This afternoon I had a window of a few hours to go exploring again down the rabbit hole…
Acid dyed surfmats; colour and abstraction
Artwork
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Artwork
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Artwork Deeper
“Deeper” – digital illustration.
Waves of consequence require commitment to going further, deeper…
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Artwork 2016 IMAS / TWS Fim Series
For the 7th year running, the Marine Conservation Film Series is on again.
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Artwork Farewell bottle jack press
It’s a hard decision to make but I just don’t reckon this thing will qualify as carry-on luggage. My 6-tonne bottle jack press now needs a good home so I’m looking for a printmaker who is keen to be good to her. Today is our final Sunday at the Strandhill People’s Market in Strandhill, Sligo, and I’ll be bringing the press out and be assessing the submissions of potential suitors.
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Artwork Run, run as fast as you can
Last few days left before we move out of our house in Sligo and begin the long journey back to Australia, eventually Hobart in Tasmania. Exciting and hectic times. There’s a lot on, a lot of loose ends to tie up, decisions on what to pack or cull…
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Artwork These Strange Hearts
This print continues to prove to be a tricky one to get out right – and it’s the getting it out right which is what the printmaker’s ongoing challenge is. Each fin is a direct reference to fins I’ve owned, trialled, coveted, with one in the collection that is the golden hatchet to rule them all, the one that has been pivotal (ahem) to my Rooster-shaped, 9’6 BeachBeat Pacer.
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image Artwork Warp and Woof
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image Artwork Summer Rain
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image Artwork Drop Everything
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image Artwork 2015 IMAS Marine Conservation Film Series poster
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Artwork Trim
It was a busy few days knocking these out. The one on the bottom right was carved and printed in Tasmania, Australia, about three years ago and only now have I gotten around to carving others in a similar style.
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Artwork Curiosity by halves
So I had in mind these two buddies, Fatty McGoldfish and Monsieur Snaps, escaping the kitchen benchtop and heading off. Perhaps for just the day, perhaps for good. The skies are clear and they’re in the clear – full speed ahead, let’s go!
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Artwork Meeting of Minds
No matter how far I find myself from the Sunshine Coast the dunes have always stuck with me. Every morning before the first foot-fall of even the earliest risers, excluding of course the jittery scamperings of all those things without backbones, those majestic, wind-combed undulations of ground white gold, sparking with spinifex, snuggle up to the sea in their new forms – a subtle shift on the shapes of yesterday.
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Artwork Stamping about
Some packaging ideas for the hand-pulled t-shirts lead to making up a small stamp with the OD snoozing possum insignia. With no soft rubber on hand an offcut of lino was used. Some ideas, like this one, start small and stay small which can be a bugger – the spine-bending time spent in bringing them to life is paid for later.
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Artwork Stencil resurrection
Another east-coast novelty arrives and fades layering fresh glazes into memory of swoops and arcs, of undeterminable chattering acceleration across the surfaces of a sea come alive, its writhing undulations an ephemeral space exploited by few as stage, as canvas, as tapestry; clandestine soloists or the more gregarious exhibitionists. Revelers, artists and illustrators loosening their terrestrial fetters for the dance.
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Artwork Make, do
There’s a lot to be said for precision timing, careful planning, critical execution, waiting for just that right moment… that sort of thing. Isn’t there? Well sure, but then there also seems to be a lot to be said for having a crack, giving it a go, spontaneity, free jazz and interpretive dance. Who or what are we waiting for? Who are we trying to impress here and now or later? I’m uncertain if I’m really confused at all. Am I really indecisive? Why do I ever second guess myself, shrug off intuition?
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image Artwork Stay in… eat out
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image Artwork Drifters
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image Artwork Indian Runner Ducks
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Artwork Spot-colour on the Dunes tees
Sure, single-colour prints on t-shirts (black on white, white on red) can look great but getting two or more colours happening together can add depth and energy. Planning how the colours will overlap when screen-printed onto the shirts, the palette can be expanded and create a looser, more livelier image.
This week I’ve been messing about with colour separations for the t-shirt design for the Dunes Bar in Strandhill, Sligo (Ireland). It worked as a single colour but I wanted to see it jump in two. Playing with negative space has seemed to make the other colours pop and with only two colours, the print is still budgie (cheap cheap). Stoked with the above version and looking forward to getting one of these on.
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Artwork Dunes Bar, Strandhill, Sligo – tshirt!
The Dunes Bar in Strandhill, Sligo. Crikey, anyone remember the Halloween when the Hulk was there? I mean, really there! Anyway, if you’ve survived one of the sessions you can now (well soon) get the t-shirt.
Keep an eyeball on their facebook space for when you can get your hands on one. If you’re not already a regular, be sure to get out there for their, now infamous, Monday night Open Mic. Pens are out getting a 2-3-colour version of the design for a screen-printed poster…
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Artwork Luncheon
While on the mean streets of the big city it’s dog-eat-dog, out in the bush they do it different. More like, man-eat-sandwich, and tree-eat-bird. That sort of thing.
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Artwork Visitation rights
Oi! Yep! My wave. Goin’ right. All mine. Mine alone. Really? Are you so sure?
Try to remember that ‘out there’ we are but guests. Sure, paddle out, take what you like… just not ownership. Only a fool would exhort their indignation when a representative of the silent, resident majority, those that make seethe these living waters, invoke their visitation rights.
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Artwork Strange love
What a thing! The fin! Driving the passion from beneath the feet of the riders and sliders. The flex and spring as they weave their song through shifting swells. Cuts made across shimmering faces fizz in a moment before closing again as swift as their making. Sinuous shapes, such pretty things of form and function, come together in…
“These Strange Hearts of Desire”
Original watercolour and gouache, 140 mm x 140 mm.
Unframed – €85.00 each; set of five, €350.00.
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Artwork The Departed
Gale to storm-force winds last night and this morning have whipped the white horses to frantic frolics across Dublin Bay. I have a plan to escape into the city and haunt the National Gallery. Complaints from the comfortable are too easily tossed about when the weather gets wild. The air is crackling with energy and I reckon getting out and about for a spell can pump some fiery charge into the soul.
“The Departed” – watercolour
I was chatting with the old man sometime in the last week or so and he detailed for me a wonderful vision of our home beach. They’re just across the road from a beach back on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia; a long, serpentine ribbon of coarse golden sand that gets a good wallop now and then from the Pacific. Dad reckons that when there’s a wave up you get a fair idea who’s out in there by looking at the dogs on the beach. Abandoned, left to guard the towel and t-shirt, these departed hounds express their resignation or indignation as their breeding (often a medley thereof) dictates.
Detail from, “The Departed”
Detail from, “The Departed”
Detail from, “The Departed”