Well after close to 25 hours of painting, I’ve finally finished my last piece for the BARI fest. This is another acrylic on canvas piece, about 76cm x 61cm. I’m glad to have finished this work and am quite proud of it, but it certainly is stressful trying to complete such a large painting with a looming deadline. I doubt I’ll do another piece as complex as this until I have a lot of spare time ahead of myself.

I’m also going to need to find a better way to photograph my paintings as the colours in these images aren’t particularly accurate.

Heres two of my new characters I’d briefly mentioned in an earlier post. I’ve been thinking about subjects and themes to tackle in my work lately, and one thing I think more and more about each day is food. In particular trying to eat well and avoid junk food (I haven’t mastered this just yet, but almost). These guys will be appearing in a few more pieces over the coming months, including my last piece for BARI fest. I was hoping to have it up tomorrow, but it may not be up until early next week as I’m fighting off a cold at the moment and don’t feel too energised to paint.

Heres my second piece for the BARI fest. Its another acrylic piece on canvas coming in at 61cm x 45cm. 3 more to go, they’ll all be up by the end of the week (they HAVE to be).

About 4 weeks ago I was mucking around with some mates, jumped a balcony and hit the concrete a little hard. I immediately couldn’t walk on my foot, but got told since it didnt swell much or bruise, it wouldn’t have been broken, just sprained. I iced it and kept off it for a few days and while still swollen, I could limp around on it after a week and within 2.5 weeks the swelling had gone down. I noticed that it still hurt and my toes were a little messed up so I headed off to the doctors (should have gone straight away) and had some xrays, revealing I’ve fractured a bone in my foot. Since its gone on so long and started to heal, I’ll need to see a surgeon on monday. Sounds great!

** Update ** - I just got back from the surgeon who said it was in fact broken right through, and the end of the bone has now fused back on, at an angle. I’ve been told to give it 6 weeks, see how it feels by then and go back with a new x-ray. At that stage we’ll decide whether I just live with it, or if they’ll cut the bone, re-align it and pin it. Either way, I can look forward to some arthritis in about 20 years, great!

Not my normal style of drawing, but I need to do more life drawing. Whilst helping baby sitting my girlfriend’s newphew, I had time to sketch up this little pic of the two of them. Good fun to do, but a little stressful, I’m glad I didn’t mess up her likeness too much

Heres my first of 5 pieces for BARI fest. Its one of the largest pieces I’ve done (apart from the libertine doors), but its still only 24″ x 30″. I’ve always loved creating textures with paint, and am trying to find a way to combine this with my characters. I’m pretty happy with how this turned out (pretty much how I imagined it in my head). Acrylic on canvas.

Heres a detailed shot of the character.

Well I got accepted into BARI fest which I was pretty happy about, hopefully that’ll give me the chance to get my art out to a bunch of new people who don’t know who I am.  One small issue is that I need to get the guys a list of paintings by the end of the week. Since I’m yet to paint them (let alone name them), I had to sit down and brainstorm a bunch of images this arvo.

I’ve the past year or so, I’ve had a fair few ideas swirling around in my head, and have a few themes and topics I’d like to tackle in some upcoming images (something I’ve never really done before). I’m not sure why I’m starting to think like that, but I’m fairly sure its got to do with getting older, and realising that we could be gone at any time, and needing to do something worthwhile with my life. To help out with one of the themes I’ve been thinking about, I’ve come up with a couple of characters which you’ll see revealed over the next month.

I’m pretty happy with these guys and hope you will to, even if you only get to check out their silhouettes at this stage (gotta keep you coming back). I best get back to planning these pics now, but stay tuned, I’ll have a new painting (without these two) up later in the week.

Yes, it was as weird as it sounds. I got a call from the Libertine guys Sunday morning to do some more ‘live painting’ at, of all places, the Hair and Beauty Expo. For whatever reason, the guys were given space there, and filled their two areas with turntables n speakers, copies of the brand new magazine, along with a couple past issues, and all the artworks they’ve gathered from the past few shows. They had two new blank doors ready to go which I painted on Sunday and Monday.

This is the first door I painted for the guys, down the Gold Coast a few months ago.

This was the first door I painted, on Sunday. I took the ‘hair’ theme from being surrounded by hundreds of hair product stands, and whipped up this pic. I was quite happy with how it turned out.

This door was done on Monday, and is a little unfinished, I’ve still got to add some framing around the outside of the door to complete it. Below are a couple of shots of how one of the Libertine areas was set up, with all the past doors (from left to right, Kid9, Team Kitten, Shauno, Shauno, Shauno, Gimiks, Can’t Sleep, Kid9).

As promised, here are some photos from Friday night’s Libertine art show on the coast. Instead of painting on doors like last time, I was given a large piece of clear perspex to work on. It was a little challenging, but great fun and something I’d do again. It was made all the more challenging by having to paint in reverse, not only was the text written backwards but all the layering had to be done in reverse (outlines first rather than last).

Heres a couple of shots of what the two other guys did there on the night, it was great to meet the two of them.

Can’t Sleep

Gimiks

Heres my final piece for tonights show at Elsewhere. I’ve also updated my site with some clearer shots of the paintings I’ve done over this last fortnight - www.squidtank.com