Alas, poor munro.

Encouraged by the joys of a few beers on friday night, i tackled Munro again. He’s looking dubious. It’s his eyebrows, and the foreshortening of the forehead. Cameras take one reality, and painting makes another.

Reality is a narrow little house

She’s meant to be much more white, but i’ve spent the morning painting and scraping it back and still can’t quite get there. And now she’s turned a little pretty on me. Which is not really the spirit of things. 

She is based on a photo of an Annie Fisher, “a Dickensian looking, glassy eyed, melancholy and perhaps not quite sane old woman …   Yet research into the image revealed she was only 41 years old when the mug shot was taken in 1919 at Long Bay Female Reformatory, after she was arrested for stealing.” From sourceURL: http://scan.net.au/scan/journal/display.php?journal_id=65

Anyway happy australian/invasion/survival day - to all of you  … It’s now beer o’clock and i’m off to the bermuda triangle of Newtown. 

oil on canvas  - I think it’s about an A2 size .. roughly. 

Imprisoned for the sale of sly grog - which seemed to be back-street (illegal) business of supplying people with booze afterhours (back in the days of the 6 o’clock swill). And maybe something for the women who couldn’t visit the ladies parlors at the pub. Does the idea of being shuffled off into a dank dark section of the pub to drink pink gin with the other ladies as your social outing not fill you with a certain type of dread? Still, better than religion I guess. 

Small studies on board

It seems to be the contrary part of my nature that when I should be working on finishing something, I seem to want to just make new stuff. These are little studies on MDF board - the holes reminded me of 35mm film. Although that would be stronger if the holes where punched both top and bottom.

Man in blue

The good guys  - detail

oil on canvas. 2 figures that were in the background of one of the mugshot photos.

Pocket rocket

Oil sketch on paper A3

The problem with sketching straight onto paper with paint is you have to live with all your mistakes in a sketch. Somedays I really like being able to see the early lines in a drawing. When the face moves over to the left. This is why the above drawing has a face in the pocket.   Often it makes it several types of wrong, but it’s a great way see the first thoughts.