Andrew Finnie: Artist and Illustrator

The Last Stand of Captain Pugwart

2011-12-18T13:37:00.000-08:00

Oh dear, Christmas almost, tinsel and lights and cake and cake and cake and cake and cake, and... err ..... tinsel.

Did I tell you that I wear vinyl belts now? Unlike leather belts, they stretch - which is good.

Of course, like the pianist Liberace, they go the other way as well .... ie they don't just stretch, but shrink.

To be honest, so far I have not investigated their shrinking properties - though I once read in the Norwegian Adventurer's Handy Hints Guide (April 2009) that if you leave them in the freezer for three months they shrink two sizes.

With that tit-bit of information we can conclude (well, it goes without saying, really) that, if you go to the North Pole as a Santa Volunteer and happen to have a penchant for vinyl belts, there is small but calculable chance that you will need abdominal amputation if the temperature drops too far - courtesy of the tourniquet effect.

Hmm. Did you ever notice that I type rubbish in my posts? :)

I'm just trying to keep up with my friend Linda - who as a wordsmith has no equal - and types anything but rubbish!

Thank you so much to all my friends for your kind visits this year. It means very much to me. I count myself blessed to have met such a talented, friendly, encouraging, good looking and intelligent bunch of artists with superb taste and style. :)

I sincerely hope you had a WONDERFUL year - and that next year is double good.

I'll be round later and give you all a hug :) Let me know if you have sore ribs or anything like that.

PS: this is for IF's "Sink" - and yes, Elves always wear their pants (and coifs for that matter) in the bath.

Don't you? :)

Thank you so much for looking.

Merci beaucoup à tous mes amis de votre aimable visite cette année (even Leo the Toucan) Cela signifie beaucoup pour moi. Je compte myslelf béni d'avoir rencontré un tel talent, chaleureux, encourageant, tas beau et intelligent des artistes avec un goût superbe et le style. :) J'espère sincèrement que vous avez eu une année formidable - et que l'année prochaine est le double de bon.
Je vais être ronde plus tard et vous donner tous un câlin:) Laissez-moi savoir si vous avez les côtes endoloris ou quelque chose comme ça.

Muchas gracias a todos mis amigos por su amable visita este año. Significa mucho para mí. Cuento myslelf bendecido de haber conocido a un talentoso y agradable, fomentando grupo, guapo e inteligente de los artistas con excelente sabor y estilo. :) Espero sinceramente que usted ha tenido un año maravilloso - y que el próximo año es el doble de bueno. Voy a estar todo más adelante y darle un abrazo a todos:) Quisiera saber si usted tiene dolor en las costillas ni nada de eso.

Tusen takk til alle mine venner for typen din besøk dette året. Det betyr veldig mye for meg. Jeg teller myslelf velsignet med å ha møtt en så talentfull, vennlig, oppmuntrende, gode jakt og intelligent gjeng av kunstnere med ypperlig smak og stil. :) Jeg håper du har hatt en strålende år - og at neste år er dobbelt bra.
Jeg skal være runde senere, og gi dere alle en klem:) La meg vite om du har såre ribbein eller noe sånt.

Vielen Dank an alle meine Freunde für Ihre Besuche in diesem Jahr. Es bedeutet mir sehr viel. Ich zähle myslelf gesegnet, erfüllt eine so talentierte, freundliche, ermunternde, gut aussehende und intelligente Horde von Künstlern mit herrlichem Geschmack und Stil haben. :)
Ich hoffe, Sie hatten ein wunderbares Jahr - und das nächste Jahr ist doppelt gut.

(Oh if you are reading this before the 19th go here if you would like a free taste of Poser - a program originally designed for artists to pose models without having to talk to real humans.... it comes with a stack of 'models')

Suspendering My Disbelief.

2011-12-10T13:03:00.001-08:00

I've been reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (C.S. Lewis) for a few days .. well actually I have been reading it for the last few nights.

Specifically, very late at night.

You know that time of night when, tucked away in bed, you tend to fall asleep with a book suspended by one stiff arm above your face. Regardless of whether your eyes are open or closed, the book hangs like an executioner's axe, threatening to fall and dent your nose or, at the very least, give you a bloody set of lips, should you release your grip for a moment.

It all goes to prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that it is a dangerous thing to be a reader of books.

I can only thank my lucky stars (read: Bank Manager) that I cannot afford an e-reader - because I fall asleep while reading so often that my nose, already bent like the beak of the South Australian Yellow Breasted Nosy Noodletwit (genus: eripydies), would have been plastered all over my face by now.

Still, back to the subject at hand, what ever that was...

..... ah yes, C.S. Lewis.

The greatest thing about The Voyage of The Dawn Treader is its first paragraph. As a 'hook', as an entre, as a 'warmer-upperer', as a piquant sorbet, this paragraph is without equal.

For example, the first line is:

"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."

Unfortunately C.S. Lewis must have had an apocolypitic attack of epiliopithy after he wrote the first paragraph, because, without so much as a deeply bated breath, the book soon sinks into the depths of of authorial narrative intervention. (eg: Dear reader, you should not worry yourselves about Eustace, our erstwhile hero, because he is nought but a scoundrel who never changes his socks, even on Sundays.)

Lewis's clumsy interventions are clumsy enough to make us certain that he (Lewis) is clumsy keen for his readers not to be hung up by their clumsy suspenders of disbelief.

And the fact that it is written for twelve-year-olds is no excuse for these lapses.

Mind you, I am older than 12 and I am still reading it, suspenders or not.

So, the cover of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is the genesis for this image.

It's also a bow, not only to the cover of Shaun Tan's book The Arrival, but to the techniques of my wonderful artist friends Janne and Mita.

Oh, I almost forgot: this Illustration is for IF's prompt "Separated", a word that I have only recently learnt to misspell. Thank you for looking.

One more thing. Do you need a good laugh? Check out Penspaper Studio. :). Elizabeth has a great sense of humour.

The Sky is Falling

2011-12-07T20:51:00.001-08:00

My good friends Karen and Shirley put me on to the SCBWI challenge about the Sky Is Falling - a story I confess to having never read till two days ago. Very interesting....

If you are doing this challenge please feel free to leave a note. I would love to see your approach.

Of course me not being in the SCBWI could be a problem :) If you are in Oz and a member please let me know what it's like so I can be tempted :)

cheers from here

Thank you for your visit!

Brigade

2011-12-02T15:03:00.000-08:00

Thank you so much to everyone who checked out my new portfolio site.

And thank you for enjoying hump day and being good sports :)

There are some few people I would still like to visit. I am the tortoise in that Aesop's fable, you know, that one about the dog and the tortoise where the tortoise (named Rhonda) has a nanny nap ....

'Rhonda'? Hmm must go and look that one up :)

So my deepest apologies to you. You know who you are....

Meanwhile I hear Bella Sinclair has some wonderful news :) She rips!

Congratulations Bella !!!

Oh this image is for IF's "Brigade". I gave the colonel a Santa beard and hat, but he looked silly. That's why the dog is running away.

see you and thank you very much for your visit!

(note to self: time for this image 6.14 am till 9.50 am)

Round, Humpty Dumpty Day, and Portfolio Links

2011-11-27T21:02:00.001-08:00

Do you have the expression hump day where you live?
'Hump day' is used to describe Wednesday's position as the middle day in the five day working week. As a 'go word' or a catch phrase, it's something that has spread into our local language surreptitiously over the last few years.
For a long time it belonged mainly with the business generation - along with such phrases and gestures as 'touch base', 'do lunch', 'network' and air kissing.
During the ridiculously short time I have been on the planet, I have noticed a few things. And one of them is this: Expressions are like Irish people, in that they tend to migrate. (Finnie's Third Theorem)

So..... the other day I had to call one of our dealers and the phone was answered by a charming middle aged woman. It was a Wednesday, so, as you do, I said:
"Hi, it's Andrew Finnie. Happy Wednesday!"
"Yes, hi Andrew! Happy 'hump day," the woman said chirpily. She has a very refined voice, very lady like, very motherly.
There was a bit of a pause then, as we both pondered the ramifications of her use of the adjective that proceeded the word 'day' - and what other meanings it might have colloquially. Finally there was a small embarrassed 'titter' from the other end of the phone and the refined feminine voice said:
"Well, I never thought of it like that, you know..."
"Oh, oh," I said, trying to think of the fast retort that didn't involve 'hump signs' or 'camel humps' or monosexual amoeba.

But the only thing I could come out with was a meek: "Me neither."
Of course for a lot of people Saturday night is 'hump day' - in that it is the temporal fulcrum of the weekend and everything else is down hill from there till Monday morning.
So I offer you this image as a kind of celebration of 'Humpty Dumpty Day" - which I have just invented and am still to choose a date for (I was humping for December 25th but apparently that one is gone)
It's genesis is not only 'hump day', but an image I saw last year by Rene Millot, whose work reminds me of Maxfield Parrish - an ace craftsman artist (first half 2oth century) who built up luminous paintings by not mixing his colours on the palette, but by blending them optically as glazes.

