Wacom Product Launch

I was lucky enough to be involved in the Wacom Intuos 4 launch in Melbourne last week. I was the artist on the night and used the new tablet to whip up a caricature of Hugh Hefner in about 90 minutes while the tablet was launched. It's a painting I'm working on in my spare time, but I took this opportunity to give the colouring a run through.

It was a great event and even greater because the kind hearted people at Wacom gave me an Intuos 4 as payment, and it rules.

Even though I was on my best professional behaviour (sober) I will review the event as is traditional here on the blog.

Level of Work: Not too shabby!
Venue: Belgian Pub on Southbank, can't get much better.
Nibblies: From what I saw/smelt they were excellent. Stand out were mini hotdogs in mini buns, with mini mustard squirted on top.
Number of Free Drinks: Open bar, all the trapist beer you could want. I had none...

Kevin Rudd unveiling

Here's the full verison of the Kevin Rudd caricture snippet I posted a couple of weeks ago. The campaign is now on so I can post the full image. It's nice to work on something as ridiculous as this and the client sent me through a full size (1.8 x 1m) print which is great.

I put it up on the wall but me fiance made me take it down...

Pencil Sketch

I know it's imperative to do some sketching everyday, and I do but it's mostly work related warm ups, so to have the luxury of sitting down and just doodling for the sheer pleasure has been great in the last couple of weeks.

Here's a quick sketch I did over the weekend of architectural mad man Frank Lloyd Wright.

-mechanical pencil on gloss paper 20 min.

Landscape Practice

Monster Sketches

Sneak Peek

Here's a sneak peek of a commission I had recently. It's the biggest illustration I've done to date (1.8 x 1m) and it was a quick turn around.

The client made me alter the expression from this, to be more engaging, and it turned out well but I do prefer it this way.

I was a bit freaked out about the level of detail I would have to include at this size, but it turned out not to be too big of a deal. I'll post the full image once the client gives me the go ahead.

Ye Olde Way.

I did a pro bono job for a local community group recently and I afforded myself the luxury of illustrating with brush and ink, the old fashioned way! As much as I admire fine brush work (I'm a great fan of the loose lines of Bill Watterson) I've never really used it in my own work either because of deadlines or a fear of it looking shit.

Well I did it for this job and I had a ball! I think the results are okay and I really impressed myself with how natural the lines look and the little nuances that the brush gives the line weight. I used barely thinned india ink and an old rigging brush that I had lying around.

New Matilda Cartoon Competition 2009

It's on again, the newmatilda.com cartoon comp. As well as organising my entries to try and win some cash, I was asked to do the promo illustrations again and below is the main logo caricature that I did.

Last year I put together a Kevin Rudd and this year I went for Obama.

I was happy that the client went for this idea, because I thought it was damn funny (not always how the client sees things...), and they thought it would be good to give some flack to Obama as he hasn't seemingly done much wrong yet. It's a digital piece put together in about 12 hours or so. I would have liked a bit more time to work on the hands but it was a tight deadline and the final image was going to be scaled down and only 72dpi anyway.

I'm thinking of putting up a piece by piece of how it came together but we'll see how I go.

Head to http://www.newmatilda.com to check out the comeptition heats and some good old fashioned web based journalism.

Some More Live Work

Another day another wedding, I managed to keep up the pace of the last live post I made, which is a good sign that it wasn't a one off. I might slow down next time and add some more detail, but we'll see what happens when the pressure's on!

Here's Something New

At the end of last year I did some "Graphic Facilitation". It sounds swanky and essentially I was working live illustrating the ideas brought up in a focus group. It was great fun and last week the same company got me in to do a "live farewell card" for their retiring boss. I did a big caricature in the middle an then employees came up and told me stories about the boss' time at the company, which I illustrated.

I had a blast and did the biggest caricature I've ever done and if I could do more of these I would jump at it.

Recent Live Caricatures

Here's a selection of live caricatures from the weekend. It was a wedding so everyone was in a good mood and ripe for the exagerating. They came out pretty well and I worked faster than I ever have drawing 36 people in two hours.

Pity about the photos I had to rush them at the end of the job...

Commission

Just an update on recent comissions. This one came out well, 100% digitally drawn and was finished in around 3 hours.

RTR FM Interview

I was invited to do some live caricaturing in Perth earlier this month. As part of the promo for the event I was intervied on local radio. Being my first interview it went pretty good I'm told, although I haven't listened to it since...

They asked me to knock up a caricature of the presenter during the interview which would've have been fine if I wasn't sitting at a weird angle to talk into the mic, it turned out okay-ish.

If you want to have a listen to Luke 'Media Whore' Watson, click below:

http://www.rtrfm.com.au/stories/type/interviews/category/arts/1080

Watson House Warming

I promised my brother a painting as a house warming present in July 2007.

I just finished it.

It came out well, it's the biggest thing I've done so far measuring a good 1000 x 750mm (unframed). I did the base colour blocking digitally and then got a matte print done, then I did the details with gouache and ink over the top. It's a techinique I've wanted to play around with for a while to try and bring some traditional originality to digital work, stay tuned for caricatures using this idea.

The Great Wall

Well for all of those who were eagerly waiting to see if the giant stone wall would be a success, behold the wonders of the gravity retaining wall!

Heartfelt thanks go out to Stace, Jade, Seth and Jorja for all of their help.

Now for the house...

Christmas Season Live Cariatures

Here's just a few live caricature examples from the Christmas period, also known as the busy season. I was part of a long promotional deal with Glenfiddich which saw me and many Australian caricaturists doing jobs all over and I managed to squeeze out of few rippers.

The Stanley Awards 08

Well November 24th ish I was in Coffs Harbour for the Stanley Awards. It was a great weekend I got to meet up with guest of honour and cartooning big wig from the US Jim Borgman (Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist and co-creator of Zits). He's a lovely and humble guy and managed to wow him with a caricature I did of him and then, in the photo below, I accidentally felt his arse.

As a side note to the drinking and feeling of men's bits and pieces I was nominated by my peers for caricaturist of the year. The award was taken out by David Rowe (The Financial Review) and the other photo is me stealing said award.

Level of Work: Outstanding (and that's just me!).
Venue: Subtropical, but a bit 80s, all in all very nice.
Nibblies: Good at all events, even happy hour at the pub, except these weird fish cakes...not good.
Number of free drinks: As many as the waiters could carry.





Mr Borgman rocking a Hawaiian shirt
The caricature I did of Jim




The Rotary Cartoon Competition in the Bunker Gallery Coffs Harbour (I had two pieces exhibited).

I'm Back Baby!

Well,

I've either been incredibly busy or slack, boths ways means no posts since November! Ye Gods people, I hear you screaming "what the devil has he been up to?!".

Well here comes the back log...

The House that Luke Built (and Stacey...and the builder)

This post is more for the people who would be interested in the house we're building. Although it does have some artistic merit and all are welcome to have a look.

The plans are through council and are getting to the building permit stage. I'm getting ready to start building a 36m long retaining wall. There's a first and last time for everything.

Commission 14-11-08

Just a couple of photos of a recently commissioned caricature, this with the added feature of a signed matte board.

It came up pretty nice... if I do say so myself.

Budding Caricaturists

After posting Pascoe's caricature of me, I thought why should he get all the glory? I've kept a couple of rippers that budding artisits have done of me as I've worked different jobs.

Various ages, various mediums, and various sizes, but all gold! I'm going to frame the one by Kampi, she was only about 5 and took about 10 minutes to do this great caricature. The lines are really precise and she thought my hair was the defining feature.

Clinton

8-11-08

Here are some examples of live work I did over the weekend. Pretty happy wth how they turned out, especially as it was blowing a gale!