horse play

This is a concept for a painting. Taken from an old picture of some children playing cowboys and crooks. The wooden horse has been added later. The idea is that the black wooden horse has risen in protest to being subjugated to the little boy's exploits.

planes, trains and automobiles

For a good part of this year I was always busy drawing some or other kind of car, bus, train, fire-engine, motorcycle or plane. This was by enlarge due to my son's persistence ( he's two and a half , and machines are his life - the more noise, wheels, or moving parts the better) . It turned out to be an amazing excersize in that I learnt how to draw again without constraint or hesitation. In part this is what this blog is dedicated to - a free space to explore those mediums and ideas that maybe got left behind along the ever constraining and definitive path towards creative "maturity". Crayons, clay, chalkboard, fingerpaint - all these , when re-applied, seems to liberate suppressed naivety. It's as if the body remembers how it feels to create without rules. It was an immensely valuable lesson to learn.

deer john

This is a illustration of a deer that came to me while I was staring at the dining room table. It was looking at me from within the woodgrain (ok , so those hallucinogenic field trips at college might have had some residual effects).

cows to the slaughter

So this is my cows and I figured they deserve to be on my first posting, seeing that they hold a special place in my world. They're based on these old signage boards you still get outside some butcheries, especially the Free State. I've always been a bit obsessed with signage, so I illustrated these , made stencils, and eventually reverse painted on glass.

There you go. I'm hoping to keep this blog up to date with all sorts of neat things (not just my own) and hopefully not loose interest by tomorrow.