52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 30

My US holiday continues! Ironically, this Sydneysider is still reporting live from Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA, as my US holiday continues. This week, I spent about four extended sessions (sketching, outlining, painting, final touches) on a project that bounced into my head the moment I saw an ArtiCrafti brand moulded "koala canvas mask" in a Dollar King bargain store - for just $2.50 - a few months ago. I had to carefully pack and bring it OS with me, much to my penpal host's delight, who enjoyed watching the artwork emerge from my brain! The mask is decorated with images of Sydney in black ball-point ink and watercolour.

Week 30: Sydney

The mask is decorated with 3D detail, which includes yellow pompons for wattle flowers, white Tulip brand "puffy dimensional fabric paint" for seagulls and wave crests, and a toothpick flag.

Update:

Above: As modelled by my Ann Arbor penpal, Olivia!

Framed in a shadowbox

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 29

Still live from Michigan, USA. Douglas Lake in Northern Michigan, to be precise! The theme is "Plane, so here'a a model plane, created with iridescent Origami paper, which flies over my photograph of the lake at sunset.

Week 29: Plane

Update:

Week 29: Plane II

"Open wide, here comes an aeroplane!" Paper collage and permanent black Sharpie.

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.

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 27

Live from Michigan, USA! I've only ever been here in the snow before, but it's summer, of course! The snowman on the right with the "Star Trek" phaser is based on the one made by my penpal, Olivia, and I during out first meeting in January 1984. The little one is based on the one outside our restaurant window in December 2012. The squirrel victim is depicted because - squirrel! Drawn with oil pastels on two backgrounds.

Week 26: Snow

I was thrilled to unite these two long-gone snowpeople, separated by decades, but definitely kindred spirits. Just noticing that the photo of this piece loses some subtlety in the hand phaser, and yet improves the tones on the squirrel. I'm fascinated how oil pastels work, and how they scan/photograph, when the colours are layered - and loving the unpredictability.

Update:
Prismatic origami paper snowflakes on a black card background.

Week 27: Snow II

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 26

I spent all day Wednesday surrounded by fog in San Francisco so, in the wee hours of Thursday, when I tried to recreate a plump, fluffy, accurate-to-nature cloud I had painted in 1978, this came out instead. Celebrating the rediscovery that purple and umber are the perfect tones to shade a cloud! You'd expect to need grey or black, but no it's purple and umber! Oil pastels on tiny notepad paper of the Cova Hotel, downtown San Francisco, USA.

Week 26: Clouds

Update:
A bit of a thought experiment. "Every silver lining has a cloud." [Quote from Avon, "Blake's 7".] Created by attaching a torn Ingres paper cloud to my hotel window, complete with a silver lining made with a tinsel pipe-cleaner:

Week 26: Clouds II

No more baked beans for you! Oil pastels on Ingres paper:

Week 26: Clouds III

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 25

The theme for Week 25 is "Dots". I present Fairy Fatality Bread. 3D assemblage art using white foam core board for bread slices, coated with rubber art cement and edible sprinkles. Cardboard template fairy shapes were cut freehand. Wands made from toothpicks and glitter stars. All served on a dotty plastic saucer, cordoned off by miniature police incident tape (photocopied Word document on overhead projector transparency).

Week 25: Dots

Update:
Large red card dot on Ingres paper. Cartoon figure in black Artline Ergoline finepoint.

Week 25: Dots II

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 24

Week 24: Octopus

Here's my watercolour, watercolour pencil, blue highlighter and permanent black Sharpie blue-ringed octopus on gesso-primed white canvas, accompanied by a newspaper article about my very exciting capture of one at Pearl Beach in 1973. "The Daily Telegraph" did an extensive phone interview by reverse-charges - via the only public phone box in Pearl Beach - but the eventual story was watered down after several more octopuses were caught on the NSW Central Coast on the same day. Must have been breeding season?

Update:
Mixed media collage - on an ink blot. The piece of inverted writing paper has a faint image of planet Earth printed on it. The seaweed was created from a puddle of green watercolour paint blown upwards with a straw.

