Lungfish

What you retain in the tank of your mind is only what you sew. Bean sprouts and the lavender, smells of exotic tea permeate the pea green leaves of your mustard and cress. Tall white men submerged half to their waist in the waters which stream from your eye are benevolent and best left unnoticed . Silently they do their work, collecting all the black rocks which slip your iris. Small paper boats, made with love and sailed as to bring hope are made of yellow paper, they will never fade in the mountainous waves of your cerebral cortex. In the crank of your nose and the fold of your lips there are birds singing, in the fork of your ears and the skim of your brow there are worms weaving, in the depths of your soul and the nook of your heart there is love flowing.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Tea Escapes

At the moment I am toying with the idea of releasing a zine, it's to do with tea escaping. I'm not sure were the idea came from, but I've been drawing these little unicorn characters for a while and I though they ought to have somewhere to live and something to do. I was trying to create a visually interesting, flowing shape, my aim is for the viewers eye to travel nicely all around the page in a circular motion and then to rest of the focal point, which should be the characters. Anyway! have a look, these are the first 2 pages.