PORTFOLIO SITE and PRESS REVIEWS

Ahh this is sounding like a church news letter. Last Sunday immediately after church, a large white pigeon named Neville pooped in Mrs Saurekruat's left eye as she was looking up in the sky to see if anyone was really, truly watching her....

Oh I made a portfolio site. I have a few books on the go and have finally sent one of them away - 'bout time. It's a site like this one with most of my blah blahing removed. I'd be honoured if you take a look. (There's also some press reviews here if you are curious :) )

Please click on a face and you will be magically transported to a new page. Alternatively you might like to right click open in new tab.

Any comments are very welcome. The fact that there are 34 pages of images is on the downside I think.
Thanks again for your time.

see you :) from Oz!

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

2011-11-21T01:03:00.001-08:00

And so:

A year passed away, and the King took another wife. She was very beautiful, but so proud and haughty that she could not bear to be surpassed in beauty by anyone. She possessed a wonderful mirror which could answer her when she stood before it and said-
"Mirror, mirror upon the wall, Who is the fairest of all?"
The mirror answered-
"Thou, O Queen, art the fairest of all,"
and the Queen was contented, because she knew the mirror could speak nothing but the truth.
But as time passed on, Little Snow-White grew more and more beautiful, until when she was seven years old, she was as lovely as the bright day, and still more lovely than the Queen herself, so that when the lady one day asked her mirror-
"Mirror, mirror upon the wall, Who is the fairest fair of all?"
it answered-
"O Lady Queen, though fair ye be, Snow-White is fairer far to see."

The Queen was horrified, and from that moment envy and pride grew in her heart like rank weeds, until one day she called a huntsman and said "Take the child away into the woods and kill her, for I can no longer bear the sight of her. And when you return bring with you her heart, that I may know you have obeyed my will."
The huntsman dared not disobey, so he led Snow-White out into the woods and placed an arrow in his bow to pierce her innocent heart, but the little maid begged him to spare her life, and the child's beauty touched his heart with pity, so that he bade her run away.
Then as a young wild boar came rushing by, he killed it, took out its heart......

From the Brothers Grimm 1857

When I was a kid I used to watch Walt Disney's Disneyland TV show. Often it featured a magic mirror where some scary old man in a Greek tragedy mask would appear in the misty darkness of the mirror and laugh evilly.

It gave me nightmares.

And a hundred years later became the genesis for this image for Illustration Friday's "Vanity." Of course since then I have become aware of the genre of painting known as Vanitas, which refers to the transience of life - (or intransigence of death). You can read about it here if you like.

I hope you don't mind, I have the comments off again - just so you can get some work done :)

Thank you very much for looking - I appreciate it very much ......

See you at your bloggs.

PS here's a wonderful artist I just found about a minute ago ....

Neighbours, China Dolls and Tennis Socks ........

2011-11-13T22:23:00.001-08:00

We have had new neighbours for about three weeks.

They have a dog.

The dog doesn't bark in the normal doggy kind of way. Instead it 'yips'.

For the first few days the dog 'yipped' all day and half way into the night.

On the third night it woke me up at two oclock.

Then it woke me up at three.

When it woke me up at four I lay awake for an hour deciding what I would do.

By the time I climbed out of bed at half past six I had decided that if the neighbours didn't get rid of the dog I would either:

1) sue them, or

2) kidnap the dog, gag it with some of my old tennis socks then dump it down a mine shaft.

Of course as a kind hearted intelligent man I didn't do any of these things - after all someone might see me, or worse, recognize my tennis socks when they finally found the body.

Instead red eyed and saggy cheeked, I went and politely knocked on the neighbour's door the next morning.

But that's another story - needless to say the dead rat in this image is a metaphor for something deep in my psyche.

Did you know that rats belong to the genus Rattus? And the black rat is known as Rattus Rattus? Who ever said that scientists don't have imagination, eh?

About this image? It's for IF's "Silent". As you can see it works on three different levels. The top level, the middle level, and surprisingly enough, the bottom level. I think the justification for the paradigm, is found in the imposition of the persona of the rat, mirrored of course both symbolically and metaphorically by the metallic finish on the horn, which, in some ways, the horn itself is an iconic archetype of both the horn of plenty - representing harvest, lust, and loud noises - and the God of Thunder, Thor, who had an amazing lisp, and a way with his tools. I haven't even touched on the flower patterns which came with a book of Japanese patterns, on their own DVD which was marked, Copyright, nothing in this DVD can be reproduced, I mean I ask you? How can they sell you a DVD of patterns that you can't use....? I think that's why I gave them green nipples, which to be perfectly honest, was an accident, but I thought, gee if that sicko sadistic Surrealist guy can do amputee doll sexual innuendo, the least I can do is give my dolls green nipples.....

Okay, sorry about that.I just felt like raving as the kid next door has started playing with his electric car outside my window. The car goess zzzzzzzzzzzzsiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssssssssssssssssiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip, ssssssssssssdfagggggg, gggggggwwwwwww wwwippppppp every five seconds. The kid goes YOOOOOOWAAAAZAA and kind of gurgles occasionally in excitement. He sounds a little like a baboon in the last throws of a tumultuous orgasmic terminal pancreatisis.

I hope his mother poisons him accidently before I have to use my tennis socks on him. I know which would be the worse fate.

Err, just kidding. Actually my neighbors are quiet, well mannered and a joy to speak with.

The genesis of this image.

Recently I went to our national gallery and saw an old book of photographs of dolls by Hans Belmer. Very surreal. A quick search on google gives me a lot of pseudo erotic bondage type photos so beware. This is one of the photos in the book I saw. I didn't realise it was meant to be erotic till I saw it in the context of his other work. I just thought it was weird.... in fact maybe I shouldn't have bought it up.... but I think his work evokes an emotive response and so is worth examining for this aspect alone.

Thank you for those people who wished me well with my books. That means very much to me thank you. There was a small mention of one of my artists' books in the paper on Saturday - which is also very exciting!

Meanwhile prayers for Jack Foster's wife who has been very ill recently. You can wish him well at Jacktoons if you like.

Jack's a good bloke and a very funny guy and I'm sure he'd appreciate your prayers more than you imagine.

Stripes, Yippee I Won! and some Limited Edition Books

2011-11-05T13:50:00.000-07:00

I had great news yesterday. I won a give-away from the sparklingly talented Shirley Ng- Benitez!

So I have been walking a little taller since then. Shirley's work always make me smile. Her watercolours are fresh and scintillating, her characters dynamic and charming and, dare I say it, just so cute :)

Thank you Shirley!!

Shirley's work is here. She has just released two new works that look amazing.

Sorry about the long post. I didn't even tell you how Bella Sinclair of Doodlespot was my 40,000 visitor the other day! Thank you Bella :) I made this small image to celebrate :)

And thank you everybody :)

PS the rest of the Zebras are here:

(Edit: wasn't comfortable with selling the books from the blog so removed that section)

Where the Wild Things Are

2011-11-01T13:35:00.000-07:00

This one for Myles. Myles is Karen Puddle of Crumb's grandson. Myles went Halloweening the other night dressed as Max.

You can read about everything on Karen's site here. Of course Myles would have looked much more handsome than this.

I'd never heard of Sendak until last year. I bought a book about his work recently. The book delves into his influences - from Blake to Laurel and Hardy. It's amazing how much he has appropriated. And all acknowledged.

So today I have appropriated Max as Myles for a brief appearance :)

Oh and good news. I just found the spell check button :) on blogger.

Sorry to make three posts in a week. It's an anomaly! I am working on this (see below) and am practicing procrastinating. So far I am getting good at it (procrastinating).

I have some great feedback on the covers to help me select them so far. Thank you so much!

It's not two books, maybe one book with two different covers :)

The Second Scary

2011-10-30T04:25:00.000-07:00

Hello thank you to everyone who commented on my last post. Your comments made me keen to work with the scarecrow a little more. Thank you to those who suggested that as well. You know who you are :)

The Scarecrow is a bit weird really. He keeps telling me his name is 'Ralph' - and that he is not really a scare crow, just a poor chap from Tasmania who cannot afford the right brand of conditioner.

Ralph?

I ask you.... what were his parents thinking?

Hmm ....."The Adventures of Ralph The Scarecrow - The Musical!".

To be honest, it does have a ring to it. I can see it in lights. And on Broadway - and in the remainder bin of our local K-Mart.

Just having a small joke. :) I've always wanted to write a musical. I am already humming the theme song. And already I can see Ralph in my minds eye, tap dancing across a spot-lit stage, putting his partner, Fred Astaire, to shame.

