Opening Night: 52-Week Illustration Challenge Exhibition!

Exhibition pre-publicity poster of Tania McCartney by Penny Fisher

Opening Night for the "52-Week Illustration Challenge" exhibition at Arts Brookfield Gallery, Perth, Australia, was on Monday night, so the embargo is finally lifted. My shortlisted entry for "Week 11: Architecture" (for which I did an architectural caricature watercolour of the infamous Number 96 building) is on the wall! Number 96, of course, was the popular/naughty TV soap opera in Australia in the 70s, and a major part of this blog's origins.

Flickr slideshow of Opening Night.

"When children's author Tania McCartney challenged herself to produce an image per week for 52 weeks, to reconnect with her long-lost love of illustration (and hopefully illustrate her own books), she never imagined her tiny seed of an idea would become a mighty oak. Now in its second year, and with over 3000 members from around the globe, the weekly Facebook group has spawned connections and reconnections with decades of lost creativity. Friendships have been formed, collaborations forged, contracts signed, books produced, careers redirected, lives changed. And yes, Tania has realised her dream of illustrating her own books. Dare to dream.
"The exhibition features one carefully selected piece from each of the 52 themes in 2014." [From the entry poster.]

A great introduction to the 52-Week Illustration Challenge Exhibition is this video clip by The West Australian newspaper:

Challenging creativity: Illustration challenge unites artists around the world

Towards the conclusion of the 2014 Challenge, we were asked to submit our thoughts, perhaps to be compiled as testimonials:

MOTIVATION AND DISCIPLINE

What I immediately latched onto with the Challenge was an opportunity to, once again, accept a series of external hard and fast dates (this time 52 of them!). The deadlines to complete something were invaluable. This seems to be how I get the best out of myself. In my daily life, I will happily postpone and ignore self-imposed deadlines, and rarely get things done as getting through the days just swamps me and keeps me distracted. I do seem to be able to meet externally applied deadlines, though, and I happily achieved the individual 365 Photos Challenge a few years ago (which lasted a whole year), and I was then bemused/disappointed when a group of enthusiastic teacher colleagues starting dropping like flies during a month-long 30 Photos Challenge a few years later.

So Tania's initial list of 52 weekly art deadlines, the already-assigned topics, was just the Challenge I'd been waiting for. I remembered back to an adult evening college art collective I joined in 1980, and had continued with until moving house in late 1984. The weekly two-hour art-making sessions made me quite productive. In that focused time, amid the happy banter of people relaxing and being creative, I could often achieve a finished piece - so very satisfying! Upon reexamining it the next morning, there would sometimes be a few finishing touches (a schedule that has become a great yardstick for the 2014 Challenge, too, actually). But the enforced discipline to complete something was invaluable.

Week 25: Dots - Fairy Fatality Bread

THEMES AND MEDIA

Knowing the 52 topics ahead of time, and being exposed to the daily uploads from all the other group members, helps to get ideas percolating in my head. Without the Challenge, these ideas might often flash through my head, but I don't usually act upon them. Or I simply never put aside the time and another once-great idea fades away. With the Challenge sitting in a corner of my brain, a mere stroll through a $2 bargain store, a new art supply store, the local Bunnings, the dog park, a cloud formation, or a classroom at school (I'm a primary school teacher-librarian), ideas for possible ways to marry certain themes and art media can merge - and emerge - resulting in singularly clever and innovative artworks. Without a doubt, some of my favourite pieces I've shared in the Challenge have been physically created in just minutes - sometimes seconds! - but the thought processes may have evolved in my head over many days, or weeks, and sometimes months.

So the cello bags of feathers I bought months ago (just before "Feather" week) were also on hand for "Black + White" and "Bird" weeks. The papier mâché koala mask I bought on a whim went with me to the USA so I could be prepared to paint it up at my penpal's house in Michigan for "Sydney" week. I knew that the cupcake patty pan cases in my pantry were destined to make it into "Under the Sea" week the moment I saw some child craft creations in a Kindergarten classroom months earlier.

Week 11: Architecture - Number 96 Lindsay Street, Paddington

SHARING IDEAS AND TECHNIQUES

I have been deliberately eclectic when approaching the theme each week and have been inspired by the many ideas and techniques displayed (and sometimes explained) on the Facebook page and the blog that Tania set up. It has been rewarding to share my own little tricks I've picked up over the years, and then to see what people do with them! Squinting to see the negative shapes, the "rules" for painting authentic skies, clouds and horizons, paper weaving, "drawing on the right side of the brain", long-forgotten kids' art from people's own childhoods, such as crayon resist... So much fun to share!

