Year 3 of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 15

Week 15: Ocean.

Sketches in black, blue and red Sharpie, white Puffy Paint, white opaque Signo, and gold Kindy Glitz on remnants of salted watercolour wash, mounted on black card. Inspiration from many pics in a Google Image search.

Return of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 19

Week 19: Eat

Symmetrical whale and fish templates freehand-cut and fringed from folded watercolour paper, mounted onto textured black card. Decorated in watercolours, black Sharpie ink and white Puffy paint.

Update:

Week 19: Eat II

Luna Park - Just for Indigestion. I know people who refuse to walk through the Luna Park Sydney entrance because they imagine this might happen! Outlined in thick black Sharpie, coloured with watercolour, silver Sharpie and white opaque Signo ink, and collaged onto word-processed card.

Return of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 15

Week 15: Vietnam

Sketch in black Sharpie on art canvas sheet, coloured with crayons. Original photo found via Google Images.

Update:

Thanh the moonbear. Paper collage, watercolour and black Sharpie on "calm" blue flint paper. Photo located on Google images.

Week 15: Vietnam II

Originally, the moonbear looked like this, but the image was deemed too 3D for the Challenge:

Week 15: Vietnam IIa

Thanh the moonbear has calmly caught her lunch. Assemblage art using chopsticks, long grain rice, sultana pieces, cashews and plastic "fish" soy sauce dispensers placed upon "calm" blue flint paper. (Of course, with further research, I discovered that the only fish moonbears might eat are ones they find dead and spent after spawning season.)

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 50

Inspired by an egg carton sleigh (with eight reindeer) I saw at a craft ideas website (The Well Nourished Nest) a few weeks ago, here's my own reinterpretation: Santa's sleigh being pulled by the Six White Boomers! Uses an egg carton, card, handmade and watercolour paper, some star stickers and wiggly eyes. Each kangaroo has different facial features, but it was hard featuring all their tails. Maybe that's why reindeer have small tails?

Week 50: Christmas

And as a table decoration:

Update:

Quick and silly cartoon, in Sharpie inks and watercolour pencils. "He was pining, so I suggested he decorate for Christmas."

Week 50: Christmas II

I drew the broken bauble's outline in black Sharpie, with no idea what creature would inhabit it. I'm still not sure exactly what it is. Watercolour on cartridge paper. Pine tree needles in green and red Sharpie ink, with white Signo highlights.

Week 50: Christmas III

My friend Santa holding my naughty Christmas elves, based on my Santa photo I had taken last year. (Long story). Green, red, black, gold and silver Sharpies, white Signo pigment ink and watercolour pencil on green Origami paper.

Week 50: Christmas IV

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 42

Crayon resist jellyfish and sand, acrylic blue wash and collaged fish (using junk mail pamphlets and paper patty pans).

Week 42: Under the sea

I knew I was going to use patty pan cases as scales/fins several weeks ago, and I knew i had several packets and leftovers in the pantry. But most of them turned out to be plain white and a few were silver on the outside and white on the inside. White-spotted red and green cases wouldn't have been my first choice, but who can argue at 11.30 pm? The glossy junk mail pamphlet that became the school of silvery fish was for a set of free chromed boules (if I bought a case of wine). I love the randomness of the lines and reflections!

Update:

Black Artline finepoint ink, watercolour, silver-coated chocolate balls and ground pepper for a little extra texture.

Week 42: Under the sea II

I have memories of a breakfast cereal toy (Plonky Piano in the Neptune's Seaweeders band) who looked a little bit like this, but I also caught an interview with comedienne Jenny Slate, on Letterman the other night, talking about her original character, Marcel the Shell with shoes on, and that got my brain ticking over. Plus there's signage, which seems to be an ongoing theme for me recently.

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 23

Week 23: Feast

Mixed media collage. Making use of a leftover test monoprint, discarded to my "bits & pieces" collage box in Week 19 (Fish). Turned upside down, new highlights and shading were added with Faber-Castell watercolour pencils. 3D fishnet created from decorative Claudia Elyse scrapbooking aluminium mesh. Shark created with satin-finish metallic card and permanent black marker, then glued to the front of the mounting frame. Shark's mouth cut from a small piece of gesso-primed watercolour canvas, finished with Faber-Castell watercolour pencils.

