52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 11

Week 11: Architecture

Watercolours on white acrylic gesso primed canvas sheet, with fine-point, waterproof, black Sharpie outlining, and miniature signage in Word (and further reduced on photocopier). As I was inking in the pencil lines, I decided to do an "architectural caricature" of the building, such as seen in those artistic interpretations in pamphlets, hand-drawn maps and prospectuses.

My third ever serious attempt at watercolour: the Number 96 building, Paddington locale of the hit Australian TV soap opera of the 70s. The actual building, Moncur Flats, is at 83 Moncur Street, Woollahra. I sketched and painted this on Saturday evening, after hearing of the passing of Australian actress Wendy Hughes. First thing I saw her in was Number 96, when she played Lucy Sutcliffe's niece, Vanessa Harrison. She shared a very funny bathtub scene with Arnold Feather. After many wonderful stage and screen adventures, she became one of only a handful of Aussie actors to appear in Star Trek: The Next Generation, as Picard's girlfriend, Nella Daren (below) in Lessons.

R.I.P. Wendy Hughes

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 10

Week 10: Pattern

Paper weaving, created in 2014, using two old and damaged/unfinished oil pastel artworks from 1981. They had languished in the garage since 2000 (and the previous garage since 1984) and were under a thick layer of dust. I wasn't particularly attached to either of them - they were very early attempts at using oil pastels - but I love the newly-created weaving. Below: The original artworks from 1981.

Above left: Old unfinished giraffe, oil pastel on Ingres paper, 1981.
Above right: Age-damaged bottlebrush artwork, oil pastels and acrylic wash on white art paper, 1981.

Tania McCartney added an article to her blog in which I describe the creative process involved in this technique.

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..."

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 8

Toy chicken and polar bear. Double-ended waterproof black Sharpie.

Week 8: Crosshatching

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 7

Week 7: Watercolour

My first ever attempt at scenic watercolour. This is Lion Island off Pearl Beach, Central Coast, NSW. My watercolour set is five colours only (and no white!), on white acrylic gesso primed canvas sheet.

Since I never enjoyed "painting" in colouring-in books with those ubiquitous watercolour sets as a kid, I have always resisted buying a set as an adult. I suddenly remembered being given a 365-days paint-by-numbers desk-calendar 2009, which I'd never used - and it contained a brush and little cakes of black, green, yellow, red and blue.

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 6

Week 6: Machinery

This is a mixed-media collage, with black card, gold foil crepe paper, plastic netting from an onion bag, adhesive plastic "jewels", and white laser glitter. Below:Same artwork, under different lighting.

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 5

Week 5: Flower.

Gardenia from my garden, oil pastels on black paper.

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 4

Week 4: Selfie

In the 70s, a "selfie" would have been performed with an Ericofon. Charcoal pencil on primed canvas.

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 3

Week 3: Caravan

This is a ten-layer paper tole, using seven 8x10" sheets of photographic paper, created from the last photo I ever took of my Dad before he passed away. I call it "Grey Nomad", of course. My parents had just travelled across from Perth where they'd lived in retirement for 19 years.

Side view!

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 2

The theme for Week 2 is "Kids", but I drew a kid puppet. Double-ended waterproof black Sharpie. No pencil, no eraser! (Living dangerously!)

Week 2: Kids

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 1

Week 1: Eggs

Facebook Friend Tania McCartney has declared 2014 to be a 52-Week Illustration Challenge. This will keep me on the ball! Here's my first effort (above). A two-ended waterproof Sharpie - and no pencil lines or erasing! Of course, after I moved the egg to pose it with the drawing and photograph it, all the shadows changed!

I shall be adding the artworks to this Flickr slideshow each week. Enjoy!

I did the 365 Photos Challenge a few years ago and it definitely improved my photography. I would highly recommend it; start any time and add your pics to a daily blog or Flickr. Not long after I started that Challenge, Aussie TV celebrity Andrew G (aka Osher Günsberg) started a 365 Self-Portrait Challenge. He did some amazing work! I visited his exhibition that he held when it was all over, bought my favourite pics - and it was fun chatting to him photographer-to-photographer. It made me feel legitimate. I never felt like I understood photography, although I had a Polaroid as a teen, then a 3D Nimslo camera as a young adult. More recently, I did an online 30-Day Photo Challenge with a group of teacher colleagues. Similarly to this art challenge, a daily theme was suggested, but hardly any of the participants made to to the end of the month! So I'm looking forward to seeing who's still here, and how artistic we all feel, in a year's time!