Week 24: Octopus II

I had been wondering if I could create a symmetrical inkblot octopus. It failed dismally, but I stewed on it for a day or so and then I realised I could salvage it with some collage over the top. That pack of silver/mauve "satin" metallic card was just $2 in a bargain store. Bargain indeed! The eyes are cut from a brown foam animal sticker and self-adhesive "jewels".

And, now, Dad Joke Warning (below): "I'd give seven tentacles to be amoctodexterous":

Week 24: Octopus III

Week 24: Octopus IV

Things you do when you should be packing boxes of books and action figures for the interior painters' imminent arrival: A piece of iPhone photography. I uncovered a cache of stuff last night, including these glass octopuses (above). They are suspended from transparent glass bubbles with fishing line. Originally bought at Fremantle Markets, Western Australia in the early 90s. Took me waaaaaay longer to set up this shot that you'd expect. They kept swimming away!

Teachers' notes for One red shoe

The Teachers' notes I wrote for Wilkins Farago Publishing are now online. I hope lots of school libraries buy their own copy of the picture book, One red shoe, and get good use out of it!

The notes can be downloaded as a PDF here.

When I was testing the book out with our Stage 3 students, even the Stage 2 students were intrigued, although they only really discussed the red symbolism throughout, not the stronger themes about war/unrest in the Gaza Strip, but they came up with this digital slideshow:

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 22

Week 22: Eyes

I originally printed out an A4 sheet of cartridge paper with the text on it, intending to use it last week as a Jack-in-the-box for Boxes, but it evolved, instead, into a focus on the hypnotic eyes. (Coincidentally, I've spent the last week packing books into many, many boxes. Preparation for internal house painting!) Collage with acrylic and watercolour paints, permanent black marker and the nose of Roger Woodward.

Update:
Week 22: Eyes II. What to do when you've worn out your welcome? The school library's "Welcome" mat had lost all of its signage due to four years of kids trampling in and out. With only an hour to spare, I cut some paper templates freehand and used three cans of spray enamel to create this new message. Final detailing with permanent black marker.

Week 22: Eyes II

Paper templates

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 21

Week 21: Boxes

Coinciding with the 2014 National Simultaneous Storytime, this box of elephants from the picture book, "Too many elephants in this house" (by Ursula Dubosarsky and Andrew Joyner) was created with masking tape, red acrylic paint with sponged shading, blue corrugated cardboard, black ink permanent marker and pink and silver waterbomb balloons. Trunks were cut from matching pink and silver plastic partyware bowls. This prop will be part of my school's celebrations of this annual ALIA event.

Back of Elephant house

This back panel was left unpainted deliberately. Note the yellow plastic ladder emerging from the chimney hole.

One more elephant squeezes in!

Udates:
Inspiration struck tonight whist walking home in the dark from the train station. Here's the Minotaur in his labyrinth on Crete, created in just ten minutes with a cardboard box and a kitchen knife to make some slots.

Week 21: Boxes II.

Black Unipin fine line pigment ink cartoon on cartridge paper. Seemed like a good week for a soapbox.

Week 21: Boxes III.

An idea flashed into my head during breakfast and I simply had to do it immediately. Before this Challenge, ideas like this probably would be fleeting - and never made permanent. Corrugated craft board, with colour highlight from an ancient Faber-Castell Metallic Silky Pastel.

Week 21: Boxes IV.

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 20

Week 20: Colour

A huge challenge for a red/green colour blind man, but I thought I might take you into my secret world of 1958-1975. When the rest of Australia was watching b/w transmissions, I was able to see black, white, grey and *green*, especially in cartoons! (I added some red, too, because I've come to realise that red and green are the same wavelength to my eyes.) It was a family discussion during an episode of "Happy Days" (1974, just before Australian colour test transmissions started here ) that led to this amazing revelation... that I was colour blind! Bok the Frog was drawn on cartridge paper, photocopied on various red, green and grey sheets of paper, elements cut and pasted as a collage, and the plastic overlay of grey ripples was printed by b/w photocopying the green ripples on the backing sheet onto an overhead projector plastic cel.

