Return of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 1

Week 1: Fairy Tale

Facebook Friend Tania McCartney is running the 52-Week Illustration Challenge again in 2015. My first effort (above) is Little Red Riding Hood: a watercoloured artwork on dampened watercolour paper. Outlined in black Sharpie - freehand with no pencil lines.

I shall be adding the artworks to this Flickr slideshow each week. Enjoy!

I did the Challenge in its inaugural year, which saw its membership surpass 2500 members! (2728 at last count!) Last year, I got into a fairly good routine of painting on a Sunday afternoon (and perhaps a little tinkering the next night), then creating the scan or digital photo so I'd be ready to post to the Challenge's Facebook page at midnight on the Tuesday. Of course, originally, I had no intention of doing a second artwork each week. I started getting intensely jealous of people putting up multiple works of a theme... so now, if inspiration strikes, I'll alway do more. I'm looking forward to seeing who's still here - and how artistic we all feel - in another year's time!

Update:

Week 1: Fairy Tale II

Peter Pan. Charcoal sketch of my Chicago actor pal, James Edward Dauphin, from a publicity shot of his featured stage role. In a costume he designed himself. Highlights in green oil pastel.

Week 1: Fairy Tale III

The Witch - of numerous fairy tales - as portrayed by Meryl Streep in 'Into the Woods'. Charcoal over watercolour wash on A3 watercolour paper. Based on a publicity photo.

I saw the movie, Into the Woods, on Sunday night and that particular image of Meryl Streep as The Witch has been haunting me ever since. I did exaggerate her nose because she was looking too pretty. I was excited by the randomness of the watercolour wash. Just as it was close to drying, I patted off excess green in the centre, with a scrunched paper towel, guessing where the face needed to be. Then I kept reorienting the paper, trying to decide which way was "up". Working with charcoal takes me back to the late 70s/early 80s. Nostalgia plus!

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 35

The beautiful art nouveau Métro entrance to Abbesses Station in the Montmartre district, Paris, France. In winter. Green and black Sharpies, opaque white Signo and watercolours on Mont Marte watercolour paper.

Week 35: Paris

Update:

In the style of Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen's iconic poster for Rodolphe Salis' Le Chat Noir, here is my interpretation of le Chien Blanc, created in collage, black Sharpie, opaque white Signo and watercolours. Model: Jack Russell McLean.

Week 35: Paris II

My muse struck at about 10pm and I finally posted the pic after finishing at 2.30am and was too pumped to sleep. I hate it when my brain wants to keep being creative! In 1974, when studying French at high school, I used to wear a T-shirt with "le Chat Noir" printed on it, having originally bought it because it had French language on it, and having no idea how famous it was, nor its relevance to Montmartre! Last year, visiting Paris for the first time, the image was everywhere: in every Parisian gift store and souvenir shop and almost every cafe. Plus little white dogs (and dog poo) just as ubiquitous! Made me miss my Jack Russell so much seeing copies of him everywhere!

Is the tennis ball supposed to remind us of the "The French Open", aka in Paris as "Roland Garros"? Mais oui, but it is also there to hide a blemish in the background paper that was exaggerated by the scan. I came back from Paris last year all fired up with ideas for a story about a little white dog in Paris but, a few weeks later, my writer friend, Natalie Jane Prior, bought out her new picture book: of a little white dog in Paris (Pom Pom, where are you?).

L'escargot et la grenouille. Collage of painted watercolour paper, black Sharpie, coloured card and a downloadable, online, 3D menu:

Week 35: Paris III

I was trying to get the frog to look more shocked. But frogs are already so wide-eyed! The tiny print on the crumpled hors d'oeuvres menu actually lists both snails and frogs' legs. I found a free customizable menu template on the web! The sample already had a snails dish listed and I quickly altered the title of a different dish to include la cuisses de grenouille. (Just in case it's not "Paris" enough, it has an address card for the site of my cousin-in-law's first taste of snails. Much happier with it now. The shadows from the menu were all wrong last night, and I realised that the snail was seemingly falling off the table in the first version, but I'd stuck him down too firmly.)

