Recent drawings

I drew these while we were driving to Cagayan from Malaybalay - a cool mountain road. I was trying to draw continuously, drawing the things I saw along or on the road on the same page, as it came. It was fun and fast!





These three are trial illustrations for a book (about missionary member care) that the authour talked to me about drawing for. They'll probably get a lot better after I've drawn in this sort of style for a while. In order, there's someone getting a shock (don't really like this one), someone being suspicious, and someone being overloaded (I like this one).





This is a small doodle I drew June last year. I really liked how it looked so I tried to draw something similar yesterday.


1st try: This was without reference to the original. I don't like much about it except the how the hairstyle looks (however impossible it may be :)


2nd try: This drawing has its flaws (the mouth, which I like by itself, is a bit too low down; the eye looks nice and clear but a bit too slanted) but I like it much better.

Kaamulan drawings

'The Filipino throws himself into group activities with great enthusiasm.' was going to be the catchy title but its just a cartoon and therefore needs no title, right?

In the parade a few weeks ago the male dancers, every now and then, would do this huge shout-and-dash sequence which was actually very cool.



Later, but before i had looked at my photos, I tried to do a small pencil drawing of one of the female dancers. This is the sequence. My drawing of people is fairly random - it usually starts with an eye or two and works down from there.





Interesting how different she looks with her eyes fully drawn!

There's some major problems with her pose and costume, but it was never really meant to be a 'good' drawing... its purpose was more ejust to capture the feel and general ambiennce that I remembered from some of the girls.

More Kaamulan pics

check out the dude in the front's hair!! What I love about Filipino festivals is mostly their huge vibrancy and sense of easy-going effevencence. Which, yes i realise it, is a bit of an oxymoron. Sort of.





The main reason i have photos of Kaamulan posted is because I'm using it either fully or partly as my inspiration for my Body of Work. Hopefully I can pull off a narrative/illustrative type work based on it and perhaps the theme of 'journeys'.

Kaamulan

Finally get to write here again!!!

Anyway, a few weeks ago we were in town (ie a non-jungle place) and watched a festival. It's called Kaamulan and is based on the tribal cultures of Mindanao. I thought the parade was fantastic!One of my favourite parts of the street dancing was the dummers. This kid here was directing the ladies on traditional drums. Others were mostly on top of large floats. They were so enthusiastic that the floats would be bouncing up and down in time to the drumming!These kids were so cute!!
The whole festival is so brilliantly Filipino - tribal and town culture seemed to compliment eachother well.

Postmodernism

This has been a slow few weeks for me art-wise. Which is not good, because now I should be getting inspired and getting started on my Body of Work, one of the single most important things in this year.

1. I'm either NOT very inspired, or too inspired about anything and everything to focus.
2. I'm NOT getting started because I'm not getting enough time to get into it.

Why on earth do we have any subjects besides art? (just kidding!) I know it won't take too long before i start getting back into my art-zone. Hopefully.

Photos

Pictures of my brother's treehouse.

The walkway to my Dad's office - I love the repetition of the boards

A closeup of the bottom of a hedge.
There is a sense of motion and mystery that i didn't exactly intend!

These are some ideas and experiments with photography I've tried recently. For my BOW.

Yes, BOW!! Body Of Work, or major artwork I have to develop and hand in by the end of next year!

Drawings Backlog!

These three from my sketchbook were done some time in November. I thought I should put them up, however!
My point? God's children don't all wear floral dresses and floppy hats! I'm trying to go outside the stereotypical little white girls with halos and gowns and songbooks and all that stuff (not saying it's bad!); to rethink the angel theme.

These are both on paper, with watercolours and fine line pen.Lastly, I couldn't resist posting this one! I call her.... FeatherHead!
I got the idea from a postcard of feathers for hair. This particular drawing isn't finished yet (and i couldn't guarantee that it ever will be!) and is pencil, fine liner, and watercolour pencils.

Phoenix

Finally get to put something I've done on! This is exciting.

The other day my brother was using wood paint on paper (yeah...) but he made some paint with a nice shade of orange, and because I liked the consistency, he gave it to me. I had no brilliant ideas for using it, so I just brushed it on to canvas.

This is something I love happening - when I think of something I haven't done before in art and can reasonably do it.

After a day or so when it had dried, I got an idea relating to the mythical Phoenix. (More about this later!) So I did it and it lead onto a few other ideas.


The ideas behind this are:

• A rebirth of ideas and concepts - such as cyclical movements in Art, or of Art movements or concepts coming 'back into fashion'.
  
• The changes that art as a practice and as a form of communication goes through.
• That relics of long-past ages can still be meaningful for us today.
• The sacrifices and pain that sometimes must be endured for art to 'speak'.
  

Before long I'm sure I'll have some properly written, artistic-sounding concepts thought of, but these here are just the basic ones that I thought of as I worked.



Some small experiments on canvas with ink. Another happy accident - finding out that the normal fineliner-ink I used bled beautifully!


Canvas, with ink, and eyeshadow for colour. I think the eyeshadow covered up too much of the detail, but that's how you learn!

I decided the Phoenix should have two pairs of wings, to make it a bit different. I'm really pleased with the way the wings don't seem to hold any weight, how they seem to float viciously along behind the Phoenix.



That first experimental drawing led me on to do another one in a slightly different technique. Just ink this time, and i bled it sooner rather than later, and took a less structured approach.


Fine liner on paper. Originally I'd planned to do this in pencil, and be very realistic and careful with it, but I think a more spontaneous look is better. The ink is much better for this than pencil would have been, I think. The idea is that... no, I won't give away all my secrets yet - I've heard it's far better to let people to make their own interpretations of art, rather than just tell them!

I like the imagery of the Phoenix - its power and the story behind it.

This blog needs a bit more of an introduction!

If you want to find out about me, look in my profile, or try to figure it out for yourself through all my brilliant future posts.

One basic thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is that I live in the jungle. Yes, I'm an Aussie student. Yes, I live in the Philippines, yes, in the jungle. And yes, it is cool.

The purpose of this blog is to act as an online art diary, combination jungle diary. It may turn out that I'll make art about the jungle... in that case we could all go home quicker, and read less of my disjointed writing.

Some of the art i do this and next year will be working towards my major Body-of-Work (argghh! deadline only 1 year away!! oh no...), but some of it will be non-study works.

• My favourite media is, well, mixed media.
• My preferred technique/tool is pencil drawing
• I love surrealist and fantasy-influenced work, as well as realism, design-influenced work and abstract work.

What I most love to see artists do is to think 'outside the box' and create an artwork that is both meaningful and beautiful. I love seeing artists (of all ages, nationalities, religions, preferred hat styles) explore their world and express themselves through art.

All right. That's more than enough about me... the rest is classified. I'd have to shoot you.