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 19

Week 19: Fish

Oil pastel goldfish, with watercolour wash on gesso primed canvas sheet, and photographed inside an actual fishbowl.

Update:

Ahhh, what a quandary! I made a set of prints (monoprints, but I got two good ones off the positive) attempting to do a "Fish II" entry for the 52-Week Illustration Challenge - and it's soooo colourful, I wondered if it was better to save as a "Week 20: Colour" entry. It needed some work when it was dry, so I was mindful of the possible changed theme as I went. Being red/green colour blind, next week's theme was always going to have its challenges. Of course, my other quandary: at first, the original "positive" I created probably looked better than the "negative" prints. Choices! Decisions!

I'm quite pleased with how it turned out, especially when mounted in one of my bargain bin $3 mounts! It's a monoprint negative, with acrylic paints brushed onto the cardboard positive. Moistioned cartridge paper applied and peeled off then, when dry, a few details were added with waterproof black UniPin marker and Faber-Castell watercolour pencils.

Week 19: Fish II

Week 19: Three negative prints and the positive for "Fish II"

Top left: Failed negative monoprint (I forgot to wet the paper). Top right: Positive in cardboard layers for "Week 19: Fish II". Lower pics are two more monoprint negatives, one of which became the final artwork.

The unmounted monoprint negative for "Week 19: Fish II".

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 15

Week 15: Detail

Meerkat in black Sharpie, coloured with oil pastels, on brown paper satchel.

Week 14: Simplicity II and Week 15: Detail.

Update:
I decided to have another go at "detail", revisiting the saurian aliens of Sirius, from the television phenomenon, "V": the 80s version, not the recent remake. Handpainted lizard scales show through my phony human mask in this "V" selfie:

This was the trickiest "selfie" ever taken. No prescription lenses, but get everything important in focus: and highlight the cheek, the hand, the hat and chest insignias, and hide the Apple logo on the iPhone!

Update II:
Fish design created on black "scratch paper", which comes in a pack of five sheets (plus tool) for $4.00 from a toy shop.

Week 15: Detail III - Fish

A tale at 3.20 - a.m. that is.

"Don't blame me, it was Tiger. (Who only looks like a platypus. Made of sheepskin.)"

Okay, a new spooky story for you:

My Jack Russell terrier is on medication for meningitis at the moment, and needs to visit the backyard more often than normal. In the past he's had quite an affinity with a ghost in the house (who was here before he was, and has done numerous freaky things both before and after the dog arrived). This morning, I started dreaming about dog poo and awoke to realise the smell was still there. I fumbled around for my glasses and the bed lamp to get the dog outside. I noticed that the desk clock was flashing - there had been a power outage during the night. The clock was flashing 3.18am.

I found the dog poo way down the end of the hall, neatly stepping over it to put the dog out to complete his task, then returned to check the time on my watch and clean up the mess. It was now exactly 3.20am.

So.... did my dog doing Number Twos at 3.18 cause the power outage, or did the power outage cause him to need to poo?

Or was it the ghost - but she smells like fish, not dog poo, but the dog often barks at the exact spot in the family room where we used to encounter her fishy smell, months before the dog arrived as a pup?

The one that almost got away

An angel fish mugs for my camera in window tank,
"Aquatic Pet", Penrith Plaza.

Okay, I know patience is a photographer's best virtue. Earlier this evening, I was strolling past this tank outside "Aquatic Pet", just on closing time for most of the shops in Penrith Plaza. I noticed a lone angel fish, in amongst lots of rather ordinary looking little tropical fish, and decided he was perfect as today's subject for my 365 Photos project but, as I raised my iPhone, he allowed himself to descend out of sight behind some greenery.

Tired of waiting, I moved to the side of the tank, instead of staying front-on, and eventually saw him again. I waited and waited till finally he moved into view. Then, it was as if he'd noticed me and he swam straight towards me, as if to pose, which is why the focus is no longer as perfect as it had been.

Despite my "aim and shoot once" rule, I decided to take a second shot as he moved away, convinced the first photograph was going to be too blurry to use - and suddenly two more angel fish jumped in to share the shot as I clicked (see below). And, believe or not, another second later there were two more joining the school! Where had they all been for the ten minutes or so I'd been waiting for that first one to come back into view?



These fish work for scale, but they're definitely more reliable than some human models of my acquaintance.