Drawing

Writing with an ink nib is so much more expressive Medium: Black drawing ink on watercolour paper. Creation time: Two hours and some. I love drawing with black ink and an ink nib! The lines are so much more expressive with their varying widths and flowing curves. You can get scratchy shapes or blobby splotches depending on how much ink is loaded in the nib and how fast you draw. The whole process feels so much more natural and beautiful. I intend to keep working on this drawing. I want to fill up more of the blank spaces with stronger areas of black and then I will have a go at colouring it with subdued watercolours over the top. This was the reason for drawing on watercolour paper to begin with. I love the way the doodle explodes out of the word 'expressive'. this wasn't planned, it just worked out that way as I made it up when I went along. I was using my previous doodle as inspiration however.

'Watering Can' black and white pointillism illustration Medium: Black felt-tip pen on art paper. Creation time: About an hour. I sat in our backyard today and drew the corner of our garden. I chose a pointillism style just for something different. It sure does take a lot of time to build up tone with little dots! I paid close attention to the misalignment of the bricks and the resulting shadows and gaps between them - I think this really makes the picture interesting. Rather than drawing everything I could see I let the image fade to white at the perimeter, this was very easy to do with the pointillism technique - I simply used fewer and fewer dots as I got close to the edge of the page. The plant pot has some bulbs coming up that we planted about a month ago. It will be nice when they start flowering because the garden looks quite bare in winter.

Aimless Doodle Creation time: About an hour. Just a simple doodle I drew with black ball-point pen. It's amazing how much variation in tone you can achieve by pressing at different weights even though you are using black ink. I know doodles are meant to be aimless but I just wanted to highlight that there was no design involved with this piece.

Dot - the male ladybug Creation time: about one hour. This is Dot, the male ladybug from my original Ogga the Cane Toad comic strips. There was also a male ladybug in the CGI film A Bugs Life but I used the idea about 4 years before that in 1994. I drew this in pencil first then scanned it in. I opened it in Photoshop and added simple coloured shapes. I added highlights and shadows to the coloured areas with the airbrush tool. The background is a simple blend.

Tree growing out of rocks Medium: Charcoal pencils on tan paper. Creation time: 20 minutes. Today I went to the Botanical Gardens in Sydney and I found this really interesting tree to draw. It was growing out of the cracks between some huge sandstone blocks and above that there was a man made retaining wall of smaller blocks. It made for some really interesting shapes. I had to climb half way up a cliff to get to it.

Stylised girl This is a very abstract piece, quite unlike my normal work. I kept refining the lines until I had simplified the figure as much as possible. This would make an interesting stain glass window design.

Red tree Medium: Red and white chalk on manila paper. Creation time: 40 minutes. I went to see an exhibition on French drawing at the Art Gallery of NSW and I was so inspired that I had to draw something. I had no-one to model for me so instead I sat in the park across the road from my house and drew this tree.

My Shoe Medium: Black and white charcoal pencil on grey paper. Creation time: 1 hour. I was looking for something to draw because I was bored and I saw my shoe! I love how the white really gives a shine to the black leather.

My foot Medium: Pencil on art paper. Creation time: 10 minutes. I was bored so I decided to draw a quick sketch of my foot... not exactly what normal people would do when they're bored but since when have I ever been normal! And yes, I do have hairy feet!! =)

James' house Medium: Black pen. This is James' house where my cartoon strip 'Ogga the Cane Toad' is set. If you look really closely you will see that Ogga is about to wet James' cat, Kathy with the hose!

Frangipani drawing Medium: Black and white pencil on tan paper. Creation time: Approximately 1 hour. This is a close-up of a beautiful frangipanni tree from my neighbour's front yard. I drew this especially for a gift on Valentine's Day.

Tree Medium: Black ink and coloured pencil on gray-brown paper. Creation time: 10 minutes. Just a quick picture of a tree. I painted the first part with ink then finished it off with coloured pencil.

My house in brown charcoal Medium: Brown charcoal pencil. Creation time: 45 minutes. I drew this the day after the Big Day Out in Sydney 2002. It took about 45 minutes or so. I was sitting in the park across the road. I've moved house since then so now I'll have to draw a new picture!

Winged skeleton in pencil Medium: Pencil on white art paper. Creation time: Not sure how long I took, maybe . I used this drawing for the front page of this website a long time ago. I also created a vector version but I think the pencil version looks better because you can see so much more detail.

Wave dragon in sepia ink and pencil Medium: Pencil, pen and ink. A bit of fantasy art for you! This started out as a bit of a doodle in pencil then I inked in some parts with sepia ink. I'm not sure why I didn't finish it.

Crystal girl Medium: Pencil. This is Crystal as a young girl. See more of my portraits.

Angel drawing Medium: Pencil on white art paper. This was a quick sketch that started as a doodle, I was just drawing from my mind.

Angela Medium: Black felt tip pen on art paper. Angela is James' girlfriend in my cartoon strip Ogga the Cane Toad.