 Blossom – Tram Scene Just something I put together tonight. It took me about an hour, an hour-and-a-half, maybe? I didn't really bother to time how long I spent on it.
Recently I had a chance to ride on the Sydney Light Rail network to Randwick for the funeral of a family friend, so perhaps that is what inspired this picture. The telephone box is based on a preserved example at the Sydney Tramway Museum at Loftus. Other than those two things I've also had a few stray thoughts about Japanese paintings rattling around in my head. That about it really. I have ideas of maybe making this into a 3D animation, but I don't know if it isn't anything more than just a pipedream at the moment. Stay safe and God bless. — — — — — Digital Painting in a limited palette.
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 Year of St Joseph: Birth of Jesus. Looking back on this picture as I'm trying to write a blog post for it, I'm stuck by how (without any forethought or planning) Joseph and Mary look very, very alike to a recently married couple I know. Funny how the subconscious works, eh?
Anyhow, the 1st of May is dedicated to St Joseph the Worker, so how do I commemorate this fact? I paint the Birth of Jesus in the cave/stable. Specifically I had in my mind how Joseph must have been after the birth: dazed and confused, in a sea of emotions. "Alright God, now what am I supposed to do?" And there before him is Mary, totally ensconced in the new life sitting in her arms. She is a total rock of calm amongst the swimming tide of emotions overtaking Joseph as he tries unconsciously to sit down somewhere amongst the animals, inside that cave, on that awesome, and holy, night. A happy month and feast of St Joseph to you all. Even if it's via Nazareth. — — — — — Digital painting, based on a rough pen sketch. Over a period of 37 days and multiple attempts here at last is my first 3D animation in Blender 3D with the assistance of Bishop Stumbers. Admittedly I didn't think his voice was going to be so deep, such is life. Below is a little gallery of Bishop Stumbers focusing on different aspects of the model. Enjoy!  Above is my most recent Bishop Stumbers cartoon, which I finished and posted yesterday (Feb 16).
The idea for this picture began to come together in the previous fortnight over conversations about the new guidelines from the Vatican on how to distribute the ashes for Ash Wednesday during a pandemic (ie. sprinkling the ash on top of peoples' head rather than making a sign of the cross on peoples' foreheads) in a note published on January the 12th (link here). Among the ideas discussed in those conversations was the fact that some of the more widely recycled memes about Ash Wednesday and the wide variety of cross placed upon the heads of Catholics would be no long applicable under the new guidelines, if anyone thought to think of it that way of course. And so was born Stumbers' ponderance upon the collect of memes now made irrelevant, and somewhat historical, by the Vatican's new guidelines. Hopefully next time I can get back to clearing the backlog of blog posts. Until then, God Bless. This last month has had a bit of experimentation in it. Using the Blender software I experimented with creating a 3D fishing boat image. I got this far, and realised that I wasn't happy with the hull:  So I changed that, and a few other features:  And then added rigging posts and colour. It still isn't completely finished.  Then I had a rest from 3D work, and went back to 2D and used computer software to produce this image of a fishing boat docked at the wharf at night.  And yes. Socket Head has been around too....  ....but we don't know what he's up to yet... only that he is frustrated about something and on his way to try and fix it.
Bishop Stumbers has been lurking about on the sketch pad, and around cathedral crypts. We might see him next time. There is a chance that weekday routine will return on Monday, or soon after, depending on how soon new weekday Mass schedules are decided upon. Hopefully, when that happens, a measure of normality and especially creative normality will return. In the mean time, two of the Inktober Socket Head pictures got coloured:  Day 25, Tasty  Day 23, Ancient And a 'looking to the future' meme/comic  And some sketches that might be preparation for a 3D version of this red tugboat:  And the front view  Here's to hoping that fruitful new beginnings are around the corner for all of us as this long pause begins to lift away.
