Saturday, December 03, 2005

illustration friday blue dog

Well, that took a while
what a drama real life can be
anyhow here's my final blue illo.




and what an unusual thing for me as well, but I have loved it, well, you know what I mean. This illustration friday thing is really good for me. and it keeps me off the streets.
I was really stumped for a while by the theme blue, but then I started thinking of true blue, and blue dogs of aussie land and then after I had started painting this blue dog, lourdes said that the only image that had occured to her was ojos de perro azul (eyes of the blue dog), a story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, so a bit of synchronicity there.
A little while ago, well not that long, back when the theme was free, so two weeks, I think, alina posted a picture with her kit.
I thought I would return the favor.
here's my table this morning.



note the dead cactus. :|
There are plenty of live cactus, doing very well indeed, just off to the right of this space, you'll just have to take my word for it.

so that is my entire work, study and painting space.
That table top.
(which in itself is about one twenty-eth of the space of the whole house)
note the depth of the layers, although it's a bit hard to see.

well I better post this and take my non-blue dog down to the street until he turns blue, from the cold, and then take him to bed and he can warm up under the doona where he sleeps, and I can get some sleep as well

20 comments:

valerie walsh said...

i love this one scott and eni, i like the way you combined your two styles together into one painting! By the way my dog is a blue queensland heeler in case you did not know.

Anonymous said...

This IS true blue! Nice to see Aussies came to your mind first :) Like the Aboriginal dot effect also; looks like a kelpie cross bluey :)

Joe said...

A blue queensland heeler? Hum... Wonder if it's blue! :-) Now that's a blue dog Scott! I like it! You put a lot of work into it! My drawing skills are limited to drawing flies! LOL!

Anonymous said...

Kewl blue dog "mate" :-))
Love the colours and brightness of the piece, quite Aussie'ish.
Stay warm, the beach was great today...very windy but warm.
Marie

carla said...

I really like the vibrancy of thise piece, and the primitive look of the sun and hill...you've created wonderful sense of pattern and color here! Thanks for sharing your studio space with us too. I have been bemoaning the fact that my space is so cramped that setting up paints is a major production (my studio is also my office, so unfortunately I cant leave things out or I won't have room to do work for my "real" job that pays the bills ), but I am always inspired to be more creative with my space when I see how other folks do it. BTW, the mother of our dog, Heidi, is named Eni. Heidi is a purebred German shepherd, and her mother Eni has won many awards for being beautiful and well-trained. Heidi has inherited Eni's beauty, but needs work in the behavior department:>

Teri said...

Wow, that is one blue dog! Love the design of the whole picture. It really does vibrate.

I also like the studio shot. It looks so familiar. Thanks for sharing this too.

Jaimie said...

Oh I love this. And thanks for sharing the workspace, and your sketches. I love seeing where and how other people work. I have a big table to work on but it's so cluttered, I end up with a very tiny space to do my painting. Great dog!

Aravis said...

I absolutely love this! It's fun and funky and interesting. Excellent illustration!

Anonymous said...

hi scott!
thanks for your comment on my illo "move on". you have some really deep and thoughtful thinking and thank you for taking your time to comment on this topic.
i agree with you that i guess people move on when they are self-aware of the problems and issues that are in their lives and i am sure dealing with my issues and doing my best.
i hope i will be able to be whole some day and i guess i am in the process of getting there.
thanks again scott, for your feedback!
i appreciate it very much.
love,
anne

Anonymous said...

oh, and i love that blue-illo (dog)!
and lovely to see your creative space! i love those kind of photos, when you get to be a peeping-tom into someones' creative space!
thanks for sharing!

scott said...
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scott said...
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scott said...

