The Man in the Moon - a life size painting of a US astronaut

Here is my new project, following on from the success of the Lunar Australia painting at the St Michael's Art Awards, and the recent forays into abstract astronauts, I am painting a life-size portrait of an astronaut on the moon.

It is an ambitious project, and will likely take hundreds of hours to complete.

I am especially grateful to the team of passionate experts at HC Pro in Horsham, who provided me with the enormous digital prints I am using as a guide for colour and detail. They are works of art unto themselves.

The slideshow will progress as I work on the painting over the next months.

Lunar 

Oil on Linen

1500mm x 2400mm

Melbourne 2012

2011 Albert Park College Art Show

The 2011 Albert Park College Art Show was a great success raising funds and linking many of Melbourne's artists to the new school community, with the school only opening this year. APC is an arts-based College, and the money raised will go a long way to supporting the germination of an ambitious arts program for the next few years.

Organised by Trudy Rice, Lisa Thornley and their band of helpers (me included), over 270 artworks were exhibited and many were sold. The show also raised money through an auction on the Gala Friday evening event. It was supported by a vast array of supporting workshops including the musicians of APC hosting a public workshop and performance, painting, woodwork, graffiti art by aerosol one and cooking with a Master Chef style cook off for kids.

The large scale painting below this post of a pixellated Buzz Aldrin was one of the many sold.

Here's a link to a 360 panoramic version of this photo of the show on Saturday - click here to view in a browser.

Buzz 2

Buzz 2
Oil On Canvas
920mm x 1220 mm
Melbourne 2011.

Another look at the Apollo series. A radical chance from my last photo realistic image of buzz.

Ongoing Apollo Series.

Buzz
Oil on Canvas
500mm x 700mm
Melbourne 2011

Closeup of above painting.

Buzz with a wink to van Eyck.

Who was the Winner of the Archangel Prize 2011? Me.

Progression of Lunar Australis.

With most of my works I probably spend just about as much time thinking about what I am going to paint as actually painting. Lunar Australis took several months to complete. It is lucky I can think and paint at the same time.

Late Light

Late Light
Oil on Canvas
500mmx x 400mm
Melbourne 2011

This work is based on a photo taken from our time in Wellington. It is looking over Wellington harbor from Seatoun to the Orongaronga range of mountains as the light fades in the late evening.

Portrait: Boy on a Queensland Beach

Boy on a Queensland Beach
Oil on canvas
400 x 300mm
Melbourne 2011.

Serendipity.

Man on the Moon
Oil on Canvas
900mm x 900mm
Melbourne 2011

The intention was to continue on the Lunar theme I have been working on for a while. A friend kindly lent me an overhead projector that had been rescued from a rubbish skip and I copied the image onto acetate to project onto the canvas - but I bought the wrong acetate. The ink did not set but separated out and slowly degraded. It looked far more interesting so that's what I painted.

Things to Do With a Women's Weekly.

Things to do with a Women's Weekly
Paper Mosaic
500mm x 700mm
Melbourne 2011

Side view showing pins the that suspend the tiny ripped squares of paper above the base board.

A competition by the Hobart City Council caught my eye. It called for works out of paper or wood. I have never been to Tasmania and thought if I got a work accepted it would be a good excuse to go south.

My starting point a fantastic App called Lego Photo that converts any photo from your collection into a Lego photo, i.e. it breaks it down into simple blocks of colour. I have used this a couple of times to make patterns for cross stitch works.

I then took an Australian Women's Weekly (Christmas addition) and started ripping. Each square is 7mm across and each one of those is suspended on a pin, held in place with a tiny blob of glue. It was not until I quite a way into the project that I actually took time to work out how many squares that I would have to find/sort/rip/pin/glue the components. That number is approximately 2300. Needless to say, it took a looooong time. So long in fact that I managed to miss the deadline for submission into the competition. Darn.

Lunar

Lunar
Oil on Canvas
200mm x 300mm
Melbourne 2011.

This is a small painting achieved with a palette knife.

Lunar Australis

Lunar Australis
Oil On Canvas
1200mm x 800mm
Melbourne 2011.

Lately I have been reading about the Apollo missions of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

There are many iconic photographs of the missions. A shot taken in 1971 on the moon's surface showing the Lunar Lander, Lunar Rover and an astronaut saluting the American flag I found compelling.

The act of planting a flag somehow implies ownership in Western society, an alien takeover - similar to James Cook at Possession Island in Australia, almost precisely 200 years before. It lead me to think what if Australia got there first?