Of course there's only a minor problem in that Ralph can't dance. Neither can he sing.

And Fred Astaire is currently 'unavailable'.

Thank you for looking. :)

Watch out! Here Comes the Bogey Man - and Boy is He Mad!

2011-10-28T13:15:00.000-07:00

I once read a story about a little boy who goes a' wandering and meets up with a talking scarecrow.

Together they go on some wonderful adventures around the countryside. They meet other talking objects. They see the world.

The story has all the hall marks of a best seller. There's romance - the scarecrow falls in love with a straw broom they find in a barn. There's danger - the scarecrow must brave the flickering infestuous flames of the camp fire. And there's intrigue - who is the talking scarecrow? What does he metaphorically mean? Is he the embodiment of our own inner psyche?

Or, perhaps, when every thing is said and done, is the scarecrow just a talking scarecow?

Unfortunately I never finished the story (it was due back at the library and I have already mortgaged one house to pay my library fines)..... and I don't know who wrote it, or whether the scarecrow really was a metaphor for my inner demon(s). But it was fun. And gave me the idea for this illustration.

But why the little boy is out in the field at night, and why the candle is still alight remains to be seen.

Thank you for looking. Please click the pictures if you like big pictures :)

Oh, you might remember the scarecrow? He is from this post here on The Wizard of Oz - entitled "One for My Father."

It's important to have things to remember people by, isn't it? Objects with significance can become small altars to that person that we miss, altars that we can store our memories in. Like T.S. Eliot's "Objective Correlative" - but in objects - not words.

I have an Altar to my father near our front door. It has two small metal toy train signs that he made for me when I was little. They are going rusty, but the paint on the signs (in my mind) is still as bright as when he painted them 40 years ago.

When I walk past them I feel happy. And I also feel sad. Strange isn't it?

The Battle of Evermore

2011-10-26T00:34:00.000-07:00

Oh dance in the dark of night,

Sing to the morning light.
The magic runes are writ in gold to bring the balance back.

Bring it back.

At last the sun is shining,

The clouds of blue roll by,
With flames from the dragon of darkness,

the sunlight blinds his eyes.

From: "The Battle of Evermore."

For guitar and mandolin; written by Robert Plant

When I was a teenager records cost $7.95.

They were so expensive we could only afford a record every few months - so we'd share them or tape them. We'd a small library of records going, and so it turned out that each member of our social group knew all the words to a small bunch of songs. This knowledge was a unifying factor, a kind of tribal subconsciousness.

Pink Floyd was up there. The Doors. Jethro Tull. Frank Zappa. And Led Zeppelin.

The Led Zeppelin IV cover is the genesis for my image - you might have seen it, with it's framed picture of a wood gatherer hanging poignantly on the wall of a half demolished house. (see small images below).

Downstairs in our library, amongst a gaggleous mountain of books, we have a large shelf of records crammed together so tightly that it's almost impossible to pry them apart. Looking for the album cover, I started at one end of the shelf, then worked my way toward the middle, prising and peeking.

In a way it was a sad experience. While I was sorting through the records it struck me how so many of the people who had made them were dead. Obviously, for me to buy a record was the kiss of death for the artist. Literally.

Thank you for looking. And thank you to everyone who played the music while looking at my last post.

Oh, I forgot to say, the subject of this image is a wood gatherer, gathering 'fuel', which by strange coincidence just so happens to be Illustration Friday's prompt of the week - well I think it is ;)

Stand and Deliver!

2011-10-15T03:57:00.000-07:00

This week I have been revisiting the bush ranger Ned Kelly, whose bones have recently been identified in a mass grave outside one of our oldest prisons. (you can find my original post here)

Well most of his bones - his skull is yet to be found. I had heard it was being used as a paper weight by the prison warden for quite a few years - and then vanished. But that could be apocryphal. But maybe not. The victors have often treated the bodies of the vanquished with distain. Just look at the Iliad and Hector and Achilles.

But before we go on, can you do me a favour? Just start the music in this youtube video while you look at the pics? - assuming you are looking at the pics ! It's not Kelly, but another bushranger. But it sounds kinda good. :0

Ned Kelly is treated as a hero in Australia. Of Irish descent, he stood up for himself against the local constabulary who had victimised his family.

Well that's what we like to believe. In reality it seems like he was an apprentice bushranger and horse thief. He also beat up on a Chinese fellow called Ah Fook. :) Mind you, he had the guts to shoot a local constable in the wrist (the constable had been making free with Kelly's sister). Afterward he was forced to go on the run.

While on the run he killed three policeman who were 'a hunting him - (the story is told in the song Stringybark Creek in one of the videos at the end.) and was declared an outlaw for his trouble.

That meant he could be legally shot on sight by anyone - if they were game.

He had a f inal shootout at a place called Glenrowan in Victoria. The Glenrowan Seige lasted two days. Kelly and the other three members of his gang wore armour made out of plough shields. Each suit of armour weighed about 44 kilos.

Before the siege he'd known the police were coming for him en mass by rail, and had laid a trap, where the train would be derailed and he and his gang, wearing their suits of armour, would take the 'police' prisoner.

But he was betrayed by the local schoolteacher - who stopped the train. Kelly and his 'gang' were caught in the Glenrowan Inn by an overwehelming number of police. One of his gang was killed out right by the first volley (through the inn walls) while drinking a toast to the Kelly gang.

The siege resulted in the deaths of Kelly Gang members Joe Byrne, Dan Kelly & Steve Hart.

Kelly, himself was shot in the legs and captured and sent to jail.

As Wiki says, "He was convicted of three counts of capital murder and hanged at Old Melbourne Gaol in November 1880. His daring has made him an iconic figure in Australian history, folklore, literature, art and film." There's been several movies made about Kelly. The first ever Australian movie was based on his story. The last two have had Mick Jagger and Heath Ledger in the leading roles.

In Australia we idolise people who stand up for themselves. Even if they have had to murderer and steal to do it. It's something to do with our heritage, the fact that the nasty bad bad terrible and rottenly bad bad English transported so many of our ancestors from their homes - for political as well as juidicious reasons.

Of course we were all inmocent....

Ned Kelly's remains have long been one of the many missing parts of the story of the Kelly Gang. In September this year scientists used DNA to identify the skeletal remains. Now they want to put his skeleton - sans head - on display. Nice.

Kelly’s last words were “Such is life.”

When he was dead they shaved off his beard and made a plaster cast of his head.

Over the page break tere's a song I used to love. It's about the sergeant and three constables who went hunting Kelly, and met with unexpected resistance. I got out my flute today and recorded the melody line - but I can't get it to upload. Ugh. Lucky for you :)

Stringybark Creek

A sergeant and three constables set out from Mansfield town
Near the end of last October for to hunt the Kellys down;
They started for the Wombat hills and thought it quite a lark
When they camped upon the borders of a creek called Stringybark.

They had grub and ammunition there to last them many a week,
And next morning two of them rode out, all to explore the creek,
Leaving McIntyre, behind them at the camp to cook the grub
And Lonergan to sweep the floor and boss the washing tub.

It was shortly after breakfast Mac thought he heard a noise
So gun in hand he sallied out to try to find the cause,
But he never saw the Kellys planted safe behind a log
So he sauntered back to smoke and yarn and wire into the grog.

But Ned Kelly and his comrades thought they'd like a nearer look
For being short of grub they wished to interview the cook;
And of firearms and cartridges they found they had too few,
So they longed to grab the pistols and the ammunition too.

Both the troopers at a stump alone they were well pleased to see
Watching as the billies boiled to make their pints of tea;
There they joked and chatted gaily never thinking of alarms
Till they heard the fearful cry behind, 'Bail up, throw up your arms

The traps they started wildly and Mac then firmly stood
While Lonergan made tracks to try and gain the wood,
Reaching round for his revolver but, before he touched the stock
Ned Kelly pulled the trigger and he dropped him like a rock.

Then after searching McIntyre all through the camp they went
And cleared the guns and cartridges and pistols from the tent,
But brave Kelly muttered sadly as he loaded up his guns,
"Oh, what a bloody pity that the bastard tried to run."

PS: Heres a translation if you'd like it.

A 'lark' is not just a bird, but a fun time, a bit of an unserious occasion.
A 'stringybark' is a type of gum tree, that's bark peels off when the weather heats up and the tree has grown out of its 'skin'.
A "billy" is a can with a lid and a wire handle that you can hang over a fire and boil some water for your tea.
"Bail up" means stop what you are doing.
"Traps" is slang for police.

There's also a few more folksongs below, you might like, Thanks for looking ;)

The Devil's Organ, Art's Fairy Tail Houses, Carousel Horse

2011-10-08T14:51:00.000-07:00

Did I tell you I have four illustrated books on my hard drive? 3 are 3/4 finished. The other is finished, yet I have not sent it away.

I guess I like the making not the selling.

