I know that quote is plagiarized, but where the hell is it from… it was an unwanted critic of my blog delivered to me very forcefully this morning… oh well you can’t please everyone
I loved the article in the ages’s sunday agenda about australian cartoonist, called Drawing conclusions…. as usual michael leunig shone are a real treasure, I loved his quote
The hypocrisy of some is that we like to think of ourselves as sophisticated and evolved, but we’re still also driven by primal urges like greed and power. I think it needs a primal expression like drawing to point this out.
… this blog is my way to primal expression, …not a waste of time at all…
The day is only half over but already its been huge, an impromptu party for my new friend, her girl friends and some of their families, three of my four sons and their girlfriends, son number one is married and lives in London, and my old army mate, known then as mad dog, or gentleman jim to his close friends, and his extended family.. he is down for the funeral of another of our mates… amazingly it when well… even got a good does of sunshine, warm as long as you stay out of the wind.
the girls have retired to the shops, yes again!
…and the blokes are trying to find something to do, actually they are watching classic 1970s soccer games on SBS I think… there is no real footy this weekend in Melbourne, so blokes everywhere are looking a little lost… I must be addicted to blogging, I’m typing this and not watching the TV…
The final word is I’ll have to agree with my critic on one point, no names of family or friends so I don’t accidentally hurt anyone. .. and thats enough for another day
Sunday, June 27, 2004
Saturday, June 26, 2004
a technical discovery
upside down & back to front
my webcam woes with Yahoo! continue... so I looked at a new drive for my cam... a nice feature in the new version is that I can mirror and invert the image before I broadcast it... so if i set it to upside down and back front you see what I am actually sketching.... talk about getting curiouser and curiouser... taken as i sketched pusss in boots (see below)
Akland street, cakes & mug-ach-cino
I’ve uploaded a couple of older sketches again, of a gorgeously seductive green eyed beauty… unfortunately most of my sketch of that era have gone all crinkly.. I did take them to new guinea where I had a lot of them on display on my wonder wall (see the first picture I posted, …. scroll to the bottom).. mais oui… a number of them must have gotten damp and when I try to scan them they look bad, even squashed under 4 phone books!
On reflection I noticed all the worst ones where painted on normal photocopy paper…. So I got up early and went into Akland street looking for a art supplier for some good quality watercolor paper….
Akland street and St Kilda is a very bohemian part of Melbourne and I’ve always liked it… it is also the gooey cake center of the universe… but alas the real art supplier is no more …so as compensation I bought a collection of cakes.. next stop was my current lady friend’s place (I’m not allowed to call her my girlfriend, because of a slight decade or two age difference), where I’ll be staying the next few days… she was so excited by the cakes and showed me a magnificent older style espresso machine, which hadn’t breathed in some time… but it only too a little tinkering and it sprung to life… buy know a lot of her friends had materialized getting ready for a shopping excursion, which seems there main interest in life… so suddenly I had orders for 4 cappuccinos and a latte… simple enough you say..
Now I’m not a coffee snob, and there are a lot of them here in Melbourne (they would have let you know it is quarto cappuccini not 4 cappuccinos, buggar I just did that too ) but the original Italian coffee with milk frothed is a pretty fixed recipe and that is particularly related to quantities… and there were suitably sized cups, the royal Dolton or whatever was out… just use mugs they all yelled, sensing shopping time was a wasting…heathens
I decided to just make two mugs full.. I’d rather be considered a bad coffee maker and not asked than have to make bad coffee all the time (there is a deep insight into my being in that statement)… the first coffee was prepared under their instructions and the second a scaled up (one and a half espresso starter size) directly in the mug, which actually became a little too hot to handle… but it is truer to the Italian style…with a little cocoa dusting… the mug-ach-cino was born…
well 8 mug-ach-cinos later and my box of gooey cakes all gone the girls are still giggling away… a small victory for sigh and enough for this post.
