Do you live in Victoria, like plants and enjoy clean air?

 Then please vote for our local community project. We aim to realise a permanent, indoor "forest on wheels" based on NASA research into natural air purification, at Northcity4 (www.northcity4.com), a non-profit shared artist studio and education space in Brunswick, Melbourne. Importantly, Northcity4 will make all results public -- for other artists, working communities, and interested individuals to use and learn from, for free.  So this project is for everyone.

This initiative was recently selected a top ten finalist in the Bank of Melbourne Local Project Competition/Environment-category. The competition is very tight and every single vote counts!

Here's how to show your support:

1. You can vote directly at the website at http://webapps.bankofmelbourne.com.au/thelocalproject/default.aspx?project=201
Please note that your details WILL NOT be stored, or used for any other purpose than the grant competition.

If you're feeling really enthusiastic, please forward to any friends you think would be interested to support us also (note that they need to be local, ie. have a Victorian postcode).

Many thanks from all the artists at Northcity4!

Things we can only talk about on the back of a giant cat as it strides across a sleeping suburb, pencil 2009

An old drawing for an unrealised project, which later evolved into sketches for the book Rules of Summer.

Exhibition in Regional Victoria

customs house gallery presents BEYOND THE BOOK, an exhibition of Australian Children’s Picture Book Illustrations at two venues:

Fourteen illustrators at Blarney Books and Art

37 James Street Port Fairy

Hours : Thursday to Sunday 11am to 5pm

  

Kim Gamble, Shaun Tan, and many other illustrators

 at customs house gallery

85 Dawson Street Hawkesdale

Hours : Saturday & Sunday 11am to 5pm

other times by appointment

until October 19 2014

A memory of the Chrysler Building on a winter evening, oil 15 x 20cm

Cloud entering a street illegally, oil 15 x20cm

Collapsing cloud, oil, 20 x 15cm

Albany, oil 30 x 20cm

Beach carpark, oil, 20 x 15cm

Parking lot, oil 20 x 15cm

Blue night, oil, 20 x 15cm

Book Illustration Competition

I know many visitors to this blog are new illustrators and students, and thought you might be interested in this news from the House o Illustration in London:

The Book Illustration Competition, a unique partnership between House of Illustration and The Folio Society, seeks to identify and promote new talent in illustration, and is open to illustrators over the age of 18 from all around the world. The first prize is a prestigious Folio Society commission, worth £5,000, to illustrate a new edition. Five runners up will each receive £500.Three of the six shortlisted entries will be from illustration students.

This year's book is The Folio Collection of Ghost Stories, a brand new anthology of classic spine-chillers and lesser-known gems. To find out more and to enter, click here

Building site, oil on cardboard, 30 x 24cm

Rooftop, oil, 20 x 15cm

Frankfurt exhibition: Realms of Childhood - Dreams of Childhood

Thousandfurs, paper, clay, paint and berries, 20cm tall

Realms of Childhood - Dreams of Childhood (a play on words in German) opens on September 27 and runs until February 15 at the Museum Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt. This is a group exhibition featuring work by illustrators who have chosen a three-dimensional medium, to which I've contributed a dozen of my Grimm sculptures, and includes work by Øyvind Torseter, Anouk Boisrobert and Louis Rigaud. For more info, visit the Museum Angewandte Kunst

Exhibition in London

Bull and grass. pastel A2, 2010

An exhibition of original pieces opens this week at the Illustrationcupboard Gallery at 22 Bury St, St James's in London, and includes mostly unpublished pieces ranging from observational drawings like the one above (made while standing in a paddock) to the kind of internal 'head' landscape-portraits represented on previous posts, and a couple of works related to The Red Tree and Tales from Outer Suburbia.

The show opens on Wednesday 24 September 2014, 5:30 - 8:00pm, and runs until October 18. Unfortunately I can't be present in London for this one but I've signed a lot of bookplates! It's also a good opportunity to get a copy of Grimms Märchen, the German edition of Philip Pullman's version of Grimm's fairy tales that I illustrated with little clay sculptures, a few of which should be on display.

More info at www.illustrationcupboard.com

Calgary morning, oil, 25 x 17cm

Melbourne winter, oil, 20 x 15cm

The big cat of middle Brunswick, oil, 20 x 15cm

Burning, pastel, 40 x 60cm

Effigy, pastel, 60 x 40cm