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 29

Still live from Michigan, USA. Douglas Lake in Northern Michigan, to be precise! The theme is "Plane, so here'a a model plane, created with iridescent Origami paper, which flies over my photograph of the lake at sunset.

Week 29: Plane

Update:

Week 29: Plane II

"Open wide, here comes an aeroplane!" Paper collage and permanent black Sharpie.

Here comes an aeroplane... er, starship!

"Star Trek" Enterprise Light-Up Feeding System from ThinkGeek

Sunday brunch!

DAY 11

At Mash Cafe, Glenbrook. Poached eggs Barcelona, with roasted capsicum, chorizo sausage, hash brown and sour dough toast. And a dash of paprika.

Vacation photo roundup, Part I

I'm back from vacation: a restful time spent with friends Maria, Peter and little Ben, as their house guest over Christmas and the New Year.

The Macbook Pro came with me, although there weren't too many opportunities to go online, although the last three days gave me several long sessions using a McDonald's free Wi-Fi connection, and it was a good way to wean myself back into the virtual world.

Part I of my special holiday subset of the 365 Photos project:


Jack begins to suspect I'm packing for a vacation without him. 20 December 2009.


Leaving on a Virgin Blue jetplane. Taken at Sydney's domestic terminal, Mascot. I actually had to restage this shot at the end of my holiday because it was lost in a computer program malfunction. Image representing 21 December 2009.



Golden, foil-wrapped balls, supposedly Fererro Rocher chocolates, are all individually suspended from the Myer Centre ceiling. Brisbane CBD. I lost this shot in a computer program malfunction, but luckily had already forwarded the image to my Facebook page, via my iPhone. 22 December 2009.


My Brisbane hosts' new Christmas tree, a bargain eBay purchase. I also had to restage this shot because the original was lost in the computer program malfunction. 23 December 2009.


My Brisbane hosts' three year old son, Ben, who had a ball dressed as a Santa's helper elf to ride the Christmas Express miniature railway at David Jones, Brisbane CBD. 24 December 2009.


Christmas Day canine visitor: Meg, the dog with a hole in her head. "Thar she blows!" (All her other spots are grey.) 25 December 2009.


Christmas fruit mince pies on Boxing Day. The chef complained they weren't "Women's Weekly Cookbook" enough, but I told her they were "rustic". And delicious. 26 December 2009.


Gorgeous blooms in suburban Brisbane. 27 December 2009.


I told people this was from a preview of "The Enemy Within" remake scenes of the next "Star Trek" movie. Twin transporting Kirks in the doorway of JB Hi-Fi, Brisbane CBD. 28 December 2009.


A rather self-conscious usher completes this art deco shot at a Hawthorne cinema, screening "Avatar" in 3D, Brisbane. 29 December 2009.


Frolicking polar bear at Sea World, Southport, Queensland. 30 December 2009.


Dreadlocked dog in the doorway of an art gallery, Bulimba, Brisbane. 31 December 2009.

To be continued...

Hampering housework

Today I'm trying to do my annual guilt trip. it's almost time to start finding hiding places for lots of "stuff", that has accumulated over recent months, so the house will look good for Midwinter Christmas. I can't believe we're nearly there again!

I keep looking over my shoulder, trying to build up the energy required to do the job properly, and not just hide everything in cupboards and behind furniture. And I keep on surfing the 'Net.

Over on the Aussie Bloggers' BBS they are chatting about the concept of the modern day Christmas hamper, which one pays off in advance so as to have an overabundance of Christmas fare in December - several companies bungled their deliveries last year - and it was asked if companies like Chrisco gave value for money. It got me thinking...

When we were kids in the late 60s and early 70s, a highlight of the pre-Christmas period was the arrival (and ritual unpacking) of my mother's "Walton's Christmas Hamper". She used to pay it off in small advance instalments over the whole year, and the stuff that was in it was readily consumed by us over Christmas and January. It contained lots of stuff we bought regularly, anyway, but there was stuff we only ever had as annual treats because they were in the Christmas hamper, such as glacé fruit, Kool Pops, chocolate syrup for ice cream, tinned plum pudding, bonbons, etc. In the 60s and 70s, the Walton's hamper was very good value, but with the advent of supermarkets - and "specials" - it has become possible, and more economical, to grab the stuff you really needed throughout the year at lower prices.

