drawing on glass

Milk thistle

2010-09-30T16:23:00.003+10:00

Today I spent all of my time drawing a milk thistle. The plant wilted very quickly. Sometimes plants do that when they are not allowed to keep growing, I almost finished the drawing but not quite, there's one empty stem at the top.

2010-09-30T15:48:00.000+10:00

2010-09-30T14:47:00.002+10:00

The flowers from onionweed and dock. Dismantled from their roots and blown up on the photocopier to 330%.

Where this is going

2010-09-30T14:21:00.001+10:00

This drawing I'm working on at Signal is less about questions of where
to go (the last project at north fitzroy library was very responsive to
the library environment - engaging in questions, research and dialogue as the
subject for the work), and more about playing out an idea. Composing
and constructing something in a more specific way. The brief for this work was to
create an unexpected environment and I have chosen to highlight
'weeds', I am very interested in what it means to be a weed and for
weeds to grow, peoples intense reactions towards them by ripping them
out and labeling as bad. Weeds are part of evolution, they grow really
well in cities and don't require tending or sympathy, they are autonomous. I am also
inspired by the incredible nutrition of the so called 'wild edibles'
and interested in them as not only valid and cheap but a super nutritious food
source. I explore weeds as food on a daily basis and I think that it
raises some interesting questions. In this work I am exploring

Weed walk before drawing

2010-09-30T14:12:00.001+10:00

On my way into Signal, all the weeds seem to be flowering at the moment. So many great specimens.

Today is Wednesday

2010-09-29T14:27:00.002+10:00

Worked more on the dandelion drawing, drew a fully opened flower and a slightly spent one and more leaves. I am enjoying playing with abstracting the form slightly by separating the parts of the plant. The drawing becoming more a botanical study rather than purely representational. The dandelion flower is shown in different stages of flowering and seeding.

2010-09-22T19:04:00.000+10:00

2010-09-22T17:17:00.002+10:00

I wrote the whole of chapter one from the Green Smoothie Revolution by Victoria Boutenko on the glass. It is titled The Miracle of Greens, and talks about the magic of photosynthesis and why plants do it and why eating greens is so vital for our health.

2010-09-22T17:17:00.000+10:00

Patch of dandy-lions

2010-09-22T14:44:00.000+10:00

2010-09-20T17:00:00.000+10:00

2010-09-20T16:02:00.000+10:00

2010-09-20T14:52:00.001+10:00

Testing the thickness of lines. My posca's are a little flat, may need
some new ones.

2010-09-20T14:35:00.000+10:00

The dandelions I picked on the way here, blown up to 330% in the
photocopier.

The building

2010-09-20T14:18:00.000+10:00

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2010-09-20T13:39:00.000+10:00

2010-09-20T13:34:00.000+10:00

New project * * * at SIGNAL

2010-09-20T13:02:00.007+10:00

Today I'm starting a new window drawing project at Signal (amazing centre for youth art, located in the old signal box behind Flinders St Station, on Northbank). The breif is to create an unexpected world on the window portals. I'm thinking about gardens and in particular weeds and wild edibles. Let's see where this goes.

Shadow onto the sunshine protector

2010-09-10T16:47:00.000+10:00

2010-08-20T14:25:00.000+10:00

2010-08-20T14:22:00.000+10:00

2010-08-20T13:46:00.001+10:00

Today, I removed more of the ideas that had collected on the glass
that I didn't need anymore. And I wrote more big big text with my new
rather thick marker. Pip filmed awhile, but I didn't feel very
interesting to watch, limboing in indecisiveness and considering how
much to remove and where to go from here. I'm still a bit unsure, so
I'm sitting down for a moment.

2010-08-14T08:13:00.000+10:00

Yesterday I got lots of great comments and had some thoughtful discussions with people.
Some with people looking at my work from the street and coming in to meet me - like the footy player who suggested I draw a third leg on the stilt bird to keep the kids guessing and the architects who thought my drawings were an exciting edition to the drab building and were suprised to learn I was using ordinary materials to create 'etching like effects'.
Some with the library manager Jill, discussing logistics, erasure and bringing it together with what I would like to leave up (I erased quite a bit yesterday and was considering more).
and I initiated some dialogue with other artists/ friends through emails, who supported and offered insight into artistic process.
A friend that works at Loafer around the corner said she had been tempted to buy some textas and write me notes on the glass.
Thankyou for your feedback, I love hearing it and having these conversations. I also like getting dirty (paint covered fingers) and actually drawing.
Will probably only do a another session or two of drawing, I reccomend passing by and seeing how it is as things are always changing.

