I'm BACK !!!

After many thousands of miles on Qantas (Rolls Royce engines 'an all !), cruise ships (without a fire in the engine rooms) and just a small dose of food poisoning in Morocco - I'm home !

Just had time before entering into a pile of commissions and live events to finally complete a total update of my website HERE.

Just wanted to get the Blog in action again ..... I'll soon bore you all with the holiday photos.

Blog hiatus ........

There will be an interlude in postings on the 'ol blog as next weekend Nola and I leave on a European holiday - a 12 day cruise of the Western Mediterranean, a week in Rome and the rest of the time visiting in the UK.

With the Aussie $ at all time high's against the Euro and Pound Stg should be less damaging than the last one.

We get back early November and then off to Melbourne for the ACA's Stanley Awards - looking forward to that - Jason Seiler et al !!

Bon Voyage ....... someone's got to do it

Weddings, weddings ........ it's Spring !

It's that time of year, Spring is in the air and weddings are the business !

Collage of recent wedding commissions two of them I also attended and did live caricatures at the reception.

I really must put together a formalised package for that and promote it.

Ronnie Burns

This is a commission from Tasmania for a Birthday gift for former Aussie 60's Pop star Ronnie Burns. I wasn't familiar him having grown up in the UK in the 60's where we had serious pop star overload and I think the only downunder stars to get a look in were The Easybeats and of course the BeeGees - hang on they were Poms !!

Ronnie has had a varied, but very successful career Pop star, TV host and then a builder. He settled in Tasmania and now runs Appin Hall which is a children's foundation, home and hostel for kids that have been neglected and suffer trauma.

He was a recent recipient of Tasmania's Australian of the Year.

Wayne Swan dressed down ..........

We've just had an election and the incumbent Labor government may, or may not hang on, it's that close. We have a strange system of preferential voting that may allow a party that get almost half a million less votes stay in power on blocks of second hand votes from a minor party ........ but I love this.

Wayne Swan, the treasurer, who has been proudly telling us for months he has saved us from the GFC, getting a well deserved bollocking ........... 'save and Labor treasurer' in the same sentence is an oxymoron.

Found this on Jason Chatfield's blog.

Whoops .......... !!

Had one of those days - the day before Friday the 13th - my wife driving to work when all the alarms went off in the car, overheated. A leak in the radiator - $515 later and a new radiator - all's OK !

Settled down to catch up on the work I hadn't done running around organising cars - over goes my coffee all over the Wacom and the keyboard ( I know no drinks near them - just like you don't !) The Wacom light flickered and then went out, opened the, case hair dryer etc - no good it won't resurrect. I thought the keyboard was OK until the Finder started getting a mind of its own - I mean opening 100 web pages at once, refusing to reboot and then also gave up the ghost.

That'll be expensive tomorrow - I'll have a quiet red to end a bad day. Opened a Shiraz, it fizzed when I poured it, smelt strange, a quick taste confirmed - yuk !! Down the sink.

Went to bed.

Sitting here wondering what today will bring after the small ceremony for the keyboard and Wacom .........................

ADDENDUM : Intuos 4 and new keyboard in place - an expensive couple of days !!

ADDENDUM 2 : put the Intuos 3 back together - one last try - it works !!

Now I'm being accused of a deliberate ploy to get a new tablet

Anyone want a pre loved Intuos 3 - smells a little of coffee ?

Case of good Shiraz will cover it.

News Ltd - who writes these headlines !!

Next month I'm off to the UK in one of the new Qantas A380's - looking forward to it.

Imagine my concern when I read the headline above online in WA Now - " shit an A380 has crashed !! "

The story is, en route from LA, it had to land in Noumea to take on extra fuel because of bad weather on the Australian Eastern seaboard. A normal precautionary procedure that caused a flight delay - not news at all really.

That is 'landed' not 'down' - strewth I'm glad I no longer buy newspapers - the old adage ' never let the truth get in the way of a good story '

I will point out News Ltd has had a long term anti Qantas vendetta - I don't really know which airline Mr Murdoch wants us all to fly but it's certainly not Qantas !

Matt Preston caricature

I had the misfortune to watch a couple of episodes of Masterchef during the last season - the first time to see what the fuss was about, the second because I was out of my comfort zone - ie didn't have control of the remote !!

Truly awful crass melodramatic commercial crap, the fact that it's the top rating show in the country makes me a little concerned about my fellow Australians and to make it worse both of my kids are victims too - ' ssshhh Dad - the souffle is a winner !!' - strewth.