Because of this Challenge, I tried watercolour for the first time (beyond those frustrating Boxing Day memories of childhood, trying to use a giant Christmas gift tin of watercolour paint cakes and totally messing up a colouring book, and then going back to one's reliable, predictable pencils and Textas). Due to my success with that first watercolour scene, I've now done many more. with a long row of recently framed watercolours in my lounge room.

I think I've found new respect for collage. Several artworks created by me for this Challenge have surprised me by evolving into 3D collages just before the deadline. A few times it has been to repair an accidental splodge. A few times the artwork begged for some signage, or a naturally-cast shadow. And sometimes the 2D artwork simply refused to remain two-dimensional.

I've tried to be quite spontaneous. Several of my artworks have been created without pencil guidelines! Sometimes I amaze myself with such bravery (and dumb luck) and, again, those are the pieces that often seem to receive the most praise, which encourages me to be brave (or lucky) more often.

Week 35: Paris - Abbesses, le Métro

THE QUEST TO FIND ONE'S STYLE

I know it's been mentioned on the Challenge page often. So many of us have an obvious "style", but so many of us seem to be searching for one. I know I've now found a few ways to make my own works quirkily unique to me, but have I yet found my style? I think the quest may be ongoing.

I know it's important to embrace serendipity, and of that there has been no shortage in this Challenge. In "Boxes" week, I had to create a display in a box for my school library. I travelled in a plane approaching "Plane" week, and then there was that terrible air disaster that (at first) threatened to shadow our efforts with doom and gloom, but we were triumphant and respectful. I had to create both "Sydney" and "Snow" in Michigan, USA, where I usually see so much snow - but it was the middle of their summer. I loved how "Bird" week happened to fall in National Bird Week, catching Tania by surprise. Serendipity is alive and well and we embrace it!

POST SCRIPT

Speaking of serendipity and wild coincidences:

Above: This is Bettina Dodson, my frame buddy. Her work for "Week 12: Numbers" and mine are right next to one another. Bettina was named after actress Bettina Welch, who (as Maggie Cameron) once blew up the Number 96 deli in my painting with a bomb!

To top off an amazing week, my image Fairy Fatality Bread, created for a different week of the 2014 Challenge, was requested for publication in a new romance fanzine, Trousseau, launched last weekend at the annual Australian Romance Readers' Convention!

THE VIRTUAL TOUR

And here's the whole thing! The virtual tour of the 52-week Illustration Challenge Exhibition Opening Night​, as blogged by Tania McCartney​ and Nicky Johnston​!

Tania and Nicky have also compiled a report on the exhibition, with more photos and the text of Tania's Opening Night speech: HERE!

Flickr slideshows of my work can be found here: 2014 artworks and 2015 artworks.

Captain's Log: Supplemental: The exhibition has now been extended to Friday 27th March!

The magic of the 60s

Yesterday and today, while avoiding housework by trawling around the Internet, I uncovered a few stray bits of uploaded data about an Australian children's television show of 1965-67: "Magic Circle Club". What was frustrating was that no one had done any cross referencing, so the Wikipedia listing was very incomplete (and is still quite vague in many places), but at least it looks less patchy tonight, now that I've gotten stuck into it.

I was in Year 1 when "The Magic Circle Club" premiered. It was probably my first favourite show, and what a thrill when it even won a Logie Award! (Of course that usually dooms the great shows and, yes, eventually "The Magic Circle Club" was deemed too expensive, and many of the production staff and performers found themselves in a new, but similar, show called "Adventure Island".

The brainchild of a dynamic group of early TV identities, including Godfrey Philipp and John-Michael Howson, it owed a lot to the pantomime genre, and featured original songs, music and dance routines, which my brother and I watched in all their blurry, flickering, monotone haze, as Channel Ten was only very new, and our grandmother's television antennae received a very untrustworthy, twitchy signal from that frequency.


Cassius, Leonardo, Fredd, Nancy and Max, c. 1965


Its characters were the denizens of the Magic Forest: the mute Fredd Bear (Tedd Dunn) and his screechy sister Fee Fee Bear (hilariously played by John-Michael Howson in a hair bow and high heels); Mother Hubbard (a bustle-wearing pantomime dame, played by Fred Tupper); the handsome Max (Max Bartlett); Curley Dimples, a young Shirley Temple analogue; Marlena DeWitch (Marion Weir); Crystal Ball (Gabrielle Hartley) and her pet, Hep Cat (Nola Finn); and villain Sir Jasper Crookly (Ernie Bourne) - definitely a precursor to Snidely Whiplash and Dick Dastardly (and a full year before Professor Fate of "The Great Race")! Sir Jasper's sidekick was the sniveling, cowardly Gaspar Goblin (Colin McEwan), who was reminiscent of movie host, Deadly Earnest.