This is from one of those books. This is a room in a special place for all those people who look you in the eye while telling you a lie.

Well in style it's .... Goya meets Dante for lunch and ends up having breakfast with Breughel and Bosche. One of the devils in the background has a mask borrowed from one of Bosche or Breughel - I cannot remember.

It's for IF's Contraption. As you can see, the horned guy in front is 'playing' the choir on an organ that has no pipes.

Even though they are pulling faces I hope you didn't laugh. It's hard to sing while someone is poking your nether regions with a very hot iron rod.

The following pics are my attempt at being child fiendly. Err I mean "child friendly". The veins on the wooden carousel horse surprised me. Must have been a hot day. I love these things, just like a I love those lauging clowns. I always think they are alive.... in fact I think this horse is.

I used three different media.

Below we have a homage to my friend Art's Fairie Tail Tree Houses.

You can see the real ones here.

I hope you don't mind but I turned off the comments so you can get more of your own work done.

It's nearly summer here. The wild flowers are out. The starlings are back. I think I must be gone.

Thank you again for looking. If you would like to see the details please click for gib.... err I mean 'big'. Please don't pull their ears though.....

Oh, and here's some pics of me making frames last year in our house. You can see I get more paint on me than on the frames :). I'm lying under the table lining things up. The table is an old glass one - so you can see whether the painting is in the right place. The table is no longer with us. Soon after I received a commission for a big tryptich - and with the money bought a massive twelve seater job made of mango wood.

I like painting :) It's fun.

Lastly, if you are looking for a good, really reliable, horribly honest, remarkably handsome, incredibly expensive, yet wonderouslingling sane illustrator - then I'm your man.... (see below)

The Absence of Pain

2011-10-01T16:24:00.000-07:00

The first time I thought how pleasant it might be to extremum vitae spiritum edere was in 1994.

I was sitting at a set of traffic lights at the corner of Turton and Maitland Roads in the city of Newcastle. The lights were red, it was 10 past nine in the morning, I was heading off for work and I had on a starched white shirt, black pants, and a yellow ochre tie that my wife had made me.

The time of year was late winter, the morning sun was in the northern sky and beamed through the windscreen. The sun made me a little drowsy as I watched the traffic buzzing past.

The suggestion of the pleasantness of death, of non-being, crept up on me like a soft shadow. It started with a smell - the smell of fresh loamy dirt infused with the comforting aromas of rotting leaves.

One moment I was sitting in my car, the next I was transported to a grassy field. I lay in that field, sinking slowly into the ground, the blue sky dimmed slightly by the delicate tracery of the leaves that fell on my face and began to cover my eyes. The leaves were soft and diaphanous, they tickled my skin, and the skeletal lace patterns of their xylem and their phloem diffused the sunlight so that it was like a warm, gentle mist above my head.

In that moment I was hidden from the world - and at peace.

Welll... as the traffic lights went green I shook my head from side to side, jammed in the clutch and popped the gear into first. As I raced toward the next set of traffic lights I began to wonder what it all meant - this feeling of death, the comfort of non-existance.

Of course it soon became obvious. As humans we place order on chaos. We look for patterns. We seek to make meanings out of nonsense. We look for meaning in our life. And one of the ways we do this is by extremes of contrast.

Good and bad. Black and white. Consciousness and unconsciousness. Pleasure and pain. Sadness and happiness. Life and death. Self and other.
But perhaps there are no extremes - just graduations.

As Carl Jung writes: "The art of letting things happen, action through non-action, letting go of oneself ..... became for me the key that opens the door to the way."

Make of that what you will....

This image is for Illustration Friday's "Hibernate."

In keeping with the theme of contrasts, in some ways it shows the opposite to hibernation- in that the cherry tree is just coming to 'life'. The boy himself is in his own dream world. His consciousness is hibernating, while around him the world carries on - as an epihenomenon.

For him the world doesn't exist. He is fading into the rhealms of nihilism - and is looking for a way out.

I hope he finds it.

She loves me, she loves me not....

2011-09-28T20:10:00.000-07:00

When I had the epiphany I call 'the sadness of aging' I was 19 years old and it was 11 o'clock in the morning.

I was on the 309 bus ( a single decker painted blue) travelling from Botany to Kensington. In was in the mid seventies, in the days when people could still smoke on buses, the bus was crammed with grey and blue haired people in their sixties and seventies, there was a blue and orange add on the wall that announced VD is Catchy! and there was a hand lettered sign behind the driver that said "Do not speak to the driver whilst bus is in motion.".

As the bus chugged off from the bus stop and I took my seat I took a moment to examine my fellow travelers - the invisible people - and realised how old and uninteresting they all were.

As far as I was concerned, in my little 19 year old's head at least, the other people on the bus, as 'old' people, weren't real people, they were just cardboard cutouts, just caricatures.

The bus trip to uni was about forty minutes and often I would entertain myself by playing that game where you stare at the back of someone's head and try and get them to turn around by the mere power of your gaze (it works - just try it).... And, on this particular day, during this game, my eyes fell on a particularly fine looking woman, in her seventies, with sculptured cheekbones and porcelain skin and clear blue eyes - and the light glanced upon her face in such a way that, for a moment, she metamorphed into a much younger person.

In that moment of clarity I realised that she had once been young and beautiful.

And when I looked back at the other people in the bus, I understood, that if I looked very hard, I could see the young people hidden in their faces, that I could see the archetypes of youth, that I could almost recognise the people that I had been to school with, as if every generation has it's facial types that emerged in groups every twenty or thirty years ....

I first heard the expression 'invisible person' a few years ago from some friends of mine in their seventies. I heard it again a few weeks ago while watching an English detective show set in an old persons' home - so I am guessing that, as an expression, it has become endemic.

Basically the expression relates to how people become 'invisible' as they get older. I think we have all experienced it in one way or the other.

Interestingly as people age they can be invisible in a few different ways. They can be invisible because people of the opposite sex no longer relate to them in a hormonal sense. They can be invisible to advertisers who perceive that older people have not available income to spend. But more importantly, they can be invisible because they no longer appear to have anything to offer society.

For me I think I started entering the realm of the 'invisible' person about five years ago. It's hard to say really, because I seem to merge in and out of that realm on a daily basis. It's like there is flimsy wall there, not quite tactile, not quite translucent, that divides the two worlds that I stand in, and I can, with difficulty, step between one and the other, depending on what I am wearing, or whether I have had a hair cut, or whether I am in Paris, or my hair is blonde, or I am booking into an expensive flashy hotel, or walking through a shopping center dragging a plastic bag full of apples along the ground .....

So in a way, both these gentleman are me. They are almost brothers. Yet you can see that they have different characters. One is posing seriously for his photograph, the other refuses to take life lying down, to take anything seriously, in fact denies that he has become an invisible person, and in this denial, creates his own self fulfilling prophecy. I'll let you guess which is the real me.

So what's this have to do with Illustration Friday?

When I read the Illustration Friday prompt "Ferocious" my first thought was to do the lion tamer thing (i'm doing circus themed stuff still)... then I realised that "Ferocious" could be applied to so many things.

It could be an adjective for friendship, it could be an adjective for a cat - and it could be used to describe the Norwegian Death's Head man-eating-butterfly that spends the daytime hours hiding in the damp underleaves of the Norwegian Oespaghous Bushe, only to emerge just on twilight to descend on unwary travelers and rip off their heads with one fell bite while said travelers are looking in the other direction.

Hence the butterflies :)

Mesmerised

2011-09-17T21:11:00.000-07:00

This is a character from the first illustrated novel I did. And never sent away. That's alright. It was all practice.

So I resurrected him for this one and placed him near this river. He is mesmerised by his own reflection..... like The Dog and its Shadow - one of Aesop's Fables. Except this boy has no bone in his mouth - luckily. Boy, that was a hard pose to do. He had to hold it for about three hours.....;)

PS one of the scenes from the book - sort of fits in with the Mesmerised theme. Please click the images for big :D

Pushing Boundaries

2011-09-11T02:36:00.000-07:00

Just did a kind of refresher course with Jack Foster on Surrealism and with Linda Hensley on patterns and had my boundaries pushed. These images are the result. Thank you both :) Please click for big if you like.

PS had a great day at the gallery today. Will post review soon :)

Mysterious

2011-09-04T20:46:00.000-07:00

Below our house is an unofficial nudist's beach. Unofficial because sporadically the police come and bust everyone who is au naturale. They've done such a good job that no families go there any more - just 'unusual' men and gay men. Occasionally a young woman will brave the beach - but is quickly surrounded by men who invade her public private space - till she leaves.

How do I know this? Well every now and then I look out of our window.

But in the old days it was different.

One day in particular stands out in my mind. .... coming back from a surf with a friend of mine, it's a Summer Saturday, beautiful and warm, the beach is full of undraped bodies, when suddenly a weird change comes over the whole beach - as if the wind has dropped, the waves have gone silent and the birds have been frozen in mid wing stroke..

