Dream Hub

 

Newtopian Dream - A sleepout in the street last night to protest homelessness, and raise funds to campaign for affordable housing organised by the Newtown Neighbourhood Centre. Here are we are early in the morning, with Grace sleeping soundly at the front - she had the sense to bring some sofa cushions.

Thanks to those who told their stories and Newtown Neighbourhood centre as well as everyone who came along and contributed.

 

MCs earlier in the evening

 

sign in

 

Brad and Karen, 2 Newtopians I drew before I got there

Garden of Earthly Delights - photos by Melanie Leaudais

Thanks to Mel for coming over from Weave in Woolloomooloo to take photos of the Garden before the furniture is bolted down, as well to to Garth for helping us move things around and entertain.

There are a heap more photos of its creation on this page with links to posts with a whole lot more

The artists - Grace Woods and John O'Driscoll

me again, playing air paintbrush

Grace

 

With Garth and his friend Josephine

 

Josephine and the apostle Garth again - Garth is one of the apostles(Bartholemew?) in the Newtown Last Supper mural at the Mission , and Grace and I are as well, she's John and I'm Judas

Stanmore Rd outside Newsagency Gallery

 

I minded the Night of the Iguana - Iggy Pop 70th birthday celebration - exhibition at Newsagency Gallery yesterday for a couple of hours. This a view from the front table

Martin bound by stress

 

Martin Walsh

I found a couple of drawings I'd forgotten to scan at the time, this one I drew at Martin's a few weeks ago, and the pelicans below I did for Grace with babies in their beaks, adapted from those she painted on the Garden of Earthly Delights, 

Cliff Munchers

 

Digging out the cliff for a carpark between McElhone and Brougham sts in Woolloomooloo. Another study while getting started on the Weave canvas

Garden of Delights Artists and Garth's broomdance cabaret

 

We got Mel from Weave to come over and shoot some photos of the finished Garden of Earthly Delights at the Record Crate in Glebe . I'll post those in a day or two. But while we had the furniture out of the way Grace Woods came over and and we had a bit of fun in front of the mural, and Garth did a cool broondance, like vaudeville, stills don't quite do it justice. There's also a couple of movies that I'll upload later where Grace and I point out features of interest in the mural - I bet you can't wait.

Thanks Garth for helping to move the tables and camera work

Newtopian Dream

I'm sleeping outside at Newtown Square on August 29 as part of a funds and consciousness raiser for the Newtopian Dream a project organised by Newtown Neighbourhood Centre to shine a spotlight on homelessness and how our system produces it, and bring out about real social change and eliminate homelessness by providing affordable housing. That's not something available to most people in Sydney right now. And nor is Sydney alone in this

I'm going to take my sketch book along and draw the scene and maybe some portraits which I'll post on the blog later. If I sell any of these I'll donate the proceeds

Please follow the link and make a donation to support the Newtopian Dream

Ikea has furniture for every circumstance. I'm happy to announce that Newtown Neighbourhood centre have extensively roadtested the premium cardboard boxes we will be calling home on tuesday night

Cliff Dwellings

 

This cliff is going to play a starring part in the right side panel of the weave painting. Louis Nowra told me, the cliff between Potts Pt and the Loo has been hacked away over the years. Even now a development is chopping away at the rock between McElhone and Brougham Sts for a carpark, One day Bob Askin's DMR will have achieved its dream of converting Woolloomooloo and the Cross into a flat plain

Weave - canvas prep

 

2 of the 3 panels I've now finishing priming at Weave for their big Woolloomooloo painting. They'll be ready to work on this week.

the whole thing ready to go with a few studies that might end up on that right hand panel in the lovely studio I'll be able to use for a while. Grace Woods, who I worked with on the Garden of Earthly Delights came along and started some painting yesterday. I'm hoping to get some other visitors as well

Most of my other Woolloomooloo paintings are here and I'll be gathering the links to my work at Weave here

Garden of Earthly Delights postcard

 

The final A5 postcard with photos by Mel Leaudais (main picture) and Garth Brinsbury(Grace and me on the back), and I did the key sketch. This is full resolution so you can print yourself a copy(if you lighten the midtones you may get a slightly better result - my bad). Or get a signed copy from us, on nice stiff postcard stock. If you put $US10 or more on the donate link in the sidebar and send a postal address I'll mail it there, anywhere in the world.

Some day soon I'll set up a shop

 

A Card to hand out and sign at the Garden of Earthly Delights Launch on Saturday afternoon (19 August from 1.30pm at the Record Crate - event), with a key to all or most of the Rock stars in the painting. 

There are more pictures of the mural here

Iggy Pop Cloud

 

Newsagency Gallery are putting on an exhibition of Iggy Pop to celebrate his 70th birthday. It's on the 18th of August so I've started this painting of the Passenger on a cloud taking a ride to see what's yours and mine

Ziggy and Iggy

 

David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust and Iggy Pop

This drawing was preparation for the Iggy and Ziggy section of the Garden of Earthly Delights at the Record Crate in Glebe where they're riding a cloud. Bess O'Malley was telling me about a Cambodian Space Project rock opera about Iggy Pop and showed me a picture of him as Hanuman -Monkey. So I was thinking about the Japanese TV series and the irrepressible Monkey's cloud chariot.

Bess has an Iggy Pop show on very soon at Newsagency Gallery that I'm painting a canvas for

Bess has a

Susan and Kerrie at Rough Edges

 

Susan and Kerrie drawing and chatting around the art table at Rough Edges. And old mate on the phone who name I didn't write down and then immediately forgot - argghh

My first time at Roughies for a bit, but now  I'm in the area more for a bit I'll get up there more regularly. Grace is now leading the Urban tour Roughies run sometimes. I'm looking forward to going on one

Railway Architecture

 

A view from a train on platform 10 at Central from a couple of weeks ago as I waited for a train to Newcastle

Painting at Weave

 

2 views out the window at Weave in McElhone St, this one shows the skeleton of the Crest hotel, finished now

I worked out a shopping list today to get started on the large canvas I'm doing for Weave - we're getting them on Tuesday, it's exciting to be getting started

 

Houses and flats on McElhone and Brougham Sts, I'll keep fiddling around with this one. The versions from yesterday are below.

Earlier layers in this painting can be seen here and I'll add it to the page with all of my Woolloomooloo paintings soon(promise) . I've also started a page to put all my work at Weave but I won't start pasting links around until there's something there

 

Mural finished

 

We finally finished the mural in Glebe. Many thanks and a big round of applause go to Grace Woods for her flowers and sun which transform the setting. We haven't signed it yet or taken photos of last minute additions - I'll get some when I put a sealing coat on, meanwhile check out Julie O'Brien's photos below and on the Garden of Earthly Delights page.