Early Harvest.

A little while ago I did some drawings for Early Harvest magazine, which is a collaboration between Harvest and Pigeon Projects. What sets this journal apart from others on the market is that it publishes stories and poems written by children across Melbourne and is edited and marketed by children, with guidance from volunteers.

It was great corresponding with Emma Hewitt, who I have unfortunately not met yet, as I was at Harvest festival in Werribe when the launch was on.

I have not got my copy yet, so these photos are taken from bean there read that.

This is the front cover, which you should look out for at Readings!

And this is a page with one of my drawings on it.

This is the illustration from Olivia. 

and this is the illustration for my secret happiness.

Patterns

I am very interested in working with my sister on making some patterns for dresses, what I hope to do I draw with pen and ink on large sheet of calico, so these very tiny tiny drawings are just preparation for that.

This drawing is to me very warm, the warm blue and warm orange compliment each other and I like to think create a well balanced and visually interesting composition, I always like my compositions to flow, to link back, to balance and to curve. I don't like to break off, dis-joint or scatter.
This drawing is called 'persimmon mountain' again this is an idea for a larger dress pattern.

I really love how the colours in this worked, I plan on making this into a larger work, which I hope to give to Petrova, who is a Melbourne fashion designer than Aoife and I both love very much. You can find her work here: http://www.ladypetrova.com/LADYP/LADY_PETROVA.html

I will cover you in red wool

Lately I have taken to reading poems to the furniture, this is a recording of me reading 'night poem' to the bed post.

Night Poem, Margret Atwood There is nothing to be afraid of it is only the wind changing to the east, it is only your father the thunder your mother the rain In this country of water with its beige moon damp as a mushroom, its drowned stumps and long birds that swim, where the moss grows on all sides of the trees and your shadow is not your shadow but your reflection,

your true parents disappear

when the curtain covers your door.

We are the others,

the ones from under the lake

who stand silently beside your bed

with our heads of darkness.

We have come to cover you

with red wool,

with our tears and distant whispers.

You rock in the rain's arms

the chilly ark of your sleep,

while we wait, your night

father and mother

with our cold hands and dead flashlight,

knowing we are only

the wavering shadows thrown

by one candle, in this echo

you will hear twenty years later.

Smokes and Tea

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

smokes and wine

tea.

A Day at the Park

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.

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.

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.

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/

The Synaesthetes

I'm doing some design work for my friend Alex's band The Synaethetes at the moment, as well as many other things. This summer has actually been very productive for me. I'm also the drummer in said band, which for the record can be found here: http://synaesthetes.blogspot.com/. It's a sort of shoegazey post-rock band akin to Mogwai if you will, anyway we are very good so check it out. But as for the design I'm looking into Greek and Roman fresco and jug designs, mainly looking at the way they represented animal figures, often in distorted ways. I am also doing lots of blind drawing, where I try to listen to the music and draw direct from my subconscious without looking at the page. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't but it always helps.