It took only a moment to realise what it was. You see, every man on the beach (except of course myself and my mate) stared open mouthed in one direction. They were staring at a beautiful woman who was heading down towards the water. She was about thirty feet away and fully clothed - in that she was wearing a figure hugging black bikini.

Even now, fifteen years later, it still strikes me as ironic - all those bare naked ladies draped all over the sand, yet the men on the beach staring at the one woman who had conjoured an air of mystery about herself - by hiding something from their eyes.

Of course there's no need to point out the moral.

But one of my favourite expressions is "The Joy is in the Anticipation."

The other is "Stop the Train I wanna get Off".

Thanks to everyone who well wished for our show and for the book. I appreciate it greatly.

Opening night was last Friday. On opening night 18 out of the 48 works that were for sale received new homes. I received 15 orders for my book - so I am delighted. Today we received a good write up with some photographs of the hanging. If we are lucky we might get reviewed next Saturday - finger's crossed on both hands.

As far as this post - when I read the Illustration Friday prompt "Mysterious" too many cliches ran through my head. So I decided to do something a little different and made these photographs. In amongst them is a "Shrine" that I made for our show. It has flashing lights and the antique clock chimes like a ship's bell. People think that I am weird.....

These photographs were inspired by Art is jokken.'s photo blog.

And also Sur L'Viro. Both worth a visit.

My apologies once again for not visiting. If all goes well I will be 'round Tuesday or Thursday to make sure you have all been working :)

Oh, if you click the pics you can see them bigger if you like. I guess that in a way they prove I am really flesh and blood - and not just some guy who sticks pics on a blog :)

A Book of Paintings

2011-08-18T20:10:00.000-07:00

Oh dear, sorry to be away so long.

I've been getting ready for our next show here in Newcastle (painting framing getting invites done blahblah :) ) and part of the preparations have been to get this book of my paintings organised.

It's 196 pages approx and I had to go through all my old computers and notes to track down images and find out who bought the paintings for the providence and the sizes and the.... so my brain is swollen :)

Just like Newcastle, the place where I do most of my paintings. Swollen in a bad way, we're busy pulling down our history so we can build as many apartment blocks as possible. But hey, that's progress.

Andrew Finnie: Newcastle Painter by Andrew Finnie |

And in a way, that's what the book is about. Recording the place as it once was, before the 'swell' of development overwhelmed the town.

I have no idea how it will print out as I'm still waiting for the 'galleys'. I'd be honoured if you have a look if you have the time. There's even some pics of my ugly head in it. I will photoshop someone else's head on for a later edition. I'll be catching up soon, promise.

I have designed it for people who collect my work here in Newcastle.

Below is a double page spread from the book (note the gutter you have to fiddle with the image at the gutter!) and some invites to the show.

thank you for looking :)

Teddy Obsession

2011-07-29T15:58:00.000-07:00

Thank you to everyone for your wonderful positive comments on my last post! I am afraid you have unleashed a monster.... :) And because you were so nice to me I won't even tell you about Teddy Roosevelt.

Of course, mood is sometimes all in the lighting - in this case the shadows - or lack there of .

Thanks for looking again :)

see ya, from Oz!

Ps: The next image is for my friend Karen Whitaker of Puddle of Crumbs who was looking for a hint of creepiness in the first few images - and couldn't find any. So I made one a bit creepier just for her. It's kind of self reflexive if you look at the picture on the wall. Karen and her husband have been very generous and kind to me. I'll tell you more about that soon. In the meantime, check out her art blog if you can and say hello!

PPS almost forgot to mention that the genesis of this image comes from two of Jessie Wilcox Smith's works - "The Land of Counterpane" and (edit) "Opening the Christmas Stocking" (images below:). Amazing artist she was....

The Perennial Gosling ...

2011-07-23T17:41:00.000-07:00

from: The New and complete American encyclopedia - 1808

A tenous connection? - so I should tell you about Chrysanthemum Super-

Bum. It's an excellent hardy perennial, quite cheeky but very robust when

planted behind the main bed, especially at the bottom of the garden....

This image is a homage to Jessica Wilcox Smith (see image below "Rain Rain Go Away")- one of the "Red Rose Girls". Thanks for looking .....again. See you in Oz. :)

The Death of the Lewd, Knotty-Spotted, Pinch-Pated Cripple!

2011-07-20T20:27:00.000-07:00

Warning: this post is politically incorrect.

Forsooth! Thou art a lewd knotty-pated rampallion!

Verily, ye be a prating, boil brained moldwarp!

Out damned fiend, thou paunchy mottle minded whipster!

Thou be a lumpish, evil-eye rabit-sucker!

Thou can'st not be but a mammering pinch-spotted rudesby!

-------------------------------------------

Ahh, have I finally lost it?

Naah, of course not.

Let's see, I was in the shower today , thinking about this image (I do all my best thinking in the shower - sometimes I even turn the water on). Specifically I asked myself just how I would describe this image in a letter to eg my imaginary agent in Paris (M. Ambroise Vollard of course) and decided the best way to describe it would be very quickly, in one long sentence, such as:

...... a boy with a pig head in a victorious pose clutches a rake in his left hand, while standing with one foot on the nether regions of a naked aging bald headed cripple who is scowling in pain (or indignity), the audience being a clutch of children about twelve years of age, all watching and gesturing in various degrees of puzzlement (except for one enigmatic figure who's face is in shadow) the whole group being umbrella sheltered from the snow and drizzling rain by an unseasonally blossoming cherry tree, the tree and the figures all placed against some type of Shakespearean medieval backdrop, the ground of which is wet cobble stones, and over on the right hand side of the stage, a twin of the cripple, his head and chest protruding from the top of a barrel, his crutch pointed accusingly at his struggling twin, and at the base of the barrel, a large light brown rodent sniffing the air and having the feeling that something is not quite right....

You see, all in one sentence!

Of course, in contemplating this image, I realised that it might seem a little odd to some people. For example, is the pig headed boy a metaphor? Is he the artist, and if so, who is the naked emasculated bald headed cripple? Is the whole thing a metaphor for the Death of Old Age? Is the artist attempting to stay young for ever? Is the rat, perhaps, his soul, sole confidente of his deepest, darkest unChristian thoughts?

Well, the short answer is 'no'.
To be truthful the image was made for Illustration Friday's "gesture' prompt.

Ahh the Shakespearean Insults were generated from this site's Insult Generator Machine (and tweaked a little :) )

Thanks for reading again. :)

Oh and my sincere apologies to all those people who eat popcorn in the cinema and read this blog. :) I was only having a small joke about the death penalty! In truth I am a dissembling plume plucked mammet as well as an artless tardy gated apple john! :)

But soft! What light through yonder window falls on my cuff-links?

2011-07-14T21:34:00.000-07:00

True confession:

At 9.15 this morning I was backing out of my driveway heading to work. At the same time I was struggling one handed to put on my new silver cuff links.

Stupidly I continued to struggle with the cuff links as I drove.

As I pulled out of my street into the streams of mid morning traffic, I had no choice but to change gears with my left knee - for my left hand clutched the steering wheel, while my right arm crossed over and under my left elbow, the forearm twisted inside out so I could see my right hand, cuff link clutched between thumb and forefinger, trying to line up all four holes in the left cuff and pierce them with the ridiculously blunt end of said cuff link.

By the first set of traffic lights, grim faced, I'd pierced only one hole, and was struggling with all the dexterity of a drunken entomologist making a bad attempt to artificially inseminate an angry male bee.

Fortunately at the second set of traffic lights things had changed.

Not only had I managed to get the cuff link stub through another two holes, but even better, I'd managed not to run up the behind of the grey haired lady driving the yellow 1978 Ford Cortina in front of me: a lady who kept jamming on her brakes every time a small bump in the road threatened to rip off her exhaust pipe. (Well I should really avoid the phrase "run up the behind of the grey haired lady" and say, instead "not to run up the behind of the Cortina"- but that's just semantics after all, and you never know, she may have enjoyed it....)

To cut a long story short, by the fourth set of traffic lights I'd managed to finish the job on my left cuff only by pulling over to the side of the road and turning the engine off.

You see, by then I'd had an epiphany - and realised that who so ever invented cuff links must have had either a butler or manservant - or had a job that required no regular and punctual attendance.

But why am I telling you this?

Because! Because, believe it or not, it's a blessing for you that I chose this shirt this morning. But I'll get to that in in a minute.

In the meantime, if you are wondering that I am some kind of cuff link fashionista - well I am not in the least. Incredibly, unlike most modern shirts, the shirt I am wearing today has no fail safe buttons at the cuffs.

In other words I had no choice but to wear the links.

