Year 3 of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 46

Week 46: Treehouse.

Torn paper and corrugated cardboard collage with black ballpoint detail.

Year 3 of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 2

Week 2: Outdoors

Collage and silhouette using Ingres papers, flocked cardboard, oil pastels and nylon cord on grey Ingres background.

Update:

Week 2: Outdoors II

"N-n-n-n-next!" Cartoon in finepoint black Sharpie, oil pastels and watercolour wash, collaged onto Ingres paper.

Week 2: Outdoors III

"Corellas' annual visit." Watercolour miniature. Masking fluid and black and white Sharpie highlights on watercolour paper. Based on my own photograph. This piece utilised an old offcut; it's only 85mm x 95mm.

Week 2: Outdoors IV

"Vasquez Rocks, Los Angeles." Watercolours with black and white Sharpie highlights on remnants of watercolour paper, mounted onto Ingres paper. Based on a photograph from my 2013 vacation album.

Return of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 51

Week 51: Family

"Family tree". Collage of wrapping paper, light card and coloured cartridge papers, on corrugated cardboard. Characters (only partially glued to cause natural shadows when photographed) sketched in finepoint black Sharpie - no pencil lines - with highlights in watercolour and white Signo ink.

Update:

Week 51: Family II

"Nativity family". Freehand cut silhouettes in red and gold Quill Metallique cards, with some deliberate shading from the directed lighting. Collaged onto Quill glitter-finish Galaxy card.

Week 51: Family III

"Mr Minotaur & son". Black Biro and watercolour "family tree" portrait miniatures in plaster frames.

Return of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 38

Week 38: Fauna

Seal cub in watercolour, based on my own photo of a tiny, furry toy. A little detail in finepoint black Sharpie and white opaque Signo. (The toy is a childhood favourite, but I didn't get to own one till a few years ago.)

Update:

Week 38: Fauna II

White Unipaint opaque marker and oil pastels on black card. Halved "dayglo" orange stickers for eyes (which strangely scanned very pale, so I had to take this shot with my iPhone).

Return of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 25

Week 25: Africa

Freehand-cut silhouettes in black card (having glanced at a full page of thumbnail photos on Google Images using the terms "Africa sunset"). Collaged over sunset coloured paper strips: red, orange, goldenrod, metallic bronze and white on yellow card, skewed slightly in iPhoto. Detail in black finepoint marker.

Update:

Week 25: Africa II

"Rhinoceros cosplay." Cartoon in black Sharpie on watercolour paper, painted in watercolours. (Okay, I couldn't stand it any longer: one party hat added... to make the joke better.)

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 9

Week 9: Tree

My second ever attempt at scenic watercolour. This is my outdoor pine tree, as decorated for Christmas. Watercolours on white acrylic gesso primed canvas sheet.

Update:
I decided to have another go at both crosshatching and trees!

Weeks 8 and 9: Crosshatching II, Tree II

It was still missing something, until..."

Please add 20 minutes swimming time...

10.00pm: Route home blocked by a thigh-high lake at Penrith Railway Station. Please add 20 minutes swimming time to the length of your usual journey.



10.20pm: Alternate route blocked by massive, fallen pine tree. Please add 20 more minutes climbing time to your journey.



Footpath totally obscured by greenery for two house-lengths.



Still passing the fallen pine tree. Never realised that particular one was so tall. The air smells like Christmas.

Crescent moon

DAY 27

I love how the tree seems to have made space for the crescent moon to snuggle in close.

Bark

DAY 16

I passed this massive tree trunk walking home this afternoon. It's hard to juggle a bag, an iPhone and an open umbrella at the same time.

Don't hold your breath!

Disposable breathing masks are now growing on trees in Penrith?

Australia Day celebrations

I love this juxtaposition of a metal tree and a real palm tree at Darling Harbour. Waiting for Australia Day celebrations to begin. I celebrated Australia Day by eating half of the Australian coat of arms. Yummy kangaroo on potato mash and asparagus. And it was delish.


At Baia San Marco restaurant, Cockle Bay Wharf, Darling Harbour: the traditional Australia Day fireworks begin.


Central Station was also decked out for Australia Day celebrations.

What dinosaur is that?

