Earlier this year I completed a submission for an anthology for the MWF called 'Drawn from life'. The anthology was edited by Oslo Davis who you might remember put together the anthology 'Conceived on a tram' and also has his cartoons published in the newspaper 'The Age'. When I was first contacted about submitting some work I was a little worried. The submission called for comics about everyday stories, autobiographical stories etc. The weird thing is that the majority of my work has been in this vein. however for the previous year I had been seriously considering taking different directions, I wasn't sure if auto bio comics was were I wanted to go. How was I going to come up with an idea that fitted the theme but was a little different than before. I ended up coming up with the idea above (click for readable version) and I decided to take a different direction than my more sketchier work and fully pencil and ink the piece. I then digitally colour

Spent the day at NGV studio for the last day of inherent vice. I whipped up these postcards on the photocopier there

I may have mentioned a book earlier in the year called 'the brain that changes itself', I don't want to do the science in the book a disservice by trying to sum it up here, but basically it's an awesome book about how flexible the brain is when it comes to learning, changing and dealing with trauma. The book got me thinking about how artists could take some of the principles from the book to create brain training activities for improving drawing skills. Developing such activities properly is probably beyond my capacity unless I wanted to get a research grant and write a PHD on it. However last night I started watching the DVD version if the book, basically they take some if the content and simplify the research to make a tidy little tv doco. One phrase they repeat in the book and also in the DVD is, 'neurons that fire together, wire together' which led to an interesting insight for me personally. Before I explain that, I'll remind the reader that I've be

view full image "Old Mr Spudjobs"