Friend

Friend, 2013

I've drawn Tia since 2011 and made two prints since. (First and second one)
This time I put Lawes' Parotia with somehow startled look on her arm as her friend.

Lawes' Parotia is a bird of paradise family from Papua New Guinea that I drew from Melbourne Museum.
Just like all other bird of paradise, Lawes' Parotia has a very distinctive and fascinating courtship technique.
Males collect natural objects from the forest such as snake skin, mammal poo, furs, feathers, bone fragments etc and place them at their dancing court site - behaviour resembling to male bowerbird's.
Males do not use their objects in display and each type of item was removed by females.
They then spread their feathers like a skirt and dance.

Thank you so much Tia!!

Tia and Haniwa

Tia was my model for a different print in warm and cold colours.
Now she's a little grown up starting school next year.
I've made another print of recent Tia.
This will be my last print in 2011.

She's carrying a Haniwa terracotta clay figure on her head.
It's one of my favorite things I love to look and draw when I go to museums.
There are many different forms - horses, birds, dogs, shields, weapons, men, women etc..

They are ritural funerary figures used to be buried with aristocrats in Kofun period, late 3rd to late 6th century in Japan.
Some are used as a divider to create a sacred space. Some are used to keep the evil and bad spirits away.

Keeping Tia protected and safe!

More info on the print

Moody Tia

I printed my Tia with different colours at Australian Print Workshop yesterday.
This is a two plate etching with sanguine + warm red for the tonal plate and black + sanguine for the line and tone plate.
This proof shows more tone than the prints in actual edition.


Original Tia
This was prussian blue + raw amber for the tonal plate and black for the line plate.
Very cold compared to the Tia above.

Makes me want to experiment with all other colours available...

Tia

This is Tia - I met her briefly in April when I gave a watercolour portrait of her to her mum Catherine.
With Tia's sparkling eyes and Catherine's strong and sweet smile, I just wanted to make more...
More info about this here

These are some tests and rejects that might travel with me and Damon to Tokyo in September to work on the wall of Aesop's new Aoyama store.