Dancin' Fool

I'm not really designed for dancing although I do enjoy it.
I'm solid and robust rather than lithe and bendy.
I really only get into it properly when I'm full of piss (Australian for being very drunk).
This is another quick scribble done in Painter (a software package).
Anyone who knows me knows I enjoy popping things in brackets as a bit of an aside (just like this).
Most people know of an illustrator called Brian Froud, who I loved as a child.
This drawing isn't much like his work but I think the pose is.

Grace

I've been lucky enough in recent months to have one of my dearest friends in the world fall pregnant.
I've had pregnant friends before - I am very close to a 7 month and a 2 and a half year old.
Baby Ashleigh calls me Nikket - which I think is her version of Uncle Elliot.
It's been a little different with this other friend of mine.
She's doing it alone for a starter (with whatever help is required of course).
She's 6 months into it, and it's her first and probably her last.
I'm finding the whole thing to be the source of huge inspiration.
I've been drawing lots of "parent & child" images.
The whole thing is very important to me, and in fact often moving.
The above image is something I've been bashing away at for ages without much resolution.
I've been doing it in pen and ink and it's just occured to me that perhaps I need to take it to another level and paint it....
This whole baby business has had such a positive influence on my work, and a real direction, something I don't often have, and I thought I'd send the positive vibes out into the world for whoever cares to feel them.

Influences

I guess one of the biggest hurdles any artist faces is hiding who your influences are (or perhaps to put it another way, to hide where you've been stealing from).
I can look at this and see all the Gerald Scarfe I've absorbed over the years but there's also plenty of Chuck Jones in it as well (I think, or perhaps would hope).

End of Days

I had a very peculiar dream the other night.
The world was about to plunged into a radioactive hell, and the government introduced a scheme whereby artists were asked to design fallout shelters.
One of the selected artists was one of my former uni lecturers (and good friend) Stephen Pascoe.
He designed this massive office block made out of revolving towers of cardboard.
Each one of these towers was topped with an amusing cartoon head, handpainted in a rough style - clown heads, kittens and whatnot.
I don't really recall the outcome of the dream but the enormous revolving fallout shelter stuck in my head (I rarely remember my dreams).
This creature above is from my files and reminded me vaguely of the artwork included in the dream.

Uma

Caricature is an interesting thing.
Some people will recognise the subject straight away.
Others think you are a no talent hack without a clue.
My biggest illustration hero is a fellow called Gerald Scarfe.
Despite some heavily detailed work, his theory about caricature seems to be that it's important to get the essence of someone, rather than reproduce them exactly.
If that were your goal I guess you'd paint a portrait.
This is Uma Thurman in Kill Bill.
In actuality I don't think it looks much like her, but I think I captured the essence of Uma from that particular film (and who wouldn't want some essence of Uma?).

Floating

I spent a very productive 6 weeks being unemployed earlier in the year.
I poured almost all my spare cash into buying smooth hot press Fabriano water colour paper (which is my absolute favourite).
Almost everything I did, with the exception of the painting below called "Rain", was black and white pen and ink work.
I don't use colour very often simply because I tend to work very quickly and am dreadfully impatient waiting for ink to dry.

All Good People

Another "real life" picture done with paint and pencils and everything.
Well...ink and guache and crayons to be exact.
Another large image.

Rain

This is the first painting I've done in years.
It's quite large and done with acrylics on board.
There are several layers of clear coat over it which give it a lovely depth.
There's no clear coat under the umbrella, which is probably a little cheesy and obvious but it does create a lovely tactile quality.
This is also the first image on this blog created without the magic of a Wacom tablet.

OUCH!

I dislocated my knee on Sunday morning.
This is a quick artists impression of how it looked before it popped back into place.
I can really only give an impression as I passed out for a moment and don't really remember much beyond the screaming.
It hurt significantly more than the time I snapped my archilles tendon several years ago.

More OUCH!

This is a pretty lifelike recreation of the look I had on my face when it happened.
If you are interested it occured during one of my least favourite activities - gardening.
I've spent years cultivating weeds and dog shit and in recent months I've done a great big cleanup.
I've not really enjoyed much of it and this recent injury shows that I should never do any gardening ever again.

One sheep, many shipe

This is a sheep saying "I don't know!".
Sheep don't know a lot of things.
They don't know about ball point pens or cold fusion or choc bits.
This sheep here has been asked "Where did you put the Enjo gloves?".
Have a lovely Easter.
I'll post again on Tuesday.

Bad Cat

This is a drawing of a cat I built several months ago.
I'm in the pet manufacturing business.
I'm also quite good at birds, especially quails.
Quails aren't really very good pets, they're not much good at hugging or coming when you call.
They are very good at making tea and coffee though, and they're very loyal and will attack your enemies without a thought for their own safety.

Healthsome Exercise #1

Find something interesting on the ground and point at it for a long time.

Tasmania says "Hello!"

Tasmania says "Hello".
Or at least I do.
Look at these pictures with your eyes and enjoy them with your brain.