Folk like watching other folk make stuff.

People like watching other people create. I watched a friend blow glass the other day and it was entrancing. Yes, the sculpture of molten glass dripping like toffee, and the threat of third degree burns at any moment is a particularly mesmerising combination. But I don't think it matters what you're making; creation is exciting!

A fortnight ago, I cartooned at Kidsfest, a childrens festival held in Shepparton.It was my second festival doing 'the sit down all day drawing constantly ' gig, having worked at The Royal Melbourne Show for a few years. Basically I sit down in front of a big batch of posters, and a queue of children, and then personalise each poster with a drawing. The poster usually advertises the festival and whatever business/agency I'm working for. The kids get to choose what I draw for them. They ALL lean on the table and watch.

I have to draw quickly, as there is almost always people waiting, so the day is a blur of different kids in the same spot assuming the same pose; the lean, the elbows on the table, the patient watching. I just love that kids of the Playstation/Wii/Nintendo/X box generation will still stand still and quietly follow the line of my pen on paper. Seeing where it will go. Seeing where it will take them.

Next door, more creation was taking place. In the background of the photo above, you can see a few figures hovering around a desk. One of those figures was a local celebrity; Lucy, from junior Masterchef. Aged 11. She went OFF. Like a frog in a sock. Very very popular, going from the queries. Loooots of queries.

"Where is Lucy going to be at 2 o clock? The main stage or here?

"Is Lucy on after you?"

"Is Lucy doing a spanakopita?"

Usurped by an eleven year old chef. Couldn't help but feel it was a career low-light.

But whilst I scribbled away, listening to her chop, dice, and fry, I did glance up once or twice at the gathered throng. And they were doing that watching thing. Watching her create. How cool.

Noticing how the general public loved to watch art being made was affirming as an artist, but more importantly, it confirmed my belief that creativity is necessary and vital to human beings. On an individual and societal level, creativity is essential. We need it. (Anyone resolved the conflict in the Middle East yet? Anyone? Hello?). Everyone is born with a measure with a of it. We expect it of our pre-schoolers. You will never ever see a three year old cross their arms and say "I don't do drawing or cardboard boxes".

You will, however, get plenty of thirty year olds doing just that. In fact, after primary school, creativity seems to be regarded as a 'you got it or you aint' kinda thing. You're either one of the 'arty' ones or you're not. Rather then seeing creativity as a valuable attritube that can be developed, much like diligence or rationality or public speaking, creativity is seen more like blue eyes or the breast cancer gene. You're born with it or your not.

Which is weird because you can actually make art in an incredibly uncreative way (trust me, I've done it) and you can do almost everything else in a very creative way. (Ever got so sick of doing dishes that you've bunged them in a baby bath and hosed the hell out of them on the back lawn? Didn't do a great job but, hey, it felt good. Yes, you're right, I should just get a dishwasher.) Being creative isn't the domain of hipsters, creatives or crafters. It's about the creation of something new. Everyone does it, and, as we are all unique, everyone does creativity differently. And we like to see, and enjoy, each others way of being creative. It's exciting stuff.

Cheers to you and your spanakopita, Lucy.

Cartoon printed in The Age, 2010.

P.S. Sorry 'bout the cartoon, Lucy. I'm sure your Mum isn't named Alison.

Follow-up to previous post.

A week after writing my previous post, I took this photo.

The kids had been playing with my camera, and left it on an unusual setting whilst we were mucking about at our little acre.

Look at that! See? I TOLD* you about the halos.

*(Spike Milligan once quipped that he wanted his headstone to bear the words "I TOLD you I was ill." He was buried at St Thomas's Church cemetery in Winchelsea, East Sussex, but the Chichester Diocese refused to allow this epitaph.^[37] A compromise was reached with the Irish translation, "Dúirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite.")

Still on the theme of glory and children, I spent the weekend cartooning at KIDSFEST. It had kids, and, as with most children's festivals, quite a bit of fest (that bottom-of-the-backpack combination of mushed banana, sand-encrusted stickers, and a discarded sock/animal that no-one in the family quite recognises).

More photos and words to follow.

Oink. Grunt. Oink.

A halo (Greek: ἅλως; also known as a nimbus, aureole, glory, or gloriole) is a ring of light that surrounds a person in art.

I drew this image about two years ago, when I lived in a rented farmhouse surrounded by cows grazing in wide paddocks. Living rurally had it's challenges but I was delighted to regularly find myself surrounded by Holy holy vistas. (Holy with a capital "H"because I believe that Holiness exists, and holy with a lower case "h" because I think even cows and normal folk deserve halos.)

Anyway, I'm 'in town' now, renting a house in the big regional centre nearby, whilst we build our new home, amongst the cows, 20 minutes away. We own a wonderful little acre packed full of glory. Some days, even the slugs shimmer.

A relative of mine married recently and wanted an image to project on a screen for the ceremony. I sent them a selection of works to choose from and they wanted the image above, but with the cows converted to trees. Pictured below is what I came up with.

