outpost art festival, cockatoo island

     Cockatoo island is a post industrial center that has been reclaimed by creatives, to produce an exotic destination in the middle of the bay.

 The festival's main focus is on graffiti art, though it also includes music performances and skateboarding workshops for kids. Art is present in the tradition form of numerous wall murals, and gallery style exhibitions with established and emerging artist

Cops and Robins - Banksy

  The best thing about the festival is exploring old where houses, warfs, tunnels and other dilapidated structures in an art scavenger hunt

    See more art and structures from the island at the from this

outpost art festival web gallery

The opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect those of blogger or our sponsor:

Sculptures By The Sea 2011

Bondi is where the world goes to the beach. And what better place to host an art installation then the cliff walk between the Bondi and Tamarama. Sculptures by the Sea is just one such installation, it features sculptures of many different types and aesthetics in a picturesque beautiful location.

On the opening weekend, I visited the exhibition under partly cloudy skies keeping the temperature for being too hot. There were people from all walks of life and regions of the work appreciating both art and nature.

And like many things Aussie, there is an exercise component of the event as well, the walk features many steps and is good way to get out and about and have some fun.

There are more pictures from scultpures by the sea available at in this gallery
https://picasaweb.google.com/112415123522641699177/SculpturesByTheSea

The opinions expressed in this post do not necessarialy reflect those of blogger or our sponsor:

Art Imitates Life

Recently took a life drawing course with Joe Manifold of the Julian Ashton Arts School. The class was a ten week night coarse with a live model. Usually we would start each class with some gesture drawings to loosen up. Joe encouraged me to focus and consider the fluidity of the line. We used three simple circles for the head, chest and hips. Arms and legs could be depicted with lines with triangles at the ends. A center line could also be drawing to note basic the direction and angle of the form.



Next we tried to expand on this concept by using simple geometric shapes to represent these anatomical forms. Instead of using circles we drew the three main body regions as cubes. The arms and legs became cylinders. The hands polygons and the feet triangles. The approximate leg radius became a circle. Some measurements and refinements were done to try and illustrate the correct proportions relative to each part. The three dimensionality of the cubes is meant to indicate direction and angle.









From there we continued to build, by trying to understand composition. Juxtaposing curved lines and straights. Letting the mind fill in the details, rather than trying to draw it all in. We also began to use shadow shapes to describe the inner form. Still very simple squares and straight lines, and filling them in with tone. We learned about hatching to indicate the direction of the light source. Our model for the class was Abby. Over all it was good to do some longer poses with a skilled instructor.

vivid sydney

vivid sydney is a winter festival of light, to illuminate the dark skies around circular quay. With the main focus being on the opera house, these photos were taken of the light sculpture installations around in an around the pedestrian promonade.



for these shots I was using a Nikon coolpix 12.0 megapixel digital camera. One thing that I experimented with was turning of the flash to try an capture more of the light coming from the sculptures and preserve the darks.

for those of you who would rather listen than read

The analogy that "reading blogs is like god listening to all the prayers before bed," I mostly agree with except for the listening part. To be more specifically accurate, up until now god must have been using some type of agreegator to read all the blogs. And since frankly not everyone out there likes reading, why not expand the audience and invite some of the non-readers to participate. So I wrote a little python script that can be used to listen to blogs. Think of it as podcasts for those of you on skimpy data plans that don't allow for downloading of multimedia content.