The show was hosted by Nancy Cato, cousin of a famous author, the other Nancy Cato. A later addition to the cast was Liz (Liz Harris), who also took over as hostess when Nancy Cato suffered temporary paralysis and was confined to a wheelchair.

The 550 episodes were serialised across five days, with the Friday program wrapping up each week's storyline. (This was a great frustration to my brother and I, since on Friday afternoons, we all often had to walk to Rockdale shopping centre - from Arncliffe, two suburbs away - to do any shopping my Mum and grandmother hadn't done the day before, ie. "Message Day"). Each episode finished up with the hostess sitting on a large toadstool (or indeed, the "Magic Mushroom"), with Fredd Bear crouched beside her (usually after dusting off the stool with a handkerchief), while the pair shared viewer letters and artwork. Another regular feature included knock-knock jokes with Cassius Cuckoo and limericks with Leonardo de Funbird, who were very expressive wooden and felt puppets.

A semi-regular guest character was Aunty Vale (Bunney Brooke) - what a highlight of my time putting together my (still uncompleted) "Number 96" book: to interview Bunney Brooke and get her chatting about being Aunty Vale all those years ago!

The "Magic Circle Club" was influential upon me in so many ways. Even though I was only in Year 1 and then Year 2 at school at the time, I have a very distinct memory of the day I wrote a "Magic Circle Club" play. There were scripted roles for all of my school friends, and I had my younger brother, who was one year below me at school, and couldn't read, to play the part of the silent Fredd Bear. Through trial and error, I realised why play scripts need to have everyone's parts written on each copy.

I remember making several working cardboard and paper models of Leonardo de Funbird, with an Origami "colour-changer" for a beak. I also recall making a tiny stapled book of character drawings from the show - obviously my very first fanzine production (a collector's edition: #1 of 1 copy!). I also remember making a matching volume for "Adventure Island" when it started the next year.

If you were around in 1965 and 1966, and remember any details of Australia's "Magic Circle Club", which I've omitted here, please do let me know!

Lore and Order by Ian McLean

Professional Star Trek authors beware:

... a "Next Generation" fanzine story, in a poetic style that began to feel very reminiscent of Dr Seuss when I was originally composing it. First published in "Klingons over Kiron III", (c) November 1991. It seems somehow appropriate to reprint it in the week of The Cat in the Hat's 50th birthday - which was, coincidentally, the very same day as my brand new Lore action figure (from Diamond Select toys/Art Asylum) arrived from the USA!

LORE AND ORDER
'Twas a sparkling day on Kiron III *
And Lore was living high;
He'd made ten thousand credits, see,
He didn't have to try.
Lore, he was too clever,
The colonists were dim;
Yes, Lore, he pulled the lever,
And his puppets danced for him.

The colonists all brought their queries
On farming or construction.
They paid him well to hear his theories
On preventing crop destruction.
In every answer Lore did sell
There always was 'Plan B';
If people from Lore's favour fell,
He'd wreck their plans with glee.

Lore wrapped his plots in scientific guise,
The farmers never guessed
That the android with the yellow eyes,
Was Kiron III's worst pest!
A ladies' man was Mr Lore,
The women found him witty;
The menfolk, they could take no more.
Soong thought all this a pity.

That his android loved the good life,
Caused Doctor Soong to wonder
How to cope when Lore caused strife?
Soong's experiments went under!
His idea had been a good one -
To create a robot man;
But he gave the thing emotion
And Soong's troubles they'd began!

Lore, he had rejected 'Dad',
No father figure now;
"I will not let my son go bad",
The doctor made his vow.
Doctor Soong discussed his troubles,
The technician's name was Karl;
"Well catch him at his own game",
The man said with a snarl.

If they devised a riddle,
To which they knew the key;
They'd catch Lore in the middle,
The colonists set free
From Lore's manipulations,
And money-making schemes;
But Karl had other reasons:
The end of all Soong's dreams...


Illustration by Paul Beck, aka "Breeze".

For Karl, he was a Klingon spy,
Infiltrating Kiron III;
To steal the android he would try,
Technology for free!
His years of working for the Doc
Had helped him plan the feat:
To make the android's programs lock;
Karl's get-away was neat.

He walked in upon the android,
Who was busy making love;
The woman screamed, she looked annoyed,
Ran to the street above.
The android shook the bed-clothes free,
No fear he would allow;
"I know your plan's to challenge me.
Let's end it here and now!"

They paced each other 'round the floor,
Today would be the day;
If Karl could last ten minutes more,
A Klingon Bird of Prey
Would transport up the android, and
Leave orbit with its prize;
Then Lore began to crush his hand,
Karl could not believe his eyes!

Lore won by using all his strength,
Held the Klingon spy with ease.
Androids could go to any length -
"Your communicator, please..."
Imitating the Klingon's sound,
Lore admitted Karl's 'mistake',
Then smashed his skull into the ground,
One Klingon's life at stake.

And so Lore lived to lie again,
Men petitioned his creator;
Soong disassembled Lore and then
He manufactured Data.
"This new android won't love or hate;
Won't cause Lore's brand of terror.
His quest for knowledge will be great."
The Doc had learned his error.

By Ian McLean, 1991.

* otherwise known as Omicron Theta ("Datalore"). Planet first named Kiron III in David Gerrold's novelisation of "Encounter at Farpoint".

Do you know the way to ShiKahr?

American television audiences channel flipping for random episodes of original Star Trek (TOS) in syndication are enjoying all-new special effects footage, which is being recreated/repaired/enhanced with CGI in remastered, high definition versions of the episodes. Although current syndication advertisement ratios require extensive cutting of popular lines and (sometimes) whole scenes, there is an intention to release uncut HD DVDs of the "remastered" TOS.

TOS was made on film, not videotape, which means that it looks amazing on HD TV, but the FX made in the 1960s are simply not up to scratch, due to the number of composite film layers required to produce SPFX footage of transporter effects, phaser beams, ship passes and matt paintings. The episodes still look good on regular TVs, but DVD already shows up problems (the joins on Nimoy's pointed ear tips, for one) and HD TV and DVD will show up many more faults, especially in the old SPFX.

While some fans have been angered by any attempt to meddle with a cultural icon - especially the attempts to recreate CGI versions of the Enterprise's rotating nacelle caps, and the artists putting miniature, moving versions of themselves in the new computer-drawn matt paintings - the CBS SPFX team are doing an amazing job, from the still and moving examples I've seen so far.

But last week, CBS unveiled its remastered version of "Amok Time". Suddenly, that well-known scene of Spock and Kirk's battle for T'Pring, Spock's intended bondmate, has been elevated, literally, onto an impossibly precarious land bridge, similar to those seen in "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock"! And, in the distance, we can now see a CGI recreation of Spock's home city of ShiKahr, which had previously been named and visited in the Filmation animated episode, "Yesteryear" (TAS).


Left: ShiKahr in TAS; Right: a distant ShiKahr in TOS-R.

While most of Filmation's TAS was shunted out of "canon" via a Star Trek Office memo in 1989, several names and events from "Yesteryear" (plus Captain Robert April of "The Counter-clock Incident") are embraced by the "Star Trek Encyclopedia" and the "Star Trek Chronology", with Gene Roddenberry's approval. Unfortunately, Spock's city of birth is misspelt "ShirKahr" in those publications, and that pesky error has permeated TAS mentions in other licensed Star Trek products.

Oh, and if you're wondering about the moon-like object in the sky over Shikahr in the "Yesteryear" still, that is "T'Kuht", coined in the 70s by fanzine identity, Gordon Carleton, to explain the misleading TOS quote, "Vulcan has no moon, Miss Uhura" (in "The Man Trap"). Jean Lorrah once wrote Sarek & Amanda fanzine stories for T'Kuhtian Press.

The TAS error in "Yesteryear" (ie. Dorothy Fontana had scribbled "remove moon" on the art she approved for Filmation, but it wasn't noticed by the animators) was retconned as "Vulcan's twin planet" in the booklet accompanying View-Master's "Yesteryear" adaptation, "Mr. Spock's Time Trek". The planetary body was also shown to dominate the Vulcan sky in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" (TMP) in 1979 (below), although it was eliminated for the director's edition DVD.



Several years later, the planetoid turned up in a Pocket Star Trek novel as T'Kuht in "The Vulcan Academy Murders" (below) by Jean Lorrah, acknowledging Gordon Carleton for the name and explanation. The planetoid is even on the cover of "The Vulcan Academy Murders" (below left) and Michael Jan Friedman's "New Worlds, New Civilizations" (below right).



The name is spelt "T'Khut" in Diane Duane's "Spock's World", Jeri Taylor's "Voyager: Pathways" and the books "The Worlds of the Federation" and "New Worlds, New Civilizations". It's called "T'Rukh" in AC Crispin's novel, "Sarek", with an explanation that the name changes are seasonal. It's T'Kuht again in "The Needs of the One" a DC Comics story in its TOS Special, Series II, and Geoffrey Mandel's book, "Star Trek Star Charts".

With the animated series often considered the bastard child of the Star Trek phenomenon, it's always a thrill to me to see TAS acknowledged. With the new version of "Amok Time", ShiKahr and TAS take a new step towards legitimacy and acceptance!