This bloke, Matt Preston is one of the judges, they're all pompous bastards who really deserve to 'wear' a dish or two. Anyway here's my rendition of the said Mr Preston - I don't know why but my first view of him reminded me of Mr Creosote.

............ did I mention I wasn't really keen on the show !!!

For those that don't know Mr Creosote here's a clip - he's a food expert too.

'Send Off' commission ...

A 'send off' caricature for a long time employee in the AV industry - they loved it.

Did a four hour corporate 'live show' on a river cruise last night - usual trick, forgot my camera and my watch and my mobile ...

Live work ....

Just a couple of samples from a corporate show for a mining company at the Breakwater Tavern, Hillarys Boat Harbour - finally remembered my camera.

Worked with fellow ISCA member Jeremy Goodchild - no one was game to tell him he had a tea cosy on his head all night !!

.. another ho hum job !!

I try and make a genuine effort to keep the old Blog populated with some recent stuff, but, of late it's all been fairly hum drum jobs. This one turned out well with limited input from the client - ' here's a couple of photo's, put him in a nice suit and a glass of red, oh and no background'.

They were really happy with it but you can't help feeling apprehensive when given no direction - been there before !

I want one of those Gillard Goose jobs ..........

A few more commissions ............

A few recent commissions - the faces anyway - just so the 'ol Blog doesn't rust up !!

All Photoshop - of course !!!

One for Queensland, one for New South Wales and the four good looking ones for West Australia - you can't work them out can you ?

Our new Prime Minister .....

A historical day for Australia, we're out of the World Cup and we have our first female Prime Minister Julia Gillard. The seriously 'on the nose' Kevin Rudd has gone and Julia is now the boss - it'll be interesting to see how her very Aussie accent goes down overseas. Probably subtitles !!

This is an 'oldie' - I must start another now.

Mr Creosote preview .....

Well that's not his real name, but he reminds me of him, probably wont get a chance to finish it for at least a week with a commission bubble to sort out.

Australian TV celebrity ...............

Down on the farm ...

Part of a current commission, which I spent way too long on, but as a Tractor Boy, I had to give it due respect. 1962 Ford Super Dexta, for those in the know, adorned with Holden Monaro badging ........ long story !!

oh and the Staffie too ! Not very detailed but it's only in the background. Lovely dogs.

I've also got three of these, well known for their great intelligence and calm disposition - yeh right !!!

Jean Marc Borot

This is a quick caricature of one of my favourite caricaturists and fellow ISCA member Jean Marc Borot - does some wonderful work check out his Blog HERE.

He has that warm 'welcome to Paris' look that you get when it's discovered you only speak English !

John Worsfold

This will sail over the heads of our overseas readers but Perth has two Aussie Rules Football teams - the Fremantle Dockers and the West Coast Eagles. The Dockers - of which I'm a follower - have not had a very glorious history. That is until this year when they are joint top and the accursed Weagles are very close to the bottom.

Things can't be much better for Dockers fans, winning most weeks is great but the icing on the cake has been the Weevils fans - oh they really handle it badly. It's wonderful, my thanks to this man John Worsfold, the Eagles coach, Monday mornings can't get much better. Thanks Woosha.

Boy George, Michael Jackson and friend !

I'm doing a 40th Birthday caricature for a client. The gift is for a big fan of eighties music so these two will be snuggled up to him in the final collage. Tight deadline, a couple of days for both and the birthday boy, great to have some extra celebrities to populate the new website ( I know I'll finish it one day ). I couldn't convince her to have Rudd and Abbott in similar dress as I've got them half finished.

Abbott as MJ in that pose with budgie smugglers - what a thought !

Here's the final ........... the party I'm told features a Boy George impersonator - the things people do for a crust !!

That's a big 'un !

A recent commission for a fisherman's 50th birthday - the fish is a Spanish Mackerel which are caught along the Indian Ocean coast North of Perth. Great fighters and BIG !

If all that sounds like I'm an avid fishing fan you couldn't be more wrong - I catch mine with $2.00 worth of chips and a crab stick.

... and another 50th Birthday caricature for the owner of a crane hire company.

1960 was a busy year !!

Man Utd fan ..........

Here's a new commission I had to be sedated for !!

I can handle the Union Jack BUT Manchester United strips should incur a double fee penalty.

Can't stand the club or Chelsea or in fact any of the greedy big money clubs that have turned the EPL into, at most, a four horse race in the last ten years. Gee and we used to joke about the Scottish League !!

Soap box session over - quite enjoyed putting it together and the client was really happy.