The night of 18 Mar 2020 was when the coronavirus lockdown became real for us and daily Mass was suspended. Having less external stimulii is making finding inspiration to draw a challenge. I have signed up to the new forum run by the Illustration Department (a.k.a. Giuseppe Castellano), but it is too early yet to see how that will go. https://forum.illustrationdept.com/login I have been slowly continuing to work on skills with Blender, and completed stage 3 of the coffee cup tutorial.  For my mother I worked on an image of the part of the Transfiguration story where Jesus touches His overcome disciples and says, 'Do not be afraid'  You may be able to tell that at times I have felt a little stir crazy. Maybe that is why Socket Head showed up. He had to be locked up for his own good, lest he trip over furniture, cause fires in the kitchen and break things during exercise routines.  And it was time that the daily battle between man (my dad) and marsupial (the possum that considers our place a primary residence) was depicted. Said marsupial's favourite place to get comfortable is where the telephone and internet cables are. It wouldn't be a problem, nor a battle, otherwise, and it has raged on for almost 2 years. Because these critters are both native and territorial, we can't do much about it, except construct chicken wire around the disputed real estate. Neither side is backing down.  Maybe this time next month we will be in a new normality without lockdown conditions. Please God, may that be so.
After months of renovation work, my long awaited studio is now functional. Thanks be to God, and the many workers who enabled it to happen. But as you will see, I had a fair bit of work to do too.  There was office furniture from IKEA to put together.  Here you can see the art desk on one side, and some of the put-together IKEA furniture on the other side.  And here I am, with a both happy and relieved smile, because the computer is actually working the first time I turned it on. Yay! Obviously now that the basic 'nest' is in place, there is a fair bit of feathering of the 'nest' to take place as I work out what goes into the various drawers and shelves, and experiment to find what arrangements function best - but at least it is now operational. At long last with the newer computer equipment, I can get back into some 3D imaging. With the level 2 tutorial on Blender (3D software) this doughnut with sprinkles was put together.  So everything is just about ready for launch, all that is needed now is God's grace to set the trajectory and propel me into a whole new slip-stream. Please pray that God's grace comes for me.
January 2020 has only a few more hours to run. My studio-to-be is beginning to look like an attractive room. However there's at least one more lot of tradesperson's skills required before the fit out can begin. The new room is so close to being functional, and yet I still don't know when that day will be. No obvious answers came to me during my 10 days away, but I am still slowly chewing through the notes I took and something might emerge when that process is done. Between that and heat waves and renovations, the only character to have shown up with sufficient humour and interest to get the creative juices flowing has been Bishop Stumbers, and he has been greatly assisted by convoluted Twitter threads that would take far too long to explain properly. Palestrina is a really big name in sacred choral music, and has been for a few centuries. The music he composed for Christmas Day Mass is particularly beautiful and inspiring. (Hodie Christus Natus Est = Today Christ is Born)  So you want to take a group of twenty-something Australians overseas for a pilgrimage experience? Then make sure you plan your itinerary around access to good coffee, otherwise things can get quite messy. Provide coffee first; only then might they listen to your plans for that day:  Maybe this time next month, God willing, the studio-to-be will be fully functional, well worth the very long wait - and very conducive to producing new artwork. Stay tuned to find out.
2019 is about to end. 2020 is about to begin. Hopefully by the end of January the building project to transform a verandah into a studio, and the spending project to get sufficient computer grunt to make it function, will be complete. The 2020 Calendar featuring Socket Head came up well. This is the image for December that seemed to be most resonant with Socket Heads's lifestyle and character.  Then a relative who has recently taken caretakership of an extremely placid cat started changing its nickname from Kitty Kat to Hideous Kittyous - and that was too delicious a nickname not to inspire an image.  Would you believe Bishop Stumbers made a return appearance, pondering his New Year resolutions for 2020? He should have added in 'Keep Out Of Trouble' as well, not that he is likely to be able to keep that one.  In the first 10 days of January I will be seeking God about what He wants for me, and what He wants me to do in 2020. I would appreciate your prayers very much because at the moment I don't know where the way forward is, only the many dead ends where it isn't.
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