Tah-Dah!

Tah- Dah!

The last week has been a bit epic, and I got three hours sleep last night due to a golf-ball sized swelling on the gum at my wisdom tooth.. OUCH! try getting sympathy or at least an easy go from a 2 year old and a 4mnth old..... yep. pretty much.
So.... Im finding a healthy distraction in reflecting upon happier times!
Last Wednesday....

The Tighes Hill School Mural is just about done. I managed to get into the school at 8 and my very near perfect baby Jack slept for an hour while Atticus the mighty toddler watered the garden and I got to put some almost finishing touches on the wall.....

Im especially happy with the tricky garden hose.. see how it comes out of the plumbing fixture on the wall?... close to genius a bit.

The chalk board cutouts work great too, but its a shame about the placement of the chilli....

The kids in Miss Robinsons year one class seemed pretty chuffed by it all and we started on the worm disco!....
Each week I'll be bringing a group of kids down to decorate some worms in the substrate and Ill get the chance to add more little details here and there so the mural continues to grow quietly for a little longer.

ooh!  I  just realised that looks like the weird blue dandy out of the Mighty Boosh.... weird.

Ps the worm disco I believe was Neave's idea.

see you wednesday!

Schoolies

So Im almost finished the funnest little mural Ive done in a while, working with the awesome kids at Tighes Hill Public School.  The year 1 kids in Miss Robinson's class wanted a mural for the wall beside their school Veggie Garden.

We drew pictures of the garden,

things we could see,

eat,

and things we imagined we wanted in the garden.

And things we just wanted to see full stop.

like crazy trees

and special machines made from vegetables!

Thats Dale there, the dad who made the project happen, holding wee Jack while I sketched the mural up onto the wall in the Garden.

The blue sky goes in.  We got really lucky with the paints! A local trade centre mixed a whole bunch of colours from mistints for us at dirt cheap prices.... dirt.....

Dales daughter Ember painting.  Ember is one of the students in the class.... the genius behind the scarecrow:)

.......and I'll leave you in suspense until its done

Back!

Its been over a year since my last post... and what a year!
Second baby,  Jack, is now with us.
(gratuitous baby shot)

And with this change I have embraced a new direction in my practice.  I was back to work with a couple of small design jobs shortly after my beautiful boy arrived, working at night while the kids slept, and decided, when he was 8 weeks old, I was ready for something a little bigger.
Thank god My AMAZING sister arrived to stay for a few days and cuddle Jack and chase my toddler, Atticus, while I finally put the bubble-blowing boy at Rolador in a boat.

Its not that Impressive really, but it was a huge step for me, as it meant that after a year's hiatus,  enduring the torture of waking through the night with ideas that I couldn't sneak out to execute.... It was done!  I was back. This image of fragmented waves rolling like an origami homage to Hokusai had been haunting me for pretty much 12 months. So I feel like I'm breathing again:)

The Whale Wall

This piece on a factory wall in Wickham was painted predominantly with Georgia Lucy and Flower Power with guest appearances by Zackari Watt and Nick Mclean in 2008 in the lead up to the 12 hour music festival "Uncle Colin's Springtime Jamboree" held at the Morrow Park Bowling Club.  The Whale feature in the design was and is used as a projection screen for films and Vj during band rehearsals on the bowling green. Featured classics have included Mad Max (trilogy) Wizard of Oz, Freaks, and others.

Ripley 2008

`This is another project mural, collaborating with the same ladies, and also Georgia Lucy, the whole space and ceiling were covered, as well as a constructed space which fit in the middle of the gallery, like a container, forming narrow alleyways within the space, this was built by Geordie Malone.  The image here is of my Ripley piece, an homage to Sigourney Weaver's character in "Alien" This homage has continued in a number of video works that are used for Vj play under the alias StopWATCH.   

more old stuff from 2008

This stitched panorama by Joanna Trainor pretty much gets it all, though there were free standing cowboy cutouts by Katebrady, which I unfortunately didnt get the pics of :(

The artists involved were Boo, Scurvey, Kate Brady, Kira Puru and Cogs

So the  very first mural project slapped together after being given the opportunity of a wall to paint whilst Boo was in town resulted in a panorama painted from paint suppliers' donated mistints and a whole lot of late nights. It was executed at Podspace Gallery at the Octapod, Newcastle, and sadly as gallery murals are, was painted over three short weeks later.  It was an experience.

Bike ghosts January 2010

This was in collaboration with Secret Senor.  There were a number across the city in recent years that disappeared without documentation, This is at Bar Beach near the showers. The best thing was seeing the polar bathers the next morning contemplating it with hands clasped on the bums of their budgie smugglers.  We forgot the wine and cheese....