And finally...

The Urbanmonk brand continues to expand:)

Double Girl..

yeah..

Back on the stencil bandwagon...Always was, always will be a binger in one form or another:)

Black and White

... is always better

Stencilin'

Havent done any stenciling in ages...Pinched... I mean "appropriated" this image from a photo of Tim Rogers in the local paper...

Bird of Death IV

Bird of Death III ( suffering and faith)

Bird of Death III

Four Birds

Sketch from notebook

Bird of Death II

Bird of Death II

This pic gives you a reasonable idea of the size of the paper Im using. Here I've used medium willow charcoal, Flat black Acrylic enamel paint and Gesso Canvas Primer on A1 cartridge. Havent used charcoal in ages!! To me, the point with art is, NEVER GIVE UP!! No matter how many bad pictures you do, or how many times you fail at what you want to achieve, or how many times you look at the skill of other artists and hang your head, sooner or later, something will emerge that is worthwhile... Or at least, seems to be at the time:)


This is the slop pile out of which things grow...It aint pretty. But Id have to admit that neither is the finished product, really:)

More Suffering and faith..

Bought some sheets of A1 cartridge, some cheap enamel acrylic from the hardware shop, (ok, Bunnings) and some Gesso primer. Like "drawing" with paint. In the words of Robert Klippel, "trying to free myself up a bit."

Suffering and Faith

The twins

Skull

Sculptural Thinking

Still trying to think sculpturally about the human figure... particularly the female torso... Thumbed through a book about Giacommetti in the NGV bookshop last week. INSPIRING!!

Another Sketch for "the shoppers"

Wanting to do some large drawings on A2 sized paper that express something powerful about the world we live in. Yet to move beyond the A4 visual diary/sketchbook stage, however.

Thumbnails

Made a random impulse purchase of some Derwent Graphic soft sketching pencils that were "on sale" ranging from an H to a 9B compound. Some thumbnails...

Expressionist Face

Loveistruelife

Inspired by someones profile name on a singles networking site. I think from now on, this blog will serve as the forum for all of my art work, instead of breaking it up into "categories." Not sure what I will do with the other one yet.

Paper Mache' Torso (work in progress)

Paper Mache' is still fun when your thirty five years old. And still really cheap too!!

Since its that time of year...

The Shoppers

The Ritual

Crap Figure Study...

Study of Intersection...

Eat this scroll...

Study of Kitchen Window

Fish head

Car head

No this isnt my own work. Snapped it a year or so ago some where in Brunswick or Northcote or somewhere...

Dont you love Slogans?

New T - Shirt design I printed yesterday on a second hand tee from Savers. Love is not the easy thing... Dont you love slogans?

Thoughts on the Australian Dream...

We're Screwed

Suffering produces...??

I wrestled with where to put this piece for the last few weeks. It was originally going to go on the railing of an overpass near my house where it would be seen clearly by all the traffic that comes up over the rise heading north or south on Pascoe Vale road.



But I wrestled with that. The question is, what do I want to attain by doing this? Is it just another form of brand recognition? So, while I was wandering around the back laneways of Moonee Ponds, today, in between buying milk and grabbing some DVD's from the video shop, I pondered this a bit. The main strip of course was its usual bustling, retail self. Overflowing with beautiful people reading papers and having coffee, and walking their dogs, and corralling their kids. While I wandered up and down the bluestone laneways behind all this prosperity, all of a sudden, there, standing huddled together on a patch of gravel in a red brick Cul-de- sac, was a man and a woman, with what looked like some Bourbon and cola cans with straws in them, lighting cigarettes against the wind.



And so I knew where this piece had to go. In a doorway where very few people would ever see it. And it was the most satisfying thing I have done this week.

Illumination...

Blindfold of Prosperity...

Self Portraits with Blindfold

You may have noticed this idea being posted a couple of times before. Here, and here. Been fiddling around with it this morning hoping to develop it further. And these are the brief results. I think it has some potent possibilities.

The Economy Stupid...

Yeah, this would have fit better in the Howard era. But everything has its time. And apparently mine is way off:) I wonder if people would be so panicky if they just switched their TV's off?I know I wouldn't. But I also know, its not going to happen:)

When Hope sets sail...

You cling to the flotsam of meaning

Fish out of Water

You Are Free

Nordic Christ

The City is a Poem

During my classes in St Albans, I get pretty bored. This boredom means that I tend to fill pages with doodles and manic scribbling. Some of them looked interesting to me, so this work in progress is something I have been working on this weekend. The photo doesn't really do it that much justice, as it is eight A3 pages of bleed proof paper taped together and hung on my lounge room wall. So its pretty sizable.

It makes me think of how cities are sometimes these random patterns of structure that build up over time. ( except in the case of Canberra, as a friend pointed out last night:) There is very little planning as dwellings and buildings are constructed, ad hoc, as needs arise. Kind of archaeological, kind of topographical. Abstract. Also reminds me of circuit boards. Things connecting, yet random. Purposeful , yet purposeless.

Lets see how it goes:)

From a few weeks ago...

"We just keep walking forward, don't we?"

City of Refuge...

Well... not quite..


What I am loving at the moment, is the very different perspectives I get when I am in my local area, and when I am in St Albans during the week. Here, on a Sunday afternoon in Moonee Ponds, you dont see any marginalized people. You see alot of BMW 4WD's however. At least two passed me in the laneway today while I was doing this piece. You see a lot of hair product and fashion. Really... very hot people. In St Albans during the week, the view is very different.

Prayer

"Ultimately, our hopes for liberation — from capitalism, from its power brokers, and from all other historical powers operating in the service of Sin and of Death — are totally dependent upon the action of God. So we cry out to God and we long for an apocalyptic event — the in-breaking of God’s Spirit of Life into history." - Poser or Prophet

Nuff said.

Bird Man

Set the Captives Free...

Life is Ugly...

You know the rest...

Where Two or Three are Gathered...

After MytThird Attempt...

Its beginning to approach something I am happy with:) Be good if I wasnt so bloody impatient. Even looking at it now I can see things I want to fix...