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:
