Waiting for beach weather

After coming away inspired by Matt Huynh's lovely ink works at the Papermill I did a few tests and spot illustrations. This is one of them, and after being caught in yesterday's downpour (which included heavy fat tropical rain mixed with little evil bits of hail) I decided to add a bit of colour and hopeful wishing. Fingers crossed for sunny weather.

Chilling late night at Starbucks

Taking advantage of operational hours in Singapore, coffee shops closing early at midnight or not at all, I decided to drive in the small hours and get some drawing done in my last days of Asia. Couldn't stay awake for a full cafe sketch, despite the coffee, but managed to get some girls who'd obviously settled in for the night with they're big display of mugs, cups and saucers. Most happy with capturing the legs of the short haired girl in front. She had olympian calves.

Flamingos catching some Z's

Do not disturb the Flamingos

bear eating cake

I think the title is fairly self explanatory, as is the picture.

Going nuts on photoshop

Surrounded by so much black and white will have me go nuts every now and again. Such example above. Why are there explosions of colour shooting across this calm idyllic cafe scene? Who knows. It might have something to do with residual anger towards the central newspaper reading man for his acrobatic leaps in position. Or it might have something to do with me being recently addicted to MGMT's 'electric feel' and Cut copy's 'Lights & Music'.

Explanations aside for my light-show mood I hope you enjoy this brief stint outside of Kansas.

Experimental sketches

I decided to try something a little different with my last cafe sketch and added a dash of painting to the mix. Recently some other friends/artists I know have been working on mixed media, like Matt Huynh. Although I must say he combines his wet and dry mediums in a slightly more interesting manner. But nonetheless I felt inspired to try as well.

Part of me likes this image,

and another part isn't too sure.

I overworked the left hand section near the front man's head. But there are still parts I really love. Like the woman in the sari, the lead up of the stools to the girl typing and the various lamps. Hopefully next time there will be a more significant ratio.

Location: Singapore, Vivo, Pacific Coffee Company (not so great coffee...)

Screenprinting

These are a few screen prints I completed recently for a University project. The brief was to make eight individual prints from the same screens. Hopefully forcing you into a more organic less rigid intuitive way of screen printing. Well I hated it for most part. Give me rigid frigid planning ahead any day. Nevertheless I liked a few of the prints that came out in the end and it was an interesting experience with interesting results.

Max Brener again

Again haven't been keeping up the blog, which means there will be a large clump of images and then a dry spell. Kind of like those healthy but tasty breakfast cereals-there are these amazing crunchy nutty honey filled berry bits of sweet things that make the rest of cereal taste good. But you get them all melded together into this little ball of goodness, or just search for them when you first open the packet and then feel angry and disappointed when finishing off the rest of the box.

Well I will try not let that happen, and keep up with images and info so that there is an even nutritious diet of visuals. After all 4 out of 5 doctors recommend consuming several small pictorial meals a day rather than one large binge. With your health in mind I will try harder to go to coffee shops and chocolate shops to eat and draw.

Bubble girl +fish

This image is part of a larger composition I was going to do for a Threadless T-shirt competition. Originally there were meant to be tons of kids running around and making giant bubble and balloon creatures.  It never got out of the sketching phase unfortunately.  The main obstacle in my image's path was an 8 colour restriction for a t-shirt print.  In the end I decided to forgo the competition and just make the image the way I wanted to. 

(I also ran out of time after mucking about with other projects and making the same sketch over and over trying to visualize it with only 8 colours.) 

This little girl is a bit of a colour test, so I'd love to hear any feedback.

After spending an hour circling through the five different blue's in the bubble fish

changing the opacity ever so slightly,

erasing something and then undoing 

and then re-doing and then deciding to try dodge it instead

I decided that she had to get off my desktop 

otherwise I would never get to any of the work I am meant to be doing today.

Conversations

If anyone has been paying attention they will know of my love affair with the biro.
My favourite sketching medium. However recently I've been having colour pangs, especially after looking at the sketchbooks and prints of joseph Lambert. But now I can have my cake and eat it too, I have discovered and purchased coloured biro's!

