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

An early layout sketch.

Seems a few of you out there found the Gradation of a Woman post interesting. Here are some more photographs I snapped while working on that same drawing.

If my camera is in arms reach I will generally take a few photos while I draw. I find it can be rather helpful for me to process and actually “see” the drawing from a detached perspective. There is also the additional long lasting sentimental, nostalgic benefits.

Enjoy!

The finished piece!

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!!

Furby Babies before skinning…

I have been collecting and skinning both Tiger Electronics‘ standard Furbies and Furby Babies. The collecting part has almost become some kind of strange obsession, resulting in Furby furs and carcasses now littering my entire studio… Once circuit bent, these guys are capable of all sorts of crazy glitch and drone sounds.

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Skinned Furby Babies!

Prototyping with a couple of bread boards.

After a nightmare customs ordeal, I finally received my large order of potentiometers but sadly with a much lighter wallet than anticipated… Some freight forwarders are shifty money thieving nasties! Beware!!

With potentiometers in hand, I dusted off my bread boards and started prototyping. I’m currently working on finalising two circuits.

First is a circuit adapted from Forrest M. Mims III‘s popular 1984 “Stepped Tone Generator” (Named The Atari Punk Console by Kaustic Machines). It’s an extremely lofi Synth based around two 555 timer integrated circuits or one dual 556. My version will share a few similarities with Curious Inventor’s “Voice of Saturn” and will include a third 555 IC acting as an LFO and the ability to stop the second 555′s oscillation as well as a few other tweaks I am working on.

Second is a 4017 “Baby 10” style sequencer which will have to ability to control among many other things the Stepped Tone Generator through it’s CV inputs. I have been inspired by the work of a few DIYers and their 4017 sequencers such as Peter Edwards (of Casper Electronics), Fonik, Ken Stone and Ray Wilson just to name a few…

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.

“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

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

“Natural descent”, Oil on board, 58 x 50 cm

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…

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 favourites:

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…

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

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.

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

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.

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