Bok the Frog (and his garden of croakuses) as only I would have seen him:

Week 20: Colour II

Bok the Frog (and his garden of croakuses) as *most people* would have seen him, had he been on b/w TV:

Udates:
I had a new colourful idea: Here's a miniature gesso canvas painted in acrylics by me, on behalf of a bendy, smiley man, with detail in black Unipin fine marker, and silver and gold Signo pigment ink.

Week 20: Colour III.

Dyed chicks at the Royal Easter Show, before the RSPCA complained. Fingerprint art with acrylics and a black Sharpie:

Week 20: Colour IV.

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".

New Andorian additions!

New eBay win! Original full-page art for a Marvel "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" comic that never happened. This was for a storyline called "Operation Seastrike", with art by Rod Whigham & Philip Moy, and signed by Rod Whigham. That's an Andorian about to ambush Dr Bashir, of course. This art caused great excitement amongst my Andorian toys today!

Daddy Borg Skele-Trek and more than Set 1 of the miniature Skele-Treks. Note that the Data Skele-Trek figure now has yellow eyes (I figured a zombified android's eyes wouldn't go black and inert). Plus they've been joined by a new Andorian, which I customised! Featured are Kirk, customised Andorian, Kor, Gorn, Mini-Me Borg, large Borg, Data and Picard.

At long last... the conclusion is online! Starship Exeter: The Tressaurian Intersection

Starship Exeter: The Tressaurian Intersection

And the first episode, with a cameo by moi...

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 18

Week 18: Celestial body

This is an iPhone photograph of a white styrofoam ball, painted with a few slaps of acrylic paint and mounted on a wire skewer in a glass.

I actually used some black cloth draping (ie. a pair of black boxer shorts and the top and bottom of my long thermal underwear), two sizes of star-shaped glitter tossed randomly, and an orange ping pong ball with a lick of paint. The shaft of light is from a battery-operated torch. Curious how I created the shot? Here's my secret booth for most of my indoor iPhone photography. The torch is wedged into the toilet roll holder, offscreen at right.

Update:
Had to have another crack at this theme. Same elements as the first version, but I created some rings for the big planet by hot-laminating circles of yellow paper and gluing on some glitter. Light sources via a torch (wedged into the toilet roll holder), and the light-up model of the USS Enterprise ("Star Trek"). Smaller moons are represented by a bouncy ball, a ping pong ball and a foam clown nose. This image again took me about 15 minutes to assemble and photograph with my iPhone.

Week 18: Celestial body II

Nero vs Khan

Meet Kermit!

With Kermit the hand-raised tawny frogmouth proving that he really cannot fly.

I, Enterprise

I picked up Part 2 of IDW's Star Trek "I, Enterprise" two-parter comic (Issues #31-32), about Science Officer 0718, on Thursday. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The character was seen on the bridge of the Enterprise in JJ Abrams' "Star Trek Into Darkness" movie, and he was a mysterious, cool-looking, android/cyborg background character about whom we knew very little.

Fans have certainly seen this kind of story before in Star Trek: the Ilia Probe in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture"; the Enterprise-D's computer achieving sentience in "Emergence" (TNG); the Borg Drone they called One, who came from the EMH's mobile emitter, Seven's nanoprobes and Mulcahey's DNA (VOY's "Drone"); Morgan Primus's most recent guise in the "New Frontier" novels and comics; and the holographic avatar of a ship's computer in the novel "Titan: Synthesis", fashioned after Minuet (originally from episodes of TNG).

But this story works well. I'm thrilled we got to know more about 0718. I hadn't really expected a backstory to unfold already, and thought Bad Robot may have done a little more with him in the next movie first. He's featured on the alternate photo cover of Part 1 (actor Joseph Gatt, pictured above) and drawn on the regular cover of Part 2.