Year 3 of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 24

Week 24: Birthday.

"Jack at 14." White Signo pigment ink sketch on red Quill Metallique card, with black finepoint shading and coloured oil pastel highlights. Based upon two photos from my collection.

Update:

Week 24: Birthday II.

"Happy birthday, Bert!" Oil pastels and gold glitter on black card, based on a photograph found in Google Images.

Return of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 50

Week 50: Party

"Surprise!" Sketch in finepoint and metallic Sharpies on watercolour paper, with highlights in watercolour and dayglo yellow marker.

Update:

Week 50: Party II

Party balloons in coloured cartridge papers, collaged onto Quill glitter-finish Galaxy card.

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 28

Again live from Michigan, USA! Sitting here in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on a drizzly Tuesday morning, patiently(?) waiting for it to be Wednesday in Australia, so that I can share my "Week 28: Feather" before I'm out of Internet range for a whole week! Here is some assemblage art, which uses sequins, plastic jewels, chenille sticks, stickered lettering, a touch of gold glitter, a wiggly eye - and real feathers - on a wooden blank of a rather plain bird who now feels Very Pretty.

Week 28: Feather

The original blank (right) and an outdoors shot (left and below) of the complete work.

Update:

When my brother's then girlfriend planned on wearing a Scarlet O'Hara crinoline for a fancy dress party in the late 70s, she ordered him the Rhett Butler outfit at the hire store. He examined it, baulked at the price and, instead, asked me to help him make a crepe paper chicken costume. Girlfriend was appalled - and my brother the chook was startled to meet a butcher at the party, who chased him all night with a giant plastic meat cleaver. Not easy to run in swimming flippers! Based on a Polaroid photo taken by me, the sketch is done in oil pastels on Ingres paper.

Week 28: Feather II

Week 28: Feather III

As in Arnold Feather (Jeff Kevin) of "Number 96", inspired by Andy Warhol's infamous Marilyn Monroe artwork. Freehand sketch with black Sharpie on transparent plastic film. Six coloured papers were placed on top, to colour areas with pencils, then placed underneath for individual photography. Six digital thumbnail tiles were then sorted in iPhoto and a final "screenshot" taken.

Vale Les Gilbody (1958-2008)

I found out today, while doing a Google search, that one of my best friends from high school, Leslie Gilbody, passed away almost exactly a year ago. I'd been trying to track him down for ages, but found his online obituary today. I miss you heaps, Les, and my sincere sympathy to Cathy and your family.

I dug through the old photo albums today, to find a pic of Les and Cathy's 1978 wedding, but I'd forgotten that Les had his eyes closed in the shot! So I kept digging and found two snaps from a much earlier time, taken at the end of our first year at Kogarah High School. Les's parents were a school principal and infants' mistress, and Les attended their school for his primary years; otherwise, he'd have probably attended my primary school, because he lived only a few metres from my house - even closer when he took the shortcut through the canal! We became very good friends at high school, and it's frustrating to think we lived so close to each other for so long before our first meeting.


Leslie Gilbody (below right in the b/w pic, and the tall one, in the green T-shirt, in the colour pic)
at my 13th birthday party, December 1971.

Les and I often walked home from Banksia Station together. The two of us developed a wonderful friendship with the woman who ran the newsstand in the subway, and, over several days, he taught me how to blow bubbles with bubble gum bought from her stall.

Being one of the "cool" guys at school, he was an effective bodyguard if ever I was being hassled by schoolyard bullies. In the September of 1971, Les volunteered his services to help my family move house (from Arncliffe to Rockdale). Les left school rather abruptly, halfway through 1974, if I recall correctly, but he made a point of reconnecting every few years, even when we moved house again. He tracked us down in Kingsgrove, turning up at the front door one evening, eager to take me for a spin in his new car, and out to the Shire to see his parents' new house.

One of my fondest anecdotes about Les was the afternoon that our pals, Jim and Greg (who were so much shorter than lanky Les), decided they needed to have revenge on him for some reason. Unbeknown to me (I guess I was in a different carriage that day?), they held him down on the train, preventing him from alighting at Banksia Station and taking him on to Arncliffe Station instead. While one boy pinned him to the train seat by his hair, the other sat on Les's chest and drew glasses, a beard, moustache, sideburns, scars and freckles all over his face with an indelible, thick, black Texta. I was chatting to Mrs Sheppard at the newsstand and Les arrived, having had to catch a train back to Banksia, and we had to walk all the way home with Les's face still decorated. He took the boys' prank in such good humour, and we laughed such a lot that day as we pondered how he'd remove the ink before a family wedding scheduled for the next day.

Thanks for the memories, mate!

Now we are six

How does a Jack Russell terrier celebrate his sixth birthday? Sadly, it seems that he spent most of it on his own.

Yesterday, after "Hedwig", I was telling some friends about Jack - and someone asked how old he was. To my horror, I realised that the 16th was his birthday, and that the most exciting thing to happen to him on that day was me racing in after work to change my shirt, knocking the little ants out of his dinner bowl (Jack having drank all the ant trap reservoir again) and feeding him, before racing out again to catch my train into the city.

It's a bit of a come down from the big puppy party he had for his first birthday, which had a guest list of local dog friends and their owners.

Sorry Jacko. Happy belated birthday, little matie.