In the super friendly colours of green, pink and purple they are wonderfully cheap and still act like biro's should.
I unfortunately bought a crappy purple pen so purple won't be showing up anytime soon.
But pink has been acting on its best behaviour!
And has been everywhere from my uni notes to my sketchbook.

Im pretty happy with this image, I've always had a thing for speech bubbles.
I find it great when utterly non-tangible things, like speech, gets solidified in comics.
And I love comics.
Ahhh comics and biro's ... never leave me!

Coffee Bean, Holland Village, Singapore

 

Singapore Tyler Print Institute

STPI is a famous printing studio/gallery/awesome place. This image wasn't in the main exhibition but I found it off to the side and was quite taken with it. For the techies out there it had shaped intaglio/etching plates, possibly printed twice, once with a colour roll and others with just etching or others with etching and aquatint. So there was a particular emboss on some image while others were on this massive bleedprint plate that were inked in different colours.

Amazing.

If you are ever in Singapore and printing inclined you should take a looksee, but be warned they sometimes close for days when taking down and putting up shows.

Murdoch Books: Monster Maintenance Manual Illustration Competition

There was an illustration competition for Murdoch Books new children's title: Monster Maintenance Manual.

Here are my final images for: Nose Ghoul, Quarking Ducks and long-legged Underbed pigs.
I'll post sketches soon.
(just so you know, the nose ghoul is pulling ginger hair out of his cloak. Nose ghouls apparently are the cause for nasal hair amoung adults.)

Michael Esson's Mixed Metaphors

Michael Esson's work is mind blowing, 

Nothing can really be said except that he holds a class at my university where you draw dead people.

Unfortunately his show at Manly Art Gallery is over.

Above is but a sketch I made of one of his massive drawings, to see the real work is something completely different.

Most of his work is over a meter or two meters large, and there is a wonderful, unapologetic focus of drawn images. Of describing objects through purely dry mediums with various styles.

There are too many painters around, 

Hurray for people who draw!

Mooks Artspace: My pet

Came across Mooks Artspace monthly competition while checking out Monster Children:  An Australian gallery, publication and general community.

Similar to Illustration friday, with the exception of time, and a prize! (or possible prizes).  If you win and then win again and perhaps win some more out of a draw of winners.... you might get a free exhibition with Monster Children!

Well a girl can dream...

Still out of those winners who aren't multiple winners of winners you can still get some great things.

Check out Mooks Artspace here

birds

A lot of people have issues with pigeons, 

I personally find them very beautiful.  They are also very abundant and will usually hang around in one spot when not disturbed.  Perfect drawing subject.

I have also included a seagull, 

I hate seagulls

they are very aggressive unhappy birds.

But my friends at art school call me the seagull due to my devouring skills at gallery openings.

I can't help it,

I love cheese and dip.

So I'll just pretend that I have an affinity to the bird 

due to my namesake.   

Attempts at colour pencil

I have never gotten along very well with colour pencil. Even now I am not able to beat a 5 yr old on terms of shading and blending colours.

I'm not even comfortable changing B/W into colour. It always ends in tears. Mine.

But I've had a year of my Uni teachers telling me: Have you thought about adding colour? ...just a bit, how about a wash? a pale yellow? You could just try one colour...anything.

So I decided to give colour a try. Especially since my friends bought me expensive colour pencils for my birthday.

new faces on the block

I have various conversations about art and whatnot with my friends who are in the similar field. Nicky O'Byrne in particular. We have both decided that majority of our people end up looking the same. Caucasian, young and fairly good looking. For me I can trace this back to my first attempts at drawing: which was copying from comic books. (Pre-Jim Lee, Essential X-men sort of stuff.)

Now I'm not blaming comic books, I love them too much. But I do get used to a particular way of drawing and/or making art. And I get lazy and repeat stuff I already know and am familiar with rather than trying new and possibly bad things.

So these are some attempts for the new and unfamiliar.