Week 1: Whimsy.
"Ready for a night out." Sketch in black Sharpie, watercolour pencils and white opaque Signo pigment ink on watercolour paper.
Update:
Week 1: Whimsy II.
"Working for peanuts." Watercolour and brown, black and white markers.
Showing posts with label clowns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label clowns. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 04, 2017
Wednesday, December 21, 2016
Year 3 of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 51
Week 51: Celebrate.
"Celebrating in their snowglobes." Sketch in watercolour, and black and brown Sharpie on watercolour paper. Snow created with masking fluid.
Wednesday, January 06, 2016
Year 3 of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 1
Week 1: Fancy Dress
"Before and after." Watercolour clown sketch over black finepoint Sharpie and masking fluid on watercolour paper, with a collaged silhouette.
Update:
Week 1: Fancy Dress II
"Betelgeusian Chief Ambassador." This is the most expensive Hollywood costume ever worn in a movie by a screen extra - valued at $US10,000 in 1979 - but is barely glimpsed in the movie, Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The bolt of fabric used in the garment dates back to Cecil B. DeMille and contains real gold and silver thread. Very fancy dress! Oil pastels and Kindy Glitter Glitz on Quill "marbletone" cream paper, and based on a publicity still.
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Return of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 50
Week 50: Party
"Surprise!" Sketch in finepoint and metallic Sharpies on watercolour paper, with highlights in watercolour and dayglo yellow marker.
Update:
Week 50: Party II
Party balloons in coloured cartridge papers, collaged onto Quill glitter-finish Galaxy card.
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Return of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 41
Week 41: Sweets
"Gingerbread house". White and yellow Puffy Paint on recycled brown paper. Details in watercolour and black finepoint Sharpie, with collaged roof and witch.
Update:
Week 41: Sweets II
Watercolour and collage with white opaque paint pen.
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 46
Emerging from the clown car. Black and red Sharpie ink, watercolour and collage (with various wrapping papers and tiny pompons) on A3 watercolour paper. I made a vague thumbnail sketch at work yesterday afternoon, and it was just going to be a painted sketch. Then I walked home, and passed a bargain store with $1 sheets of wrapping paper - and yet another collage was born. Each outfit was cut out freehand - no pencil lines!
Week 46: Circus
Update:
Stagefright at the circus. Black Sharpie, watercolours and metallic coloured pencil on A4 amber La Carta Weave textured paper.
Week 46: Circus II"Reaching new heights in the spotlight." Collage, watercolour, coloured pencil and black ink. Labels rendered in Word. I love the irony that the box with the messiest contents is the one that got upturned.
Week 46: Circus IIIFriday, January 05, 2007
On the twelfth day of Christmas
Nearly there. Today's Christmas ornaments are:
Above left: For 1984, the bone china unicorn was originally part of a boxed set - of "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" character ornaments. I'd actually admired them in various shops for several Christmas seasons in a row. They were manufactured in Taiwan in 1974 from A Company Of Friends. I wasn't enough of an "Alice" fan in those days to want the whole set, but several individual pieces were really appealing. When it became obvious (in 1985 and 1986, when people kept giving me extra ornaments) that I'd be needing two ornaments per year, not just one, I decided to buy the now-sold-loose, and bargain-priced, unicorn - and then date it retroactively. I felt quite justified in doing so; I'd wanted him for years, and would have bought him in 1984 if he'd been available as a separate item. The ceramic teddy bear is very heavy, and quite posable, as the arm and leg joints are on elastic bands. I stood in the shop for ages trying to work out which was the most expensive, single ornament that I really, really liked. And the teddy won out (but I think he was responsible for breaking several branches on my first plastic Christmas tree). Both of these ornaments came from Grace Bros. at Roselands, bought two years apart.
