Teddy Obsession

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....

Swept Away

"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

"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.

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

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

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! :)

Peace Dudes! A few Chrissie cards from down under.

Oh I've been quite again. Hard at work,- looking for a quote that means something like - blessed are those that give.

Or it's better to give than to receive.

Or the giver is always better off than the getter. 

Something like that.

Well why a quote on being blessed?

Well this year I've been blessed with not only a lot of well wishing comments, but also with a few beautiful gifts from fellow bloggers.

The first was a small Nuttish masterpiece that arrived one sunny afternoon from the beautiful Ces. A nut it was. And though, when I say the word 'nut' I might hear some twitters in the back row (people even smile when I say 'Nutcracker' for some reason. And even when I say Nussknacker)..... Everyday  I stare at that work with envy. I have it hanging above my work space to remind me to try harder.

And then, blessing on blessing,  the wonderfully talented Janne from Norway sent me a wonderous sketch book that wreaks of beauty and the essence of hand made. I'll post a picture of it in the New Year. At the moment I am staring at it's vestal beauty, shaking at the knees as I contemplate scarring it with my clumsy drawings.

And ... even as we speak I believe a small parcel is whipping it's way from Argentina - from the Marvelous Don Roberto esq. And boy I am looking forward to that one.... :) The joy is in the anticipation I always say but I think the joy will also be after the anticipation.

And lastly but not leastly recently I have connived and cunningly won my way through a riddling contest to take first place over at the amazingly insightful Pásztohy Lili at the World According to Lili. Yippee!!!!!

So I'd like to thankyou all for your kindness. I really am blessed.

Not like these little rick-shaw boys.

These are some of the Christmas Cards (and details of such) I've come up with this week. One I did for my wife's work. Another for a good friend whose skull I do intend to return. (Not Yorik). Stupidly I've spent so much time  making them that I ran out of time to send them.

And of course Chrissie wouldn't be complete without John Lennon to remind us our how our lives are slipping past so quickly. I got a bit carried away with those - sorry about that - my tongue was stuck in my cheek for a while. Those images are mainly at the bottom. (If you are wondering what happened to Yoko... well, Michael Jackson made a guest apparence that day. He was a little stiff but I made the best of him.)

Oh nearly I forgot to mention Illustration Friday's topic "Mail." For that at first I was tempted to do Meg Ryan's orgasm scene in "You've got Mail."

Then I realised that was actually in "When Harry Met Sally." How dissappointed was I? (Just kidding)

Anyhow, I'll have whatever she's having, thankyou.
I'm sorry I haven't been to many blogs. I'm snowed under at the moment.

A very very very Merry Christmas to yourselves and your families.

So this is Christmas

And what have you done?

Another year over

And a new one just begun.

And so this is Christmas

I hope you have fun

The near and the dear one

The old and the young

                                 John Lennon.

Okay I needed a little play with those last ones :) Sorry about that. I was a hippy once myself. Then my mum caught me and made me take her wig off. It was hot anyway and made my scalp itch.