Wonderfully Madison

I am very excited to announce that the first Christian children's book I've illustrated has now been published!

Wonderfully Madison is a story by Penny Reeves, for children aged 2-5 yrs old, and the publisher is Youthworks Media.

It's about a little girl, called Madison. And her being grumpy about her new baby sibling being born. And in the fun course of things she comes to discover that we are all fearfully and wonderfully made by a loving God.

I've been informed that pre-orders are available from the cepstore website from next week, and it will be available for purchase from Koorong, etc. from the end of May. Buy a copy and next time you see me I can sign it for you! :)

Proximity opening night

It was a happily buzzing evening last Tuesday at Kudos Gallery. The artworks looked great and it was always good to bump into old friends and catch up on what they were doing, not to mention talk about the show! 

The artists in the exhibition were: Melanie Beresford, Sarah Bovis, Minét Brits, Zachariah Fenn, Santina Ingui, Matthew James, Clare Maxwell, Lorna Macritchie, Simon McGrath, Aaron Moore, Jonathan Oppel, Simon Swadling, Louise Zhang and myself.

Here are some pictures I took:

Simon McGrath, House of God, 2013 

Jemima Trappel, People they have known, 2013

Simon Swadling, Presence, 2013

Lorna Macritchie, All the thorns are softening because of how much you love me, 2013

Jonathan Oppel's Untitled series, 2013

Santina Ingui, Life in Parts, 2012

My portrait of Keith (2012). I made this work for the Archibald last year and then gave it to the Salvos in Surry Hills in December as Keith comes from that community and I wanted them to have it. They let me borrow it for the show. 

Proximity Group Show opening soon!

This is a group show I'm in with some other people from FEVA, most of whom are students at COFA. The art works will be exploring the theme 'Proximity' from a number of different angles... proximity in time, proximity in space, proximity in relationships, proximity with God.

Below are some drafts of a work I'm planning to install for the show, which involves string and explores, among other things, brokenness in human relationships. 

It's called, 'People they have known'.

Nostalgia

It's been a while since I've posted anything on this blog! I've been working on a Children's book over the Summer holidays (almost finished) and while there are ample images I could put up from it, as it's getting published I don't feel right about doing that... until I ask my publisher! It's called 'Wonderfully Madison' and the author is Penny Reeve. 

In the meantime though, I've been recently reminded that some nice artworks I did in my second and third year of uni are not to be found on the web - outside of facebook, that is. And so I thought I'd put them up here so people can actually find them online when I refer to them!

In 2009 I did a series of concertina book portraits of my housemates. This one is called 'Ivy's leaving':

 

And here are some other portraits I did in 2008-2009:

(Maria, oil pastel and water colour on MDF board, 2008)

(Untitled, soldering iron on wood, 2008)

(Self Portrait, soldering iron on wood, 2008)

(Untitled, oil paint stick on wood, 2008)

(Self Portrait, oil on MDF board, 2009)

This work was an experiment in using a palette knife, which I then proceeded to do in the second semester with the More Than Just Faces project.

(Lynne, oil and pencil on plywood, 2009)

(Ray, oil and pencil on plywood, 2009)

Maddy and her Horse

This is an 8-page comic I drew for the Sydney Comics Guild's 2012 anthology - theme: 'Fantasy'. I've created a separate page for it which can be viewed here. It's based on one of my housemates that I lived with last year. She owned a bunny and also suffers from depression. While founded on real people and circumstances the comic is a fictitious account of a morning in her life and the mental battle she may have gone through.

100 x 100 exhibition.

I did a couple of portraits recently for the FEVA 100 x 100 exhibition. The first is titled '18 months', and is of my nephew Sampson. I did one of him last year too, when he was only 6 months old. How he has changed! The second is of his dad, and is titled '25 frames a second'.

T-Shirts!

My Guimelpods are now on clothing! I sold some at a market stall a few weeks ago and am planning to have other stalls... in the near future... when I get my act together!