To be utterly truthful, I didn't mind all that much. Over the last few years I have noticed that, whenever I wear cuff links, I am always treated with respect in the shops that matter.

For example, often, if I wear silver cuff links, I am served first in crowded sandwich shops - before all those hapless non cuff link wearing office workers.

Or as an even more important example, let me take (not in the biblical sense) the young girl who works in the newsagent in the next block. Particularly fecund (as DH Lawrence would put it) in that she has several children to several men, on a daily basis, as I stand at the counter, this girl keeps her back turned to me, vigorously chews her pink bubble gum and adjusts the band of her thong underpants (through her dress), until I tap my gold coin on the glass counter to get her attention. (PS to self: must fix this paragraph - she does not have children on a daily basis to several men!)

But when I wear cuff links... quelle difference! This girl actually grunts in greeting as I enter her shop (okay I admit it could be a case of 'wind', or as the French call it, perhaps she is "playing a poor man's piano" at fortissimo.)

Ahh, the glamour of cuff links.

The cuff links, like the shirt, were a blessing today - I knew I needed some story to fill up the black spaces between these images (they are of a dwarf called Eric who is threatening to leave his Caranavista Shakespearean Troupe in a hissy fit..... and they in their turn are entreating him to stay). And before the cuff link episode I had two themes in mind - fortunately neither of them had anything to do with cuff links.

The first theme was to tell you how I think the death penalty should be enforced for people who go to the cinema and eat popcorn while watching the movie - or, in fact, eat any other crunch food that should be classified as an instrument belonging to the percussion section of a large orchestra.

It's a pet hate of mine to be watching (eg) "Mr Pooper and his Penguins", and to be suddenly aurally assailed (from behind usually), in the midst of the movie's most salubrious romantic scene, by the noise of someone's wide open mouth crunching popcorn.

So that was going to be theme numero uno:

But in retrospect, I realised making fun of cinematic popcorn chewers would be unkind - as I understand that many people the world are unable to go for over eighty minutes at a time without food (poor things). Of course it's well known that there is some delightfully esoteric and abdominally erotic subliminal urge evoked by sitting in a dark room full of strangers trying to watch a movie - and we need to feel sorry for those underprivileged cinema goers who give into their cravings.

My second choice of theme was to tell you about Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem "In Memoriam".

As you know, it's that big cantankerous poem full of Darwinian interludes and suggestions of homophilia that Queen Victoria adopted as her own after the death of her consort, Prince Albert.

It has such wonderous lines as:

I hold it true, whate'er befall;

I feel it when I sorrow most;

'Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

Of course, in retrospect, I realised that the relationship between cuff links, pop corn and a famous Tennyson poems is so obvious that it needs no elaboration.

So.... rather than belabour such an obvious point, I will leave you instead, with another Shakespearean quote, this one from Romeo and Juliet, in an attempt to create 'resonance'.

Footnote: you will be interested to know that the word 'stay' appears 42 times in this play, in various guises and, is, coincidentally, the Illustration Friday word of the week.

Quelle surprise! :)

Thank you for reading and thankyou for looking. I think this will be my 200th post ..... :)

Oh dear, I almost forgot the 'resonance'!

But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?

It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon

Who is already sick and pale with grief

Midsummer Night's Dream

2011-06-26T16:57:00.000-07:00

"I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,

Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,

Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,

With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:"

Oberon: Midsummer Night's Dream (W.Shakespeare: Circa 1595)

Do you know 'resonance'?

When I was a kid I had a book entitled "Tales from Shakespeare" by Charles and Mary Lamb. On the cover it had a picture of this strange creature which seemed to be half man half donkey. Later I found out it 'were' Nick Bottom, a character from "Midsummer Night's Dream." At about the same time I discovered that Bottom wasn't a donkey at all. In fact, in keeping with his name, he was an 'ass'.

So what's that have to do with 'resonance'?

Well, to be perfectly honest, all and nothing.

Shakespeare is wonderful for 'resonance'. You can immediately make a book appear to be more important by putting a Shakespearean quote in the frontispiece. It could be a book about cooking chooks, or a book on how to raise a two year old child with one leg longer than the other.

All the world's a stage,

and all the men and women merely players:

they have their exits and their entrances;

but the boy with one leg longer than the other,

he doth walk round and round:

Loves Labours Lost (W.Shakespeare (Act V, Scene II).

Regardless of the subject, including a Shakespearean quote will lift that book to another plane. Even if you have to make the quote up yourself :)

And that's what resonance is all about.

Before I stop blahing, I need to tell you about another "Resonance by Association." Did you know that I rub shoulders with some wonderously talented people?

Yep! My friend Jack Foster has another book out. The man never sleeps. He's even set up a portfolio site with a list of his creations. About time.

And then there's Amalia K. She just let slip about a few new books she'd forgoten about! What a memory eh? If I had those books out I'd be walking up and down the street shouting. You can see some of her influence in the little girl in this image.

And I shouldn't leave out Mita, whose list of books I discovered accidently while waiting for a bus the other day. The web address was written on the side of the bus shelter. Can you believe that?

These three talented artists are really really starting to annoy me. :)

But not as much as Linda Hensley whose latest work has me feeling itchy. :)

The Day Father Georgus Oppenheimer Discovered the Parchment Aeroplane

2011-06-20T04:03:00.000-07:00

Dies Abbas George primoris folded a piece of membrana down medius quod threw is in aer, eram a valde dies pro mankind. Is eram , vero , nocens pro suus umerus humerus.

The day Brother George first folded a piece of pointy parchment down the middle and threw it in the air was indeed a great day for mankind. It did, however, give him a sore shoulder after a while.

Suus matris wore exercitus tabernus , praeter ut is pluvia tunc is wore rutilus galoshes. Suus frater Francisca quoque eram insolitus. Francisca amo lambo via per suus lingua , singulariter ut is eram fervens satis pro tar tabesco.

Brother George came from a family of geniuses. For example: his mother wore army boots, but when it rained she wore bright red galoshes. His brother Frankis also was unusual. Frankis loved to lick the road with his tongue, especially on days when it was hot enough to melt the tar. He loved the taste of ashfelt - it helped to think.

Unus dies a liitle puer nomen Roger venit in urbs. Frater George no Roger tondeo suus caput capitis , quoniam Roger had licentia. Is had quoque had a nocens theca of foetidus feet quod haud perficio could redintegro.

One day a little boy named Roger came into town. Brother George took Roger under his arm - though the little boy had head lice. There was another problem in that the boy had very bad smelling feet that even the best perfume could not fix.

Eventually Frater George subpono super Roger's foetidus feet quod they quoniam bonus amicitia. Tunc miserabile abbatis evestigatus suum amicitia quod had George prehendo.

But Brother George was a Saint and eventually grew used to the boy's feet and they became good friends. Then the local Abbot discovered this and became jealous. He had Brother George arrested.

Is eram a tristis dies pro mankind ut dies. tunc dies they reperio Illustration Friday , ut Andrew could planto pictures quod write lacuna in Latin ut no haud voluntas.

While Brother George was in prison mankind invented Illustration Friday - as a reward for him inventing the 'parchment aeroplane'. It became a win win situation, especially for Andrew, who could now pretend he knew how to write Latin, and insert silly sentences between his images.

Insquequo is venit ut permaneo picture. Is picture est idem eadem idem scaena ut supremus , tamen sulum has dies in vomica , salvifico bovis anf egredior quisnam eloped quod had septem liberi.

Luckily Andrew ran out of pictures and could give the Google translator a rest. The Google translator is very good for French, but at Latin translation it sucks.

Gratias ago vos pro lectio. Vos have valde nice magnus noses quod EGO sum umquam memor.

He would like to thank you for looking at his work. His nose has grown longer in the making of this post and he would like to apologise to Roberto, Linda, Karen and Rossicheeka :)

Gee, I've had to start using google chrome as Explorer won't let me comment on blogger!

Swept Away

2011-06-11T22:14:00.000-07:00

"And so this loverboy found him a flamingo
and this flamingo showed him how to tango
and
when they tangoed it would send
their hearts a flutter, tease him 'till he stutterd
made him so young and tender
sweet to surrender,
was so young and tender,
sweet to surrender,
was so young and tender......"

Well if you've been listening to this blog for a while, or just hung around the wrong types of cafes and pubs in the seventies, you'd know that those words belong to Tim Buckley's "Sweet Surrender".

Now I always thought that the words were "Sweet is Surrender".

And if you are a human being and not some google gahgah robot, then you'll recognise that sometimes Surrender is truly Sweet.

That feeling...... that feeling of relief when you finally give into temptation, that feeling of sublime de-stressing when you mimic Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden; that feeling of elation as you step over the imaginary line and sail off into the abyss ....

That feeling of flashing your ankle on public transport, of giving into the temptation of chocolate, of opening that second bottle of expensive wine, or that feeling of forbidden carnal temptation involving leather, feather dusters and Elvis Presley records ....

