Monday, July 27, 2009

its not funny, its art



poor bianca, she doesn't get art ... or is it us ;)

Saturday, July 18, 2009

sketching from flickr (again)


circumstance has conspired to restrict the amount of time i have spent sketching ... yet i yearn for the challenge of analyzing the tone and composition ... coordinating my hand and eye ...letting my arm feel the turns and gestures ...have my brain distill the colours and how to build the washes ...watercolour take practise ... and what better way to tune the skill than to paint a delicious tease from flickr ... merci elli

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Shut up you are making me hungry


Melbourne has always been a food obsessed place ... not in a bad way, just savy about food, fresh ingredients, rich cultural diversity and tastes, a decent restaurant culture from the simple (eg the age's cheap eats) to the ridiculously opulant (and they get no free advertising from me) but lately the conversations äre becoming very focused ... and its because of a TV show ... masterchef ...everyone is watching ...it eclipsed the michael jackson saga here, more popular than the current sporting draw cards the tour de france and the ashes (that's true cricket to the heathens and we have started poorly I'm afraid) ...something more important than sport is so un-melbourne! ... then tonight little george let the cat out of the bag with two four letter words FOOD PORN ... yes that's what we all need to stop thinking about the global financial crisis, tax and other bad stuff

Don't get me wrong this is not wanton GLUTTONY or depraved use of edible items in exploitative sexual acts, it is the thrill we get about imagining our next meal ...we need to be excited about eating, it is a survival instinct, and you don't just need TV to do that ....I belong to a food porn group on flickr and I have noticed a lot of tweeters post photos of what they eat, MegaNom has a particularly delicious tastes ... the only problem I have with all this is ...damn am I hungry

Thursday, July 02, 2009

Beaux Gestes


Most often I get questioned about what is my style and where did it come from. I don't paint like my cartoons and I don't paint like the artists I admire (eg Gauguin) ... so where does my style start ...my theory is it is is not a conscious thing, it is much more physical it comes from the interaction of my eye and hand ... and it very much related to how I hold the brush and flex and bend my arm ... i don't paint in a slow considered way ... it don't even use pencil construction lines any more ... i just pick up the brush .. mix the colour and dab it here and there, my hand just does it guided by my o copy, but I eye but not its slave ... my mind and ego are looking away distracted ...music helps ... ok i do work from photos or a computer screen a lot so that is already resolving the perspective and giving a two dimensional thing to copy, ... but to be honest I look more at the tone than the lines ...confusing isn't it ...I struglle to explain it just love to do it. Four or fire gesture sketches and I'm away in the creative place, time, logic and sensibility vanish, this is a place of colour and emotion and .... and... no one knows until the wash drips of the brush as it flicks this way and that.




Like ideas & words, gestures have a life of their own.
Laurence Wylie

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Curves on Curves



Pencil Sketch on normal bond paper