Above right: For 1983, the wooden donkey was my first Christmas ornament. (I'd yet to move out of home, but was saving to buy a flat.) The donkey is handmade, from two and a half dolly pegs, felt scraps, wool and wiggly craft eyes, by an elderly Californian neighbour of an American exchange teacher colleague, Rhonda, with whom I spent Christmas of 1983. Rhonda had taught with me in my first year of full-time teaching in 1982. She took me into Elta's house in Martinez to see "a traditional American Christmas tree" - and it was hung with hand-threaded strings of real popcorn (preserved since the tragic death of her daughter many years earlier), gorgeous, old, blown-glass baubles, and hand-crafted dolly peg animals. Elta asked, "Which animal is your favourite?" - and this was presented to me, duly signed and dated by Elta. She'd also made camels, reindeer, moose, horses, and many others, from different combinations of the wooden pegs. Truly charming! The cute fabric clown was "the" special decoration of the year at a large San Francisco department store, famous for its Christmas displays - one entire floor was strewn with fake snow - and a huge toy department. They had several large Christmas trees on display that were exclusively decorated only with tinsel and these little clowns, every one of them of different colours and patterns of fabric. For several years, my clown played "tree angel" and was perched at the top of my tree each Christmas, until he got demoted by a certain Vulcan.
Above left: For 1984, the bone china unicorn was originally part of a boxed set - of "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" character ornaments. I'd actually admired them in various shops for several Christmas seasons in a row. They were manufactured in Taiwan in 1974 from A Company Of Friends. I wasn't enough of an "Alice" fan in those days to want the whole set, but several individual pieces were really appealing. When it became obvious (in 1985 and 1986, when people kept giving me extra ornaments) that I'd be needing two ornaments per year, not just one, I decided to buy the now-sold-loose, and bargain-priced, unicorn - and then date it retroactively. I felt quite justified in doing so; I'd wanted him for years, and would have bought him in 1984 if he'd been available as a separate item. The ceramic teddy bear is very heavy, and quite posable, as the arm and leg joints are on elastic bands. I stood in the shop for ages trying to work out which was the most expensive, single ornament that I really, really liked. And the teddy won out (but I think he was responsible for breaking several branches on my first plastic Christmas tree). Both of these ornaments came from Grace Bros. at Roselands, bought two years apart.
Above right: For 1983, the wooden donkey was my first Christmas ornament. (I'd yet to move out of home, but was saving to buy a flat.) The donkey is handmade, from two and a half dolly pegs, felt scraps, wool and wiggly craft eyes, by an elderly Californian neighbour of an American exchange teacher colleague, Rhonda, with whom I spent Christmas of 1983. Rhonda had taught with me in my first year of full-time teaching in 1982. She took me into Elta's house in Martinez to see "a traditional American Christmas tree" - and it was hung with hand-threaded strings of real popcorn (preserved since the tragic death of her daughter many years earlier), gorgeous, old, blown-glass baubles, and hand-crafted dolly peg animals. Elta asked, "Which animal is your favourite?" - and this was presented to me, duly signed and dated by Elta. She'd also made camels, reindeer, moose, horses, and many others, from different combinations of the wooden pegs. Truly charming! The cute fabric clown was "the" special decoration of the year at a large San Francisco department store, famous for its Christmas displays - one entire floor was strewn with fake snow - and a huge toy department. They had several large Christmas trees on display that were exclusively decorated only with tinsel and these little clowns, every one of them of different colours and patterns of fabric. For several years, my clown played "tree angel" and was perched at the top of my tree each Christmas, until he got demoted by a certain Vulcan.
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Party mix
Okay, so I bought a big bag of Kenman's Party Mix lollies (candy for the US readers) - and they're 99% fat free - but they are not the expected traditional varieties. No snakes, no bananas, no black cats, no strawberries-and-cream. A few jelly babies, sure, but the rest of them are quasi-fruit jellies in "party" shapes: little chocolate ice cream cones, cupcakes, drink bottles, shooting stars, life-sized lips, mobile phones(?) and decapitated clown heads. And you know what? Those clown heads taste funny. Boom, boom.
On Friday a parcel arrived from Amazon. About two months ago, I finally tracked down a cute little Christmas ditty that Baz & Pilko (Barry Ion and Tony Pilkington) used to play in the late 80s on Sydney radio station 2UW's breakfast show, now the home of MIX 106.5 FM. Every Christmas, little comedy guest voice, "Peter Plus", used to introduce a song, supposedly sung by his kid sister, "Personality". (Personality Plus, get it?)
