Showing posts with label koalas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label koalas. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Year 3 of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 37


Week 37: Holiday.

Collage using coloured cards, recycled paper, fabrics, aluminium foil, newspaper and Kindy Glitz glitter. Shading with coffee wash and black ballpoint ink.

Update:


Week 37: Holiday II.

"Postcard from Down Under." White Signo pigment marker, black laundry marker and collage of stick-down lettering and various papers on black card.

Wednesday, March 09, 2016

Year 3 of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 10


Week 10: Animal

"Koala". Freehand cut collage using a remnant of watercolour canvas, a scrap of Quill "marbletone" cream paper, and watercolour on grey card. Based on my own photo. I guess it's a reverse silhouette. The koala only exists as a negative space. The grey card is simply the back of a depleted watercolour paper pad and reminded me of the colour and texture of a koala's fur, so I searched my own albums looking for a suitable pic (actually Perth Zoo during the exhibition last year).

Update:


Week 10: Animal II

"Orange harmony". Sketch in black finepoint Sharpie on watercolour card, coloured with watercolours. Based on my own 1977 b/w photograph of pets Mac and Meggsie "frying their eyeballs" in front of a bar radiator.

Wednesday, November 05, 2014

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 45

Watercolour - with no pencil lines - based on a photograph I took one Autumn in Bright, Victoria. The painting came together very quickly after a night of compiling a big batch of report card marks, but I'd had the composition in my head all last week. Getting into the painting was very therapeutic. My reward!

Week 45 Leaves
Week 45: Leaves

Update:

Eucalyptus shape cut from green handmade paper remnant, with koala sketch drawn in white Unibolt Signo pigment ink, metallic silver Pilot marker and fine point black Sharpie. No pencil lines! Mounted on a pre-printed Origami paper square.

Week 45 Leaves II
Week 45: Leaves II

I ended up with a spare eucalyptus leaf shape last night, cut from green handmade paper remnant, so I decided a lyrebird would be the best fit for the available area. Sketched in brown Staedtler Triplus fineliner, white Unibolt Signo pigment ink, metallic silver and gold Pilot markers and fine point black Sharpie. No pencil lines! Mounted on a sheet of black card.

Week 45 Leaves III
Week 45: Leaves III

Assemblage art of a leafy apple tree with torn brown Ingres paper, candy mint leaves, acid drops and Jaffas on a blue piece of nylon fabric.

Week 45 Leaves IV
Week 45: Leaves IV

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 30

My US holiday continues! Ironically, this Sydneysider is still reporting live from Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA, as my US holiday continues. This week, I spent about four extended sessions (sketching, outlining, painting, final touches) on a project that bounced into my head the moment I saw an ArtiCrafti brand moulded "koala canvas mask" in a Dollar King bargain store - for just $2.50 - a few months ago. I had to carefully pack and bring it OS with me, much to my penpal host's delight, who enjoyed watching the artwork emerge from my brain! The mask is decorated with images of Sydney in black ball-point ink and watercolour.

Week 30 Sydney, angle 1
Week 30: Sydney

Week 30 Sydney, angle 2

Week 30 Sydney, angle 3

Week 30 Sydney, angle 4

The mask is decorated with 3D detail, which includes yellow pompons for wattle flowers, white Tulip brand "puffy dimensional fabric paint" for seagulls and wave crests, and a toothpick flag.

Update:

Week 30 Sydney with Olivia
Above: As modelled by my Ann Arbor penpal, Olivia!

Week 30 Sydney in shadow box
Framed in a shadowbox

Monday, December 12, 2011

Christmas 2011 approaches!

I put the Christmas tree up. Decorating it was quite carthartic after the eventful weekend. Even though I collect and date two new ornaments for the tree each year, I realised how many extra ornaments I have, tucked into my Christmas gift by my Mum.

Of course, last year, it was impossible to put up a tree when the lounge room was full of dog cage!

Christmas 2011
Christmas 2011

Spock angel
Closeup on my customised Spock angel tree topper

This year's new ornaments are:

Wild Thing and Max
Wild Thing and Max

Mary Poppins' umbrella
Mary Poppins' umbrella

Mini View-Master
Hallmark View-Master ornament from 2008, not a normal size View-Master!

I couldn't resist buying one more this year! This is a teeny, tiny Hallmark limited edition Keepsake ornament from 2008, not a normal size View-Master, but the 3D specialist mail order firm I deal with found a few in their warehouse. They are sure to vanish quickly, though. The three reels feature "A night before Christmas" in 21 stereo pairs.

Andorian koala

And this powder blue Andorian koala turned up in the mail from an old "Star Trek" friend on Friday!

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Epiphany 2009 - and down it comes...

Two friends called in yesterday, and that means that somebody beyond this household actually saw - in person - that I really had decorated for Christmas! And today, down it all comes for another year.

You know, I really miss the smell of real pine needles but, not having a car - and only actually seeing one real tree on sale this year at the local fruit shop - plastic Christmas trees are just too convenient. Maybe one year...

This season's two ornaments were:

2008
Christmas 2008: The felt koala riding a seahorse is one of my new Christmas ornaments, purchased from a souvenir shop in Circular Quay, Sydney, one day last January while heading around the harbour to the Sydney Opera House. The other features the three main characters (Fry, Leela and robot Bender) from the "Futurama" animated television show. They originally came in a boxed set, bought several years ago from Kinokuniya bookshop, in a year when I simply couldn't resist them - despite already having bought my "Superman Returns" ornament. I glued the characters around a mirrored disco ball ornament, essentially to consolidate them as one item, after Bender's leg broke and I figured that all three figures needed some support.

Previous entries include:
  • Epiphany 2008

  • Epiphany 2007

  • On the twelfth day of Christmas

  • On the eleventh day of Christmas

  • On the tenth day of Christmas

  • On the ninth day of Christmas

  • On the eighth day of Christmas

  • On the seventh day of Christmas

  • On the sixth day of Christmas

  • On the fifth day of Christmas

  • On the fourth day of Christmas

  • On the third day of Christmas

  • On the second day of Christmas

  • On the first day of Christmas.

  • Packing up Christmas each year always reminds me of my dear friend and former work colleague, Patsy. She doesn't even undecorate her artificial tree any more; just wraps it up in a huge plastic dropsheet, four corners tied at the top, and bundles it off to her back shed. It was a ritual originated by panic one year, when her Easter dinner guests were pulling up in their car, and she realised the house still had evidence of the previous year's Christmas cheer! The next December, the same guests were arriving... and with one tug of a ribbon: instant Christmas!