Smokes and Tea

More sticker friends, look out for these around the place.

smokes and wine

tea.

A Day at the Park

The Bending Out Of The Red String

This drawing is a prime example of the unicorn creatures that I always draw, I am very much into drawing horns at the moment, and I particularly like uni-horns because they are slightly less threatening than two horns. I started this drawing on the train home from an opening, 'letter heads' at 1000 pound bend, which featured the work of Ghost Patrol. Ghost Patrol is a major influence on me, his work has inspired me to dabble into the realm of street art and also to continue in the field of felt toy making. I stuck a sticker up in 1000 pound bend today, and also on level 3 of the Toff in Town building, outside Metropolis, you know the one, with cookie and rooftop in it, yeah, that one. In sadder news a sticker I stuck up at Edithvale station has been taken down, but I like to think it's now being loved my someone else, possibly even stuck to someones bed-post.

This is the sticker I put up in 1000 pound bend, it's of my good friend Jialing

It is I who holds the trees together

It is me when the cars collide.

It is my fault when the birds hearts stop beating.

It is I who holds the trees together.

So sweet when your scissor blades of white light cut up the sky.

It is my breath that kisses under your jacket.

Sticker Paper Love

I got sticker paper! so I have been designing stickers, these are some likely sorts in the midst of waiting for a train, a train that will never come! but they're cool with it because they can whistle, and also they are all in a band.

Ribbon.

Chalk

The moon tastes cold and chalky

This is a chalk drawing I did with a four year old little girl, I love getting creative with kids, they enjoy it so much, It reminds me that art should be fun and full of wonder.

How a Moth Becomes a Boat

A beautiful hand written letter came in the post a few days ago, it was from Josephine Rowe, a short story writer and poet and someone with lovely hand writing. She also sent me a copy of her self-published book of short stories 'how a moth becomes a boat' which I had previously had to steal of my friend Ainslee. I said I would send her some drawings in exchange, so I got to drawing, with my new set of staedtler fine-liners which I bought from Officeworks today along with some sticker paper (I plan on printing some stickers to put up around Melbourne). Anyway the below drawing is what I came up with, I am trying to use more colour, which I normally shy away from. The text is a line from a short story called 'boat'.

text reads: 'but because you are too old to understand how it is that a boat becomes a moth or a moth a boat, you have to stop believing him'

'How a Moth Becomes a Boat' contains a a tender sadness and longing in every line, with images of L.Ps stored in pantries, of smashing whiskey bottles against houses among other things. It gave me shivers down my spine.

Trevor and Mark

Had a full day of felt making today, I am making these little unicorn toys for the E.P. launch of Tequila Mockingbirds, so I hope to make at least 30 or so of these little guys. They took about an hour and a half each, but I think I will be able to make them faster from now on, because I'll know what I'm doing. Their names are Trevor and Mark. I also got some help from Adolfo.

Magic Pants

These are some drawings I did on the train, to and fro the Empress last night. A great picnic was had by all.

fuck, I thought it was forever

text reads: fuck I thought it was forever

Metallic blue pencils give a lovely gradient of tone. These are a series of images I am working on to do with loss, they are supposed to have a sombre, gentle tone to them. I started this project by collecting images of people holding animals, the connection that they have, I wanted the creatures to almost be slipping away from the figures. The image of the boy is a portrait of my friend Matias who I miss very much. I met him when I was on exchange in Denmark, he introduced me to the art and culture of Denmark, and to this day we write each other long emails in which we try to write plays and poetry and tell jokes. I recently sent him a large package with some drawings and other things, so I am expecting something great in return.

Voiceworks

The finished drafts of the illustrations for the front and back inside covers of Voiceworks. Click on the images to see detail.

what I saw in my tea leaves last night

This is what I saw in my tea leaves last night, I don't believe in reading tea leaves, really but I like the patterns that they leave behind.

eats, shoots and leaves

The getting of language

This is a plate design I did for year 11 art class, It's about the learning of language, specifically the learning of the danish language. Normally the symbols I use are very abstract but in this work we were forced to be very symbolic. The fish represent the getting of knowledge, they are koi carps, because I read somewhere that they live to be 150 years old and are very intelligent. The black voids represent nothingness, so the fish metamorphosing from the voids represents how language develops in your mind when you are in a foreign country, when you first arrive it means nothing and then slowly it starts to form meaning.

Margaret Atwood The Moment

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

The soft almost siren like voice to this poem creates an eerie calm, it reminds me of how the trees move slightly in Tarkovsky films. I really like how this poem captures a precise moment, a moment of spilling over, it's a freeze frame of a bucket tipping over, it is a rabbit before it is clutched by the hawk. The theme of Nature being unfathomable and the smallness of the individual is also a concept that I think about a lot, and I try to convey in my art. I don't believe that we can ever achieve anything that is absolute. The stone of grand churches will all be ebbed away in time just as scientific laws will continue to be dis-proven. But it is this mystery, this awe inspiring wonder that keeps me alive.

J.D. Salinger

These are images of a small shrine that I made after hearing about the death of J.D. Salinger. Salinger was a major influence on my youth and how I see the world now, particularly 'Franny and Zooey' really touched me and shaped my world view. The major philosophical teaching I gleaner from reading Salinger are, that all religious or philosophical teachings should lead to the unlearning of differences, that the most clever answer is not often the most true or pure answer and that phoniness arises in people when they are forced to be civil, or nice to people they would much rather not talk to.

Will drink the new Wine

Based on exquisite corpse drawings (which is a surrealist parlor game) and surrealist imagery combined with inspiration from the street art around Melbourne (particularly Brunswick) I have been making these drawings. With these I hope to create tone and texture that is both unnerving and beautiful.

These drawings may be appearing in the next issue of Voiceworks, which is a youth poetry magazine that I have done illustration work for in the past. I also just downloaded gimp today, which is a free version of Photoshop so I have been playing with hue and saturation. I have no access to a scanner at the moment so I just took pictures of these drawings and tried to heightened the contrast so you can see the detailing.

You can read about exquisite corpse drawing here: http://www.exquisitecorpse.com/

and about Voiceworks here:http://www.expressmedia.org.au/voiceworks.php

Pen and Ink

These are some pen and ink drawings from my small black Moleskine. I have three Moleskines, each supposedly with a different purpose, this small Moleskine operates more as a diary, I take it everywhere with me, just in case inspiration attacks me.

made into flesh

Hawks and sparrows
race in my waters
stingrays are floating
across the sky

Tequila Mockingbirds

The Tequila Mockingbirds are a band, which play many instruments and like to gig around Melbourne in various locations, and most of the members in the band I would consider good friends of mine. Further to that I doing the illustration work for their forth coming E.P. titled 'At Home'. These are some scannings from my Moleskinehere I was trying to work out a font style to work in, I like to incorporate text into my image making if possible. These circular motifs will not be used for the E.P. but may be used for band posters and likes.
this little drawing, which sorry you can't see very well, is to be used for the E.P. it will go on the inside cover, it's loosely based on the cover of '100 years of Solitude' which I was reading at the time. That little unicorn on top of the girls head I draw a lot of, so watch out for him.
This corn motif will be used on the C.D.

Check out the Mockingbirds at their Myspace address below, and while you are at it, why not look at Golden Fur which features The Cellist from Mockingbirds, Judith, who is pretty darn cool and has been know to use a vibrator on stage (for the Cello).

http://www.myspace.com/tequilamockingbirdsband

http://goldenfur.com.au/