Besotted by Mysoti

I've joined a t-shirt site online. Really great, its like a social networking site without the embarrassing photos and potential stalkers. Here are the first lot of designs I've uploaded. There's a few lowbrow concepts but hopefully they will appeal and start selling. So go to:

http://www.mysoti.com/mysoti/designer/carneydaz

vote, buy and get involved.

THE BLAIR WHICH? PROJECT

Some style frames for a montage - I was possessed by the spirit of Mary Blair.

BACK TO WORK

Two months since my last post almost. Shocking behaviour. I'm determined to get back on track with these digital paintings otherwise the only creative outlet I have is work, and thats no fun for anyone. Here are some snippets of work in progress and a couple of things at the end which are actual WORK work. There is a great song on the album Songs For Drella, which Lou Reed and John Cale did as a tribute/epitaph to Andy Warhol. Its called "Work" and it pretty much summed up Warhol's philosophy to creativity: just work, and keep on working. I like that. There isn't any overriding dominant pretentious modus operandi. There is the simple forward momentum of keeping busy. Its a beautiful thing. On that note here is what I have mostly been doing lately...

BACKGROUNDS AND OTHER STUFF

Here is a selection of my background work and illustrations from over the years. I hope Mr K will find them pleasing and give me a go. Have a browse through my BLOG for a fully rounded picture of my creative philosophy.





















email: carneydaz@yahoo.com.au

OUT OF THE MINDS OF BABES

I have been quite slack in posting of late. My excuse is I have been extraordinarily busy which is better than being extraordinarily inert. In todays post I thought I'd celebrate the genius of my two daughters Astrid and Portia and marvel at that quality in children's art which so many of us attempt to recapture albeit in a contrived way. Its difficult to forget everything you have learned and try to paint or draw from a position of wonder and uninhibition (if that indeed is a real word). We can only keep trying I suppose. I just love this stuff I keep telling them to stop growing up and stay the age there are at... I'm afraid they keep disobeying me.


Astrid's



They have good taste in cartoons too.






Portia's - what a cool howling dog.


The image below is a monster creation we just made last weekend with craft stuff and a hot glue gun, that was a good afternoon.






Here's what I've been working on this week - a style frame for a commercial. Looking forward to seeing it built as a set...

MORE PAINTINGS

Trying to get through them faster, I've been a bit procrastinatey of late. Here is my latest "I Wish I Was a TV Head"... More to come, I promise.

STEP ONE OF THE THOUSAND STEPS

Here is the first almost finished painting. I say almost finished because it think I could keep working on each one for an indefinable time frame. Which I suppose is the beauty of working for no one but yourself and the rest of the universe.

Anyway here is my step by step progress, saved as incremental jpgs - a good thing to do because sometimes my wonderful Mac decides its time for a little sleep. Where I'm sure it dreams of frollicking with other perforated metallic frontaged towers.

If your after analysis, this is one of those journal page drawings I would have done on the train home from work. Its typically after a long day of pushing pixels around in the hope I will produce something that will elicit an excited reaction from a director or producer. Hence whenever I put pen to paper after days like this its usually to let the pen off its leash and go for a good old run around. If it wants to take a dump, roll in shit or sniff another pens end, I will be more than accommodating.

Enjoy... but don't assume its finished yet. Its never finished...

GAUNTLET THROWDOWN

I'm creating my own adversarial challenge here by setting myself a target to meet as if I was a particularly demanding pain in the arse client or boss. This is how I work when I have a big pile of stuff to get through. I open it all up and prep it all then work on bits of all of it until hopefully I finish it all. This approach comes from the days of producing awful, awful TV animation where invariably you would be expected to produce 10 - 15 painted backgrounds a day and someone was usually standing over you to make sure you did. Good training in how to be fast but not good for the nerves. So here I have a collection of 23 sketches, roughs, ideas - call them what you like - what I'm demanding of myself is the target of transforming all of them into finished artworks. The deadline being... haha, I love a deadline... at two a week that makes it roughly 10 weeks or lets say 3 months to complete them all. I will provide updates and work in progress stuff as I go along.

My goal is to have digital artwork that can be printed on archival paper in limited editions and maybe will be for sale or exhibited. We'll see how we go. Watch this space...

LOVING LINO

We've been exploring printmaking over the last few weeks and I have produced a couple of linocut prints I am quite happy with. This is taken from a photo of my youngest daughter Portia when she was attending a Disney premier. I love the original image because she has two huge family size boxes of popcorn in front of her and she's stuffing her face. It has a limited pallette of red, black, white and yellow and I knew it would make a nice print. It could be seen as my comment on consumerism and the cultural imperialism of America spearheaded by the Disney corporation... but really its just a cute image of one of my kids.




GO LINO!

REAL REEL

I am updating my reel and want to test upload speeds and resolutions online. Here's the first airing of it hope its not so big it brings down your system.

MUTANT BIKES

Back again after a few weeks absence. The latest assignment I've been attacking involves bikes. The interesting thing is they are supposed to be bikes cobbled together by kids out of whatever they can lay their hands on. Herein lies the fun. Its a good mental exercise to imagine what bit of discarded junk could function as a bike part, especially if one is thinking with a child's sense of possibilities - because that really opens things up. My criteria was that it would have to work if it were to be built for real.

Of course if this project gets off the ground the bikes will possibly be constructed in some kind of 3D software so it would be better if they had a solid design. Which is a stretch to achieve in just two days of work and obviously there will be the usual laborious refinement process. I always prefer the stuff that is evacuated unedited from the fetid pit of my febrile mind.

Ringaling...