SBY - Capable hands

When I had a look at the IF topic this week of 'Capable' it immediately reminded me of an article I read in this saturday's issue of The Australian newspaper. 

SBY shepherds Indonesia into a modern society.

by Greg Sheridan, Foreign Editor - The Australian - Feb 25, 2012.

Sheridan writes an interesting and insightful piece about the Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The first line of the very positive story goes; The presidency of Indonesia now fits Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono like a warm glove on a winter's day.

The story goes on to describe the leader as comfortable in his own skin and having a very capable rule in Indonesia. It talked about his initiatives with the rulers of Burma and the relationship between Indonesia and Australia. It was a good read and timely as had recently been thinking a bit about East Timor and the politics of Indonesia since the fall of Suharto.

This collage from the Brownsnake Sketchbook was one I had started last week when thinking about that subject.

Fluid

'Fluid' is from the Snakeskin Sketchbook series.
Fluid, a word that can describe many qualities beyond its liquid origin. Here I'm just trying to portray the fluidity of music, motion and a joyous soul.

Popularity

The trouble with wanting to be popular and attracting attention to yourself is that you have no control of who succumbs to your attractions. You have no control over their thoughts and actions. It is a double edged sword.

This image is also from The Encyclopedia of Grim. This image was actually one that was highly dependant on the random paint marks of the background. I pulled the figures out of the shapes of the colour blocks. A skull shaped yellow area was the catalyst for the leering figure on the left. The white facial area block sitting on the pink body was the catalyst for the figure on the right. The concept developed gently from the ongoing theme of the The Encyclopedia of Grim sketchbook which was the grimacing mouth shape.


Apologies for messing up and submitting two links to the Illustration Friday site.

Encyclopedia of Grim

Winston appears on page one of The Encyclopedia of Grim which is my submission to the Brooklyn Art Museum's Sketchbook Project 2012.
I've uploaded all the pages from my sketchbook to their site and they are available to peruse now.

The project will be touring various cities in the USA starting April 14th 2012 in New York City. The Australian creations will also be shown in Melbourne November 10th - 25th at the NGV Studio, Federation Square, Russell & Flinders Sts, Melbourne Australia. Submissions from the UK will be shown in London sometime in 2012.  DATES and LOCATIONS.

http://www.arthousecoop.com/submissions/59324-encyclopedia-of-grim

Suspense

Hi all, if you are looking for the 'Popularity' post for illustration Friday. It is here: POPULARITY

I kinda stuffed my copy and paste. My apologies.

There wasn't any extra time for drawing this week so I'm publishing this image from the 'Encyclopedia of Grim' of my Brooklyn Art Library Sketchbook project 2012. This fellow is a water cooling tower from a coal-fired power plant. He awaits his fate with some suspense as the world changes and looks for a more sustainable human and planetary existence.


Two years ago a group of us had an interesting tour of the Mount Piper power station outside of Sydney. The cooling towers are a sight to behold close up as they have open bottom edges which, as the steamy heated water rises, draws in cool air and creating a powerful up flowing aircurrent that would suck you up and fling you out the top if you had a good parasail. Possibly a new adventure pastime could happen if a good anti-scalding supersuit was invented. I'll try and get onto it soon.