52-Week Illustration Challenge, Bonus Week

Lettering in Pages word processing program, printed onto photocopy paper. Cartoon animals drawn freehand (no pencil lines!) and detailed in watercolour.

Bonus Week: Alphabet

The concept for this came to my mind's eye several months ago and it drew itself in my head until the other night when I did it for real. I think originally, I imagined all the creatures interacting more. The snake was supposed to have consumed his letter, but it didn't work out that way, so the mouse has nibbled on the "M" to reflect that intention. Animals represented are: anteater, bat, camel, dog, elephant, fox, giraffe, hippopotamus, iguana, jellyfish, koala, lion, mouse, numbat, octopus, pig, quail, rabbit, snake, tiger, unicorn, vulture, whale, x-ray tetra, yak and zebra.

And the Challenge is complete... until 2015, when it all happens again.

Meanwhile...
... my watercolour from Week 11, entitled "Architecture: Number 96", has been shortlisted, with the possibility of being part of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge exhibition, to be held in Perth in March 2015. Still early days yet (results aren't disclosed until the day of the exhibition's opening), but so wonderful to be ever closer! Will keep you posted on my progress!

Week 11: Architecture

Exhibition poster of Tania McCartney by Penny Fisher

I've created a 2014 Challenge photobook (and it was ready next morning!). I had coded the titles of several jpegs with "aaa" and "zzz" to force them to appear in a certain order on the USB, but basically I accepted OfficeWorks' program to decide the layout, just switching a few bigger-for-smaller images, sometimes to separate same colours, and removing just a few images that were more photo than art. About 130 pieces of art. I opted not to add captions (beyond the date on the title page), 'cos I've seen way too many photobooks with typos in recent years... and I wanted to eat dinner at some point.

Awful typos are so easy to make, so I think that letting the images talk for themselves can be sensible and safe. OfficeWorks have plain covers, but titles can always be added later. For the image I used for the title page, I simply added "2014" in blue font with their caption maker, and Tania's pink Challenge logo served as a title. This is the deluxe option (and the program said I needed ten pages added to each book for my number of images), but for speed and beauty, well worth it. This was $30 each (plus the extra pages at $1.80 per page). You can do it with cheaper options and people who made only 52 pieces of art in 2014 would have it much easier, but I highly recommend this culminating activity to fellow Challengees.

Alphabetise this!

I've been putting it off, and putting it off, but today was the day to re-alphabetise my DVD and CD collections. Ick. It's probably been about six months since the last time I did it, and all of my recent purchases had been building up into some very precarious stacks.

And I say precarious, because nothing stacks so precariously as CDs in their transparent "jewel cases". Not only do I miss the large artwork covers of my old LP record collection, I've certainly damaged my fair share of "jewel cases". Clatter, crash, bang - and the dog takes off to the bedroom!

The DVD and CD wall units and stands I've bought over the years were excellent... until they began to fill up. Now, when I want to add a new purchase (I really must stop buying titles that start with A, B or C, I reckon) - there is a lot of shunting to be done. The other option is not to alphabetise, I suppose, but surely that way madness lies. At least alphabetised I have a chance of finding the title I want, or of remembering that I already have a certain title when I end up buying it all over again because it was on special "for such a reasonable price", or "it was less than the price of a movie ticket".

Sadly, I've bought a lot of DVDs that I simply couldn't live without, and then never found the time to watch them, let alone watching them again with their commentary track(s) activated - and let alone actually checking the disks in the DVD player to make sure that they work.

You know, I feel like watching a DVD now, but the wall units look so neat, I'm not game to pull one out. And actually, sometimes the boxes are crammed in so tight they're actually not so easy to take out. And the wall unit only looks neat and not-as-crowded because I've moved all my boxed sets to an enclosed plastic crate. (Please, don't anyone tell me that those crates contain poly-ethyl-something vapours in the plastic that will damage the DVDs I haven't even watched once yet.)