Swedish have a penchant for really broad window sills and decorating said sills with a variety of knick knacks. The sill of my bedroom window is as wide as the length of an A4 piece of paper, and I can stand on it quite securely. I do this on a fairly regular basis because I like to open the windows every day to get a bit of fresh air, but the handles on the windows are higher than I can reach...

Plaster Sculptures

Yay me for sculpture!

Whipped this little woman up yesterday arvo. It's funny, I create these voluptuous women and I know that men like voluptuous women yet there is no way in hell I would feel comfortable about having those proportions myself. All that flesh! It's so inconventient. What if you had to run somewhere? You'd wobble all over. So inefficient and non-aerodynamic. I'm most comfortable with my body when it's lean, though I'm definitely not fond of the amount of physical activity and food monitoring required to achieve and maintain said condition...

Mermaid

This is the first vaguely creative thing I've done in over 6 months -- something where I'm actually making something up as opposed to trying to reproduce something that already exists. I think the creativity is because I'm having a shitty week. It's not lost on me that I generally only produce when I'm miserable. I wonder if I'd prefer to be barren but consistently happy?

Landscape 003

This was originally sketched on paper whilst sitting in the passenger seat during my cousin's driving shift when we went up north earlier this year. In its current digital incarnation I sketched (not scanned) the lines in using the tablet and then did some colouring in (ahh, I harken -- or is it hearken? back to the good old kindergarten days).

Given that we were travelling at 110km/hour it isn't an exact location as such, more of an amalgamation of various things I saw along the way. If you want a more precise idea of what we were seeing on the road, spread all the landmarks (trees, hills, grass) out over about 10kms and put a lot of red dirt and bitumen in the blanks and you'll have a pretty accurate view of the road we travelled: empty.

Thwarted

A friend of mine has pointed out that the wind appears to be blowing to the right, wherease the tangled string of the kite is blowing to the left. I know. That's what I like about it.

I clicked this one in the same day I found out I'd been withdrawn from the art competition for being too small.

Fat Man with a Can

I found this guy really difficult to draw, for a number of reasons. Firstly, he's fat, which means all the proportions I normally use to draw people don't work so well(all my prior subjects have been less than obese) Secondly, he's all pixels -- I drew him straight into Photoshop using my tablet. Since I've discovered the world of tablet, I've learned that quite a few digital artists do things on paper or canvas and then import it into Photoshop. There are a few out there who start with a blank screen, such as Min Yum, who is a concept artist that does some really cool stuff. Check her out at http://www.minart.net

Free as a Kite

Bright and untethered, soaring high in the stratosphere.

Only slightly enigmatic and shrouded from view.

When I travel alone, this is what I feel.

Excerpt Art Exhibition Goes Online

For all of the world not in Perth, there's now an online version of the exhibition.

www.excerptartexhibition.blogspot.com

Enjoy!

Photoshopping Bari

Messing around one day with Photoshop to see how many different looks I could get out of a single shot without trying stuff that was too hard or complicated. The top left photo is the original shot -- taken from the ferry as we were crossing the Adriatic Sea from Bari, Italy to Patras, Greece. Moving from left to right, the effects I used were: sepia overlay, hue/saturation adjustment, stylised wind filter, greyscale, stylised edge find, extruding edges and solarising. Given that I don't really know much about Photoshop, it really makes you think about how infinite the possibilities are when you actually know how to use this program !!

SeaSky

I went parasailing today ... when you get up that high, it's so calm and quiet, and the seaweed and the sand under the water look like clouds in the sky.

Call centre

I've been working at a call centre this week ... I'm not well suited to sedentry work ... or a 40 hour working week ...

Oedipus/Shiva/Kali/Jocasta

Click HERE to view my entry for the adultshop.com erotic art competition!!

99 Red Balloons

I'm not quite sure why this song inspires such apparent cult worship (well, it does for at least one person I know) but here it is. The original acrylic painting was a gift and I meticulously painted 99 red dots representing said balloons. I've taken a photo of the original and run it through some photoshop filters. I like the overall effect better, but you lose the clarity and the ability to sit there and count to 99...

Dead Crustaceans

Dreaming: I saw the mother of my best friend from high school, who was pregnant at age 55 with a little girl. She'd just come back from a holiday somewhere. I kept asking her the same question in different ways and instantly forgetting the answer: did you go with your sister, was George with you, did you go alone, etc. Then I was in the same place she'd been, some island, walking along the touristy paths by dune spotted hills and a marina. Dived in, fully clothed, to the water. The air had been hot and still and the water was refreshingly cool and the colours of gemstones. Went right down to the bottom and the movement of my limbs stirred the sand at the bottom and some black skeletons/shells of dead crustaceans floated up. I was momentarily afraid until I saw how aimlessly they drifted on the underwater currents, and realised they were dead, dormant, harmless.