Inspired by a wonderful sailing experience on board Il Silenzio, I’ve compiled a recipe book for the galley. Small enough to be tucked away, as space is a premium, it is also versatile to account for changes as the Skipper & his First Mate experiment with on-board rations and food inventory. Creating this series of 4” X 6” photos inside a pocket-sized plastic page album has drawn together my love of photography, memories of the voyage, & enthused me in the kitchen.

Enjoy Sarah Lilburn’s (http://www.thedailyenglishshow.com/) video to see more of Il Silenzio & the Marlborough Sounds:  #1371 Wellington to Blenheim, Interislander ferry to South Island, Sunset Sailing, Kaipupu Point.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y-0dzyJP8A&feature=BFa&list=PL77D6D10A772D1B6B&lf=plpp_video

Animation

To view the animated .gif file, double click on the smaller image to the right.   

As a purposeful item the bag has multitudes of form, style and application. And as a fashion item or accessory it can be a work of art in itself.

Medium: Acrylic Paint, Ink, Photoshop, Adobe Flash

Animation

To view the animated .gif file, double click on the smaller image to the right.

It’s time for a cookbook redesign. With so many ways to construct and arrange the elements in this type of book (photography, vector drawings, line sketches, collage…..) I’m thinking a few rough watercolours might help the artistic direction emerge.

Medium: Pencil, Ink, Paint, Adobe Photoshop & Flash

To animate  the tennis game double click on the image, an animated .gif file. It will play slowly as it loads for the first loop, then at normal speed for the following 2 loops.

Samantha Stosur’s great win at the US Tennis Open prompted my animation of Illustration Friday’s topic of the week “mesmerizing”.

Illustration Friday topic: Perennial

If the endless summer’s day isn’t already animated for you, double click on the image, an animated .gif file.  

In the middle of a colder than usual winter, the first idea which came to mind when I saw Illustration Friday’s topic suggestion “perennial”, was the vision of an endless summer. So, I’ve bottle summer.

Medium: Adobe Photoshop, & Flash Ink & Paint

“Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence” – Henri Matisse

The animated .gif expresses the future of our new drawing tool. Double click, on the smaller image to the right.  
(It’s a 3.63 MB .gif, with 5 loops. The first run through may appear slow until it is fully downloaded)

I’m not sure how Matisse came up with his thinking about the permanence of drawing, as a drawing could always be erased, torn, crumpled up and tossed away….and that was before the delete button of the digital age . With that in mind my “expressive gesture” in response to this week’s Illustration Friday topic takes on the modern drawing tool, the computer. Plus, I’ve been wanting to learn the animated ghost typing technique. So, this post is my homage to the digital era.

Animation enthusiasts: If you haven’t yet come across Adam Bowman’s animations, here’s a link http://abowman.com/google-modules/ He is a web developer from Maine who has created a collection of great gadgets/widgets, etc, which are small applications that can be added to web-pages or your desktop. Take a look.

Illustration Friday topic: Stay

“Life opens up opportunities to you, and you either take them or you stay afraid of taking them.” ~ Jim Carrey

To view the animated dilemma double click on the smaller image to the right. 

This week’s creativity was inspired by a bunch of friendly colourful chooks I came across, running wild in the North Coast great outdoors.    

Medium: Ink, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator & Flash

Illustration Friday topic: Remedy

Double click on the sketchbook illustration on the right to view larger.
The animated .gif records this week’s creative evolution. Double click, on the smaller image below.  

“To do nothing is sometimes a good remedy” ~ Hippocrates.

Well, it is, and it isn’t. The case can be made for doing something, anything, on the chance that you might stumble upon the remedy.   

Healing is not only a matter of time, but also opportunity.Take the case of Artist’s block. Getting out the sketchbook, picking up a pencil, and loosely experimenting with random thoughts, opens up a realm of possibilities. Blank pages, ready for the artist to free-associate, and connect with the pure pleasure of drawing! This raw expression can lead to unexpected tangents and accidental ideas.

Our neighbours’ creative remedy for this season’s abundant choko crop, a richly flavoured, spicy choko chutney, has made it into the sketchbook. A stand-out visually, it deserved a simple label to set off the deep orange colouring, and a sprouted choko which hadn’t made it into the pot, as a sidekick.

After quickly composing the label, I played with pen, pencil, and acrylic paint, watercolour style. I took the outlines into the computer and used Adobe Illustrator to create areas of flat, coloured shape. There may be nowhere to take the idea from here, but the directness and immediacy of this type of unfiltered rough is enough in itself.

Melissa Mackie’s delicate watercolour was my initial inspiration to make this unusual vegetable a sketch-worthy subject.

A note about sketchbooks: For those of us constantly making images, it’s inspirational to be given the opportunity of viewing the visual thinking revealed in the journals of other artists. Sketchbooks may contain the first thoughts of a project as the mind wanders randomly around the outskirts of an idea. Scribbles, experimental chaos, clippings, notations, significant thoughts, structured diagrams….reveal ambitious plans for a concept. Some artists use the blank pages for loosening up before settling down to a more disciplined approach to a more formal project.

I recently came across this impressive website, Book by its Cover, which has a notable sketchbook section. There are many links to travel through in this site, so much to explore in the world of books. To make revisiting this site easy, the link appears on my Blogroll.

The artist has a large amount of control over the finished work. Artist’s books have been constructed in many forms: the traditional bound book, a concertina layout, the scroll, the folded form, a box containing loose pages….In all of its various guises Artist’s Books are creative, aesthetic and tactile.

The  roll-up Artist’s Book below, is of a fictional street, Homestead Avenue, part of my ‘Mapping Ithaka’ project. I’ve  treated each section of the street a little differently. Some parts are represented in pencil, other sections in ink, and others in paint, some are colourful, others toned down in sepia. After joining the sections together the whole book rolls up to a very compact ‘baton’ size, and rolls out to be several metres long.And, a concertina version of my pencil sketches: