Labyrinth Exhibition

Labyrinth Exhibition

Here are a couple of pieces I will be showing in the Labyrinth exhibition at CBD Gallery.

The show runs for two weeks beginning the 23rd of March. CBD Gallery is located at 3/99 Elizabeth St, Brisbane (above Govinda's restaurant).

I was going to show some other pieces as well but time kind of got away with me over the last few weeks and I ran out of time (as you probably guessed by my lack of posts).

Anyway, the CBD guys run a show a month so if this one goes well I might do some more. We'll see.

Flies TSB, Part Two

Finished.

Flies TSB, Part One

My latest TSB is located on the corner of Edward & Mary St in Brisbane.

I chose my Flies pic for this one for it's obvious city theme only I modified the sad green fly-like guys to busy eyed business men rushing along with their ties waving behind them.

I work on the same street and pass this box every day in the mad rush of the peak hour pedestrian traffic so I though this design was appropriate.

During the painting of this box I decided that setting up and painting in the middle of the city on a Friday gets you a lot of attention, mostly from crazies but the odd sane, nice person would comment or smile or whatever. And I now realize that pedestrians have no regard for witch's hats! C'mon people they're there for a reason!

With so many people rushing by I got a little distracted, but by the time I reached this stage it seemed to come together.

Anything To Say?

Today's quote on my desk calendar reads:

There's nothing wrong with having nothing to say - unless you insist on saying it.

- Anonymous

I thought this was somehow appropriate to my blog and probably just blogs in general. I mean, c'mon, when you think about it, in the history of all civilization ideas, theories, philosophies, stories have been fairly successfully communicated without the aide of blogs. Don't get me wrong, there are some really entertaining, interesting and informative blogs out there and then there is a whole load of crap (I'll let you decide which category this blog falls into).

There, I had nothing to say and insisted on saying it.

Which leads me to today's post .

I finally got around to finishing this one off.

I've Been Juxtapoz-ed

I managed to get the Alice In Wonderland piece displayed in the reader art section on the Juxtapoz website.

Grasshopper And Girl Pic Completed

The finished product. The colouring turned out a little different than how I expected, but it nice and dark so I'm happy.

There are only a couple of minor things I would change in this pic, but I've spent so much time on it already and its looking pretty good so I might leave it, at least for now.

Click on the below pics for detail.

Grasshopper Guy Meets Girl

We're slowly getting there now. I think I have a tendency to overwork some of my pictures so instead of lingering too long on this one segment of the pic I'd better give the other aspects a bit of a catch up otherwise it might not all fit together.

Anyway this part is turning out pretty well.

Click on this pic for detail.

Freaky Grasshopper Guy ( I need to think of a better title)

Last night I concentrated on the Grasshopper guy and the machinery behind him. There is no new work on the background though.

I have yet to add shadows, tones etc. That can wait until all the elements are in place then I can work out specific light paths and how then how the objects perform in that light.

Coming along nicely, yes? I think it will be worth my lack of sleep.

Freaky Grasshopper Guy, Work In Progress

So anyway, here is the beginnings of this so far untitled pic. I've still yet to add the girl in the foreground, some statues and pretty much the whole background, but you can get a fair idea of how it could turn out.

Freaky Grasshopper Guy

This guy here is part of a new piece I'm currently working on.

He's giving directions. Can't you tell?

This one might take me a while. My idea for this one keeps getting more detailed as I sketch it out.

I know, I should be working on The Package. This is just a slight detour.

The Package Parade

Getting close to the end of The Package now.

Jimmy & Emaciated Chicken

Jimmy & Emaciated Chicken. A story about a demonically possessed boy and an underfed chicken.

TSB, Day Four

Monday morning and I'm finished.

I'm usually on a bus at this time, heading to work, but today I added the final touches to the TSB.

I think it turned out pretty good. I posted the original a couple of weeks ago for comparison.

TSB, Day Three

Sunday morning was very overcast. I decided to do as much as I could before it started to rain.

I had a couple of hours before I felt rain drops, so I packed up my gear and took this photo.

Realising there was absolutely no chance of rain, I unpacked the gear again and managed a couple more hours work.

TSB Day Two

By the end of Saturday afternoon the background was looking pretty good. You could get more of an idea of what the picture actually was.

TSB, Day One

Not too impressive yet, I know. I did the undercoat in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Getting up at 5:30, which for me is very rare, I drove to the box, set up and proceeded to paint the white undercoat. It was then that I realised that I had forgotten to bring along the sketch to work from.

