IAVA Website
As a committee member of the Illawarra Association for the Visual Arts (IAVA) this last year, our main project was to redesign and launch our website. I am pleased to announce that the new site is up. This is a great resource to discover some artwork by some of the best contemporary artists that … Continue reading
School Blackboard Project
During 2014, after dropping my son off at school on Mondays, I would stay for up to an hour doing a quick chalk drawing on a large blackboard. This blackboard was attached to an outside wall facing into the school courtyard. For a few weeks I got away with very few people spotting me work … Continue reading
School Blackboard #17
For this drawing on the School Blackboard I decided to do a somewhat simply shaped animal. When thinking of this design I had the short tentacles of a cuttlefish in mind, but when mirroring these tentacles on the other side of the creature it becomes a little more ‘otherworldly’. I thought of the animal, with an … Continue reading
School Blackboard #16
This School Blackboard work was, again, the subject of many requests. I had a lot of the girls at school asking for unicorns, with one very persistent student asking me every time she saw me for a few weeks. I had never drawn a horse before, let alone a horned one. I decided to have … Continue reading
Record Collection #40
-Truckin’ Albums #1- At first glance, these truck themed albums are ridiculous. On closer inspection they are unbelievably, stupefyingly craptacular! With band names such as Nev Nicholls & His Country Playboys and Big Dave & The Tennessee Tailgaters, you’d expect some country styled tunes with a couple of novelty truck songs for good measure, but … Continue reading
Transmission
– I’m coordinating and exhibiting in a group exhibition featuring a diverse collection by 11 IAVA artists, ‘Transmission’. A part of Viva la Gong arts festival, the exhibition will have artist talks and tours on the afternoon of Saturday November 8. Opening night will be Friday November 7 from 6:30 and will be opened by David … Continue reading
School Blackboard #15
I’ve been getting more and more requests from students wanting their favourite things drawn on the blackboard. I may not get around to ever drawing “a dragon”, “a unicorn”, or “a banana dressed as the saviour of free to air TV” (some requests may be fictional), but this week, I did give in to ‘public … Continue reading
Record Collection #39
-Irish Albums #1- In this collection of Irish albums, Brendan Locke’s record cover is my favourite. Cheerfully holding up the bar dressed in a beautiful, flamboyant polyester glitter shirt, Brendan looks like a Christmas bauble with an oversized collar. The album title of “Cream Of The Irish” is presented as a copy of a Bailey’s Irish Cream … Continue reading
School Blackboard #14
I thought it was time to introduce the kids to surrealism in this weeks School Blackboard drawing. In a simple cartoonish style, I drew a city of skyscrapers growing out of some hills, surrounding an enormous monolithic building. The steps of this ancient temple like structure led up to a mouth/door, and above this are six … Continue reading
Record Collection #38
-Vinyl Gold #6- This is a complete horrorshow of 80s nasties. There is no redeeming qualities in Colin Millington’s album. The over use of pastels, the terrible flower and butterfly motifs, the horrendous layout, the lazy photography, the simply bad suit with alterations clearly visible… and then there’s the title. Thank goodness the back cover doesn’t … Continue reading
School Blackboard #13
Another animal as the theme for this picture in my School Blackboard project. I decided on the subject matter of this drawing a couple of hours before I got to the school courtyard. The large origami crane on one side of the board is all straight lines, while the crane on the other side is in flight … Continue reading
Record Collection #37
-Kamahl #2- It’s all about the shirts in these album covers by Kamahl. ‘Friends’ shows off an amazing patterned shirt that is hovering in the limbo between absolute retro cool, and the kind of clothing that your dodgy uncle Gilbert wouldn’t even wear. The next two bright shirts look like Ken Done sneezed a mouthful of … Continue reading
School Blackboard #12
This School Blackboard drawing features a Siamese fighting fish. This was inspired by some amazing photographs I stumbled upon by Thai artist Visarute Angkatavanich. I was originally going to have another two fish on either side of the central one, both facing each other. I wanted these side profiled fish to really show off the … Continue reading
School Blackboard #11
Cold. So very cold. This morning was freezing, and the last thing I wanted to do was sit on some cold concrete for an hour while my fingertips turned a pale shade of blue around the white chalk. So I decided to do a quickie for this weeks Chalkboard Drawing. In a little over ten … Continue reading
School Blackboard #10
The tenth School Blackboard. This drawing combines linear work with a more block-colour ‘stencil style’. The girl’s face is very stylised and the shadows are simplified to make a bold image that can be seen from across the playground. Her flowing hair spills across the blackboard like a broad brushstroke with flowers blossoming and spilling from it. The hair maintains the … Continue reading
Las Vegas Street Art
It is difficult, but ‘real life’ can be found outside ‘The Strip’ in Las Vegas, you just have to be lucky… and luck is very important in a city such as Vegas. Head north of Fremont Street at Downtown Vegas and you can discover some great restuarants, awesome parks and outstandingly funky shopping areas in clusters of shipping containers … Continue reading
School Blackboard #9
This School Blackboard is geared towards the younger kids in the playground. The drawing is a cartoonish web of egg shapes, some of which are very simple chicken and pig images. I wanted to do another picture that was somewhat interactive for the students, and decided to do a ‘counting’ mural. In this picture, the kids are invited … Continue reading
School Blackboard #8
This School Blackboard was purely catering to a couple of students that were constantly requesting that I draw a bear for them. For this work, I thought it best to draw a very cartoonish image of a bear so as not to freak the kids out too much. It’s quite hard to draw a bear … Continue reading
Record Collection #36
-Rowdy Albums #3- Once again, The Dargies feature in a Rowdy Albums collection in all their sexist glory. While the band gather around a bar to drink and sing songs, the women on the album cover either stand in the background and fawn over the men old enough to be their fathers, or worse still, … Continue reading
School Blackboard #7
For the latest in the series of School Blackboard chalk drawings I decided to create a piece that was purely abstract. Non representational art isn’t exactly high on the interest list of primary school students, but I wanted to demonstrate to the kids that abstract art can look cool. I went for an angular design that I had come … Continue reading
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