Year 3 of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 48

Week 48: Clocks.

"Cassius Cuckoo, Magic Circle Club." From the early 60s Australian TV series, Cassius lived in a longcase cuckoo clock and told a daily riddle sent in by viewers. Symmetrical collage and watercolour, mounted onto corrugated cardboard.

Update:

Week 48: Clocks II.

"Time flies." Quick sketch in black Sharpie with highlights in white opaque Signo, metallic gold Sharpie and watercolours.

Year 3 of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 7

Week 7: Kindergarten

"Kinder kid and glove puppet". Watercolour pencils on cream Ingres paper, based on a photograph from my own collection.

Update:

Week 7: Kindergarten II

Oil pastels and watercolour collage on black card.

Return of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 47

Week 47: Play

Collage with characters drawn in black finepoint Sharpie on white linenbond card, collaged onto grey paper, with pleated paper curtains decorated in bronze Sharpie.

Update:

Week 47: Play II

"No rabbits up my sleeve, just a few hares." Drawing in finepoint black Sharpie. Highlights in watercolour and white Puffy paint on white Quill linenbond card. Rabbit add-ons are dayglo orange stickers that scan pale.

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 36

"I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down..." - Mixed media collage backdrop for a puppet show. Acrylic paints, real straw for walls, paper clouds, windows and door, thumbtack doorknob with commercial wolf puppet.

Week 36: House

Update:

I decided I needed to do Part 2 of House I. "He huffed and he puffed and he blew my straw house down..." Mixed media collage backdrop for a puppet show. Acrylic paints, real sticks and cardboard bricks for walls, corrugated cardboard door, thumbtack doorknob, paper clouds and windows, computer print-out photos, with commercial pig puppet (playing three roles).

Week 36: House III

Between the above mixed media collages, I created another collage with flint paper, card, corrugated cardboard, black ballpoint ink and glitter stars. The black house is actually the negative space cut from the indigo flint paper:

Week 36: House II

Cotswold Cottage (1600s) and gardens, all transported from Chedworth, Gloucestershire, England, to Henry Ford's Greenfield Village, Michigan, USA. Watercolour and black Sharpie.

Week 36: House IV

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 2

The theme for Week 2 is "Kids", but I drew a kid puppet. Double-ended waterproof black Sharpie. No pencil, no eraser! (Living dangerously!)

Week 2: Kids

What's cookin'?

Any idea what's bubbling away on my cooktop? I'm dyeing two customised puppets!


And this becomes...


... this!

Yes, they are a pair of customized puppets, now dried in the washing machine spin-drier. The completed bat has wings cut from brown felt and the new eyes are flat beads in a pink plastic, Supaglued over the original black giraffe eyes. 50 cents for a packet containing lots (of future replacement eyes?) I love bargain shops!

The panther's eyes are some teardrop-shaped yellow plastic "jewels", originally bought for a different project. The only reason for turning a tiger into a panther was to give the bat a dunking buddy, and use up the leftover dye.


These two new additions (above) look rather sedate after the cooking pot episode!

Winnahs!

My table went jungle theme for the second annual trivia night!


Pith on or pith off?


Recycled materials maketh the hat.



Our team managed to retain our crown as trivia champs. We did tie with another table, but they had poached our sport and music expert from last year. A fun night!

Ouchie

DAY 23

Oh no! My Tasmanian Devil puppet has the dreaded facial cancer!

Just another day of photographing images around school (the students are creating slideshows on Photo Peach)...

Memories of Christmases past #1

I had a great Noddy glove puppet when I was a little kid. The head and hat was rubbery, with a real bell sewn to the top of the hat, and the body was blue and red plush material. Santa brought him - I remember dragging him out of my "Santa sack" pillowslip, and this was probably the first puppet that started a rather large collection over the years (and it became a bit of a game to suggest puppet characters that my grandmother then probably spent months trying to find in toyshops all over Sydney!)

My younger brother received a matching Big Ears puppet that year, but he was very jealous and teary of Noddy's bell, so my grandfather ended up having to sew a bell to the top of Big Ears' hat.

There may have been no equity for Enid Blyton's golliwogs, but Big Ears achieved it at our house!

Three in one - again!

I couldn't wait to share this picture of my new Max doll, from the classic picture book, "Where the wild things are" (by Maurice Sendak) - just in time for the release of the new live action movie. It was inevitable that he and Chook would cross paths. 13 November 2009.



I love this interesting juxtaposition of CBD buildings, amid the extensive rebuilding going on - and ongoing! - in the Pitt Street Mall. The reflection of Sydney's Centrepoint Tower can be seen in the reflective side of a building. 12 November 2009.



School students - the faces behind their puppet friends. 11 November 2009. I especially love how this little girl (below) has her puppet draped across her face in the main photo (above)!

"The Internet is for porn!"

What a fun night on "Avenue Q"!

Last night I braved the return of Sydney's gusty winds (more red dust was promised, but it was a bit of a fizzer this morning) to head into the CBD, and the Theatre Royal, to see the smash hit musical, "Avenue Q". I guess it is best described as "Sesame Street, live on stage, for adults only".

It's a wonderful satire, with many quotable lines and some very catchy songs (even more so once one has all the visuals in place - I've been listening to the Broadway cast soundtrack for several months now), and it was also fun to finally see acquaintance Mitchell Butel, whom I met last year in a friend's theatre party, performing! Mitchell sings, dances and manipulates at least two of the Muppet-like characters, Princeton and Rod.

What I hadn't realised, until I saw the characters of roommate puppets, Rod and Nicky, was that these characters perfectly lampoon "Sesame Street" residents, Bert and Ernie, right down to Rod's arms being manipulated by rods (get it?), and Nicky requiring a second puppeteer to move one of his hands. To see the dance routines so cleverly choreographed, with most performers with their arms otherwise occupied inside their puppets, was quite amazing!


Some leftover Melbourne references, but still worth a visit.

The hit of the show would probably be Trekkie Monster. An amalgam of numerous "Sesame Street" notables, mostly reminiscent of Cookie Monster, Sweetums, and Oscar the Grouch, Trekkie knows the ultimate truth about life, the universe and the 'Net. (Most "Star Trek" fans know that the Internet has its origins as a text-based data sharing facility between universities, but that what really made it catch on was "Star Trek" and online pornography! Hence, "The Internet is for porn".

The cast even added an extra line to one of the songs last night: a brief but well-received salute to Sydney's now-infamous red dust!

This is a show I need to see again - if I can manage it, before it disappears to Canberra in three weeks!