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December 1, 2010#

Solitary Turf War

The finished commissioned piece. It was a Christmas gift for the husband of the client. The husband is referred to as Francis of Assisi by the surrounding neighbours, as when he goes for a walk, his 4 cats, 3 dogs and Billy the goat go with him. And because he uses colourful nylon rope as a belt, because he feels that a normal belt just doesn’t cut it. The current colour is bright pink.

During the course of doing this work, the old labrador sitting in the cabbages died, so i was asked to kinda ‘nice’ it up a bit – i had made it a little geriatric and decrepit  looking.

For some of the background to this work, scroll down, or click here…

Client is very happy with the digital preview, as am I, though like most things, there is always something you ‘d like to change, or would like to spend more time on – but sometimes you just gotta leave it alone.

Been a good experience, full of learning and patience – primarily hardware shortcomings. (Taking donations now for replacement gear ;-) )

The print came back quickly from Steve at www.360-dpi.com and looked great printed on canvas, though paper would have been my preferred medium. After meeting the client on a cold windy day in the carpark of Coona Tesco the hand over was done.

Got a call on Christmas day to let me know everyone though it was great, which was nice, and a huge sigh of relief!

Submitted for Illustration Friday topic “Cultivate”

September 21, 2010#

Waiting

A piece that was put on the back burner some time ago, as it all seemed too daunting a task for me – an actual landscape scene (of sorts).

Mostly i draw characters or cartoons that may or not be in some sort of environment, but with this one i was actually aiming to paint the environment, with the figure being a secondary consideration. It started with the mushroom on the tree, and the rain lead to the mushroom providing shelter, hence the figure.
Other opportunities of study for me in this work were the concept that objects in the distance are somewhat hazy, ill-defined and much paler than the middle ground, and the foreground objects darker and slightly out of focus too – all these aspects helping to achieve a more convincing 3D space; and using a somewhat limited palette of colour. I’ve used many colours now, and also have a history with black and white, so it was a fun challenge trying to limit the number or colours used.
I’m reasonably happy with this study, and somewhat relieved to have it finished…

Here’s a still’s animation of the process. Not great quality, but maybe next time.

July 11, 2010#

The Bear

Another in the Animal Series i’m working on.
Started this a while back and abandoned it as it wasn’t clicking for me, but have it done now…..
July 10, 2010#

The Octopus

Finally! Back to the animal series, and the octopus is complete.

This too a lot longer than the others because of the suckers and tentacles.
Damn near killed me….
June 26, 2010#

No Weeding. No Pruning.

Cartoon done for the Limerick Post.

An article about the ruins on farmers property that are heritage listed, and as such may not be interfered with in any way – not even to clear away any plant-life that may have over grown these teetering mounds of prospective rubble, which is what many farmers would like to do in order to maintain them somewhat- though it’s apparently fine for the farmers cattle and sheep to graze all over the things.
Was that the longest sentence I’ve ever written….?
June 12, 2010#

Ripple (Death By Oil Slick)


New one for Illustration Friday topic: Ripple.

The word was chosen to coincide with a fund raiser to help with the Deepwater Horizon Catastrophe (Oil Spill), other entries can be found here.

My first response to the word Ripple was, as usual, puerile and mildly perverse, but then I figured it could give me a chance to do something that I hadn’t done before, which was using the Water Colour brushes.

It was also nice, as they requested a particular size, which gave an added limitation to the piece.

What began as doodling away with the pencils, ended with some subtle colour washes and fiddling around, and I’m kinda happy with the way it turned out. Makes me feel all arty….

April 18, 2010#

Australian Christmas

Headed back to the sunshine of home for Christmas 2009, and painted this as a Christmas card to irritate the loved ones we’d left behind to what turned out the be one of the most bitterly cold winters on record in Ireland.

Having spent the previous 4 Christmas’ in the northern hemisphere, I’ve come to see the relevance the of icicles, snow men, and rugging up warm connotations that come with this time of year. This was my boys second Christmas, the first being in Ireland, and i wanted to see how he’d go building a snow man in the sand.

March 18, 2010#

Blue Bottle Boy

When my son was about 8 months old, i began thinking about the potential dangers he would face at he grew, and about things that i had to look out for when i was young.
When i was young, we visited the grandparents at their house on the northern beaches of Sydney. We spent a lot of time learning to swim and splashing around there, but there was always the danger of the painful sting of the Portuguese Man-O-War, or as most coastal Australians call them, Bluebottles.
Throw in an unrelated fascination for the biggification of the small, and floating things, and this is the result.