I have developed Diplopia,so I have had to rest and properly try to exercise my eyeballs back to health.It is gradually coming back, but it will be at least a week before I can get back to a full working schedule. Until then…
CHILDREN’S BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS
These unpublished pieces, combining traditional pencil sketching with light digital colouring, were my first attempt at illustrating for a children’s storybook. I had done a little work earlier on a collection of short stories put together by my brother Adam, called THE LAND OF IDEAS – He still has copies available at moonarrow.com. I think these are quite good, but lack a sense of mood. I also think many of the pics were too scary for children – and I showed these to a primary school headmistress (who was a friend of the author) I met in a cafe and she didn’t seem too impressed, for, although she appreciated the quality, she didn’t feel they quite worked for the age group the story was aimed at. Some of the pics would even have been downright terrifying!
Oh well, you live and you learn, but I am still proud of them. I find tonal and colour work a lot more creatively satisfying than the line style I had to do for comic books. I have spent a lot of years honing my skills at tonal and full colour illustration, but I shy away from painting in oils or Aquarelles or gouache traditional colour techniques, because to produce the kind of detail I like takes too long and is often too messy and very often no longer cost-effective. I also found colour reproduction from scans and photographs very disappointing – so computer colouring rocks! However, I still prefer to do all the detail work in pencil, because apart from other advantages – I think it has a great look and feel, if you use it correctly and/or expressively.
LATE AUTUMN IN DULWICH – Part 1
With my eyesight getting a little better, I tried snapping some photos in the autumn light. Here are some of my favourites. Once again, because most Australian plants are not deciduous, the plant species in these photos are ones familiar to those of you who live in the Temperate areas of the Northern Hemisphere. The Australian sky, even at our Southerly latitudes, can still be very intense. The colour in these shots is straight out of the camera – no Levels, no Hue/Saturation, no Photoshop, except for resizing. The sort of aesthetic I was aiming for was in the leaf shots is partly an Orientalesque feeling, but with the Antipodean light.
Loca Bella
A new fashion boutique has opened in my suburb – in this shot, the owner is supervising as a signwriter, poised like a master painter of old, sits comfortably on a milk crate on the verandah roof. I felt so lucky to do this more journalistic-style shot – it just fell into my lap.
Dead Juvenile Starling
I think a huge fat tomcat had a hand in polishing off this avian. It seems frozen in wary observation, even in death. Two of my friends wondered why I would want to post such a picture – well – because I think it’s pretty good photo.
Stobie Poles Reflected in Car Bonnet
Stobie Poles were invented by James Cyril Stobie and patented in 1924, because timber is uncommon in South Australia. I have started to keep my eyes open for black cars for the opportunities they afford in their highly reflective surfaces. Using the space in a creative, and a well-composed way is harder than it may seem because of the need to carefully place the elements to prevent any element overwhelming the other.
Plane Tree Autumn Leaves
The intensified colour of the bright morning sun blazing through the muted copper leaves needs no colour enhancement, in fact this picture has not been tampered with in any way, it’s fresh out of the camera, just resized. The contrasting colours of cobalt blue with the golds and burnt oranges have a simple appeal, but the variations in form create a very aesthetic composition.
Roadside Stems
These stems have a simple dramatic geometrical vector just made for a photo snap – once again, the brilliant sky pops the shapes out at you as if you were wearing 3D glasses.
Apartment Block
There are lots of this style of apartments in my suburb – undramatic – largely uninteresting, but this just shouted to be shot – the compositional elements and angles were like a Jeffrey Smart or David Hockney painting. I am very, very surprised with how much I love this picture. I think the heavy sky has a lot to do with it.
White Flowers and Rain Cloud
During a break in the weather, I went around photographing in the muted light – the metal-grey of the cloud complemented the delicate high-end tones of the white flowers without them blowing out – very pleasing, but unsensational shot – but not all things in life have to be shouted. Some things just resonate sublimely.
Posted on Wed 9 Jun, 2010 #
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