Back in Aus

I arrived in Australia about four weeks ago now. It felt weird to return to places that were all too familiar and yet different, especially to visit the place I used to live before I left, knowing I no longer lived there.

Anyway, I'm back, settling in and painting again. I have a friend, Michelle Cheung who has just had an exhibition at the Vanishing Point Gallery, and has also been telling me about various art prizes for which the entry dates are quite soon. I know of at least four: the Liverpool Art Prize, the Blacktown Art Prize, the Marrickville Art Prize and the Glebe Art Prize, all of which seem to be showing in September and accept entries up until mid-late August (although I'm not sure when the entry due date is for the Glebe Prize), and am always keeping my ears open for more, of course. The problem is, due to selling my major works from second semester last year and then my following six months overseas I now don't have much recent work I can submit. It's a nice incentive to get painting again, really!

So, what else could I talk about... webcomics? The first one I ever read and that I continue to read is one called Crimson Dark, by Australian Sydney-based graphic artist David Simon. It's a sci-fi drama with great space-ship art and explosions. I think I will always recommend this comic to any first-time web comics readers as not only does it have a good blend of quality (and lack of profanity) in the art and script writing but it's also a good example of a webcomic really working with the fact that it is in a digital form - as in, it's not just a print-based-style comic put up on the web, but uses digital modeling programs, etc. as essential parts of the art. Have a look, anyway.

Just some drafts/sketches for the comic I talked about in my last post:

In France, and still alive

After some relatively thoughtful consideration, she decided that it was time to write another entry in her blog. The date of her previous update was looking sadly antiquated and seemed to be rapidly receding into the increasingly distant past. Admittedly, she had indeed been physically absent from the Australian art scene but it wasn't as if she had been doing nothing in the last six months or so... for Jemima had been in France! Yes, France. And what had she been doing there? Studying, in French, to be precise - at the Sorbonne in Paris too. It was a six-month university exchange and she had some open arts electives to spend. What fun! So, she had enrolled herself in a number of arts courses: a history course, one in literature, another French linguistics, some hebrew and a bit of stoic philosophy too. Very, very interesting. And now, after having just spent a very intense last month finishing her assignments and exams, she emerged... scathed? unscathed? not sure which, but at the very least rather fluent in French. And, now very capable of navigating not only Australian public transport but the French train system too.

Incidentally, she had also indeed been enjoying the close access to art galleries in Paris - although admittedly not as much as she could have, especially considering that being a student in Paris she can get into the Louvre and the Musée d'Orsay for free... nice : )

In terms of actually making art though, apart from a few sketches here and there, the main art project Jemima had been working on was illustrating a comic. The author's name was Karen Beilharz, and the comic was called, 'A friend in need'. It was five pages long and would be compiled into an anthology of other five-page comics that Karen had written on the theme of depression. There were lots of other Australian artists each working on illustrating a story and they were aiming to have the work published from around August. Do look out for it or let Jemima know if you're interested in reading it. She hopes to put up some previews of her art for this soon.

Some images from Jemima's time in France...

Sketching in the Louvre... like the Parisien art students

My Metro stop

Inside the Bibliotheque St Genevieve, a library near the Sorbonne

Le pont des arts - apparently lovers write their names on the padlocks and then throw the keys into the Seine below.

A school in the Loire Valley - I passed it on an excursion to see the chateaux in this area

Ancient graffiti in one of the chateaux de la Loire (date: 1737)

A courtyard in the Sorbonne that I would often cross

One of the staircases I would routinely climb to get to my classes