Side projects: Stuff I was working on...

This is one of the many projects that was gradually pushed aside for Honours work.  I finished the ink painting quite some time ago but I was planning on making it into an etching.  I was playing around with spit biting in my last etching and after many MANY tedious failures I starting being mildly proficient.  Skills like that should not be wasted, so I'm looking forward to using them on this image in the future. 

  

More inks

Really liked how this one turned out. There's more focus on line work and the range of mark making and shapes that can be used in an image instead of just tonal modeling.

Ink spots and advice

Interpretation is a wonderful tool, and its use should be planned for in every picture. Too many images are blunt in their meaning and their approach to a topic. Without subtlety, mystery or gaps set in the image, whether it be visually or conceptually, you might up with a picture that doesn't engage the mind.

What we have here could be an angry little boy running and yelling. Or a kid with a radioactive head. I will leave it up to the viewer to decide.

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.

Experimental portrait

I've finally worked out some sort of routine/area for my art making at home! Losing my studio space at University was sad sad time for me, and to help me get over it I snuck back into University and decided to use some unmarked territory as my own. Alas all good things must come to an end, and I am now resigned to working at home.

After a few trial and errors I have finally found a way to fit my messy practice into my small apartment. I will post hilarious images of my canvas' sitting on my bath tub later. At the moment I am jumping between my bedroom, living room table (aka easel and stool in one) and my couch side table depending on the medium I am using. And at the moment I am using a few. After countless arguments about the benefits of working charcoal on paper VS canvas I have conceded to see how the other side lives. (The other side lives in a sucky part of town. Canvas all the way.)

I will admit that a deliciously smooth surface does await the paper user, but so will large framing costs.

Paper has been very friendly towards inks however (though I've used those with canvas as well) and I have been playing around with mixed media especially after being inspired by Matt Huynh work and solo show (happening on the 1rst of June!) I've posted my favourite piece above, it's a mixture of inks and acrylics on paper.

More Bear antics

Different vehicle,

same animal,

for more transport related creatures stay tuned!

Inking about

I recently was very inspired by Jillian Tamaki's post on inks, and her ink abilities in general, and I wanted to try a little out myself since I'd been ignoring them and favouring watercolours recently. She had painted crocodiles and since I'm partial to them myself I followed suit.

The idea of a friendly crocodile comes from a children's rhyme or story I heard when I was younger. I can't really remember it but I'm pretty sure the moral ended with the friendly crocodile eating a few children that got swayed by its charms. For this reason I think it was written by Roald Dahl. Who had several kids, and even some adults, meet their end down the gullets of giants, rhinos and other menacing creatures.

For this reason I wanted my crocodile to appear very debonair and affable and a contestant for least likely to swallow and digest anyone. So when it ever did come to devouring it would come as a complete surprise.

Adrift: missed out again

Just a little something I made for Illustration Friday, but sadly I missed the deadline.

I blame the 8 hour flight from Singapore to Sydney,

and the 8 hours of sleep that followed.

Hope you all enjoy anyway.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Happy New Year!

Hope you all have a good time in the Year of the Tiger

More of Bear

Blogger is messing around with my colours again, had I been happy with them in this image it would be much more annoying. Alas the texture on my watercolour paper is driving my scanner mad. The scanner refuses to let the blank unpainted section in my image to lie in the background. After some equal treatment the grain is now smugly sitting in the foreground.

I've tried everything in photoshop from levels and curves to hue/saturation. My problem is the paper is received as a yellow, a main colour in the rest of image, to change it in any way distorts the overall colour scheme. Which was changed anyway by scanner and photoshop and blogger. If anyone has a magical solution to my problems please inform me. But otherwise enjoy the transport adventures of bear.

The smokers outside Takashimaya

Close up

This was actually finished on two separate occasions due to me leaving the country. I had wanted to draw the guardian lions that stand in front of Taka opposite the smokers when I originally started this image, but ran out of time.

After I returned to Australia other drawings and pages got filled in and this one got left behind. More than a year later, after scouting through the remaining pages of my moleskin, I remembered what I had planned and returned to roughly the same place I was sitting to finish this image.

The resulting differences in style and pen can be seen but I think its a nice contrast.

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.