On reflection I noticed all the worst ones where painted on normal photocopy paper…. So I got up early and went into Akland street looking for a art supplier for some good quality watercolor paper….
Akland street and St Kilda is a very bohemian part of Melbourne and I’ve always liked it… it is also the gooey cake center of the universe… but alas the real art supplier is no more …so as compensation I bought a collection of cakes.. next stop was my current lady friend’s place (I’m not allowed to call her my girlfriend, because of a slight decade or two age difference), where I’ll be staying the next few days… she was so excited by the cakes and showed me a magnificent older style espresso machine, which hadn’t breathed in some time… but it only too a little tinkering and it sprung to life… buy know a lot of her friends had materialized getting ready for a shopping excursion, which seems there main interest in life… so suddenly I had orders for 4 cappuccinos and a latte… simple enough you say..
Now I’m not a coffee snob, and there are a lot of them here in Melbourne (they would have let you know it is quarto cappuccini not 4 cappuccinos, buggar I just did that too ) but the original Italian coffee with milk frothed is a pretty fixed recipe and that is particularly related to quantities… and there were suitably sized cups, the royal Dolton or whatever was out… just use mugs they all yelled, sensing shopping time was a wasting…heathens
I decided to just make two mugs full.. I’d rather be considered a bad coffee maker and not asked than have to make bad coffee all the time (there is a deep insight into my being in that statement)… the first coffee was prepared under their instructions and the second a scaled up (one and a half espresso starter size) directly in the mug, which actually became a little too hot to handle… but it is truer to the Italian style…with a little cocoa dusting… the mug-ach-cino was born…
well 8 mug-ach-cinos later and my box of gooey cakes all gone the girls are still giggling away… a small victory for sigh and enough for this post.
Seducing Green Eyes
a seductive series of overlaided water colour washes (this is one of the badly wrinkled early watercolours on normal photocopy paper)
from last week in freaky fat chicks
I don't think fluffy liked this sketch too much
I think the shading is reasonable in this one... certainly a big improvement on the way i addressed my earlier sketches (like the no panties ones below)... i'm now a convert to just drawing the light... i sketch in shadows around the light, which i leave as the oridinal unmarked paper... had to use a rubber (eraser) to cut some highlights back in.. i'm using 6B (very soft) graphite sticks... great to smudge
Friday, June 25, 2004
my young deaf mate … & discussion of angels & da vinci
another good morning on the shovel and a things were ready in time for the tank delivery.. then a lot of manhandling and the two tanks were in place (well there not going to be shifted now!) I’d employed a young bloke from the CES (he’s on the work for the dole scheme), he certainly worked hard but was very quiet (to start)… slowly I discovered he was hearing impaired and it wasn’t discovered till he was in mid high school. Although he wears a hearing aid he hated it (he says it just made the undecipherable noises loader) so he was labeled as have learning impairment and left school early… sport is his great passion, girls probably his other.. all in all he has been a great help, a good mate even when he’s quiet (i now realise his hearing aide was turned off, deliberately)
While we where waiting for the tanks I got out my sketch book and he took an immediate interest… in my modest fashion I began telling him about my small little victory getting a luminous skin tone and the fact that cincy was a real Botticelli Angel, yet to be captured in full radiance... well you should have seen his eyes light up… he had just finished reading the da vinci code and wanted to know all about botticelli and underpainting techniques (apparently the under painting of the mona lisa is somehow important) … so I must read it myself… but it struck me that he had a learnt a lot of things himself and was thirsty for knowledge… so really it wasn’t him that had the learning impairment but maybe the school or education system…
cincy's botticellian radiance
I’m back in the big smoke again (mornington just south of melbourne) and have a big weekend lined up but I just had to blog first… so I’m uploading a couple of my first sketching efforts…. A lovely girls with the unusual ID no panties 4 this BBW (if you’re wondering I never found out if that was true) … haven’t seen her on-line since… so I hope it wasn’t the illustrations that made her run away
... enough for now
While we where waiting for the tanks I got out my sketch book and he took an immediate interest… in my modest fashion I began telling him about my small little victory getting a luminous skin tone and the fact that cincy was a real Botticelli Angel, yet to be captured in full radiance... well you should have seen his eyes light up… he had just finished reading the da vinci code and wanted to know all about botticelli and underpainting techniques (apparently the under painting of the mona lisa is somehow important) … so I must read it myself… but it struck me that he had a learnt a lot of things himself and was thirsty for knowledge… so really it wasn’t him that had the learning impairment but maybe the school or education system…
cincy's botticellian radiance
I’m back in the big smoke again (mornington just south of melbourne) and have a big weekend lined up but I just had to blog first… so I’m uploading a couple of my first sketching efforts…. A lovely girls with the unusual ID no panties 4 this BBW (if you’re wondering I never found out if that was true) … haven’t seen her on-line since… so I hope it wasn’t the illustrations that made her run away
... enough for now
Thursday, June 24, 2004
a big day and some bad news
No sketching today I’m afraid. I had some urgent earthworks to do at my beach house. Whilst an excavator had removed most material, there were a few areas, I’ve re-designed to improve the siting of water tanks and water treatment plant. (there are no public services like water and sewerage in the area)... So I had a day on the end of a long handle shovel, all that after a long drive… well I was too tired to draw anything.
not that is wasn’t a fancinating day the weather was a classic wild and cold bass strait winter’s day. rain squalls followed by short burst of sunlight through fleeting clouds howling winds and thunderous surf. It was the right kind of day to work hard…. and I did.
I did get some sad news an old army mate, richo (also known as a tiny or big dick, there were two richards in my first nasho platoon in
despite all my aching muscles I’ve search out a local cyber café, (a half hour drive), to do my email chores and try submitting this to my blog via email (…. am I becoming a blog addict??)
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
getting there at last!
Carebare coloured pencil over watercolour washes
At last i'm getting somewhere ... After the disaster of webcams crashing, runny paint and other distractions I took an earlier underpainting, see below, and laid in a little more mauve shadow in a very light wash... had some dinner (fish burgers with my own secret sauce) and headed for the pub and a few beers and much discussion of sailing, football and nothing about art.
On return I got out a new box of derwent coloured pencils i'd just recently purchased and highlighted the flesh in just two colours salmon 1610 and slate violet 2410 (the numbers are the derwent colour codes,for derwent devotes, a pink and mauvy grey for the rest of us) and as if my magic I have found that luminousness of skin I've been looking for....
I think it is the solid colour of the pencil pigment over the translucent wash....
even though a lot of the other detail is unfinished I had to stop.... and bask in the healthy glow of a radiant young women smilling at me from the sketchbook
... enough
An earlier underpainting
Progress ... two steps forward one step back
The under painting that ran
Carebear was such a great model I started to sketch her in watercolour using a background wash of sap green combined with two reds, vermillion and scarlet, to get a good skin warm tone shadow. (i'd read that soemwhere recently) alas there was a technical issue waiting to bite me on the bum! when I draw, the webcam see the picture i'm sketching on the desk up, as upside down. to over come this I can hold up the sketch from time to time to let the viewers and model see. works fine with a penicl sketch but....
.. with a wet watercolour wash the paint naturally started to run so there is now one very dark shadow under the chin instead of in the hair...
back to the drawing board, as they say in the classics
The frustration levels rise
Carebear was very patient
sketching today on Yahoo! was an even bigger trial that the previous days. my webcam keeps locking and dropping the viewers. its an older logitech webcam, the round one, and i've upgraded to XP. I suppose if I was more technically savvy I'd be able to download a patch from somewhere...
Anyway back to big bellied ladies and the lovely care(not bare in my sketch ;-) this is a graphite pencil effort and I'm pleased with the deep shadows and shading generally.
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