Latest work

I've mentioned before how much I hate my camera. I really do need to get around to buying a new one. The quality of the following pics is well... pants!

For this painting, I began with the lettering. The sentence just popped into my head fairly randomly. I was bored and just fooling around with the paint and didn't quite know what I wanted to do with it until I put the brush to the canvas. As it was, I didn't sketch anything out at first, hence the jumbled composition. Inspired by my love of all things circus and carnival, I've yet to finish it - the monkey and elephant need more work doing to it and I need to sort out the flag, too. Acrylic, A3 canvas.




This is acrylic/mixed media - it's a recycled-from-my-hoard-of-junk shallow wooden box that I jazzed up with some acrylic. I then rubbed 'Goldfinger' - which gives the same effect as gilding but is much more economic - around the happy skeleton. I edged the box with gold braid, the circular dots are small mirrors which I dotted around the skelly, along with some Victorian-style rose cutouts which I also used on the top of the box.

I'll be attacking the floral cutouts with some homemade varnish (PVA glue with some sooper sekrit addition to it) for an 'aged' effect. Approx. 30cm by 10cm.



Again, acrylic with a rubbed-in, gold 'sunburst' effect around the skull: A5 canvas.

Cowtoons and grafitti

I've been on a bit of an extended hiatus when it comes to blogging. Mainly due to Uni and various family commitments. Well, I've finished Uni for the summer and managed to get everything in on time and hopefully I'll have some time in the next couple of days to get some scans made of my current doodlebook.

In the meantime, I did manage to scribble up a cartoon for the Cabinet of Wonders' blog for this entry:



I've also got to post the following (else I'll probably be duffed up if I don't)...

Last week I gave my two young nephews, Josh and James, a task while I took their younger siblings to the park. A blank A3 canvas with plenty of marker pens, fineliners and the brief to completely fill the canvas with whatever they wanted. They each had to come up with their own ideas and doodles for their half of the canvas and I'll be honest, I was amazed at what they came up with. They've both talented lads when it comes to art and I'm very proud of them.



I've promised to get some more canvasses for them and new pens (god knows what they did with them in the hour and half) but it kept them occupied for some time. So there's a tip: if you're at a loose end to keep a couple of usually boisterous boys occupied during the summer holidays, you now know what you can do. Get a blank canvas and some pens and leave them to it. You never know, you might find they'll become the next Banksy...