Latest Artwork

So..I'm not exactly sure how I arrived at this idea but I decided to paint some feathers again..and I decided to paint some trinketty rubbishy colourful cheap and nasty sort of circusy stuff.

first this carousel horse. I got a bit lazy on the mane. Reference from creative commons The photo is more beautiful than my painting..but it isn't too easy to paint on a feather so I'll give myself that much.

This one's from a little still life I set up; a bird skull and beads. I have no idea where the skull is from, I just found it one day. It doesn't have a beak attached..but it definitely seems more avian than rodent, and it's probably only a couple of cm long/wide.

 This one seems more impressionist than the other two. It's inspired by my father mistaking a picture of Alison Goldfrapp in a clown costume for a picture of a dog! (To be fair it was very low light when I showed him.) Not really any reference for the dog. The clown costume is much influenced by the album leaflet in Goldfrapp's Seventh Tree.

I've scrambled the order in which I painted them (cause it looked better.) The still life was first, the carousel horse second and the dog third.

 All three feathers are hand dyed cockatoo feathers, and each one is about 20cm long (including the shaft) and 5 cm wide. The images are painted on with acrylic paint.

I did three illustrations for an illustration major.

They each were based on the idea of travelling or journeys, and different kinds of journeys (different perceptions.) As a jumping off point, each illustration was inspired by a song - the illustrations do not directly illustrate the lyrics but are inspired by the whole mood of the songs.

The Slow Train - (Lemon Jelly)

Seeing as this, to me, is the manifestation of a physical journey I chose to draw a bright, cheerful psychedelic illustration of a happy steam train, like something out of a children's book. The destination is known and excitement mounts.

The Tourist (Radiohead)

The second illustration in the series explores a journey between life and death, or to the spirit world. Radiohead's song, in my opinion, is about a car crash and a near death experience. Dogs are supposed to (along with other animals) be able to see ghosts, and there is a strong tradition of spectral dog based mythological figures such as the grim or the barghest or the phantom hound (upon seeing which, the viewer will die.) The picture is supposed to appear unfinished, violent and arresting.

20th Century Trip (Feeder)

The last illustration is a representation of a journey of the mind. This little track is a short, ethereal outro and brings to mind an out of body experience, which is why I chose to represent this as a person floating in limbo - underwater. 

 I hope you enjoy them all.