Lizard

For the last few months or so my garden has had a new resident. A lizard, to be more specific. I've named him Stumpy and he is very cute! He's also very shy, so I'm amazed that my sister managed to get this close to take a photo.

CALMA

While I discover so many amazing artists through the internet, I always like to see their work as a printed collection because there's so mush detail that you can miss out on when looking at a computer screen. One artist that I love is the Brazilian illustrator Calma. His name comes from the Latin words Con Alma meaning 'with soul' which is very apt because his work is just packed with iconography and sacred art symbols. The pictures are of his book which I recently bought called Calma: the Art of Stephan Doitschinoff.

Extreme close-ups!

One thing I love about vector illustration is the ability to add so much detail into the work. It's something that people often comment on when they see my work printed, however its not so apparent in the medium-sized images on my website. So many times I've been staring at the screen at some unearthly hour, zoomed in at 3,000% on some strands of hair which I'm laboriously working to get 'just right'. It's at those moments that I wonder if anyone even sees the level of detail? Well, I've just updated my website with some close-up views of some illustrations, so if you're interested you can check 'em out here, here and here.

Hangin' with Muse

Wayne's World  Meeting Alice Cooper : We're not worthy!

If you've read some of my previous posts (like this one) you might know that I'm a massive fan of Muse. That's why I was super-excited last week, not only because I saw them in concert but because I got to HANG OUT BACKSTAGE AND MEET THEM! It was completely surreal to be casually talking to the Muse guys after years of listening to their music, reading countless interviews and seeing them live so many times. But it was great because they were super-lovely and very down-to-earth, happily signing my guitar for me and chatting to me about the cricket. Going backstage reminded me a bit of the 'We're not worthy' scene in Wayne's World. My pal Sarah (who I've mentioned before here) heard my incessant talk about Muse and came up with a comic to describe my meeting with them. It's cute! You can view it here, and you can also check out her previous weekly Friday comics here.

Want

Yowsers! Anything with skulls and kustom graphics gets my attention and I have just found out about two very cool-looking books, both published by Korero Books. The first is called The Day of the Dead: Celebrating the Dia de Los Muertos in Pop Art, Graphics and Installations. But since it hasn't been released yet, I have only seen the awesome cover. The second image is a spread from the book 666 Photography.

Brass Monkey - That Funky Monkey

For the last couple of weeks, I've had the song Brass Monkey by The Beastie Boys stuck in my head as I prepared for the exhibition of my works at the Brass Monkey venue. And happily, everything worked out great. The illustrations filled the rooms really well and I was glad I put all that extra effort into finding nice frames. Got some positive feedback which was really encouraging. The only downer is that nearly all the photos I took that night turned out pretty blurry - gah!

Hot Shoe Shuffle

Wow, since I've been talking about online mags recently, I wanted to share another one I just stumbled across. It's called Shuffle Magazine and it is awesomely awesome - really great content and interviews as well as pretty pictures.