Earth Hour 2014

Earth Hour

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 13

Week 13: Water

It seemed appropriate to do a watercolour for Water Week. This is Duart Castle, on the Isle of Mull, Scotland, traditional home of Clan Maclean, as seen from an approaching ferry from Oban. Painted on white acrylic gesso primed canvas sheet. Castle and boat detail in waterproof black Sharpie.

Update:
I decided to have another go at water, making use of some pet rocks from 1981!

Week 13 Water: Owl and Pussycat pet rocks

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 12

Week 12: Numbers

Collage in light card. Numerals cut freehand. I was mulling this over in my head, among other ideas, but I didn't get around to actually creating it until about 9.30pm, just before the start of Week 12. Perhaps I should have played a little more with the negative shapes before gluing down, but I wasn't sure if I was going to do any overlapping. It ended up fairly random.

Update:
I decided to have another go at numbers, using the previous week's architecture pic.

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 11

Week 11: Architecture

Watercolours on white acrylic gesso primed canvas sheet, with fine-point, waterproof, black Sharpie outlining, and miniature signage in Word (and further reduced on photocopier). As I was inking in the pencil lines, I decided to do an "architectural caricature" of the building, such as seen in those artistic interpretations in pamphlets, hand-drawn maps and prospectuses.

My third ever serious attempt at watercolour: the Number 96 building, Paddington locale of the hit Australian TV soap opera of the 70s. The actual building, Moncur Flats, is at 83 Moncur Street, Woollahra. I sketched and painted this on Saturday evening, after hearing of the passing of Australian actress Wendy Hughes. First thing I saw her in was Number 96, when she played Lucy Sutcliffe's niece, Vanessa Harrison. She shared a very funny bathtub scene with Arnold Feather. After many wonderful stage and screen adventures, she became one of only a handful of Aussie actors to appear in Star Trek: The Next Generation, as Picard's girlfriend, Nella Daren (below) in Lessons.

R.I.P. Wendy Hughes

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 10

Week 10: Pattern

Paper weaving, created in 2014, using two old and damaged/unfinished oil pastel artworks from 1981. They had languished in the garage since 2000 (and the previous garage since 1984) and were under a thick layer of dust. I wasn't particularly attached to either of them - they were very early attempts at using oil pastels - but I love the newly-created weaving. Below: The original artworks from 1981.

Above left: Old unfinished giraffe, oil pastel on Ingres paper, 1981.
Above right: Age-damaged bottlebrush artwork, oil pastels and acrylic wash on white art paper, 1981.

Tania McCartney added an article to her blog in which I describe the creative process involved in this technique.