Julia Gillard our Prime Minister

Our new PM, Julia Gillard, has a cracking good head to draw and so the other night I was seeing how simply I could represent her. I got it down to a couple of shapes that I made into a collage last night.

Tim Burton

I had the pleasure of visiting the Tim Burton retrospective that opened in Melbourne yesterday. I highly recommend it to anyone who can make it to ACMI in Melbourne city or who has the exhibition cross their paths in the future.

I'm a bit of a Burton fan, he's made some great movies and some shit ones, but they're always Tim Burton's...if you know what I mean. So in that regard it was great to see his work from a teen onwards as he found his feet and his style.

I found that there was some definate stylistic leanings towards Gerald Scarfe and Ralph Steadman, but that said I think it's hard for any illustrator trying to find their own style not to reference these two legends.

Either way I'm gushing, it was super and you must see it. And if you're going to go, buy the tickets online before you head down - the line is waaaaaaay shorter!

Rudd is gone

Well, in a unexpected/expected turn of events yesterday Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was ousted from his position. He's only been in the Job for 2.5 years and now is great big melon head is outta there. I know many cartoonists were a little bit worried when he won the election in 2007, because his head is sooo plain and coming off 11 years of drawing John Howard's head it was a big difference.

But they all found their way and below are a couple of my versions of Rudd's head while he was in office...

Who's a pretty boy then...

I'm seem to be in a sketching and posting mood so I just knocked out a self portrait to replace my various avatars and to put on my new batch of busniess cards.

Let the visual comparisons to Dave Grohl begin!

Dave Grohl 30 min digital sketch

The last one was shit so I tried the digital way for 30minutes to see if I could crack his face. I'm not sure how many people have said I look like Dave Grohl in the past but I'm not sure it's a good thing...

Dave Grohl 25 min ink sketch

Here's a quick ink sketch of Dave Grohl I did yesterday. The caricature is pretty rubbish but it was more of an exercise in style and technique to see what works for me. FYI I used black ink, an old rigging brush, toothbrush and a 0.4 and 0.6 artline.

It's something I guess...waiting for the go ahead from a few clients to post some more commisioned work I've done.

20 minute ink sketch

it's an elephant...

Ol' Dickeyes

This was a little gift left in my studio from Ginger Megs cartoonist and all round nice guy Jason Chatfield when he visited a while back.

The concept stems from a drunken train of conversation on my Bucks night...nuff said.

Editorial Exhibition

My editor from the Video Journalism Movement has sent through some photos of a recent cartoon exhibition on press freedom that I was a part of in Amsterdam. The exhibition was an apparent hit and there's now talks of it being on the move to Lima, Moscow, and New York!

The exhibtion looked brilliantly put together and it was a shame to be so far away from the launch (although any future "business" trips to Holland sound okay by me).







My contribution (top): Nothing like a colo-rectal examination to bring out the laughs...