Interestingly, with the weather warming up, and our building permit granted, all I want to do is garden at our little block and read books on strawbale building. In terms of garden-design, the block is a clean slate. To an artist, who also happens to be a keen gardener, that's ...that's...umph...well, lets just say I could OINK. It's like an empty page without any of the terror. And the possibilities of all that space seem like those tiny buds that are just unravelling on the vines about now. Coiled and ready to surge. 

So, I'm barely working. I'm only doing jobs that fall in my lap and promise money. (Cos money=garden and building supplies, der.) I've got leads to follow, leads I should follow, but I keep waking up with an urge to plant things and move big rocks about. So, I'm just going with it, grunting as I move the rocks. Oinking as I plant things.

It's noisy, but creative and productive work.

I won!

I won the competition! Well, 10 cartoonists won, and I was one of the ten.
Which is nice. It reminds me of modern day pass-the-parcel. Newspaper is torn and thrown with the sweaty abandon of wild greed, and out tumbles a little present for each and every participant.
We are ALL winnners! Hooray!
( "He got a Mars Bar and I wanted a Mars Bar but all I got was a Milky Waaaaaayyyy".)

I won a pass to the opening night of a comic/cartooning convention at the Sydney Opera House. Didn't go, had a family wedding on. At the family wedding I did some of this:

Yup, facepainting. Art on face. 

I've recently discovered that facepainting provides a win-win for myself and my children. They want to be super-heroes, I want to do more art. Facepainting makes both of those wishes come true! Huzzah!

So, I took my new facepainting kit and did some faces at the wedding. Some were good, some were...interesting. But children, although being wriggly canvases, are easily-pleased clients. They're highly forgiving. And it's improving my brush work. 

This cartoon won the competition.

Grievances

I recieved an email the other day announcing a cartoon competition. The subject for the subject was common grievances. 
"Hmmm, don't know if I'll have any of cartoons on that subject" I thought.
 Twenty-five minutes later, I crawled out of the hard drive with cobwebs on my shoulders and a serious reality check in hand. There were LOADS of grievance-inspired cartoons in there. Skulking away in the dark corners, probably breeding. It seems my cartooning career has just been a litany of complaints.

Well, that shatters the illusion that I was a positive person, a glass-half-full-kinda gal. And now, of course, I've got bits of illusion scattered about the lino. Better go get the dustpan and some newspaper and clean up the mess. I'll probably get some pointy illusion bits in my foot but what can you do? 
Life's just like that. 
Typical.

Click on the cartoons if you can't read the details.
Sigh.

Bling Wattle

I've been experimenting with drawing wattle lately. This time, I added some bling in the from of a gold and silver pen. This scan doesn't capture the shine of it in daylight; that wonderful glimmer when light makes gold glow. But it does highlight how colour can really lift an image and give it the perception of depth. 

The main blossom below looks like a weird 70's light-fitting or a dandelion dipped in molten metal, but it's a fun experiment and I'll keep at it.

Put a bird on it!

I first saw this clip on Small catalogue's blog. It is fantastic.

(I don't know much about Portlandia, who produced the clip but I think they're worth a trip to youtube.)

So here is my bird.

( I kinda cheated, in that the bird above came from a logo I designed in 2008. 

BUT. but. but. but. my blog didn't have a bird. Something needed to be done, and quickly.)

Cutlery on the path of life.

Playgroup Logo

From draft to final art. PART THREE: Editing and Colouring

Are you still with me? Remember the fishies? Good.

Righteo. 

Step 3 A. Edit dogdy bits of your drawing by directly moving the little blue dots mentioned in the last post OR.....use a drawing tablet to re-draw over the image.

I use one of the tablets pictured above. It plugs into my MAC, and has a special electronic pen. 

I create a new layer in Illustrator, above the original art, and just draw over any dodgy bits. I'm still learning to use it, and find Illustrator's lists of brushes really limiting, but it does an ok job for little corrections.

Step 3 B. Once I've got my black and white artwork ok, I then save this file. (I'll often spend lots of time colouring my work and then find I prefer the B & W version, so it's really important to keep the single colour version).

For an image like this, I mostly colour using Illustrator's bucket tool. Choose "Live Paint" under the "Object" menu. Then use the little bucket tool.

As a general overview, I'm not completely happy with how this little project is going.

The colouring is taking a long time. Lots of teeeny liiittle scales to fill in. And I'm not sure if I like the blocky, one shade tone of using an auto-paint. I suspect printing the image out as B & W, and then hand-coloring it with water paints would produce a better final result.

So Step 4 may well be titled Go Back to Step 2. Which is why the hourly rate as an artist is so crap, I suppose. Lots of Go back. Lots of Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

It's loads of fun, but.* Which is why Step 4 isn't Give up this phiffy phaffy fartsing around and get a real job. Not yet, anyway.

*Putting "but" at the end of a sentence is an Aussie thing. 

Crass? yes. 

Strangely appropriate at times? Yes.