Aug 14 2010

Yes Sir!

"Yes Sir" Detail
“Yes Sir” Detail – unfinished.

I do hope you all experienced a lovely Friday 13th today. I myself had a rather pleasant day and spent the evening filling in detail on the new piece “Yes Sir” (working title), which I think you’ll agree is coming along quite nicely! Well I believe it is time this old man got a little rest. Goodnight all!

"Yes Sir" rests on drafting board while I get some sleep.
“Yes Sir” rests on drafting board while I get some sleep.
Bookmark and Share

Jul 24 2010

Getting comfortable in the new studio

Detail

Layout sketch

Detail

Erasings

Bookmark and Share

Jul 8 2010

Rhonda Goodall Kirk Retrospective Show

Sensational
“Sensational” from the series “The Greatest Show on Earth”.

The rumors are indeed true! Highly skilled, respected and prolific artist Rhonda Goodall-Kirk is putting on a two day (I know, it’s far too short!) retrospective show over at Kipl. This will be a rare chance to see many early paintings from her extensive back catalogue alongside recent works. What I am personally quite excited about is that due to her already mentioned prolific nature, Rhonda consistently paints more paintings than she can possibly hang for her theatrical themed and emotional shows… This means there will be many works which have previously not been publicly displayed! And on top of that there will be paintings from a never exhibited series based on Euripides’ “Bacchae”! Very exciting indeed!!

Incommunicado
“Incommunicado” from the series “The Greatest Show on Earth”.

So please try your darnest to get down to Kipl this weekend!

Saturday 10th July 4-8pm + Sunday 11th July 1-4pm or by appointment

Kipl 136 Roden Street West Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

Bookmark and Share

May 2 2010

Dead Bunny

A
A sneak peek of one of my recent drawings which I completed last week.

Since my last post I have been occupied searching for a suitable space to relocate the studio (no luck yet), sustained injury, stepped back in time with a tedious dose of slow “capped” internet, melted some solder and laid down a decent amount of carbon graphite polymer with my trusty mechanical pencil.

The recent completed drawings are starting to pile up around here and I must say I am extremely pleased with how they are turning out, very pleased indeed! Would love to show you a few but my current scanner is being a tad temperamental at present, seems I am in need of a new scanner. Does anyone have a working Epson 10000XL laying around they are keen to dispose off?

Bookmark and Share

Jan 17 2010

Scribble: a glimpse of what I am currently working on

Layout sketch

One of the quickly scribbled, crude sketches from the planing stages of the most recent drawing…

Bookmark and Share

Jan 8 2010

I now declare the Grandpa Studios online store officially open!

Grandpa Studios online shop now open!

As a few of you have noticed the “shop” section of this site has been open for business the last week or so. Rather than continuing to operate in stealth mode, I decided to make an official announcement and cut the celebratory red ribbon with my giant scissors.

There is a new series of prints in the works, planned for possible release later in the year…

Stay tuned!!

Bookmark and Share

Sep 26 2009

My Toolbox

Grandpa Shea's drawing kit

This is my current kit: cheap plastic 0.5mm side-click mechanical pencil and three (the third is stuck to my index finger) erasers. Also, I’m pleased to say the new drawings are coming along quite nicely… You might be able to just make one out in the background.

Bookmark and Share

Sep 15 2009

Heidi Yardley presents
“Light Possession”

Heidi Yardley 'The end is near'
“The end is near”, Oil on Board, 23 x 38 cm

Having been following Melbourne artist Heidi Yardley‘s work since viewing her amazing drawings late last century, I was quite excited upon hearing she has a new exhibition of oil paintings opening at the end of the month. The show will run from September 30th to October 17th at Scott Livesey Galleries (located Armadale, Victoria), with the opening night celebrations being held on Wednesday October 7th between the hours of 6 and 8pm. If you can’t wait till the 30th though, head over to the gallery’s website for a preview. I highly recommend everyone get themselves over to the show once it opens!

Heidi Yardley – “Light Possession”
September 30th to October 17th
Opening night 6-8pm Wednesday October 7th
Scott Livesey Galleries
909a High Street, Armadale, Victoria, Australia, 3143

Heidi Yardley 'In the eyes of nature'
“In the eyes of nature”, Oil on board, 38 x 35 cm

Heidi Yardley 'Natural descent
“Natural descent”, Oil on board, 58 x 50 cm
Bookmark and Share

Aug 8 2009

In Progress

unfinished drawing of a tattooed girl

Currently occupying my drawing desk in this unfinished state, is the above rough outline from my tattoo themed series. If it wasn’t for battling evil and dishonest thieves who disguise themselves as a webhost (the treacherous Solidinternet) and Mr Bill Gates with his horrible IE series of browsers, which are notoriously full of CSS bugs, it would probably be finished by now…

Bookmark and Share

Jul 30 2009

My Distractions…

Just a small sample of my toys...

Howdy, I have been a bit of a ghost round these parts lately and thought you may like to know why. One of the many reasons is I have been buried in collecting equipment and parts to modify and “circuit bend“. Circuit bending is basically the art of short circuiting. You open up toys, music equipment, anything that makes a sound really (although I wouldn’t advise people to go poking around AC powered devices) and add switches, resistors, capacitors, cut trace lines and feed the electrons through alternate paths on the board to change the sound. Here is a closer look at some of my favorites:

Casio’s famous SK1 keyboard. I actually own two of these and am pretty excited about bending both of them. I’ve been hard at work carefully planing everything I will do to their insides and outsides…

Just a small sample of my toys...

Synsonics – Mattel’s analog drum machine. I’m adding sound controls and will re-case the whole unit.

Just a small sample of my toys...

Children’s voice changer megaphone. I bent this a while back but since then it has suffered a fall. I should probably re-case it, as gaffer-tape ghetto is not really the look I am going for. I have a few more circuit tweaks planned for it too.

Just a small sample of my toys...

Yamaha RX-17 drum machine. Going to add a modular style banana plug patch bay to this one.

Just a small sample of my toys...

Toy piano with a piezo pick-up I added. The pick-up was installed years ago. Since then I have collected a few more that will get the same treatment and maybe tone controls as well.

Just a small sample of my toys...

You may be pleased to hear that I have also been working on some new drawings…

Bookmark and Share