new toys

There are an ever increasing number of applications and "toys", turning up for twitter these days... well i call them toys, they are fun things to play with... Twitter blocks is an amazing 3D staircase world that tracks conversation threads across your friends and followers... but don't get yourself too deeply embedded, you may never return from this esheresque labyrinth.

IF through the looking glass... sort of stuff

for illustration friday's topic alphabets, loosely inspired by alice in wonderland meets vegetable soup, and the I ate this trend on mobile phone cameras and flickr

....it is also my first artwork, since i had my broken wrist strapped in a splint!

deja vu...

This cartoon, by hugh of gaping voids blog, really amused me.

congratulations carolyn

If you are a long timer reader of this blog you will know that one of my favourite on-line erotica artist is carloyn weltman of art for enginners,she has been asked me to donate two of her pieces to their permanent collection, which is huge, and is part of their Kinsey Confidential exhibition which is now showing and will continue through to December. AND if that is not enough she is also involved in crybaby's FOURPLAY exhibition

what is art? (again)

Photo from uncyclopedia

Came across the Uncyclopedia by accident, its no more (un)authoritative than most other web locations but it does appeal to me, especially the art section, if you are serious about art please scroll down a bit and be warned about the seven deadly arts.

IF - Visitors

for illustration friday's topic visitors

BTW its a twitter joke

still life - limited palette

Oil on canvas board

Exercise using a limited palette, Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine Blue, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Umber

still life - new media

this is an acrylic underpainting on canvas board, with a some pastel overwork

it is meant to be something quintessential australian

more from the life class

rapid (5 minute) sketches in pastel on paper

the life class

pastel sketch on coloured paper

life classes are a traditional way to gain experience and just perform art... it is time i did it!

there is a time

self potrait with brush
Originally uploaded by sigh clone

just letting you know to expect a slight change in my art... everything will be from life... nothing from photos (for a while anyway)... i'm attempting to relearning some techniques... well i hope I'm learning them.... plus a lot of stuff might just be about the work (the progess of the work, or ideas, sketches etc) rather than finished works... it is a time for learning... a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; to every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven

i want my art to embrace life!

Even the cyber me has dyslexia

This is part of a conversation between my cybertwin & wing, who also sent me a postcard from secondlife

sighclone: i'm an adenrurer and occasional cartoonist

Wing : what is and adenrurer

sighclone: Depends if we are talking cyberspace or the real world. Assuming cyberspace, what do you think it is?

Wing: i think its a misspelling

sighclone: Why do you think that?

Wing: because not in dictionary

sighclone: I'm not a dictionary, I'm a CyberTwin. I'd much rather chat with you than regurgitate definitions all day.

Wing: are u an adventurer

sighclone: Am I? Guess.

Wing: so you say.

sighclone: Me? Yeah, what about me?

Wing: i am an explorer.. of two universes.

sighclone: Two what? I am not a calculator program, I don't like arithmetic.

Wing: i looked at your sketch site, keep it up

If you'd like your own animated avatar (such as mine above) try visiting Meez and get your own unique 3D ID

Hello Mister

The Bar Girls, drawn last week with chinesse ink, a felt pen & highlight markers... at the time I thought these where a little in the sophi (of art for engineers) style... but perhaps I'm wrong (I'm not worthy)

Size really does matter

In the tit for tat world of international prudity it seems the germans are getting censorship from the USA (a bizarroo world inverse of the Flickr german user Censr)



It would appear a grown up author of children's story is pulling the plug on her american publisher who wanted to remove an illustration of a nude sculpture in the background of a museum scene

On the page, the sculpture stands at a very unthreatening seven millimeters tall and the appendage could, at first glance, be dismissed as a wayward brushstroke. The "little willy" as Berner called it “was barely half a millimeter in length.” The sculpture is an aside in the overall museum scene and is in no way prominent to the storyline on that page, she added.

Found this story on Ms Naughty's Blog

search not working?

I'm trying out the new search this blog widgetty tool over on the right hand side BUT it doesn't seem to be working.... any one know what I'm doing wrong?

IF dogs were poets?

"Happiness is having a scratch for every itch." ... Ogden Nash

Although it late friday here, the new topic isn't posted on illustration friday yet... so I thought i should go for it... always wanted to be last on the list

As all cartoonist will tell you there is something deeply satisfying in just sliding in under that deadline.

Maria (the pirate) Blablablanik

Maria the Pirate
Originally uploaded by locarbhiflavor

I found Manola Blablablanik via twitter and probably dropped in at a bad time ...she is recovery from a medical scare... but such is life

If you have time, the archive of her "Sex and the Beach" blog are very well written, totally entertaining and a little bawdy ;)


PS: srcohiba deserves a mention for the pirate photoshop work

Am I a true Bohemian revolutionary?