#!/usr/bin/env python

import os
import feedparser


feeds2Read = ['http://cypod.blogspot.com/rss.xml']

for feed in feeds2Read:
  d = feedparser.parse(feed)
  entry = 5
  if len(d['entries']) < entry: entry = len(d['entries'])
  for i in xrange(0,entry):
    os.system('espeak "%s"' % d['entries'][i]['title'])
    e = d.entries[i]
    content = e.content
    os.system('espeak "%s"' % content)

espeak is an open source speach synthesizer, the script uses it to handle the text to speach stuff. Feedparser handles all the html grepping, it's a little messy with some formating getting into the stream if there is some interests maybe some of you uberneird readers can post a one up in the comments

SurryHills Festival 2011

The SurryHills festival is a benefit for the local community center, featuring local music, food and craft. I was lucky enough to catch this years addition one sunny afternoon not so long ago. Rocking up, after a morning of surf over at Bondi; the first sounds heared came from avante noise rock performance of Domeyko/Gonzalez , as proof of truth in advertising the setting was perfectly surreal. After a quick lap of the craft tents, electronic duo Fishing played a groovy set, even doing a cover of TLC's "No Scrubs" to much comedic effect. The definite highlight on the day was the head liner Jinja Safari a multi-piece rock ensemble that really got the crowd dancing all around. All in all this was a splendid day out, and if your in Sydney for the automn then definitely make it over to the SurryHills festival!

#sando sketch club

So this time I tried to mix some things up, and came up with a few ideas. First up, there is always a shortage of tables,and I sit at a desk all day no this time I tried drawing at a painters easel. Guess what I tablet sketching is actually putty cool, and it means that there is less glare from those reflected overhead lights. Plus it gives a chance to hold the going up through the index finger and thumb, a comfy penny style I picked up at my last drawing class from Allison the instructor. Collectively this was a big win, and a step in the right direction towards developing an individual style.

Besides some advances in the physical mechanics of the process, I had a few insights into operating the software. I am notorious for always going off the page, so why not let the computer help out by zooming in the screen so the is a margin around the edges. When drawing its a good idea to measure out the canvas so I use Photoshop guides to divide up the canvas into grids, this helps with measuring and proportion to at the image up in pieces.

The navigation window has always been my friend. From The class at college of Marin, I learned about creating a thumbnail to help see the broad gestures from a distance. Why not combine these two concepts and look @ the navigator a free thumbnail. Drawing, especially on a computer, can be difficult so definitely make to most out of the stuff that it can help you with.

#Lifedrawing @theSando

the Life drawing group has resumed for the month of may, after a brief hiatus for Easter vacation. Tonight we got our first male model, after so many female sessions, this was a welcome challenge.

Denise #lifedrawing @ the sando

Another fabulous class with the lovely French model Denise. The room has been so packed for these sessions, there is even another person who draws on computer. Instead of using a tablet like me, she has a Macintosh and a wacom. I experienced some technical difficulties: having to close down programs and recalibrate the screenduring the; unexpectedly rebooting during the second set due to some system updating, I think, and losing one of the best drawings of the night. Still I drew these two during the 15 minute long poses in the final set, and saved just before my laptop's battery died. It will be a couple of weeks before the next class, so we'll see if I can find another muse until then.

Dirtyland @the newTheatre

A Dusty haze waftes in the air, and everything is coated with a
patina of grit. All the men are gone; now the town is run by a group
of sadistic women who exert their will on any they choose.

Three youths struggle through teen ankst and wanten sexual
desires in search of a mirror, the price of a ticket on the next
train. Can this group stay together, and find a way to the city? Will
they be split apart, spiraling out of control into the dirty land?

Just in time for the ling holiday weekend, get out of town with
dirtyland the current play on offer at the newtheatre in Newtown.

Kia #lifedrawing @theSando

another night spent sketching@the Sando. This time Kia was the model. After an initial set of five ones and then a set of five twos; we finished things off with a ten and a twenty of. This one was the twenty. This was my third session using on HPTouchmart tablet and Photoshop rather than traditional media, using opacity controls in the absence of proper pressure sensitivity. Clear there is still room for a lot of experimentation I thus for the medium is not dissimilar from drawing with a sharpie of felt tip marker.

drawing Mia

Mia @ Sandringham Hotel life drawing class April 4th 2011

Queensland Flood Relief Benefit

Sydney Festival