Horrors

Expression

Is there room in a commerical job for personal expression.
Is one really able to subvert or tell the truth when there is a brief and dollars at stake?
The image on the left is the kind of cute slop commonly available.
The image on the right is a gut feeling (for me anyway, nothing pleasing about falling in love as far as I'm concerned).
On the left there's populist silliness, on the right personal silliness.

Two Guns

This is the handiwork of one of my university lecturers, Terry Matasoni (who we called Terry Two Guns for no reason I can recall).
He gave it to me for my 21st.
It's a lithograph I think.
It's one of my very few treasures and will be sad to leave it behind when I head off overseas.
Terry always encouraged us to fill up our canvas and it was something I took to heart.
It did take me a good 10 years to start producing images that didn't spread from horizon to horizon but the lessons learned were important.
Terry was a great teacher (he took our life drawing classes).
I think he felt it was more important to love drawing than to draw beautifully - the theory being that if you love it you will eventually get better at it.

Individual Voices

Voodoo

It was a relief to draw this today.

More voodoo?...switched at birth?

Exceedingly Silly

Silliness of the highest order.
This is the only piece of my high school art that remains, and I've only just worked out that in 2 years it will be 20 years old (oh. my. god...)
I only did two years of art and this sort of nonsense may be the reason why.
I remember having tears pouring down my face as I did it.
I thought it was hilarious.
It's essentially 50 odd pages of scribble.
This is the front cover.
For those who can't read it, it says "The Grate Bycentenial Rad Art Book Wich is Good" (spelled wrong on purpose).
It was Australias bicentenial at the time - 1988.


A page from the book - it was all done in wax crayon.


It included several centrefolds, here is a portion of one of them.


Another page.


And there was a free ice cream container lid jammed in the middle.


I am hugely fond of silly things and this is perhaps the silliest thing I've ever done.
I remember it with great fondness however and it's a miracle I've still got it (I tend to throw out all my work every couple of years when it's old and embarassing).

Cheat

Painter has a lot of silly tools but if you fiddle with them a bit you can do some interesting things.

Also - a big thanks to visitor #27500 from Hawaiian Gardens, California.
You win a handjob from your favorite Hollywood celebrity.

Sparrow Head - Updated

It really is a new thing for me to be drawing so small.
I would like to get these through a photocopier and blow them up huge - I think they'd be great.

Here's a thing.
I have a client base of about 10 or so regulars and a bunch of hangers on that I do something for maybe once or twice a year.
The once or twice a year guys are usually the difficult ones.
Here's an email I draughted to morning.
It took all my willpower (and common sense) to not send it.
Southern Cross btw, is our opposition:

John – sorry I’ve taken so long to get back to you.
To be honest I really couldn’t care less about you or your business.
Your success is of no interest to me whatso………………….sorry – I fell asleep just thinking about you.
You see what I mean?
Based on my levels of interest, I suggest you don’t bother advertising, and if you insist on doing so, please contact Southern Cross and speak to someone there.
Yours, with 100% disinterest,

Elliot Cowan

Teeny Tits!

Rather unintentionally ended up looking like one of my clients (or what i imagine she'd look like).

Hooray for me

It is with definate pride that I am happy to say my caricature of Angelina Jolie (no Boris, it wasn't Steve Guttenburg) was given second place in the John K blog challenge.

Unrelated silliness.

Topple Town

Whimsy can be repellent but I think I'm ok here...

Dense

This is less dense than the one before.
I find Photoshop an extremely tiresome thing to colour my images in.
One thing I do not find tiresome are girls with short hair and boyleg underpants (but she is a little slim hipped...).

Guess Who

Can anyone pick who this Hollywood starlet is?

Tribute

This never started out as a tribute to Tove Jansson, but it ended up that way.
All these recent pictures of ships on the sea a related to her work so it was inevitable I would get around to this eventually.
My own linework is a great deal sloppier than Tove's wonderful careful drawings, but it's a tribute, not a photocopy, so there you are.
I think it may need some stars or perhaps I need to shift the moon up higher.
If this were a proper tribute I would have done it in pen and ink...

Homeless Drawings

Sometimes I start something but it doesn't go anywhere.
Here are some pieces I've never posted that fall into these categories.
The fellow with the A on his face is a drawing of someone elses character that I know nothing about.

Sold To Lady With the Twinkle in Her Eye

I just sold this.
How jolly.

A Yo Ho Ho....

The one thing I'm usually good at is composition, so let's treat this a quick sketch for now.
A request from the fabulous Beth S.

More Scritch Scratch

The reason you are seeing some more actual drawing from me is because I bought a pad of A4 watercolour paper in the grade that I like.
It fits on the scanner unlike most of what I do.

There is an appalling show on the television called Extreme Makeovers.
They take unappealing people and make them unappealing in a different way.
I had that on while I was drawing last night (I can't find the remote control which means I can't put the DVD player on, otherwise I wouldn't be watching broadcast tv).


This is digital, unlike its brothers above.
I'd like this as a bedspread.

The Gorge

This is Launcestons Cataract Gorge.
I don't know if I've really done the place justice with these cobbled together panorama shots.
It's beautiful here any time of the year.
My friend Beth will note that yet again there is no-one really here.
There were a lot more people about 10 minutes later.

And with light and cheeriness there must also be darkness and something unpleasant.

MORE BUSY, BUSY, BUSY

There is something extremely pleasing about drawing in this way.

Righto - it's the end of my day - late.
Here's something less REALLY FUN than the other two silly things I posted today.
Cute things in peril.
A recurring theme...

BUSY, BUSY, BUSY

Today I am busy.
I am not happy about it.
However I did have a pleasing experience this morning I would like to share.
I normally do not buy a lotto ticket.
Sometimes, but not often.
I did this past weekend.
Today I went to the post office to send some international packages.
The whole lot cost me me $25.50 (Australian $).
Then I went check my lotto ticket and won $25.50.
Hooray for Karma!

Scritch Scratch

Here's an actual drawing - one made by (almost) human hands.
Rather unusually for me it's only A4 sized.
It's for an international buddy.

One part of my job that is forced on me occasionally is having to go and film sexy blonde girls in bikinis.
Unfortunately I'll be doing that for the entirety of today - dammit!
Will happily post some images of the event later this evening or tomorrow.

Update - later in the day.
There are few occasions where the client is right...
I was more than happy to fullfill his demands.

Love Waits

Tom Waits is someone I've rattled on about many times on this blog.
His music continually fuels images and I constantly return to his songs for inspiration.

I don't know these exact people but I know some people like them.

Silhouettes and some other things

A post over at The Doodlers reminded me of these old snaps I took when I was in high school.

Unrelated scared cat (my cross hatching resembles that of Dr Seuss sometimes I think - a kind of refined scribble...)


And woman say something, but I don't know what.


A little too cute perhaps...(the dog, not me).

Story Time With Uncle Elliot

Janet and David loved each other very much....

Done in Painter with heaps of cheesy shit Photoshop additions.

This is dedicated to Charmaine and Carrie