I drew what I could remember and went back home to pick up the sketch thinking I needed to wait for the undercoat to dry properly anyway.

I got home, grabbed the sketch and thought I'll have a quick coffee to get my head in working order. Drove back to the box, set up again........ I left the sketch on the coffee table.

Repeat previous two paragraphs minus the coffee and the forgetting the sketch part and I was ready to get into action.

I managed to get the total undercoat and preliminary colours for the painting finished and get home as the kids were getting up.

I'm not sure when I will get a chance to back to do some more work on it, but it will hopefully be sometime during the week.

TSB Or Not TSB.... What Was The Question?

Soon I will begin painting another TSB (Traffic Signal Box) and thought it would be worthy enough to do a preliminary post to show my thoughts about the design stage of the project.



I was a little unsure what I should paint at first but then came across this old pic I did years ago which I still find amusing. You can't go wrong with tiny aliens! Artforce gave me approval for the design but asked if I could make him look happier. The irony is that the guy's expression whilst being fondled by the alien was pretty much the whole point of the picture.

But then I sketched this.....






It is sort of a reinvisioning of the first pic and hopefully is a little more easy on the general public's eye. Also the nose picking alien in the background is gone (I guess I don't find nose picking as funny as I used too. I'm must be getting old.).




This is kind of how I see the colours to look, but I expect this finished box to look somewhere in between the original pic and the new design. They never really turn out how I expect when I begin.

I'll post some photos as I go.

Rob is engulfed with Xmas spirit

I'm taking a break over Xmas and New Years, not that I've been posting much anyway.

I hope you all have a happy and safe holiday!! Back in 2007.

Tree

Flies

Flies

Enter....

Here is another pic from The Package. I may have to change the colour tones on this one so it matches the other pics it will share a page with.

Production continues.....

So Rob, what's been taking up your time lately?

Well, I'm glad you asked. Most of my time in front of the pewty these days is spent on trying to get my picture book, The Package, finished.

I'm getting closer to the deadline that I gave myself with still a fair amount of work to do, but I'm getting there!

Here are a couple of new pics.

These two pics are from the segment of the book where Barry stumbles across a fortune telling machine who he enlists to help find the destination of the mysterious package.

Boxes

Boxes.

I made this one using Paint, Photo Editor and Powerpoint on my work computer (while I had some free time, of course).

I'm starting to get some interesting textures using this method.

More pics coming soon!

Cyanide Sunset

Down The Rabbit Hole

Down The Rabbit Hole

I've always had a facination with fantastic children's stories, especially when they tend to be based on nonsense or ideas from dreams. This stuff was like rocket fuel for my imagination when I was a kid and, I think, eventually influenced my illustration style.



I was doodling this rabbit pic recently and it kind of turned out to be Alice and the White Rabbit from Alice In Wonderland, which led me to add a background and so on. The only problem is that the rabbit was too happy and manga looking.


My second attempt at the rabbit seemed more appropriate. Usually the White Rabbit is portrayed as being elegant and fussy looking, but I made him a little more derranged and frantic with a myxomatosed eye.

The piece is made up of separate pen drawings which are scanned, manipulated and coloured in Photoshop, as is most of my artwork only I gave extra attention to detail in this one.

Sunrise Photo

My wife, Sharon, took this photo of the sunrise on our recent road trip. Beautiful shot.

Background for Alice

Not quite finished with this one yet, but seeing as I haven't put much up lately I thought I'd post something that I have been working on, even if it isn't finished.

Bit of an Alice In Wonderland theme. I am yet to add Alice and the White Rabbit in the pic as well as a few other bits and pieces.

Dex Article

Tattoos Down Under Magazine have an article about the Dex exhibition that was held a few months ago. The one with all the skateboard decks...... you remember.

Pencil Sketch of......

Tangled Rabbit Mess

I was flipping through some old pics and found this old tangled rabbit mess that I doodled at work one day. I totally forgot I had this. Don't ask "what's up with the rabbits?". I don't know. It's kind of like Watership Down meets HR Giger.

Schmuck?! Flyers

I thought I'd put these up. A couple of flyers for Schmuck from around '99, I think.

I thought there was something funny about clean-cut kids with foul mouths advertising a punk band. Maybe I should have stuck with a crusty punk with his pants down.