Froggie went a-courtin'

I'm more than two years late with this post — it was supposed to be posted back in October 2023! I found these pics when I was poking around my MacBook looking for things to delete, because my available hard drive space had dwindled down to a mere 1.1 GB. Incidentally that was also the entire hard drive capacity of my family's IBM Aptiva back in 1997!

But anyway — 

There were four progress photos of a small watercolour frog I painted. I can't remember what commentary was supposed to go with them, so I'll just post the pics.

First, the pencil outlines.

 

Then I filled in the background, everything except the frog's green body, the following day.

 

Just another view of it. It's A5 watercolour paper masking-taped to some porous cardboardy stuff that came as packing material.

 

And we're done! Looks like I wasn't happy with those vines in the background and blurred them out altogether. 

I painted this mainly to amuse my Japanese friend Meg who liked a drawing of a 'frog craftsman' I did earlier in 2023, and asked me to draw another frog. Hence this. And yes, that is a bowl of nachos in his hand. So, there you go! I hope you've enjoyed looking at this little critter as much as I have.

The Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayyam

This is an illustration inspired by The Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayyam, a book of 11th Century poetry from Persia which you should read if you get the chance. Most printings include a series of colour illustrations, much more detailed than my simple watercolour.

Wall Or Nothing: Painting A Mural

Rob Scholten and I have been painting a mural in David Street, Preston, in Melbourne's eastern suburbs. Ben, the owner of an Eastern-themed home goods and furniture store called Funky Stuff, asked him to do it and supplied the paint. It was Rob's design; he has done murals before – I was just adding flourishes, but it was interesting to work on street art in public for the first time.

We started the work in December 2013 and Rob had just put the finishing touches to it. Here's a visual record of our progress.

The wall originally was bright orange, 30 metres long and 10 metres high. Rob started by making lines in spray paint.

  

It needed to incorporate Buddha, and this is Rob's preliminary sketch.

In the early stages, using the roller and line work.

Embrace the wall, man!
 

Almost there...getting to this stage took about 5 sessions, lasting until sunset.

And finally, in March 2014 it's complete.

Instrument Cushions

A series of paintings I did on four cushion covers, with a musical instrument theme. The paintings were done in fabric paint, using a stencil brush.

Paint, Paint, Paint

I've been doing a fair bit of painting during the months of July and August 2013, and the Paintings page has now been updated with nine more pieces – bringing the total to 19! A few really old ones have been included as well, if you want to see how my painting skills have (not) improved over the last ten years.

I've now run out of canvas but the good news is a nice art supplies shop has opened in the next suburb, so I went down there today and got some matte gel – something I have never used before. Looking forward to trying it out!

Thanks to my cousin Dayle in Bombay who said: "Awesome...when did you do all this, it's awesome. Love the colour you used too. And are you going to put them on exhibition? Am sure people will love it."

There will be more...

Hong Kong Paintings

I'm on holiday in Hong Kong and having a great time, but I've also been doing the occasional painting. Here are the three paintings I did while here – photographed via Photo Booth for that extra-distorto effect. What a good way to wrap up the 34th year of my life. When I get back home there'll be more stuff posted, including sketches and a photo bonanza!

"Immortality"

poster/acrylic on canvas 60x45cm 

"Junk"

acrylic on canvas board 25x20cm 

"Possession"

acrylic on canvas 45x60cm