Return of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 34

Week 34: Japan

Sketch of an Origami folded-paper man holding a real flapping bird. Freehand outline in black finepoint marker, coloured with Faber-Castell watercolour pencils.

Update:

Week 34: Japan II

Collage of Mount Fuji using a range of coloured cards and translucent and cartridge papers, with highlights in watercolour and markers, intensified in Photo. Inspired by several photos found in a Google Image search.

Return of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 26

Week 26: Land

"Tetraptych of Uluru". Based on photographs found in a Google Image search. Watercolours on watercolour paper, with some detailing in white Signo opaque marker and black Sharpie.

Update:

Week 26: Land II

"The Eagle has landed." Collage of salted watercolours on watercolour paper and gold foil on black card, with highlights of white Signo opaque marker and black Sharpie.

Week 26: Land III

"When land runs out..." Cartoon in black Sharpie, painted in watercolours on watercolour paper, with highlights of white opaque Signo.

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

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

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

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

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.

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 27

Live from Michigan, USA! I've only ever been here in the snow before, but it's summer, of course! The snowman on the right with the "Star Trek" phaser is based on the one made by my penpal, Olivia, and I during out first meeting in January 1984. The little one is based on the one outside our restaurant window in December 2012. The squirrel victim is depicted because - squirrel! Drawn with oil pastels on two backgrounds.

Week 26: Snow

I was thrilled to unite these two long-gone snowpeople, separated by decades, but definitely kindred spirits. Just noticing that the photo of this piece loses some subtlety in the hand phaser, and yet improves the tones on the squirrel. I'm fascinated how oil pastels work, and how they scan/photograph, when the colours are layered - and loving the unpredictability.

Update:
Prismatic origami paper snowflakes on a black card background.

Week 27: Snow II

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!