Okay, is it just me, or can others see that this old jacaranda tree suddenly turned into an apatosaurus as I snapped its photo today?



This would have been a great tree in which to build a cubbyhouse.

Revisiting Penrith's "Up 'n' Go" tree

This is Penrith's infamous "Up 'n' Go" bush, revisited - urban art that grew
over several years. I first photographed it this time last year,
but it is seemingly abandoned in more recent times.

I'd almost forgotten this bizarre objet d'art, hung with empty TetraPaks of instant breakfast drink... until a friend mentioned reading about it on my blog last November! I happened to be passing the location this afternoon, so took a new inspection. Looking a little faded...

Here it is, in all its 2008 glory:

Photo roundup!

On the way to the Capitol Theatre, in Sydney's CBD, to see "Wicked". This jacaranda tree, in full bloom, created the most bizarre optical illusion against the azure blue sky, but the flowers have photographed much darker than I'd hoped. Still pretty, though. 24 October 2009.


Kitchen light. 25 October 2009.


My Wollemi Pine is shooting new growth! 26 October 2009.


"Atomic batteries to power, turbines to speed!" Toy Batmobile painting by Nick Stathopoulos at the opening of his exhibition "Toy Porn", at NG Art Gallery, Chippendale. The exhibition was opened by David Stratton, of TV's "The Movie Show". 27 October 2009.


Realisation! It's almost midnight again. 28 October 2009.


I swear I had nothing to with this. A class of Year 1 kids were making a life-size chalk drawing of a dinosaur on the playground today - and were asked to show what he'd eaten. Amongst the pterodactyls and smaller dinosaurs was this... Andorian. 29 October 2009.


I have to restock this spinning rack of animal books every day. 30 October 2009.

Three in one, 'cos I almost forgot!

Eerie battery-operated "mushroom" lamps from Officeworks. 21 October 2009.


View from the train, heading out of Penrith, bound for the CBD. 22 October 2009.


"When Nero met Ilia's Daddy"

Coincidentally, my exclusive Hallmark Ilia Probe Christmas ornament turned up on the same day as the comic in which Nero the Romulan met V'ger, of "Star Trek: The Motion Picture". 23 October 2009.

A virtual rainbow

Mirragan the quoll virtually reminisces about a home in the gum trees.

Harry Potter by twilight

Pretty mini lights adorn all the leafless trees in
Penrith's outdoor restaurant precinct this winter.

I was heading back from my viewing of the latest "Harry Potter" movie, "The Half-Blood Prince", when I clicked off today's picture for my 365 Photos project.

Mmmmmmmm, bit of a mish mash of a film. The acting was fine. I certainly couldn't see it six times like I did JJ Abrams' "Star Trek" movie! Like the last "Harry Potter" film ("The Order of the Phoenix"), characters simply wander into a scene, briefly say something, and then swan out. The best one has been the one with the time travel conundrum, whichever that one was - "The Prisoner of Azkaban"? No, that was a fun movie, and a great use of the extended cast, and with an intriguing twist that took me by surprise.

Ah - deja vu! - I'm just realising that "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" was the novel upon which I was asked to do a professional review, when the book first came out. Now I'm remember why I felt like I already knew the fates of Snape and Dumbledore, and the newly-festering romantic entanglements of the kids. It's a bad thing when a film barely pays lip service to its source material; it's a long movie but I don't recall the book being as disjointed as this movie seemed to be. (I do own all the books but "The Chamber of Secrets" (on a friend's recommendation) and "The Half-Blood Prince" are the only two I've read.)

I'm sorta, kinda, looking forward to the concluding chapters of this film saga - it's been amazing to watch the child actors mature into adults before our eyes. Malfoy seemed like a grown man in this movie! I'm sure he was just a spooky, little, white-headed kid in "The Philosopher's Stone"...

Fenced in

I pass this tree almost every day but today it reminded me of an alien, especially as it appears placed behind the barbed wire fence. Is it to keep us out, or the alien tree inside?


Day of the Triffids?

The hole truth? Can do!

I pass this hollowed tree almost every afternoon and often wonder
if any native wildlife lives in it.

And now we know: a squashed aluminium soft drink can!