The song concerned someone, strongly suspected of being Santa Claus, who was stuck in the chimney on Christmas Eve, and met his demise up there, and was still stuck a day, then a week, then a month, then a year later. "Plussy" (voice of Barry Ion, IIRC) never gave a lot of notice that the song was about to be played, so taping it off-air was impossible. At the time, and over several years, I tried to find out the details of the song, since I suspected it was a commercial track from the USA. Rummaging through the Comedy Section of many record shops didn't bear fruit. A friend, who knew one of the 2UW on-air personalities, music guru Gary Jaegar, also drew a blank. Gary had told us the song was probably someone's old demo track and therefore not available on record. So I stopped looking.
Well, thanks to the wonders of Google and the Internet, typing in Santa "stuck up in the chimney" brought me, not only the full song lyrics to "The Chimney Song", as sung by one Lorna List, but also a link to Amazon and the CD version, on which the song is available as Track #2. And so "Twisted Christmas" (1987), by the Bob Rivers Comedy Corp, arrived at my place - after a short delay while Amazon restocked (in time for Christmas, I presume) - but missing my Midwinter Christmas party by a full two weeks. Sigh.
Gosh! The coveted lyrics are now available as a ringtone, and even as a little window for a web page! Isn't technology marvellous?
It was Amazon's second recording miracle in recent months. My dog, Jack, accidentally broke a friend's precious 78 RPM record of Spike Jones and His City Slickers singing the novelty song, "Wild Bill Hiccup" (1949). This was a song from Maria's childhood - or, more likely, her mother's childhood - which the family played on her grandmother's antique, hand-cranked record player - and Jack destroyed the 78 in one, ah, record leap onto a chair (after the stack had been moved during some renovations to their house). Good ol' Amazon. Look what I found with a little diligent searching. Now, I'm sure my friend won't need to hear "Wild Bill Hiccup" on CD all that often, but at least I know that she can, if she so desires, and without thinking black thoughts about Jack-be-nimble and his mountain goat-like feats.
On Friday a parcel arrived from Amazon. About two months ago, I finally tracked down a cute little Christmas ditty that Baz & Pilko (Barry Ion and Tony Pilkington) used to play in the late 80s on Sydney radio station 2UW's breakfast show, now the home of MIX 106.5 FM. Every Christmas, little comedy guest voice, "Peter Plus", used to introduce a song, supposedly sung by his kid sister, "Personality". (Personality Plus, get it?)
The song concerned someone, strongly suspected of being Santa Claus, who was stuck in the chimney on Christmas Eve, and met his demise up there, and was still stuck a day, then a week, then a month, then a year later. "Plussy" (voice of Barry Ion, IIRC) never gave a lot of notice that the song was about to be played, so taping it off-air was impossible. At the time, and over several years, I tried to find out the details of the song, since I suspected it was a commercial track from the USA. Rummaging through the Comedy Section of many record shops didn't bear fruit. A friend, who knew one of the 2UW on-air personalities, music guru Gary Jaegar, also drew a blank. Gary had told us the song was probably someone's old demo track and therefore not available on record. So I stopped looking.
Well, thanks to the wonders of Google and the Internet, typing in Santa "stuck up in the chimney" brought me, not only the full song lyrics to "The Chimney Song", as sung by one Lorna List, but also a link to Amazon and the CD version, on which the song is available as Track #2. And so "Twisted Christmas" (1987), by the Bob Rivers Comedy Corp, arrived at my place - after a short delay while Amazon restocked (in time for Christmas, I presume) - but missing my Midwinter Christmas party by a full two weeks. Sigh.
Gosh! The coveted lyrics are now available as a ringtone, and even as a little window for a web page! Isn't technology marvellous?
It was Amazon's second recording miracle in recent months. My dog, Jack, accidentally broke a friend's precious 78 RPM record of Spike Jones and His City Slickers singing the novelty song, "Wild Bill Hiccup" (1949). This was a song from Maria's childhood - or, more likely, her mother's childhood - which the family played on her grandmother's antique, hand-cranked record player - and Jack destroyed the 78 in one, ah, record leap onto a chair (after the stack had been moved during some renovations to their house). Good ol' Amazon. Look what I found with a little diligent searching. Now, I'm sure my friend won't need to hear "Wild Bill Hiccup" on CD all that often, but at least I know that she can, if she so desires, and without thinking black thoughts about Jack-be-nimble and his mountain goat-like feats.
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