Ahh Elvis.... :)

And so, I guess I should have warned you that this post is about the little girl named Mildred who gives into temptation in Hans Christian Andersen's "The Red Shoes" - and loses her feet to the King's Execitioner for her trouble.

Of course Andersen, as a writer for children, doesn't dwell on the amputation.

Instead he dwells on both the epiphany and Christian theme that runs through the story - the epiphany being for both Mildred and the reader; the theme being that once the little girl truly repents her sins (her sins were that she tricked a little old lady and wore Red shoes to church) she is allowed back into the body of the church, and hence, metaphorically, the Kindom Of Heaven - where all little girls named Mildred belong.

Thank goodness Andersen didn't dwell on the amputation. That meant I could do it.

If you hadn't guessed this is my image for Illustration Fridays 'swept'. In Andersen's tale of divine retribution and redemption, the little girl is literally 'swept' along by the red shoes, and then literally 'swept' off her feet by the king's executioner.

Well, maybe that should read "her feet are swept off by the king's executioner...."

I like Hans Christian Andersen. Not only was he a deft hand with a pair of scissors (see his cutouts), but he had a metaphorical axe the size of a ..... er an axe!

Thank you so much to everyone who wished me well in the book exhibition. Yesterday was the opening. There were tons of people, there were some amazing works by a multitude of artists that I felt proud to be showing with.

And I was lucky enough to be given an entire room for my work :) How cool is that! After it leaves Newcastle the exhibition will be going to Mackay in Queensland and thence, if things go well, to Tasmania.

Yippee! :)

Oh here is the child 'friendly' version - except Mildred looks like a vampire! I went for the colour 'bleed' look from the fifties :). Blood, pig, ravens are for special people.

PS the l ittle girl's name wasn't "Mildred"..... it was Karen, but my friend Karen Whitaker, the fabulous artist, doesn't deserve to have her feet chopped off. ")

She does however, have a fine set of toasters on her blog at the moment which are well worth a gander :)

see you!

Hand Made Shadows

2011-06-09T03:46:00.000-07:00

"What shadows doth hide in the souls of human kind?"

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Well a last year I bought a Dell Laser Colour printer. When it arrived it was so heavy it came on a wooden pallette. It took two of us to loft it out of my ute and it sits in the middle of our home office, a black monolith the size of an old fashioned poof. And we all know how big an old fashioned poof is, don't we?

Well, I kept the pallett cause it was kind of interesting, and I knew that in the next one hundred and fifty years it would come in handy for something or other. And so, the other day, when I had finally finished the last kilometre of my folding book I was making for the show that opens next Saturday, I realised it need a box.

And not just any box. It had to be old and patinated and gothic and bashed around (a lot like me bar the gothic). And so I realised that it would be a great irony if I made a box from the pallette that had supported the printer that I had printed the pages for my book from. And so the idea for this box was born.

The box is kind of handy actually. The book sits in it and the pages fold out of it. Kinda weird, but it adds presence to the procedings of the reading. And it was fun making the covers cause I didn't have a clue what I was doing. And I ended up making packers to sit around the pages to stop the book innards sliding around and breaking when the book is in the box.

Accordion books are great fun because the folding structure can go anyway you like. It can go sideways, or up or down, and y ou can stick pages in the middle of the accordion structure as if they are pages of an ordinary book. And you can have big spreads of three or four pages that all go to make one big image. That's if you are inclined.

That image above on the left, well that's the witch in the story, the one that get's burnt in the oven. Well you pull the red thing and she pops out of the burning oven. Heh.

There's also a few pages of writing in the front of the book as an introduction. That's there to make you think I am smart :) I am not sure if that ruse woked though... (see pic below)

And did I tell you I made a Blurb book as well?. So I have made an Artist's Limited Edition of 100 and they will be on exhibition at the gallery. I had some critique on this one that was extremely valuable - so thank you to those artists for their advice - you know who you are!

And lastly I made this book cover for a book which will be feautured at the show called Cape Grimm by Carmel Bird. You'll probably recognise it from a few posts ago.

Thank you for looking. I'll be visiting tomorrow :) Watch out! Heh.

If you go out in the woods today ......

2011-06-01T15:04:00.000-07:00

Well if you have been kind enough to look at my work in the past you might find a few archetypes popping up. There's elves and cats and ravens and butterflies, little girls and little boys and witches and dwarves and dragons and.... hold on, I just mentioned a whole kit and kaboodle of things that weren't archetypes.

Let me start again.

It's a well known fact that in every fully grown man there is a little boy just trying to 'scape. It's also well known that we 'fully grown' men supress the inner boy so that we can look tough and strong and manly.

If we don't look tough and strong and manly then 'bad things' will happen to us. On the beach we might have sand kicked in our faces, on the street we might get mugged, and in restaurants we might be given kitsch ... or, worse still, even quiche.

So this is me of course. I am slightly different. The skull is the fully grown man that the little boy is supressing. :)

But seriously, this image is an experiment for me. The second last image is a photograph that I used as the base for the work. It's somethig I have never done before. It felt like cheating but it was a wonderful exercise in camoflage. The last image is part of the wip.

Thank you for looking, thank you to everyone who commented on my last work and also thank you to everyone who visited Bob and The Siggy from my last post! I hoped you enjoyed visiting their work.

See you! :)

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

2011-05-28T17:32:00.000-07:00

AWAKE! for Morning in the Bowl of Night

Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:

And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught

The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.

Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky
I heard a voice within the Tavern cry,
"Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup
Before Life's Liquor in its Cup be dry."

And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted -- "Open then the Door!
You know how little while we have to stay,
And, once departed, may return no more."

(Fitzgerald Translation)

Did I ever tell you about my friends Bob and Siggy? I had the honour of having Bob as my painting teacher at college for four years.

Bob and Siggy are artists.

Artists in that they are both amazing painters. Siggy has just been in shows in New York and Tuscany. She starts painting in her studio at 8 am and finishes at 2 am. Every day. She paints large paintings that seeth with her own personal iconography. Her icons, mysterious and animalistic, are to her paintings like the aphabet is to a writer.

Bob on the other hand is a draughtsman like no other. His pen and ink work is wonderous, his water colours are .... are ... ahh how do you describe a watercolour that in one passage has all the resilient glow and beauty of the best of traditional water colour then suddenly slides off the paper into an abstract swirl of Turneresque etherealness.... Think Modigliani meets the fauvista Andre Deran. But better.

It's silly trying to describe paintings eh? Maybe I should just say that the Queen of England has the good taste to have one of Bob's paintings in one of her palaces.

So what's this have to with the Rubaiyat?

Driving along the beach drive, on the way to dinner the other night, my friend Bob looks up at the night sky and sprouts the first verse of the Rubaiyat. Well how beautiful are those words eh? And I had never heard them spoken aloud. I, supposedly an educated man! Obviously I am not.

I was astounded. Speak that first verse aloud the next time you see the first star in the twilight sky and you'll see what I mean.

Though I did not deserve the honour, I'm proud to say that I was in a show with Bob and Siggy a few years ago. You can see some of my paintings from the show here if you ever wondered what my traditional landscapes look like. There's some reviews at the bottom of this post.

I don't get a chance to brag much :) But as the next stanza suggests, life's short. Thank you for reading!

Whether at Naishapur or Babylon,

Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run,

The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop,

The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.

Soaking off Grim Island

2011-05-26T20:35:00.000-07:00

Caption: Top image: 'final image', second image 'halfway through post work', bottom image: 'pure render image w ithout post work'

Okay, sorry to be away so long: Ugh.

Without further ado I'd like to state that my real reason for being away from my blog is:

a) I fell overboard (port side) from my yacht 'Reginaldus Rogerina.III" and was eaten by a baby Blue Ringed Humpback whale who mistook me for a giant cooked prawn (I was sunburnt). I was only released after eight non stop hours of singing Barry Manilow songs at the top of my voice.

b) I've been holding my breath taking part in the World Breath Holding Championships off Tahiti and came second with a time of eight hours, seven minutes and twelve point 2 seconds. Part of my prize was to act as a human bean bag at the following week's Sudoku wrestling championships.

c) I had my finger stuck in the tap and couldn't get it out till the local green grocer got in a supply of Aldo Moro Cold Pressed First Virgin Olive Oil from Mt Ararat..

d) I was kidnapped by some sardine eating Tasmanian terrorists wearing black pantyhose on their heads (the kind with the sexy zipper seam at the back of the leg).

e) I have been making a book that I actually finished.

f) I was mistaken for Barak Obama and locked away on a desert island by a bunch of deprived and depraved echidnas looking for a fun time and the answer to the riddle of the Spinx: ("What goes on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three legs in the evening?")

g) I was arrested for misspelling both 'handkerchief and 'miscellaneous' in one sentence. (The old fat man sat on the small thin boy to make sure that he couldn't escape with the pale green handkerchief and the other miscellaneous frippery.)

h) all of the above.