Robbie Rules: My first day at school

This digital story is especially for author Meredith Costain, with many thanks for sending Penrith Public School the signed copy of her wonderful new picture book, My first day at school (Windy Hollow Books, 2013). The book's illustrations are by Michelle Macintosh.

Stage 3 students have recently been working as "buddies" for Kindergarten Orientation, and they enjoyed having Meredith's book read to them in a library session, and then reminiscing, brainstorming, storyboarding, photographing, and suggesting possible text for a joint construction to create a PhotoPeach presentation. We anticipate our incoming Kindergarten students, future buddies and staff and students at other schools to get some useful tips from it.

Special thanks to Ms Stockton, who allowed Robbie Rules - our oldest "student" at Penrith PS, who's never graduated from Stage 1 - to visit the library for the last few weeks of Term 4, 2013.

Robbie Rules: My first day at school

Happy New Year!

Sydney's NYE banners!

I wonder how many of these hopes and dreams from the people of West Concord, MA, USA, came true for them in 2013? I used to pass this sign every day I was staying there last January.

Happy New Year!

Digital stories for the festive season

And, way back in 2010:

Last year, my ol' pal Jonathan Sequeira asked friends to send him family Christmas pics for a song video by The Elephant Gods - and this was the result. See if you can spot any McLeans:

And just for fun:

And an update from "The Twilight Zone". Doo doo, doo doo, Doo doo, doo doo:

Officially freaked out. I was running for a bus because it was too far to clearly read its route number. Not mine, after all, I realise. The driver was on the phone, so I waited to ask him where my bus left from. He was *describing my appearance* over the phone, and what I was carrying, and he already knew I wanted the 399. I told him *no one* at the station knew where I was heading, and I hadn't asked anyone else anything, but he insisted he was holding up his bus to tell me what I needed to know.

"Technology", he said.

Last time I traveled on this route my mother had just passed away and I made every connection (without looking at the timetable) from Penrith, to Central, Circular Quay, and Malabar Heights, with precision timing, and we joked that Mum organised it. Looks like she's at it again. Merry Christmas, Mum!

Rock out with your Spock out!

Yesterday, I got on a train to Petersham, just as I did one month earlier, to attend a meeting. A heavily-tattooed and facially-studded blond guy with a bicycle came into the carriage. He was in his 20s and wore a T-shirt with Leonard Nimoy on it, and the legend that read, "Rock out with your Spock out". I remembered seeing him in the same outfit four weeks ago, on the same train. A ponytailed guy in his 30s immediately complimented him on the T-shirt and engaged him in conversation about "Star Trek" - and soon they were trying to out-trivia each other: eg. Zachary Quinto had to cheat to do the Vulcan salute in the new movies; "The Wrath of Khan" and "First Contact" were the best films; "Nemesis" kinda sucked but they both liked it anyway, etc.

I chimed in with an anecdote about the Vulcan matriarch in "Amok Time" needing a piece of cotton round her fingers to do the salute correctly.

"Oh, you mean T'Pau?" they both asked. The younger guy had a thick Irish accent.

"Did you know that 'The Wrath of Khan' was on at the Dendy in Newtown a few weeks ago?" asked the Irishman.

"I was there," I boasted.

"I'd never seen it on the big screen before," said the Irish guy. "Hey, I remember you!" he said to me. "You were wearing a Starfleet uniform. You were in my row!"

"That's so cool," said the ponytailed guy. "I wish I'd been there."

Whoever said Trek geekdom was dead?

Number 96, Mavis Bramston... and David Sale

David Sale's tell-all book about "Number 96" and "The Mavis Bramston Show" is out... very soon!

MEDIA RELEASE:

"In the history of Australian television, two shows changed the face of television forever and rocked the nation to its foundations. Now the creator of 'Number 96' and the Executive Producer of 'The Mavis Bramston Show' goes behind the scenes of these two controversial, outrageously ground-breaking series for a jaunt through the industry’s Golden Years.

"'Number 96' and 'The Mavis Bramston Show' flaunted the unmentionable, destroyed taboos, ridiculed sacred cows and dared to deal with subjects hitherto considered too shocking for polite society. They were condemned from the pulpit, slayed by the critics, yet adored by an immense majority of viewers.

