Return of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 22

Week 22: Childhood

Watercolour with black and gold Sharpie markers and white opaque Signo. Some beloved items from my childhood in the 1960s, all still with me into adulthood: a Grandma Macreak "Kooky Spooky" glow-in-the-dark finger puppet (with paper cocktail umbrella, from my grandmother, when the original umbrella accessory broke); a "Yukk" from a favourite souvenir and giftware shop in the former Imperial Arcade, Sydney; and my "Sunday Mirror Minors Club" badge, featuring the editor, Mimi.

My PhotoPeach slideshow about Kooky Spookys is HERE!

Update:

Week 22: Childhood II

My mother would have loved this one. Inspired by my first words at the beach ("Big bath!"), and my first words in a cinema ("Big TV!"). Black ballpoint pen, coloured pencils, cotton wool and white opaque Signo on mauve A4 card.

Holy wooden acting, Batman!

Handpainted wooden (unlicensed) Dynamic Duo found in a Merimbula souvenir shop in 2007. (There were many other characters, all dated underneath in pencil by the artist! These are marked as March 2005.) Batman's mask and Robin's hair are built up with a textured medium. The bendy legs are made of stiffened sash cord.

Yukk in the box

Anyone over forty remember gonks and other fluffy funfair creatures? Well, here's my Yukk (above right), as sold in a wonderful, now long-gone, souvenir, giftware and ceramic ornament store in the old Imperial Arcade in the Sydney CBD in the late 1960s.

Yukks were essentially balls of brightly coloured acrylic "fur" - the fabric was glued to very squat plastic legs, with bulbous "Mr Potato Head"-like eyes poked into the core. They also featured long, thin, leathery arms. My Yukk was blue, and I recently rediscovered him in a box in the garage. My brothers once had one each, too, in Dayglo orange (or green?) and crimson, if I remember correctly - and my youngest brother's Yukk actually sported an actual mismatched "Mr Potato Head" eye after an encounter with our pet dog.

A few years later, a cheaper version of such creatures, usually armless and with wiggly eyes, were very common, usually on the "every child wins a prize shelf" of carnival sideshows.

But a recent viewing of an old episode of "The Magic Circle Club" reminded me of where my childhood fascination for gonks and Yukks probably derived:


Gaspar, Oscar and Sir Jasper in the episode, "Claude Clumsy: A Smashing Time".



Mmmm. Oscar had a nose like a regular gonk. Yukks didn't have a visible nose.

Merino on the move

Ian looking skinny at the Big Merino in 1986!


Goulburn's Big Merino tourist attraction was moved yesterday! It made the TV news last night and all the Sunday papers.

One of Australia's most famous "Big Things", built in 1985, this icon - and the kitschy souvenir shop within its cavernous interior - had fallen right out of tourists' agendas after a by-pass diverted traffic away from Goulburn's main drag about fifteen years ago. So last year, it was decided by a couple of Goulburn locals to make an offer on buying and relocating the giant sheep to a service station where it could be more readily seen by users of the new motorway.

I first saw the Big Merino in person in 1986. I excitedly sent a postcard of it to my penpal, Olivia, who lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the US, who was almost appalled that, with so many wonderful natural Aussie landmarks, flora and fauna, I'd send her an image of a giant concrete sheep. She promptly returned the favour with a giant rubber tyre (or, indeed, "tire") from nearby Detroit.

The Big Merino is said to be one of an estimated 146 "Big Thing" tourist icons throughout Australia. Others include the Big Banana at Coffs Harbour (currently being renovated), the eerie Big Prawn at Ballina, and at least two Big Pineapples in Queensland (but I think one closed down due to lack of interest).

A year ago, when again passing through Goulburn, the restaurant next door had been long abandoned, and the souvenirs had been drastically scaled back, so moving the ram certainly seems like a great solution. As The Seekers used to sing, "You know I'll never find another ewe."