well first off I would just like to say thanks for the extended comments, I'm really pleased.
I might do something that I have seen a few people do and that is respond to the comments because there are some great points to respond to.
to val
hope you didn't mind what I said in my comment on your blog, it's just that the little avatar photos are a real humanising aspect of blogging, and one that I thought you made great use of.
anyway as for your queensland blue heeler, what a great dog they are ¿no?
I had one who was just the most untireable and vibrant dog that I have known. Unfortunately, even though we lived on a dairy farm and she could go to work when ever she wanted, and between my partner at the time and me, and both together the dog got to go for long walks with swims and so forth many hours a day, she still had enough excess energy to put into a full time addiction to car travel, and if you couldn't find her when you wanted to go out for a walk, she would be waiting, standing on the console section between the front seats of the car. alert for any sign of the car going for a drive without a driver.
(the windows of the car were always open as we had a carport, and ringer (as she was called) to protect the car.
unfortunately she also was badly named, it would seem, and by me to boot, in the sense of give a dog a bad name. she had an incredible high pitched bark that was continuous from the moment her car expectations appeared to be about to be met, until we arrived at our destination, which being the country in australia, was a minimum of twenty minutes for anywhere that one might be going.
so really made the ears ring.
wow I had better be a bit more consise if I hope to finish this at anytime soon.
but to finish up val, how is your blue-dog? I know they aren't all like that, (well except for the bark)
anonymous
Australia is always at he front of my mind and I cannot think of australia without thinking of it's true blue owners.
all of my work is informed by my lack of aboriginality. I probably should have phrased that differently, because it's quite a complex idea that I refer to, but I can't right now.
before, if you googled my whole name and the words australian and artist you got this page, but now you don't, I dont know why.
The text makes no mention of me, dealing with each of the artists in turn moving down the images until the one before mine and then stops.
the darndest thing. but my image is there.
my two art prizes were also for works explicitely about aboriginality and white-boyness.
for three years I only used red black and yellow in my artworks, and I continued making quite a lot.
as you can see I have allowed a few other colours in.
also if you go to this previous post, (unfortunately, from before I discovered how to put the bigger images on the front page, so you'll have to click on 'em to see 'em) you can see another example of my more recent type of work and you may note that those colours continue to find their place.
joe
no I put a lot of work into that but I did
put a lot of heart and love into this. I wish I had of been able to have used my time better for this one as I had a bad day, personal relationship wise, on saturday and almost all day was caught in a no win no paint situation.
thanks for the kind comment, and I think your drawing skills are turning the corner joe, those blue suede shoes had you motivated, and that is the secret.
oh and blue heelers are remarkably blue, except when they are red, and even then it's super likely that an aussie would call it blue.
marie
I have sort of stolen my own thunder above but then again that's probably a good thing or this comment might hit some sort of blogger upper limit, or on the bs meter or something. suffice to say thanks for commenting on my aussiness, the blog is the only place it manifests itself these days, or when anybody asks where is eni from. He's from Logan City Dog Pound, by the way.
oh and the beach was just what I was talking about with a spanish dog lady in the park, in my favourite park, this very morn.
aussie beaches are a long cut above the admittedly few of the famous beaches here, on the costa
brava,
and in barcelona.
I was a little more impressed by a wild and wooly beach on the north (atlantic) coast, but it was
bloody cold and very very dangerous looking stuff.
at least I have a forest park 500 metres from my house la dehesa de la villa so if I use my
imagination I can pretend I am a little remote and alone; for a few seconds anyway.
carla,
as you will already have read I too was very impressed by your piece this week. I can still picture it.
Shame for both of us on the studio space.
I have the advantage that I don't have a real job that pays the bills (hang on, is that an advantage?!) but still I can't leave my paints spread out or I can't even put the keyboard down to type this.
I had to do a major clean-up just to change back to blogger mode.
my missus has another name for my creative use of space. :)
also that's really something about your eni.
mine got his name from a contraction of enanito cabezon which is like little dog with a big head which is how he stayed in our minds after seeing him at the aforementioned logan pound.
(we couldn't take him home on the spot as they wanted to keep him in for desexing.
always think of the gary larson dog leaning out of the car window saying excitedly and happily to his doggy mate "and after he's taking me to the vet's to get tutored" :))
in the intervening weekend (it was a friday afternoon when we saw him) his head got bigger and body smaller, but on monday we saw he had a normal headbody relationship, but the name stuck.
how did your eni come by her somewhat unusual name?
teri c
thanks teri, I too am pleased with what came of this. I started sketching him (preciently) about a week ago, and when I thought of the true blue type theme he was waiting to form, and get his colour.
glad you like it.
hope you didn't mind my advice this morn. I really like when we can actually give each other encouragement and advice with this new medium, (blogging, that is)
I think it is going to be a really good addition to my practise ( doesn't thats sound pretencious)
I have nearly alway's had space limitations and maybe thats why I normally work small.
the first work I put up for blue, is the biggest thing I have done in two years at 50 X 70 cms, or 20 x 28 inches!
Jaimie
first of all, after all I said to val above, I got to admit, I love your avatar.
but it does come through too small to see properly.
the workspace photos are are great idea that I can't take credit for but hopefully it will catch on. It's almost like the artwork in letting us know a little about the other artist, as a person and as an artist.
I used to have a big table (it was the kitchen table really) but just like you I had only the most infetisimal small space between towering piles of 'stuff' in which to work.
I'll never forget bringing home my first spanish girlfriend, before she was, to that house and clearing her a space on one side and me opposite so that we could share a coffee and cones. I think I am lucky, or unlucky, that she didn't walk out then, never to return. It was probably only the cones which made her stay.
and they say the maryj is good for nothing.
anyway cheers to you all and I will see you all on your blogs.
love
scott