"'NUMBER 96, MAVIS BRAMSTON AND ME' by David Sale will be launched by the Hon Michael Kirby on May 13 at a function hosted by Carol Raye, and available online and at selected bookshops from that date.

"Actor, script writer, producer and author David Sale’s career progressed through the theatres and movie studios of London and Hollywood and the turbulent world of Australia’s TV industry. As an actor early in his career, he performed in the UK and Europe including a tour to Malta playing the lead in 'The Mousetrap' and Malcolm in 'MacBeth', before roles for the Melbourne Theatre Company, Sydney’s Tivoli Theatre and across Australia in 'The King And I'.

"Sale has been a contributor to many TV series including 'A Country Practice', 'The Group' and 'Carrots', and has provided special material for some of Australia’s legendary entertainers to perform on TV, stage and in cabaret, including Julie Anthony, Maria Venuti, Toni Lamond, Carol Raye, Lorrae Desmond, Hazel Phillips and Donna Lee. He produced the last in the line of Sydney’s notoriously naughty Phillip Street Theatre revues, 'Lie Back and Enjoy It', and created 'Arcade', one of the biggest flops in Australia’s television history. He has written six novels, two of which – bestsellers in England - were bought for the movies.

"He is frank and revealing about his own life, a life that began in war-ravaged Manchester, followed the migrant route to Australia, and – against all odds – hit the heights of show business.

"But over and above anything else, Sale gives the inside story on Australia’s two most iconic television shows. After years of enduring misconceptions, outright lies and under-researched reporting of the series in which he was intimately involved, David Sale decided the truth should be told. He doesn’t pull any punches about any aspects of this incredible journey. He takes us with him every step of the way - huddled in a bomb shelter as a child to dodging Aussie’s TV critics as an adult.

"From blitz to glitz, David Sale tells of a fascinating life in 'Number 96, Mavis Bramston and Me'."

SALES DETAILS:

Cost: $29.95

Published by Vivid Publishing. Available from all good Australian bookstores and worldwide in paperback and ebook editions.

See also www.vividpublishing.com.au/number96/

"We've passed a lot of water under the bridge."

Earth Hour 2013

Earth Hour

Travelling on - to Concord

Farewell to Chicago - the view from Lynn & Dick's condominium!

Today, it was time to move on to my next destination: Boston, MA, where I braved the wonders of the rail network to arrive in West Concord, at the home of my penpals, the Ljutich family. Above are examples of the kitchen trim that Carolyn and her son, Ian, added to the kitchen when he was just a young boy.

Carolyn was amused by how often I was engaged with technology.

There was much negotiation between Ian and myself over whose turn it was to use the Internet connection.

Happy New Year in Chicago!

Having already done the train trip into Union Station, with Lynn yesterday, my confidence was boosted about replicating the trip to catch up with penpal and Facebook Friend, actor James Dauphin, on New Year's Day of 2013. We had a wonderful lunch, talked at each other about a million words per hour, and took a wander around the sights of Chicago's CBD. James had recently done some acting work on the then-forthcoming "Superman" movie, Man of Steel, and he pointed out several street angles that might appear on film. (Sadly, James' scenes were cut, but yes, lots of buildings were recognisable.

James is the master of the Facebook selfie, and as we bid each other farewell, we indulged in the above duo-selfie before I headed off for my train. He was deep into rehearsals for a stage production of Deathtrap, playing the role made famous by Christopher Reeve on screen. I understand the play ended up having a sell-out season, although I was already due to move on to my next destinations before opening night.

My first challenge for the day had been finding a while-you-wait photo lab that was open on January 1, to have my cousins' photographs scanned and printed. Although the shop I encountered had several self-serve devices, the guy took pity on the helpless tourist with the fascinating pictures and did an expert job on them, using the "special" printer behind the counter to get the best results.

While I was there, I remembered to ask for directions to "The Bean" (above). I knew nothing about it, except that its official name was Cloud Gate in Millennium Park, and that a Facebook Friend had urged me to add it to my bucket list. I wasn't that far away from it, and Millennium Park was certainly a great place to fill in time before the rest of Chicago's shopkeepers awoke for their late-morning January 1 openings.

Day 10's other photos:

Virtual waterfall, Millennium Park

The Bean!

Macy's Christmas windows for 2012 celebrated the history of Macy's

Art Gallery festive lions