Sorry, that's enough miscellaneous frippery for one post.....

To be honest I was lucky enough to be included in an Artists's Book Exhibition which opens on 11th June here in Newcastle. You can see part of my work here. It's about Fairy Tales in the modern world with specific emphasis on feminine stuff that I don't understand ....

Just kidding. To quote from the official site:

An exhibition of artists’ books at the John Paynter Gallery, Friday 10th – Sunday 26th June 2011, and Artspace Mackay, Friday 22nd July- Friday 28th October 2011, curated by Caelli Jo Booker and Helen Hopcroft.

The exhibition is conceived as an interdisciplinary collaboration between artists, writers and craftspeople invited to work together to create handmade books which explore female narratives within the fairytale genre.

While the classic fairytale ending ‘happily ever after’ envisages a single, finite destiny, the contemporary feminine experience encompasses a multiplicity of roles, expectations, endings, beginnings and relationships. Thus the exhibition theme is probably best conceptualised as a celebration of diversity within destiny, with the fairytale genre used as the narrative vehicle to explore this idea.

I started work on the book two months ago. It's an accordion folding book. And it's now longer than my living room (about twenty metres plus). I've also adapted it for the Blurb format and it's come out at 74 pages...... I never know when to stop.

But one of the items in the show is to illustrate a specific scene in a book named Cape Grimm.

So the top image illustrates a moment where the "Holocaust Preacher is Taken by Giant Squid."

I made it this morning in between scrubbing the kitchen and ironing my shirt for work - so it needs some fine tuning especially round the thighs/legs where they are vanishing into the darkness.

The other scattered images are part of the finished work. With thanks to some of my friends. You know who you are! :)

Thanks again for looking at my work and your patience with me.

Cinquième leçon: Où est le cochon?

2011-05-01T16:24:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid at school, for some unearthly reason, I signed up to study French for four years.

For Australian school boys with strong Ocker accents in the 70's, studying French was an 'interesting' experience - to say the least.

Without French movies available on television, and having no 'real' French people to emulate, none of us had any idea what a French person was supposed to sound like - and so, instead of practicing rolling our 'r's we spent most of our French class time drawing surfboards - de planches de surf.

Consequently, at the end of four years study, we weren't exactly fluent. I guess the best way to sum up our 'intimidating' grasp of French is to describe our French teacher's face as he listened to our final Oral exams.

Our French teacher's name was Mr Pierre d'Gorgonzola. He was a Francophile genetically and emotionally. He believed in whistling La Marseillaise while walking both up an down the school corriodors, while doing playground duties and, I have heard from a good source, while visting the rest room with a certain Miss Gerdenhymen.

Apart from his musical tastes and a box shaped head of Asterxyian red hair, Mr d'Gorgonzola possessed a robust French nose.

And what a nose! Even to an Anglophile like myself, it was a magnificent nose (un nez magnifique!). It was a nose that had all the jutting pride of the Eiffel Tower, the phallic elegance of the Concorde jet, and the curves of a Renoir nude - curved as it was in the exact contour of the interior of a glass of Châteauneuf-du-Pape (Shat-toe-newf-de pahp - go on, say it.)

Even with that Nez Magnifique decorating his la tête en forme de boîte, to recall his facial expressions as he listened to our final examinations, causes me shame even now.

The day of our oral French exams was a lovely spring day. They were held at exactly two in the afternoon; the wind was blowing westerly giving us a clear blue sky. The soft sunlight came through the big bank of windows on the Eastern wall of the classroom and lit up fairy rings of chalk dust that climbed the light shafts.

There were 36 boys in my class.

In alphabetical order, starting with Alan Appleby, (who had a small tic in his right eye when he was nervous) we each stood and read our chosen passage en français..

Even with his tic, Appelby wasn't too bad. But Appleby's accent wasn't quite right, and as he listened, d'Gorgonzola stuck his chin firmly against his bright pink Paisley tie - as if he were trying not to burst out laughing. When Appelby was finished d'Gorgonzola blew a raspberry of relief through his rubbery lips and said:

'Pas mal. Qui est le prochain? Faites vite!"

The next boy was Brian Atticuscolarus - a fat Greek kid with a lisp. We called Brian, 'Brain' - because he wasn't. 'Brain', as expected, waded through his French passage with all the grace of a deaf, one legged man with Parkinson's disease doing a three quarter waltz.

I think with 'Brain', Mr d'Gorgonzola, began to show the first signs of strain.

To give him credit, d'Gorgonzola twisted his chin toward his shoulder, and attempted to leave it there. But was ultimately unsuccesful, and a small giggle escaped his lips, and he had to cover his mouth with his hand.

With each boy, the readings grew worse, and d'Gorgonzola lost his giggle and started to gnaw on the end of his Bic biro (le Bic). With some readings a few students laughed aloud.

Thankfully d'Gorgonzola had his eyes squeezed shut when we got to the 'F's. So when it came to my turn I didn't get to see his look of disbelief.

Now let me say, as an aside, that most of the boys in my class were, err..... slightly 'abnormal'. Looking back on my school days I think I can sat that with all honesty.

Abnormal, that is, apart from myself of course.

Yet it was still with some trepidation that I stood and grasped my foolscap sized morceau de papier. In fact I didn't do too badlly for the first few sentences - which were about the rabid mating habits of the southern albino wombat (vombatus ursinis albinonus fornicatus).

But then I felt a slight weight on my right cheek and realised that my ocular prosthesis had started to droop a little. I began to worry it might fall on the desk and roll under Applethwait's chair - as it had the previous summer. It always happened when I held my head at an angle, and I should have known better. Of course I'd like to blame Oscar, my prosthetist, but he had warned me not to overdo it.

Be that as it may, I had to stop reading for a moment to poke the thing back into its socket. And as I did, d'Gorgonzola's own eyes sprang open. He took one look at what I was doing, his face paled so that he looked as though me might faire de grande vomit and he said: Oh asseyez-vous Finnie!

And so I did, vowing to wear an eye patch with a picture of the Queen stuck on it if I ever managed to sit another French oral exam.

Things grew worse before they grew better. At boy number 19, Beaux Bingstorphett, whose entire front row of teeth had been knocked out in a fight the week before, d'Gorgonzola's nose begain to quiver, and his pained eyes dropped to the long list of students on the table before him.

But relief was a long way away, and as we approached the last ten students of the class - coincidently those with the most horrible French accents- d'Gorgonzolas eyes grew wider and wider, till they were those of a man being forced to listen to a a cat's entrails being turned into violin strings - while they were still attached to the original cat.

And, without one word of a lie, that face is the d'Gorgonzola face that has stuck with me to this very day.

Okay, okay, well that's my confession for the day. But to be utterly truthful, I must say that French, in some ways, has stood me in good stead over my adult life.

When, for example, I am visiting my beloved dentist, I often mentally block the view up his gros nez by reciteing simple French. It's a type of meditation without having to say 'ohhmmmm' - that being impossible with another mans fist and forearm shoved all the way down your throat.

My meditative recitals go something like this:

Où sont les livres de l'enfant?

Les livres de l'enfant sont sur la table.

Where are the books of the boy?

The books of the boy are on the table.

Où est la fille de l'actrice?

Elle est derrière l'église avec les trois fils du boulanger.

Where is the daughter of the actrice?

She is behind the church with the three sons of the baker.

Les cinq vaches noires sont dans la chambre à coucher avec la femme du dentiste.

Mais où est M le dentiste?

Le dentiste est écrit au tableau au cours des près de la fenêtre près du livre de l'enfant sous la table.

The five black cows are in the bedroom with the wife of the dentist.

But where is the dentist?

The dentist is writing on the blackboard over the near the window near the book of the boy under the table.

Je voudrais une table pour deux s'il vous plaît. Avec une salle de bain privée.

Combien de présidents souhaitez-vous dans votre salle de bain privée?

Trois s'il vous plaît.

I would like a table for two please. With a private bathroom.

How many presidents do you want in your bathroom?

Three please.

Oh, about the images?

Ahh you see, once upon a time there were three adventurers - all childhood freinds. The names of the adventurers were Hansel and Gretel and Brian.

One day they came to a huge old gate, with fancy gold lettering on the gate posts that said "Enter at Your Own Risk."

Brian, being brave, yet stupid, didn't take any notice of the signs.

When Hansel and Gretel had caught up (they had had a restroom stop) it was too late. For poor Brian had opened the gate and been immediately turned into a pig.

He is a pig, even to this day. He is very popular for doing talking pig commercials on daytime television.

I guess there is a lesson there.

Thank you for looking. The French is courtesy of google gahgah. So don't blame me if you go to France and ask for a bathroom with three Presidents in it and they give you a bathroom with only one. :)

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