Shelves

Some shelves for Elizas hair salon Blondies in Bondi - mostly pieces of Australian red cedar and a couple of oregon(?) floorboard pieces.

 

 

Installed

 

 

 

 

They're all lacquered now to install tomorrow ...

A Finished piece against some that have just been sanded

 

 

unvarnished

 

 

sanding...

 

 

An offcut test painted with a couple of coats of shellac (French polish)

 

 

And another

 

 

Shellac - chitin - the material of insect exoskeletons

 

 

The first shelf

 

 

grinder - to use very delicately, mostly on the edges

 

 

The first shelf and a piece with varnish test

 

 

A couple of pieces of Australian Red Cedar, risers from an old staircase that still have their colour despite being cut down and milled well over 100 years ago.

They will become shelves in Eliza's hair salon in Bondi

Nitsy

 Grace's Jack Russell terrier  Nitsy comes to stay every now and then

 

 

This is more like the colour of the fabric I'm trying to copy, but still no shadow

 

 

Working over the fabric, but not much shadow or depth yet?

 

 

This one should be at thye bottom sinc eits the earliest - maybe I'll move it sometime

 

Nitsy - Grace's funny old Jack Russell, she got her as a rescue dog a few years ago. She's got a few odd personality traits from being left to her own devices as a younger dog, yapping in the backyard, guarding...

So when someone comes in she barks like a maniac, like she's going to bite, and she won't let up without a good pat or bellyrub. This is complicated because one in 20 people she actually will bite if they put their hand close. She's very old, well over 10 so its not easy to change her habits, and despite sharp little teeth she's not likely to do anyone serious damage. And she's a nice dog

She's not keen on other dogs, large or small, except the odd small old lunatic like herself, but otherwise her back goes up, she starts skittering like the Warner Bros Tassie Devil whether its a chihuahua or a Rotweiler. I'm just looking after her so the easiest thing is just to pick her up to get past

Here she's on a bit of psychedelic green fabric on my couch, except for now I painted it in pinks. I've done drawings of Nitsy, most recently here

Damo

Damo drinking a beer after work. 

With the pandemic its been a long time since I got out on the streets to draw portraits of whoever sits down. Pencil on paper is so simple and so profound, a conjuring trick to mirror the soul, the way line speaks to our minds eye

Nitsy

 Grace's dog Nitsy came to stay for a couple of nights, so I did a few drawings while she was here as well as taking a few photos

Here she is with the pots I put her food and water in

Ruff ruff, and a dog with a ruff. This one is from a photograph I took with my  new camera, which I'm also using to paint a little doggie portrait

 

This drawing grew out of a few different poses as she moved around - even an old Jack Russell is pretty fidgetty

Jack of Health - Jokers in Hazzard County

 

 

Get your COVID card marked by Ghunt and Hazzard

 

Frames

  We have a lot of wood to play with here and I hate to see bits of it rot cause it uncovered from the rain and contaminated with radiata pine and some other timbers that promote rot.

And a lot of paintings here too, and they all really need s frame so I've made a few so far as a project for lockdown.

 

I've also made a few changes here on the blog, introducing ads for the first time. At the moment trhe settings are automated, so any kind of ad might appear, so I apologise to anyone who's confronted with anything they find grotesque. As I read the documentation I'll try to make the ads as appropriate to our (ie Vassis and me)paintings and text as I can 

 

 

Creepy George with its frame before varnishing, and below with the health care card - the joker in this case maybe or Jack of Ghunt and Hazzard

 

 

A frame for the painting of Damo shadow boxing which is 1.2x1.2 metres

 

 

Timber for the frame for Creepy George - aka George V with a rose for every woman giving birth outside the old maternity hospital at Prince Alfred on Missenden Road. I'll find links to where these paintings appear in the blog later later

 

 

 

Kerry Chant framed

 

 

A kind of box frame from floorboards to frame Kerry Chant for the NSW libs

 

 

assembled but unvarnished

 

 

Dongas a city landscape from a couple of years ago

Leafless, Deciduous, Tree

A tree I can see across the nextdoor carpark.

Who knows how long till we can get out or congregate, its close to 50 days already now(according to those who are counting), so I want to make use of the time, painting and drawing, but also getting some online sales going

 This is a beginning

Dan (the man) Andrews

 

 

Dictator? That's what Rupert Murdoch's flunkey at the Herald Sun called him anyway, one of the circlejerks trying to impress the boss - sick puppy that he is

 

 

 Its funny how little it takes to change an expression or resemblance, changing clothingand background

 

 

Just now it looks like he's got a huge wad of cotton wool in his mouth, like Marlon Brando in the Godfather, so that's something I'll have to fix.

I'm doing a bunch of portraits of politicians and their retainers, medical officers etc which will all end up over on the political geometry blog. 

And they'll likely serve as prototypes for a Parliament of Fowls convened to decide how to respond and what we birdbrains want, or at least squabble about it.

I've got the panels of a 3x1.5metre triptych propped against a wall

 

Kerry Chant

Wearing the opprobrium for her fake BFF @GladysB 

 

 

Kerry Chant when she recognises she's been had, that giving the Libs the advice they'd accept means she wears the blame when that medical advice proves inadequate - she's gets scapegoated with personal responsibility for the whole mess

 

Figtree in Victoria Park - Oz Banyan

 This painting I started  a while ago in Victoria Park. I've been painting it at home from photos during this 43 day so far lockdown, where case numbers have got worse almost every day! It's riddled with loopholes for their business mates. Bunnings is open in this harshest lockdown! The NSW premier claims no-one can defeat Delta - except the other states have pulled in a few outbreaks ,& Taiwan is close to doing the smae. Now cases will endlessly bleed across state borders, exports of NSW so its government can prove its point. 

They must envy de Santis in Florida.

 

 

 

This is an about 80x80cm square piece of stretched linen, and as ever painted in oil paint

Its a quiet spot where I can stay away from anyone else so I might go back there soon and contemplate the location for the Parliament of Fowls I'm going to get started on

 

 

 

I've done a bit more to this but the plug in my good camera died, so getting photos out of it is a bore just now