making the moon

The curious book, The Moon: Considered as a Planet, a World and a Satellite (1874) by James Nasmyth - features models as a surrogate moon.

via here

towers in the sky

Hugh Ferriss, Philosophy from The Metropolis of Tomorrow (1929)

An interesting blog named after this book here...

Like the red sky in scenic postcards,  the visuality of the atmosphere in these futuristic cities becomes more interesting than the cities themselves.

strangers in strange lands

Himalaya 2011

Midden 2011

The Shipwreck 2011

The Laboratory 2011

 

Secret Garden 2011

The Flowerless Kingdom 2011

The exhibition, 'Strangers in Strange Lands' was held at the Crows Nest Regional Art Gallery in Queensland in May 2011 and comprised of a series of sculptural works that explored the act of collection, simultaneously referencing kitsch souvenirs and scientific specimens. 

The terrarium-like landscapes mimic my collection of childhood snow-domes from holiday locations. These 'snow-domes' represent the experience of travel. However, rather than being representations of actual locations, these landscapes are responses to my own imaginary journeys through the pages of books such as Jules Verne's "Journey to the Center of the Earth", Ernst Haeckel's "Artforms in Nature" and Homer's "The Odyssey". Each of these books marry the ideas of exploration, science and reality with the extraordinary, fictitious and mythological.

the most beautiful floating paradise

First Air Show Paris, The Grande Palais 1909

red sky at night...

... sailor's delight

red sky in morning... sailor take warning

I collect postcards... every time I travel I seek the pleasure of finding these early examples of photography and printmaking.

Recently I started to notice a common feature in my postcards, regardless of where they were made in the world - a red sky.

I wonder if the time of day is early morning or late afternoon - which time of day is more picturesque?

Or is this red sky purely for the delight of the lithographers, a way to add colour to an otherwise verdant landscape?

Here are some of my red sky postcards, which made it into a print exchange I participated in recently.

Welcome to Utopia

Vito Acconci, Proposal for Site 3B, Expo 1992, Seville, 1990, 19 1/2 x 78 3/4 x 39 1/4" model at 1/4 scale. Photo by Vito Acconci. Courtesy Acconci Studio.

In Acconci's own words...

Some past work...

Studio Assemblage (Black Sheep in Wolf's Clothing) 2009

So one of the draw backs of having a website devoted to your artwork is updating it. Due to circumstances outside of my control, I have been unable to update my site since 2006.

A lot has happened since then.

It is my mission this year to redesign and relaunch my website as both an active archive of past work and a place to find out about future events, and in turn link it to this blog, etc.

Until then I will be revisiting past work regularly under the label 'Some past work'.*

*Please note that like most endeavours in my life, this category will be organised intuitively - based upon whim, aesthetics and willful dilettantism (translation - adherence to any specific method of organisation, for example, chronological order will be completely coincidental). 

The finished product

Thanks to fine weather and lovely company, I was able to complete my anamorphic drawing yesterday. Here are the results...step by step of course!

The location

The grid drawn up

The birds drawn in (in anamorphic proportion)

First bird is complete

Now the second one

Trying not to smudge things too much

Building up layers

Background birdies done

Finished!

The view from the other direction - you can see the distortion

HELLO BIRDIES

I received a call this week to participate in the Hello Parks Festival happening here in Toowoomba this Sunday (as in tomorrow). Short turn around I know! As part of the brief, I was asked to create a bespoke 3D chalk drawing, with the expectation of this...

 Image -  -->Edward Müller from here...

AMAZING, but anamorphic drawing is not something
a. I have had much practice in or
b. I have previously had much interest in making myself...even though I have always loved this work

The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein the Younger (check out the elongated skull in the foreground)

However, I am interested in trying/ learning something new - as you never know when it might completely change your perspective on everything, like these Felice Varini works

While all of these works were constructed with plenty of time and technical accuracy/expertise, I (to be perfectly honest) have neither. To top it all off, it has also been raining since the Brown Cow's Bike Ride...

I have been given a lovely (and undercover!) spot in Newtown Park's rose garden and want the proposed artwork to reflect the environment. So I raided my image archives and am revisiting a 2005/6 moment - birds. And these Red-browed Firetails will potentially look great scattered on the ground.

So I will get to see tomorrow how successful this experiment is...