We have a funny family anecdote concerning the matching plastic bottles of BBQ sauce and chocolate syrup! One year we went on a picnic and my Mum had made the most delicious stack of home-cooked roast beef sandwiches for us to take with us. Of course, when we arrived at the picnic grounds we realised that she'd used the chocolate syrup (brown bottle) instead of the BBQ sauce (dark red bottle). We still laugh about that error at family gatherings.

The midnight munchies

It's almost midnight and I have the munchies. I recommenced my diet today, having managed to put back in the first half of 2007 almost everything I'd lost by July 2006. Sigh. I've avoided stepping onto the scales ever since February, and half-hearted attempts to get back into the swing of the diet have failed miserably. (I did drag out the scales yesterday, hence the new resolve.)

I actually started the diet yesterday, but I had to call in to see two different elderly women. Stereotypically, the first one plied me with chocolate coated mini Wagon Wheels and fruit cake with morning tea, and the second fed me chocolate Mint Slices and jam tartlets for afternoon tea. "Please have another one. You've hardly eaten anything." That's not to mention the leftover pizza I reheated for dinner - or, now that I think about it, the low-fat "Lean Beef Burger" I bought from McDonald's for lunch! Sigh...

They say that when you get late-night munchies while on a diet, just go to bed. Well, there's no more "Big Brother Uplate" until next year, and going to bed should help me to get to my morning meeting on time... so I guess I should follow that advice.

The diet, Fat Free Forever works extremely well, and I've done it successfully - twice. It's the "forever" bit that's hard. The diet allows for a weekly Junk Food Day! Sadly, though, to keep the "forever' bit true, one must keep the metabolism running fast, and steadily, like a car engine. Meaning Junk Food Day really can happen only once a week, and for the one meal. Self control. Will power. Drat.

At least the refrigerator has been emptied of all those high fat leftovers now. (Yeah, I know, I ate them yesterday.) Burp!

Anti ants!

You can tell New South Wales is still in drought! The ants are invading the house and making a point of investigating the dog's food bowl every day. Poor Jack always keeps a few morsels for later, but he gets very miffed when the ants swarm over even the tiniest stray piece left in the bottom of the bowl.

I thought I'd outwitted them by placing his food dish into a shallow pan of water. Jack was, at first, rather threatened by seeing his food as an island. But it didn't thwart the ants. Not one bit. They simply marched a few centimetres to the right and took up residence in his bowl of dry dog biscuits!

After several days of racing a swarming mass of insect life and Purina One Lamb & Rice out into the backyard, I decided to buy a much bigger tray - and now both food dishes are jammed against each other and surrounded by water, like some gourmet's bizarre archipeligo.

Jack's reaction to this? He drank the water.

Now I have to keep refilling the tray. I guess the next thing will be like in that awful jungle movie (was it 1977's Empire of the Ants with Joan Collins? Or was it 1954's The Naked Jungle?), where the tricky killer ants get across the river on floating leaves to devour the cast?

Captain's Log: Supplemental. Dammit! More ants! (Because Jack drank the moat again!)

The counter starts...

NaNoWriMo, the (Inter)National Novel Writing Month, starts today. I was having a wonderful dream, which featured the beeping of a mobile phone, only to awake at about 5.45 am to the sound of my mobile phone telling me the battery needed recharging. Hey, thanks phone!

So, I'm actually up early enough to write.

Here I am, just catching up with emails, the "Star Trek" bulletin boards, reading a few friends' blogs, having breakfast, making lunch for taking to work, a little "Puppy Milk" for the dog, feeding the birds, getting a coffee, time for a shower...

Mmmm. Procrastination is alive and well.

I also need to polish some late book reviews and post them off (reviews by email; the actual books by post) and type up the report on my current student teacher.

Now I have to write the start of my novel when I get home from work (and then after the staff dinner). Oh dear. Good start, eh?