Anonymous said...

Hi Scott,
I understand what you mean about your work being informed by lack of aboriginality - in a good way (being an Aussie this is something an artist must understand). Blue is also a "no, no" colour in paintings by traditional aboriginal artists. Today Husband is on his way to Brewarrina near Bourke collecting an Aboriginal art exhibition to bring back to our Council - in above 33 degree summer heat :)

scott said...

hey there aravis and anne, you must have commented wile I was writing my rediculously long post/comment.
sorry if it looks like I have ignored you.
It's not that way at all.
aravis thanks so very much for that comment, I am pleased with how this turned out, being so unlike my usual work, and it's great to hear someone else say they love it too.
thanks again
and anne
I don't think it was so insightful but I am happy to keep coming along and giving my opinion, and if I share something that helps you out or cheers you up, then that's a huge bonus.
and anonymous
I'm glad you understood what I meant and I might try and find the time to do a bit of a blog post showing a bit of that history.
the logan art gallery has quite a few of my works on paper which are like a visual exploration of that problem.
unfortunately I don't have images of those works.
I hate that.
some of my best works too.
If you are ever near there you could try and arrange to see them.
Oh and the comments that are deleted are from me who had some trouble making the hyperlinks work alright and I don't know how to edit comments
thanks to everybody who has come on by

modroom said...

i bet this dog is as warm as toast on the other side.

Unknown said...

WOW!! Scott you blue illos are GREAT!! Thanks for sharing your creative set too!! Amazing works!! Going to stare at them some more!! :)

Anonymous said...

Scott, you came up with something very surreal and original. Amazing what a word can inspire. Fine work indeed.

Anonymous said...

Blah, was staying near Logan two summer holidays ago ... to far to travel now :(

scott said...

modroom,
he would be. my dog does that with the heater. we have one of those halogen ones and he puts himself right up next to it so that he's glowing on one side. I wonder if that's where this work came from?
alina
thanks alina, I feel really proud to feel that I got you to pause in what has to be a truly hectic shedule that you keep up.
thanks for coming by.
paula
thanks paula. I feel a real challenge trying to come up with something that meets those criteria, so it feels good to have somebody see it like that.
anonymous
no it's not. off you go now. just up the road
:P
harrison
yes it's the time that is the hard part, isn't it.
no need to apologise though, it's just the way life is
and by the way, you can walk through that curtain into a trippy blue wonderland. just believe...

thanks again to everyone who has come by.
makes it so much fun doesn't it.