2010-08-14T07:58:00.002+10:00

Comment from Antonia:
such an interesting process. amazing documentation.. i feel like the
work and blog is quite transparent, which being glass is appropriate i
suppose, but it is very open and present and itself

2010-08-13T16:48:00.003+10:00

2010-08-13T16:48:00.001+10:00

"My body is an instrument."
This is what I worked on all day, there's more words to come. I'll
have to finish it next time.
I love the moody clouds and hints of sunshine type.

2010-08-13T16:00:00.000+10:00

Colors, no 75, page 70

2010-08-13T15:58:00.001+10:00

Colors magazine, number 75, page 60.
"the war on terror hops into our shopping carts"

2010-08-13T15:39:00.000+10:00

I've just been told the panel on the library door has to be removed so they can replace the tinting. It might be removed as early as tomorrow, come down and have a look before it's gone forever, it's pretty good, I worked hard on it.

2010-08-13T15:36:00.002+10:00

A tessellation or tiling of the plane is a collection of plane figures that fills the plane with no overlaps and no gaps.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki?search=Tessellation

2010-08-13T14:21:00.001+10:00

"cuter polluters - make us for grim greenies" from the book Knitting
MochiMochi by Anna Hrachovec

2010-08-13T14:17:00.000+10:00

Wow, just found this (collectable technology by Pepe Tozzo), such
amazing type design

2010-08-13T13:48:00.000+10:00

Working while the library is open is fun. There is a child singing away at the other end of the library. An accidental sound byte leaking from the public Internet terminal of football premiership singing, people coming in to meet me...

2010-08-13T13:20:00.000+10:00

I'm texting, flying into big block letters. On a mission now.
How good is the child on the side of the background truck?

2010-08-13T11:35:00.001+10:00

I've got my books and my "Teamstep" this is going to get serious now.

2010-08-13T11:15:00.000+10:00

From Colors magazine number 72

2010-08-13T11:11:00.000+10:00

Was thinking about people - faces - form - found yoga magazine, then
went hunting for books, thought about treating a yoga pose as a shape
for tessalating an image.
The armenian architecture comes back into my head, repetition,
patterning...

2010-08-13T10:23:00.000+10:00

I have no qualms with erasure. It feels easier to destroy, remove, rub out than it does to rush headlong, or line first, into the unknown, to create. I like a blank page more than anything and rejoice in any opportunity to return to emptiness, which is fuller than anything I could say. And so in a moment of erasing, I have to practise some discernment and sensibility of leaving something of this drawing still on the glass. Which bit? How much? And who am I leaving it for if I don't need it?

2010-08-13T10:03:00.001+10:00

All orange is coming off.

2010-08-13T09:40:00.000+10:00

I'm here again. On the street in front of the library.

2010-08-06T15:49:00.002+10:00

The sequeal is... I found pizza near the bus stop on my way home from
drawing. This is a particulary special pizza, gluten free, real,
genuine actual food, not just shop food. And this isn't an ad, I'm
just an avid documentor and thought it was important to share, how I came back to being real. And just in
case you get really hungry and need to eat real food, proper, made
with love and good quality ingredients, now you know it's possible in the city.
(Al bero, 354 St Georges rd, North Fitzroy)

2010-08-06T15:41:00.000+10:00

I'm not sure what happened. I lost where I was up to. Paint disaster. Too much stimulus, too many books. Not enough grounding, and food. Oh yes, never underestimate importance of nutrition and breathing. I got wrapped up in what I was doing without remembering me.

2010-08-06T14:23:00.000+10:00

2010-08-06T14:16:00.000+10:00

Playing with drawing back over the painted blocked out section

2010-08-06T14:08:00.001+10:00

2010-08-06T14:07:00.001+10:00

From inside

2010-08-06T14:06:00.000+10:00

Wow sun

2010-08-06T13:05:00.000+10:00

2010-08-06T12:46:00.001+10:00

Cute book (ten little fingers and ten little toes by Mem Fox)

2010-08-06T11:56:00.001+10:00

I decided I needed another break, I got a gf walnut cookie from
loafer... I'm going to go hard after this and be super productive, and
there will definately be no more paint, just lines lines lines. I love
line.

