About to drop a few books written and illustrated by the very Young, not yet four-year-old Blythe Hamlin Kirk into the semi refreshed, soon to be now live webstore…

"Just… Mack-Lah!" by Blythe Hamlin Kirk.

"Chen-Fen-Nee-Or" by Blythe Hamlin Kirk.

Working on the layout for "Chen-Fen-Nee-Or" with Blythe Hamlin Kirk.

My studio is currently without any form of conventional cooling; not good when combined with the recent Melbourne heat. Hmm, I feel that this is something I really must rectify soon. I kicked aside my fragility and strong dislike for this weather, mopping the sweat from my brow and other regions with the sleeve of my t-shirt, and somehow managed to survive a lengthy drawing session yesterday — making some decent progress on the new drawing I might add. Please refer to the supplied photographic proof accompanying these words. These shots are just of the right-hand side… The rest is looking rather splendid and much more finished (I generally work a drawing left to right). Being the tease that I am, images of other areas of said drawing may surface on the interweb sometime in the distant future.

In other news, I assisted a very young person I know in releasing a small limited edition story book titled “A Toothbrush”. I’ve been able to hang onto a few copies and will be making them available for purchase either through this website or from a wonderful local designer store located to the west of the city named Mandrake and Willow soon.

Yippee, my camera is finally again back in my possession! So as promised on Twitter and Facebook, here are a few happy snaps of the latest drawing! It features a litter of puppies, five of the little guys to be exact. At the risk of sounding like a broken record… Let me say that I am really excited by it’s progress so far. Heck, I am extremely happy with the slowly growing pile of recently completed work sitting beside me. I wrote off well over an hour the other day just looking through them all. Starting to organise a few things for next year, stay tuned!

In other news: UPS are having trouble locating my large format scanner. The tracking number I have been supplied by the vendor is of no help, it’s returning invalid. Doesn’t seem like it even made it to the depot… I must say, the whole situation seems rather suspect to me.

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?

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

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!!

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.

>

Skinned Furby Babies!

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…