The speed of broadband in singapore is amazing... and cheap...maybe the mythical pacific broadband bottleneck is real... anyway the extra bandwidth makes it easier to explore the video and vlog worlds and there are some creative folk already in there... maybe the true bohemian revolutions isn't a myth either... but what if you want to view the stuff when you are at lower bandwidth altitudes... well i found a nice little program called Vdownloader, which just needs the URL link details and can download video from several popular sites (including YouTube) into several popular format (including PSP and IPOD compatible format) ... so now their is no excuse not to have good art on your personal technology



For those that like a bit of surreal self reference, the first video I downloaded to my PSP was the John Bulter Trio's Good Excuse video... Its about turning off your gameboy and going outside and experiencing the real world.... now if that isn't revolutionary i don't know what is?

au revoir pour tandis que

Make your own "polaroids" here

IF [Disc-cover-Y]

for illustration friday topic discovery

This was done as a direct scan of the objects, placed flat on my scanner glass... is this a collage or more like photograph?

what is everyone doing...?

where is the confusion?

I'm guessing the confusion that lead to me becoming unsafe on flickr is the common confusion of NUDE and PORN, which has been a specific US problem for some time... but maybe one that is spreading around the self righteous net ...please don't be confused

W A R N I N G
this site only has nudes!

IF its cool to be geeky?

For Illustration Friday's topic geeky

I am still searching for a new computer generated style in my cartoons... hand drawing and computer colouring, does speed things up... but it is still not WEB 3.0 enough... or is there a better way?

amber necklace..

watercolour on paper .........pastel on paper

I'm still working on colours that bring the skin tone to life...especially the shadows

a goddess reclining

It seems the goddess venus was a favourite with the old masters because she was a subject that allowed to be painted nude... pity they all copied the same pose

Venus reclining (after giorgione) charcoal on paper

playing with light and colour

I've been experimenting with new, thicker, watercolour card, so i can paint wet-on-wet to try and get a more luminous light on skin tones... also experimenting with cadmium red over yellow ocher against blues


the blue bed


the blue dress (after Ken Howard)

new toys.... how can i resist

Blogger if offering its "new adaptors" a chance to to have a play with some new toys in blogger (well its being called blogger in draft)... but who am i to resist... the one thing that appealed to moi... was polls, being able to add polls as page elements... so look over on the stuff on the right hand side and give it a GO! Please....

I am getting a bit feed up with the good stuff on the net always being overrun with bullies, cowboys, trolls and childish behaviour... I really see the social networking side of the net being a great thing for the true creative spirit... somewhere where they are free to flourish, and collaborate, and do brilliant things, and some good things... maybe do a few things that aren't so good but without hurting anyone.. so where is that place... VOTE NOW (its over in the right handside remember)

Am I being too naive?

twisted torso

This is a sketch for illustration friday's twisted topic sorry its a bit late!

I had read about anamorphosis some time ago, but an email conversation got me doing some left hand writing and thinking about left handed painting, then painting in a different dimension, so I researched this art form a bit on the net and found this wonderful place Art of Anamorphosis, and their is a gem of a little program inside that can be downloaded for free, called anamorph me, created by Phillip Kent, it let me create a perfectly twisted torso that you can "unfold"...actually you must fold it... and see the "true" torso sketch.



To make the image I fist took a photo of my friend from flickr and trimmed it a bit and ran it through the anamorph me program using first the convert to a greyscale (I only have access to an old black and white laser printer today) and then used the inside a cone anamorph function... printed the result... then cut it out and folded it into a cone...(note have a small tab on one side of the segment makes it easier to stick the cone together)... nothing special yet? I them copied this flat image as a pastel sketch and that is what you see above, print it cut it out and fold it for yourself... it contains a lovely surprise



OK turn the cone over and look inside!

filtering out the world

It seems even second life is getting into the content filtering caper, but the way i picked this up through a tweet on twitter, not via second life... so chance are the source is a rumor not an official announcement

On the technical side I scanned this pencil sketch in with paint.net (a free download), as all HP scanner owners will know by now the controls over scanning are frustratingly inadequate not that paint.net has more controls it does the scanning as i would want!

in search of a new gallery

yahoo photos are shutting down... hmmmmm, i will have to look for a new home for some old favourites... what about flickr... well I dropped my pro account when I was made NIPSA, so i only get to display 200 photos

AND now HORRORS of HORRORS I'm rated UNSAFE... which means I can publicly display ZERO

This hurts a bit as I have been an advocate for Flickr self filter systems... and I was diligent in rating my nudes... so why am I unsafe?... why am I a loose cannon, maybe it because I stand up to bullies and self opinionated morons...perhaps it is just that other see the nudes and i get lumped in with the pornographers, the picture thieves, fakrs, spammers and other low light making flickr into something more like the wild west than the creative place it should be... AND I'm too tired of all the jibberish to participate in the current Flickr Censr(ship) debate.

but let's not cry over split milk... i will just need to find a different on-lime home for my sketckbook pages... c'est la vie

A short break

soft pencil on paper

There is a lot going on in my life at the moment so this may the last sketch posted in here... well for a little while

just a bit of fun

"That's quite interesting camouflage"

For Illustration friday's topic camouflage

Colour in a torso

water colour and aquarella pencil on paper

seems I am not the only one to have their use of colours in a torso questioned... far greater men that I have walked there before me

"Try to explain to Monsieur Renoir that a woman's torso is not a mass of decomposing flesh with those purplish green stains with denote a state of complete putrefaction in a corpse."
Albert Wolf on Renoir's Nude in Sunlight.

