Weekly drawing: Night buskers King St Newtown

A few years ago, Bec and I were walking home along King street at around 10.00pm.
We could hear this amazing music echoing down the street. It was coming from three buskers disguised in lycra suits grooving out in front of a crowd on the steps of the Newtown Post office.

It was incredible. I never discovered who they were, but I wished it would happen more often. Good live music is magical and should be encouraged in every city and country town.

Weekly Drawing 51: Enjoy diversity

"Dogs like busking

Cats like jazz

Dogs like home cooked leftovers

Cats like sushi..." 

                                                      Joel Tarling

Kids book idea about accepting others and enjoying diversity

Weekly drawing 18: Seeger & Lead Belly



Seeger and Lead Belly



This drawing was inspired by reading To Everything There Is A Season: Pete Seeger and the power of song, a biography by Allan M. Winkler (Oxford University Press, 2009). Pete Seeger has amazing credentials: he spent time travelling with Woody Guthrie and they wrote 'Union Maid' together; he was friends with Allan Lomax, the great field collector of folk music; he even played with Lead Belly. 

I wanted illustrate a young Seeger, full of energy and enthusiaism, with the aging hard man who was finally free after a long life in and out of jail.

Allan M. Winkler writes:

Through Lomax, Seeger met Lead Belly. One day Lomax called Seeger and told him to grab his banjo. Off they went to another apartment on the Lower East side, this one inhabited by the fabled folk singer (...) Wearing overalls in an awkward effort to identify with the working class, Seeger at first had a hard time relating to the well dressed Lead Belly."There I was," he said, "trying my best to shed my Harvard upbringing, scorning to waste money on clothes other then blue jeans. But Lead Belly had on a clean shirt and starched collar, well-pressed suit, and shined shoes." Seeger nonetheless found himself fascinated by the man who "moved with the soft grace of an athlete. He had a powerful ringing voice, and his muscular hands moved like a dancer over the strings of his huge twelve-stringed guitar." As he watched him play, and played along with him, Seeger saw that Lead Belly "was not the cleverest guitar player; he didn't try and play the fanciest chords, the trickiest progressions, or the fastest number of notes... The notes he played were powerful and meaningful."

An amazing day: Ron Cobb, Stanley Awards conference & Mic Conway album launch

Ron Cobb speaking at the Stanley Awards conference

Last Friday I attended the first day of the Stanley Awards conference. It is hosted by the Australian Cartoonist Association and involves many great cartoonists in the industry.

I was extremely excited that Ron Cobb was speaking. As a child in the 80's I had read his books The Cobb Book and Cobb Again; collections of his political cartoons from the 1960's and 70's. So much of his work is still relevant today, and influenced my own political cartoons during the Howard years.

Highlight of the day:
Meeting Ron Cobb and discovering that Goya's disaster of war was a major influence on his cartoons.

What's ecology? Ron Cobb cartoon from 1967

New discovery of the day:
Leigh Hobbs' book Mr Chicken goes to Paris.
Children's book illustrators Leigh Hobbs, Cathy Wilcox, and Stephen Axelsen gave a talk about illustrating childrens books. I hadn't heard of Leigh Hobbs before but his talk was very amusing and his illustrations are hilarious.

Later that evening after a big day of talks, I saw Mic Conway launch his new CD Street of Dreams at The Vanguard in Newtown. I think I enjoy hearing him play these old-time tunes most out of all his material.

 Drawn on paper tablecloth while waching the show. Photo: Andrew Lorien

Publicity for The Lurkers album Padlock and Chain

The Lurkers CD launch poster on Regent St, Redfern

I recently had a lot of creative fun designing and illustrating The Lurkers the latest album Padlock and Chain. It was great working with like minded people. They’re great a mix of old time folk music, punk attitude and three part harmonies.

Album Launch Saturday, 17th September, The Red Rattler, Marrickville. Get tickets through The Sydney Fringe NSW.

A fun project for a fun band

Recently I was asked to paint a 1930’s bass drum for the Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band Show. I was very excited about contributing to the show because I’m a big fan, plus Mic and Jim Conway will be performing songs I have only ever heard on vinyl listening to Dad’s old records.

The brief for the drum painting was a graphic in the style of a National Guitar palm tree, and maybe a hula girl, but no text. This was so the drummer could use the it for other gigs when not playing in the Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band Show.

I liked the idea, however I thought the text was essential to the design. So I came up with a design where the text could be painted out after the tour. Before I painted the drum I drew up two colour proofs in Photoshop: one with the text and one without. Luckily for me the drummer loved the design with the text and gave his all-OK. So I’m very happy because now all my hard work won’t have to be painted out!

The1930's drum

Photoshop proofs

Hand painted drum

A little badge

Thanks Mithra from the Lurkers for help with the badges.

We went to the gig at the Cat & Fiddle in Balmain last night. Lots of fun, and it was a packed house! The band will also be playing at the Woodford Folk Festival this year and up in Katoomba early in 2011.