2010-08-06T11:49:00.001+10:00

It's kind of nice, half erased.

2010-08-06T11:43:00.000+10:00

2010-08-06T11:42:00.000+10:00

Me and the returns box. Home base. Where to next?
A woman is outside reading my work, I'm going to ask her what to do.

2010-08-06T11:19:00.001+10:00

As I was standing across the road observing the library and having my
'breather' a tram flew past emblazoned with the words "Infinite
Possibilities".
Yes.

2010-08-06T11:17:00.000+10:00

Taking a breather. Some perspective.

2010-08-06T11:14:00.000+10:00

2010-08-06T11:07:00.001+10:00

That worked better. This text was thicker and much less delicate. Also
I applied the paint directly without medium. Aha! That could be it,
perhaps it is the medium that affected my posca lines...

2010-08-06T11:00:00.000+10:00

In a way this looks beautiful in the photo. I used a roller to apply
paint hoping it would be even but it's very rough and odd. I guess you
would have to do layers. Unfortunately it's kind of destroyed the
drawing underneath it though. To pursue this any further?

2010-08-06T10:58:00.000+10:00

Probably should have done a test area, but when your diving in, you
may as well head for water...the paint has bleed inti, dissolved my
text.

2010-08-06T10:50:00.000+10:00

Let's go

2010-08-06T10:48:00.000+10:00

This is a cake! Peter from the library just uncovered the amazing
inspiration of "jungle fever"
(women weekly kids birthday cakes)

2010-08-06T10:42:00.000+10:00

Sometimes we have to go into uncomfortable places for newness to happen.
I am challenged by paint, by making something obvious so you can see
it. I prefer elusive, subtle...

2010-08-06T10:08:00.000+10:00

I am a human. A book collector. Negotiating the intersection between
information, sensation and experience.

2010-08-06T09:59:00.000+10:00

The library is closed. I am inside it. I have moved some of the
furniture out of my way so I can get to the window. If there were
people in here, the furniture would be in their way.
I just found a party cake book in the returns box by the door (Party
Cakes, Julie Lanham), and their is a cake version of the hungry hungry
caterpillar from our childhood. It's body is made of a series of
cupcakes, pushed up close to one another and smothered in bright green
buttercream.

2010-08-06T09:54:00.000+10:00

To write a line before I begin today: this has already begun, we are in it, life is a contant moving adventure.

I read something the other day about the plastic arts being a way to briefly hold still this movement, to rest in it.

2010-07-30T11:29:00.000+10:00

2010-07-30T10:57:00.003+10:00

2010-07-30T10:57:00.001+10:00

2010-07-30T09:36:00.000+10:00

2010-07-30T09:32:00.000+10:00

Today, Pip is here with her moving camera to play with me.

2010-07-30T09:15:00.001+10:00

To-day, Today, today, today, t-dae, tdae, t-dae, t-dae

2010-07-29T13:18:00.000+10:00

Flipped the same book and found this chapter... An Energetic Onion
Skin.. Too perfect, will write up a short excerpt next to my 'symbolic
rendering' otherwise known as a 'drawing' of the onion.
I like how meaning builds itself, without overthought of the 'creator/
artist'.

2010-07-29T12:45:00.002+10:00

And then I opened a book to this page... (the Weather Makers,
Flannery, page 69)... Mentions a rainbow

2010-07-29T12:41:00.001+10:00

Check out this amazing rainbow that occurred when I went to take a
photo of my onion (drawing) - tram, window reflection, light refraction

2010-07-29T12:37:00.000+10:00

2010-07-29T12:18:00.000+10:00

2010-07-29T11:32:00.003+10:00

2010-07-29T11:32:00.001+10:00

2010-07-29T11:16:00.001+10:00

2010-07-29T11:14:00.000+10:00

Researching the synthesisation of vitamin D in the body

Thinking about about the body as an electrical system.

