Sketch Party

Today I went on a day of sketching in a group at the Melbourne Museum, an excellent place to sketch things, I might add. Especially animals. Because – well, they're dead, aren't they.

Thanks to Luis, Josh and Romi for allowing me to photograph their sketches, and Youbi for organizing the whole thing.

Here are the sketches – first, a couple of dinosaurs...

A smiling deer.

Some biological fancy from Romi.

Luis did this rat-like critter.

This one's mine – an 1880s mail coach.

Portraits.

Yes it is, Josh. And there's a rabbit with a Nazi armband, too.

Comic Stamping Workshop

Rob Scholten and I attended a Comic Stamping workshop today at the City Library. It was a blistering hot day and good to be inside. The workshop was given by Youbi Lee and her friend Romi Park, and the aim was to create a comic-like image using little rubber stamps, which they had fashioned themselves.

Here's my effort. They really liked it, but I don't know what it means.

The City Library had a 'doodle wall' set up, which anyone could draw on. The four of us set about covering up some white space. Can you tell who drew what?

Now, get lost!

Melbourne City Library Comics Exhibition

Ahoy mateys! Welcome to 2014. Posts on this blog really dried up during the second half of last year, didn't they? Well not to worry because 2013 was fairly uninteresting anyway, and already this new year is shaping up to be a good one.

I was fortunate enough to have nine pages from "Avalanche", the fourth story from Airbury Academy IV (my new black and white 150+ page comic that I only completed the day before New Year's Eve), included in the Melbourne City Library's Comics Exhibition! If you're local, get down to 253 Flinders Lane and see it before January 30th. It's in the upstairs gallery. Here are some pics from the opening night, Thursday January 9th.

The pages mounted on the wall. "Avalanche" is 22 pages long, so these nine pages are not consecutive but hopefully still make sense.

One of the guests who read it. She and others took their time to read every comic, not just skimming them. People seemed to take a long time reading mine – it does have a fair bit of dialogue to get through though!

My mate Chris having a read. "Avalanche" was one of the more humorous entries – other comics dealt with much more serious subjects.

The niche box on the ground floor near the stairs, where I displayed some items that hopefully give an insight into my particular art style. There were three or four of these.

The guestbook in the gallery – with some great comments in. Thanks to all who commented! Thanks also to Leonee Derr and the other Library staff who pulled the whole event together. It really is a unique experience to have your work viewed by other people, and the positive comments they give are very encouraging.

Homemade Business Cards

Wouldn't'cha know it, the night after tomorrow is the opening night of the comics exhibition I'm in, and I don't have any business cards. Well, ones that are up to date, anyway. I don't expect I'll have to give any out, but you never know. So I made my own. Cool huh?

They were printed with acrylic printing letters onto already-existing cards with different coloured backs. Each one different. Ask me for one if you like. I expect I'll still have plenty of them.

Just Sittin' On A Phone Box

While virtually walking around the village of Newhall in Staffordshire, England using Google Maps – as you do – where I lived as a child, I came across this little gem:

Yup, some dude sitting on top of a phone box on Darklands Road.

Who is this man? Did he see the Google Car coming and quickly climb up there? Or did he just happen to be sitting up there when he was captured on camera? Is sitting on phone boxes a common practice in England? And most importantly, does he know he's on Google Maps?

The internet is full of mysteries, innit, guv'?