But I will not give in, the female torso deserves colour, and appreciation, and so does life

Bullying & throwing out the baby with the bath water

seems like a lot of folk are getting a bit over excited and carried away now with the censorship issues over on flickr... (see also my earlier blog)



I think the flickr self-filters are a good thing, they do give you the freedom to express yourself, but act responsibly.... my worry is about all those that try to impose their will on others and there has been a lot of unnecessary name calling and bullying... here is just one example

Tantrictim
Originally uploaded by Sassy Fox

this guy doesn't deserve to be recognized, because he seems to be a campaigners for the rights to express and make our own judgment and yet he has so many images that have been taken from others, time to grow up mate... and as for calling, those that point this out names, well that is totally childish and bullying is not acceptable behavior for creative folk... delete yourself or tantric one (you wish)! not the groups you have gained control of.

she was magnificent

watercolour and aquarella pencil, this is an immensely personal work that has taken me a long time to do.

TWICE or thrice had I loved thee,
Before I knew thy face or name ;
So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame
Angels affect us oft, and worshipp'd be.
Still when, to where thou wert, I came,
Some lovely glorious nothing did I see.
But since my soul, whose child love is,
Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do,
More subtle than the parent is
Love must not be, but take a body too ;
And therefore what thou wert, and who,
I bid Love ask, and now
That it assume thy body, I allow,
And fix itself in thy lip, eye, and brow.

Whilst thus to ballast love I thought,
And so more steadily to have gone,
With wares which would sink admiration,
I saw I had love's pinnace overfraught ;
Thy every hair for love to work upon
Is much too much ; some fitter must be sought ;
For, nor in nothing, nor in things
Extreme, and scattering bright, can love inhere ;
Then as an angel face and wings
Of air, not pure as it, yet pure doth wear,
So thy love may be my love's sphere ;
Just such disparity
As is 'twixt air's and angels' purity,
'Twixt women's love, and men's, will ever be.

.... air & angels by John Donne

Censors will steals your eyes

Censr steals your eyes
Originally uploaded by pioforsky

There is a fair bit of buzz going on in flickr at the moment... the sad part is it will not be reaching the places it needs too ...in singapore, korea and germany (yes germany) you may only be able to get in to view safe content (no opportunity to do otherwise...) but in china you now have no hope of even getting in at all... its not just flickr affected, many blogs are being taken down or barred ... when I was in sinagapore even I recieved a email from my ISP questioning the appropriateness of the nudity in this very humble blog

the saddest part is that it is not about nudity, nipples and sharing more intimate photos/moments, which you can legitimately do by appropriately using the flickr's self filtering system ... the actual reason is just political and obsession with control and power.... giving people the opportunity to actually see and express what is going on is what is at risk!

Please blog about this yourself.... raise the concern with everyone you can ...the freedom of what you can hear and see is as precious as the freedom to express yourself

a postcard in RL from SL

today i got a postcard from second life ... well I really did, from my friend in there Wings Ares, she's quiet a stunner and she has visited LeMusiqueFire and wanted to share that with me... its not everyday a postcard arrives from the virtual world, with a nice note as well... something worth sketching and as i began I realised that I more clearly understood what it was about SL (Second Life) and all the glamor that had previously distressed me ... it is so super real in overwhelming detail but at the same time spooky and way to difficult to sketch ... I had the urge to simplify, just take in the mood and romance of the place... leave out the detail...and soon i realized an ultra-reality virtual world doesn't need an artist... well a human one ...the computers can do all that if you have the time and money.. (there is a lot of shopping to do in SL) you can surround yourself with delicious textures and colours and things that are so difficult to collect in RL (Real Life)... but then i realized just as soon that others can create beauty with love, and romance, and relationships ...all I have is some pastels and paper.

That spooky side of of ultra real amination & robots was called the uncanny valley (others now call it scary valley) by japanesse robotic professor Hirishi Ishiguro... for me I guess I was scared by it and yearn for that softer more primal exotic notion that drove gauguin to the pacific and glorious colour!

inviting the colour in

bit by bit i can see my art... actually becoming decent art... I have let the colour start to position itself and lift the mood, using bolder strokes, an am leaving the detail till the very last minute... having a model full of life, joy and understanding helps

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dared to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

...from the invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

a surprise sitting

I was sitting on yahoo... waiting for a different friend... when suddenly an old friend cincy said hello and even posed for a quick sketch... thanks

fragrancy of the tropical light

Whilst I am back in the cold now... I loved the light in the tropics, the richness of colour in the shade... the vibrancy... it doesn't photograph that well and capturing the richness of colours in watercolours is a challenge BUT colour is the key ... exactly as the impressionists realised over a century ago .... art without colour is art without passion and soul

la couleur est la vie