Working hard, drawing and painting Katrina Germein’s picture book Thunderstorm Dancing. I might post some random weather fragments occasionally but can’t show you much until it’s finished…. and I’ll come out from under that cloud ;-) hopefully very soon.
Wish me luck!
Just a simple one. This is for another teacher who loves dogs. (Imagine that!!)
Run! Christmas is coming!
Here are some first quick studies of Greyfur the grey kangaroo for the Puppet Challenge as requested by the maestro, Clive Hicks-Jenkins. Lovely to begin drawing this layered fairytale character (she’s feisty and brave but also soft and loyal) but it’s quite likely I may go in another direction altogether… he he. Big Bad Wolves always appeal to me for some reason. And then there’s my old favourite, Angela Carter and her wonderful fairytale renditions. The Courtship of Mr Lyon, and The Tiger’s Bride too. Fabulous. And then there’s Puss in Boots!
It does occur to me that the design of any character would be very different for a glove puppet as compared to a shadow puppet or a marionette. Aaah! Decisions. I’ll just squeeze some sketching here and there in between my desperate pre-Christmas attempts to get further with Thunderstorm Dancing, and no doubt the puppet will evolve of its own volition in the end. Things usually do.
I am so hooked on drawing in vintage book pages now. They are so warm and welcoming. It’s hard to draw on anything else! By the way, the first sketches are done with a Prismacolour pencil in ‘artstick’ form. I love Prismacolour pencils, and the other day I discovered these blocks that look like conté sticks, but are not smudgy like conté. I’m using it for Thunderstorm Dancing and really enjoying it.
Hooray! I’m very excited to be participating in the Puppet Challenge, an on-line puppet exhibition scheduled for June 2014. Check out Clive Hicks-Jenkins’ Artlog to see some fabulous posts about puppetry and art. The theme for the puppet challenge is Folk tales, fairy tales, myths and legends. It has been suggested by Peter Slight (curator of the on-line exhibition) that we might like to consider local folk tales or mythology.
The topic ‘local folktales’ in Australia has a very different meaning from local folktales in Europe. Most white Australians of course share the European folktales via their ancestry, but the tales can no longer be called local. Black Australians have a rich array of tales and mythology, but it’s not my culture to intrude upon. So my mind tosses around two possibilities.
The first, find my theme around the topic of river crossings (such as the Three Billy Goats Gruff) because I live in Mordialloc, named after its creek. ‘The name Mordialloc is a corruption of two aboriginal words Murdi or Moordi and Yallock, the latter meaning creek or stream.’ (From the City of Kingston’s historical website).
Or the second, go with an Australian fairy tale. One of my favourite books is Alan Marshall’s fairy tale ‘Whispering in the Wind’ which features a bunyip in place of a dragon and a magical grey kangaroo with a bottomless pouch, so I am leaning in this direction. It offers a lot of possibilities. There is also a wonderful scene fairly early on in the book, featuring the hero and his horse meeting Greyfur the kangaroo for the first time, and it occurs on the banks of a creek, so perhaps this would be a good option… although the bunyip who appears later on is very tempting… He snorts water out of his nostrils, a trick he learned while at Dragon Training School with all the fire-breathing dragons.
Decision-making is not my strong point with regard to artistic pursuits. So many wonderful options, so little time! I’m wondering how I’ll go about deciding on a medium for my puppet, once I’ve decided on the character. Perhaps it will be determined by my limitations. I’ll rule out all forms of puppetry that are beyond my technical ability and what is left after that will be my medium!
Here is Whispering in the Wind by Alan Marshall.
Cover of 1969 hardback edition illustrated by Jack Newnham
Puppet Challenge! Hooray!
Hello Peter Slight here, curator of the Artlog Puppet exhibition with the details of the challenge!
As Clive mentioned in his introductory post, the theme is ‘Folktales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends’, a subject close to many of our hearts and hopefully one that will stir some interest and fire imaginations! You can choose a timeless classic, a little known gem or a half-forgotten fable. Inspiration will be the fuel that gets you through this challenge. Just choose whichever story you feel like conjuring up a character for in puppet form.
There’s no restriction on the materials or puppet type, as I would like contributors to be free to express themselves and their ideas in whichever ways they feel are best suited to the task. This challenge can be as simple or complicated as you care to make it. Hopefully we can bounce a few ideas off of each other…
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Another card. For a very good teacher who has been driven crazy by a neighbour’s rooster all year. But this one is singing her praises.
We love to hand-make all of our birthday cards for family and friends. Sometimes the card is a hurried affair, slapped together moments before deadline; sometimes it’s a painstaking endeavour. But all the family enjoy this tradition.
Sometimes a fairly quick creation turns out well. And of course all art practice feeds into and informs the other art that you do.
Here’s a card done this morning for a friend turning 50. Her alter ego (so some of us decided in our wisdom ;-) is Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.
Later I’ll post a selection of cards made by all of us.
and inside…
Swimming again, or rather, watching the swimming. Here were some of my more immediate neighbours on the spectator benches at swimming lessons this week.
My fine-point pens had died of exhaustion, so I enjoyed using a thicker felt tip instead, and later adding a bit of pencil colour at the drawing board was fun.
auburn haired swimmer – this little boy has a spectacular head of flaming orange-red.
blue sibling – she found Ollie the Octopus’s antics amusing
green sibling – same sibling, different colour
Mum with mobile phone – most of the spectators spend a lot of time watching their phones. It’s a funny world we live in now. I do it too sometimes.
Investing in her future – felt tip, indian ink and gouache on book page
This drawing (or is it a painting?) goes with the Bactrian Camel. Both are painted in the same book about financial management. This sea lioness with her pup appears on a page about investment. As with the Bactrian Camel, the photograph that formed the basis of the drawing comes from The Wonder Book of Animals.
There is a second sea lioness on the drawing board. She’ll have to wait until I’ve finished ‘Poppy is the Thunder’, the current page in progress for Thunderstorm Dancing.
The Wonder Book of Animals: drawn in and drawn from. My copy is much more dilapidated than this one taken from an ebay listing.
This painting sprang from two books and a sudden urge to paint something in a mid-century modern way. An urge indeed! It got me up out of bed and I had to clear the drawing board!
I wanted a larger book than a novel format, so I grabbed a delicious weighty tome from the shelf, Raymond Chambers’ book Financial Management. Weighty in two senses.
As the book fell open on a page about Obsolescence, I decided to flick through The Wonder Book of Animals to find a subject who would fit the bill. I was vaguely thinking Dodo until my brain kicked into gear and I realised that the poor Dodo did not in any way become obsolete. Its very desirability (and perhaps amiability) caused its downfall. At any rate these mournful observations ceased when I set eyes on a photo of a lovely, shaggy Bactrian Camel. Not entirely obsolete, I’m pleased to say, for those who do not own a motor vehicle. But his lovely curvy form said ‘draw me!’ So I did.
Judy Watson 