2010-07-29T10:29:00.001+10:00

2010-07-29T09:42:00.000+10:00

This is what the chute looks like from the inside of the library.
People passing by on the street push their books through the envelope
sized entrance, and the library swallows them whole, ingesting the
borrowed item back into it's catalogued intestines.

2010-07-29T09:40:00.001+10:00

The returns chute is the only permeable connection between the inner
and outer worlds while the library is closed.

2010-07-29T09:11:00.001+10:00

2010-07-29T09:09:00.000+10:00

Butterfly attracting flowers,
the humanistic lure of refined sugar

2010-07-29T09:06:00.001+10:00

Books that caught my eyes as I entered the library this morning...
Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse,
The Breakaway Japanese Kitchen by Eric Gower
and The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery

2010-07-23T15:36:00.001+10:00

2010-07-23T15:35:00.000+10:00

Someone left me a brilliant note (written backwards!) stuck up on the
window. Thankyou

2010-07-23T13:14:00.001+10:00

2010-07-23T13:11:00.001+10:00

Press the button - HEAR THE CHEER
That's right, your very own crowd of cheering adorers
(Pirate Pete's Potty - potty training for boys by Andrea Pinnington)

2010-07-23T13:06:00.000+10:00

Morning stacks for check in

2010-07-23T12:00:00.001+10:00

Diving into the returns box -

When I took the photo I realised that I've been writting 'J's
backwards...

2010-07-23T10:42:00.000+10:00

"usually grown up's grow out of toys..."
'that's not true!' (I pipe)
the woman reponds with concealed laughter 'it's meant to be true'
10.16am

man walks past with a huge stack of pita bread, towering from his arms above his head.
10.17am

"is it going to rain?"
'ahhum, I'm not sure'
10.18am

he walks past very quickly, on a mission or in training?
10.19am

tram passes, it makes the ground vibrate, we are all connected by concrete
10.20am

phone call interrupts my observation, library is closed, not even I can get in
10.22am

man rolling small trolley past, red, white and chocolate coloured fabric
10.23am

the pedestrian ticker grabs my attention as the pace frenetically alerts to the alloable space of time to cross safely
10.24am

small dog that has been waiting patiently out the front of tin pot, is untied and set to the freedom of being able to walk again (though tethered)
10.25am

tram in opposite direction, woman in blue scarf crosses road to board tram which has paused.
10.26am

the metronome of the ped crossing continues.
10.27am

I look around, checking for something to document. I hear a bird, sound like a seagull but could be a pidgeon.
10.28am

green car passes, driver has a beard and glasses, slows down and thinks about parking, drives away.
10.29am

woman in sunglasses and black boots walks past, cigarette in one hand, coder in other.
10.30am

three trams pass in quick succession, one after the other, last one says it's 'not in service' what does that mean?
10.31am

woman In black boots walks back past me again, sunglasses on her head, no cigarette.
10.32am

dog barks in the piedimonte car park, I can't see if it's tied up out the front of the supermarket or hanging out the window of a car.
10.33am

an amazing looking dog sloughs past on a lead, he looks a bit scary in his casual yet powerful presence
10.34am

my fingers are getting cold, I'm standing out the front of the library, typing this on my telephone
10.35am

another person with sunglasses, a man, it's really not sunny, actually quite overcast, cold and grey
10.36am

someone with the magical key has arrived, we enter the library, it's warm.
10.37am

its not as loud in here, but you are still aware of the life on the street, I can still hear the barking dog.
10.38am

I just found a postcard for the sharehood "meet your neighbours, see what happens" it's such a great idea
10.39am

now that I am in here, perhaps I should turn my attention to this art making, this responsive drawing that I am engulfed in on the street windows
10.40am

walk to kitchen and find my stack of books I'm referencing, I'm keen to get back into Armenian architecture today and see where it takes me.
10.41am

stop looking at phone, look into space.
10.42am

2010-07-22T22:29:00.001+10:00

2010-07-22T12:48:00.001+10:00

I'm free-handing something which definately requires mathematical
instruments.

2010-07-22T11:19:00.001+10:00

The beginning of architectural typologies

2010-07-22T11:03:00.001+10:00

Library politics, life politics, politics politics...

2010-07-22T10:47:00.001+10:00

2010-07-22T10:46:00.000+10:00

The Armenians - 2000 years of art and architecture.
Adriano Alpagi Novelli et al