2015 Archibald entry

I love painting people! And Patricia Weerakoon is no exception. In fact, we had a lot of fun together as I prepared my portrait of her for this year's Archibald. We had a couple of sittings and it was lovely to get to know her better over this time. In the second sitting she managed to hold a smile (on and off) for over an hour and a half while I painted her! ...no wonder her grin is so bright in the picture.

Here's the finished painting I submitted last Friday:

Art classes

Over the past couple of terms I've had a lot of fun progressively teaching more and more art classes for kids! Some have involved cartooning and comics-making, others pastels and going through art movements, and one was even a workshop on making concertina books and zines!

Anyway, here are a couple of photos from the pastel classes...

Illustrative by-products

I went away to India for six weeks over the Summer (Jan/Feb). It was amazing, and dry and dusty with lots of people. It was also a nice break from my normal responsibilities, and I did some drawings... for fun (what a novel idea)!

These two sketches are of a setting my brother was creating for a DnD campaign. I wanted to add the idea of floating islands of junk orbiting the under part of a city built on a bridge. So I got drawing...

Before I left for India at the end of December, and during the first three weeks after I came back, I was also working hard to finish my third children's book - "Same" by Katrina Roe and soon to be published by Wombat Books. This is due to come out in July of this year (2015). Below are some sketches/colour testing in prep for that book as well as some other illustrative by-products from other work. 

And the Sydny Comics Guild is having another anthology this year! Yay! I'm planning my own short 8-page comic to be part of it and am very keen. I have plans to turn it into a cute concertina book. Some character designs:

Booky book book

As I write this I'm listening to the new U2 album that was released for free on iTunes...today? Very nice.
Anyway, I realised some stuff has been happening recently that I should blog about! Firstly, the second book in the Madison series is now out on the market! YEAH! Very great. I love it. You should buy it, because it's a fabulous book. And is also still being flogged like its predecessor at the ridiculously cheap price of $14.99! Once upon a time there was talk of raising the price as it's a quality hardcover, but this hasn't happened yet. So get it fast... :)

Also, I've been working recently on a new baby... below is a sneak peak at some of the concept art. It's a children's book based on a true story, called Same. The author is Katrina Roe, and it will be published by Wombat books at some point probably early next year...

And this is my dear friend Navet! in plush toy form. I made him the year before last and realised I'd never posted a finished pic of him! Say 'Hi' Navet! 

(for a 2D version of him check out The 'Shroom Squisher, or the original concept art here)

A giant flower, a book finished and the MCA Zine Fair!

No, none of the items in the title of this post are linked. They are all quite, quite separate!

The MCA Zine Fair was towards the end of May and I hung out with the Sydney Comics Guild (SCG)! My lovely friend Alex runs the group and we have much fun making comics and selling them together at events like this. (I think the others do a bit more comic making throughout the year than I do but that's just the way it is at the moment!) In the second photo down there are the two short comics I did for the SCG anthologies over the last two years (which can also be read on this blog in the 'pages' section), which my wonderfully supportive and charming father printed off for me, while I was finishing and scanning the illustrations for Fearlessly Madison (and which, incidentally, got sent to the printers last Friday)!

Below are shots of my workspace and some partially completed illustrations for Fearlessly Madison. I'm very excited about this book! I love the story, by Penny Reeve - it's just as good as the first in the series and very much a story in it's own right, while still connecting to Wonderfully Madison in subtle ways. It should, like the first book, be available at Koorong or via the publisher (CEPstore site) once printed.

And did I mention giant flowers? :)

Madison #2

I've just started on the second book in the Madison series! And have been reflecting lately on how illustrating a children's story book is very much like giving birth to a child. That is, it's a nice idea and the end product is pretty great and amazing but gee it's painful! I'm already bracing myself for another long slug of sleep deprivation and RSI... worth it though.

I really like the story of this book too - Penny Reeves is a good writer and she's done it again. There are several particularly amusing moments in the text and I'm enjoying myself finding more in the illustrations (one of the perks of the job, to be sure)!

Here are a few pics of my initial sketches... none confirmed yet.

Blog blog da blog!

So, I've been pretty busy lately, and I have been doing some art stuff - I intended to put up some pics of the couple of oil paintings I finished in July, but I forgot to take a photo of the finished paintings before I gave them to my friends who commissioned them  - oops! I will do this... one day... when I go to visit them. 

It's funny, because so much of the art I do these days is not my own projects, that is, it's usually illustration work to be published, I feel funny about putting up pictures of the illustration work on my blog or facebook. Which is why I haven't (not counting photos of the printed book-covers of Wonderfully Madison, of course). Someone is paying for the exclusive right to reproduce it, after all! (the fact that I can say this makes me feel very special and blessed as getting paid to do illustration work was one of my dreams when I began uni...)

Below is something though that I'm working on that is one of my own projects. It's the rough draft layout of my 8-page submission for the Sydney Comics Guild 2013 anthology - exciting! Though it's due pretty soon, so I should get a move on and draw this thing...

The theme of the anthology is 'the locked door'. My story actually features two characters I have been wanting to write comics about for a long time, so I'm particularly excited to use them... Chloe and Navet. Hopefully these two will see many more adventures together!