Arterial Collective 2008

In October last year I was involved in an exhibition by the Arterial Collective; a group that brings unknown local artists into the public eye. I had recently received some scrap pine from a friend and had just finished my first painted piece ever, which was basically an experiment in combining painting with illustration. At first I wasn't sure about it, but it's grown on me. It is a milestone; my first painting ever completed. It is a self portrait of some sort, but I really didn't give much thought as to what was happening in the image... It has the lyrics to 'I Touch Myself' by The Divinyls in the banners. It was done on pine with diluted acrylics/gouche (because I don't know anything about painting), pens and copic markers. About 25 inches high by 8 inches wide. For sale.

"Pubic Maze"

"Pubic Maze" detail

The next piece is the other painting I completed for the Arterial Collective. It's still the biggest painting I've ever done, and like "Pubic Maze" it is a milestone. For the first painting I kept it simple in content and colour so I could recognize where I was meant to add the ink afterwards. This second piece I went all out and tried to make it as complex as I could without the ink-work laid down, but after painting it became limited to just inking around the paint. It's maybe something I need to learn to do; to paint then ink, then paint and ink again and again and again. It was based on a photograph from a nature magazine, and features the lyrics to Missy Elliot's 'Work It' in the banners. Diluted acrylic/gouche, pens, and copic markers on the rough side of a plank of pine.

"Work-It"

"Work-It" detail

Catching up/Back to school...

I started my last year of uni today so I hope to get this blog up to date soon, before it gets intense. I have some more old art that I'd like to have up here before I get to the new stuff. These images were both for graphic design assignments last year, the briefs of which are too boring to get into. I'm really pleased with how the pin-up girl worked out, it was about 5 hours drawing with pencils and then micron pens, and then another few to colour using photoshop. I should draw more babes, people seem to like drawings of babes. 

"Duckett"

The next image was my submission for the Love Is My Velocity Plate Project. This image was also hand rendered with micron pens and then the colour added in photoshop. The typography was also added later. I had used pretty much the same image for a uni assignment but with the reformatting into a circular template, I also changed the colours and made it look a lot better.

"Home Is Where The Heart Is"

So I think I'll leave it as just that for the old artwork, and the next blog will have more recent work, namely the paintings i did for the Ar+erial Collective and a joint exhibition I had with Sean Morris called BEACH CLUB!!

The Clothespeg Projects so far...

There is an art project in Perth that a nice lady runs called The Clothespeg Project. It is open to anyone of any art discipline to enter, and the only limitation is that is be a flat A5 print. I had only one entry in the first of these and barely finished it for fear of ruining it if i kept going. The next time the project ran I thought "fuck it" and bashed out three pieces in as many weeks during uni classes and at home, and it went much better. These are my submissions to the Clothespeg Projects, volumes 1 & 2.

"Thunder Head" for vol.1

"Total Eclipse Of The Heart" for vol.2

"Ghost Ride Ya Whip" for vol.2

"Limbo" for vol.2

Bring on volume three I say.

The "old" me...

 

I used to do the artwork for a local band called The Fault, which have since disbanded into several other bands. This is the most recent poster I completed for their tour of the eastern states, back in the latter part of 2007. I have a few more posters and images from that era, but with the launch of this new blog I'd like to keep the artwork more recent and more on target with what I would like to present to people as being "my art". This piece was done at A3, with pens and copic markers, and finished with photoshop.

First Post in Siren Country...

So on the advice of fellow illustrators I have decided to begin this blog as a means of an easily accessible online portfolio. I hope it will spur me on to update regularly, which means I will have to draw more regularly so I have things to update with. For those who don't know, I am an illustrator based in Perth, Western Australia, and have been doing freelance illustration for about 4 years on and off. I am studying graphic design and am in my final year, and would prefer to make a living shoveling elephant poop at the zoo than doing graphic design, because straight up illustration is where it's at for me.

I am still getting the hang of this site so it may take a while to upload some images, but I will christen the site with some old posters and work my way up to more recent work as time goes on. Hope you enjoy it.