The Weekly Portrait: Helene

 
Helene attends the life drawing class I run on Wednesday evenings in the Waihi College Drama room.
And I love drawing hair.

Savonarola's Chair, the one the fanatics arse actually graced!!!

It's a standout fact that many people get onto this blog by googling Savonarola's chair.
I wrote a wee article about Savonarola's chair way back near the start of this blog and I'm not particularly interested in the man but in the way the chair reminds me of flames and it was in flames that Savonarola died.
Inspiration for a painting.
But so many are the folk who find their way here via Savonarola's chair that I thought it time I displayed a picture of it.

Enjoy.

Rocket Park Mural progress 23 9 08

The Rocket Park mural panels as I left them today, background finished and ladders finished, edges cleaned up.
The background and ladders have taken me an inordinate amount of time but now at last I can look forward to painting the children next Monday and Tuesday, the chairs and their supporting framework and the rocket control systems which are cunningly constructed from an old kid's bike and a piece of broken gym equipment.
We at Johnny Mulvay Murals and Space Technologies Corporation take our social obligations seriously and we are all, to a man, right into recycling and all that greenie stuff in general like going barefoot in the Summer months.
Somebody's gotta eh?
I mean, there are more than enough shallow materialists wandering the earth consuming and polluting and not buying my paintings(can you believe that? Shocking behaviour!) and keeping up with the Jones's and not knowing the simple delights of warm prickly gravel or cool soft grass underfoot. Poor things.

Young Maori Lady, the weekly portrait

Thursday night is pool comp at the Sterling Hotel and when a man is standing at the end of two pool tables trying to draw another man's pretty daughter with Denise's ball point pen there is almost constant interruption by pool players trying to get by or around or past me or even, in some cases, actually asking me to move!!
Of course, being the good sport that I am I was gracious about it but between you and me, dear reader, I have to say "Really! Those pool comp people sure take their game seriously, can't they see I'M WORKING HERE!!!"

The Rocket Park Mural continues...

The mural as I left it on Tuesday afternoon. Much time was spent on getting the ladders and chair fixing brackets and background figures and elements just so and I will start to paint the children, six portraits, when I go back to work at the Marae next Monday....

Rocket Park Mural progress

Mondays and Tuesdays is community service at the Waihi Marae and this is what the Rocket Park mural panels looked like when I walked in today, Monday

Ron, a pastel portrait

It's frustrating for me that in relating my life as an artist I cannot tell you much of the people I have met, my family and friends. To be polite, you know, to respect other's privacy.
I don't mind baring my soul on this blog, warts and all, but I can't share with you much of my personal life where other's are concerned. Shame about that eh? but I think you can tell from my portrait of Ron that here is a man that has lived a life, a man with stories to tell. They are not mine to share with you but this man was one of many people who have inspired me. What a guy!

The Weekly Portrait: a new resolve!

My friend Janice is a poet and I drew this last Friday while she was watching and listening to musicians at the Local Vocal at Leah's Restaurant. I will see if I can post a new portrait every week

My friend Shirley is an Artist. I haven't seen her since I made this sketch several years ago. I have other drawings and a painting of her too. I like drawing and painting people.

American Cars : An artist's subjective view of New Zealand transport history

My Dad in the 1930's, back of the desert road on the North Island plateau. I once had a girlfriend who was into horses but I never really took to them myself.

At the age of eighteen I was mad keen on big old American cars. This one was a heap that belonged to one of my pals. My favourites were pre war Fords and Chev's, Dodges, Oldsmobiles.

I completely restored a 1936 Ford V8 pickup and used it every day in every way for years and years and when it was wrecked in a multiple car pile up one dark November night in 1989 I was heartbroken. Eventually I sold the wreck for $3,500- and I resolved that my hobby would from then on be my living and vocation and I used the money to go to Art School and have been driving Toyota Corollas ever since, my petrol head days over for ever...

Now I am parting with the best of a succession of '80-'85 Corolla wagons and have an old '89 Nissan 4WD diesel that stole my heart the first time I used it to drag a trailer load of firewood up a rough wet overgrown track with absolute ease. It's very roomy inside, has a great stereo and just goes and goes and goes anywhere. Ideal for those hard to get at mural commissions...2013 update; I kept KE 70, it is the Artist's car...

The Rocket Park Mural begins

The two sheet steel panels that will be riveted onto the rocket at Waihi's Rocket Park playground to represent portholes on the rocket showing children within ready to take off for outer space are taking shape at last.
After much time waiting and, I thought for a while, waiting in vain, people in the local Council and the people in charge of my Community Service sentence have got together and agreed that an experienced mural artist painting a mural for a local children's playground as part of his sentence would be a good idea.
I have to say I agree. I first suggested the idea right at the start of my 150 hours community work sentence and be careful what you wish for 'cause all dreams come true....
I got taken off the chain gang and put to work at the local Marae which was O.K. but too easy and finally, with not many hours remaining on my sentence the mural project came through and the galvanized steel sheets were delivered to the Marae (I wasn't allowed to do the job at home in my studio) for me to cut to shape, clean, prime and paint the designs on.
This is how far I got as of today, the children drawn up and redrawn in Paynes Grey acrylic and the background mostly sketched in in washes of Paynes Grey.
Next Monday and Tuesday: Colour!! Yay!
The kids depicted are Daniel and Annabel from across the road, my Grandson Mateo, Tawhiri and Paige, two kids from the Marae and my young friend Amelie who blessed my studio at it's opening a year and a half ago when she was four by creating, at my request, the first original work of art therein.
I will be doing more hours on this mural than I owe and working harder, mentally, than I would on the chain gang but I still think it's a good idea. I am no stranger to doing art for free, 'specially in the early days of my mural painting phase, so it's no bother really.
My life as an artist has always been either a feast or a famine. This particular job is a feast of goodwill.