An educational August

Little_G_Flinders Street Train Station, Melbourne 2017 ©

Been working on the Ted's Canon 2 day workshop for Monday and Tuesday 7th and 8th of August, which was a great success, see previous post on my blog.

I have entered a big award in the USA and I'm waiting on the outcome which I will find out about in November. I put one of the images I recently took on a trip down to the Mornington Peninsular.

I finished building my Leonardo da Vinci clock, see previous blog, and have now used that as a basis for a new drawing.

Tried my hand at paper sculpture and origami and spent a bit of time with a 10 year old Sam who is a origami wiz and made a baseball cap.

At 10 year old Sam dreams of being an Origamist when he grows up and I'm sure he will be. :-) I was pretty pleased with my small origami creation although I can't match his speedy fingers. He's that good he can create origami from memory and imagination, quite incredible.

I always admire and value dexterity. I'm constantly using my fingers and hands to create, build and draw. I work them at yoga and at the gym, yoga is particularly good for this flexibility. Being able to touch type is also an invaluable skill, one I learned while a teenager at University.

I've been working on my ELO world chess ranking, currently 1084, a long way to go to improve my game play and bought a new chess computer with an ELO of 2500. I was beating my previous two chess computers.

Shot for BRASA (Bayside Refugee Advocacy Support Association) on refugee matters for PR.

Went up to the Yarra Valley for some location scouting for some upcoming shoot ideas. There is a grove of trees that I find particularly interesting, its a cross section of lines that I keep turning around in my head. Starting out as a photograph it may eventuate into a drawing idea I'm working on.

Photography photoshop, post production and printing continues for a number of ongoing clients, for PR, advertising, websites and fine art prints sales.

I bought a air compressor and airbrush to look at adding this to increase my list drawing approaches, for doing textures and backgrounds. Looking forward to giving it a run.

Read an interesting article in PDN August 2017,

"Do Brick - And - Mortar Galleries Have a Future",

moderated by David Dixon who interviews two New York art dealers, one art dealer who has a bricks and mortar gallery and one who doesn't.

Two key questions come up where are collectors now shifting to where they buy art and the photographers still having the need to have public shows of their work. Young people are being more and more trained to purchase online which includes art. For those where experience and relationship are important to a purchase then they will buy in a different way and will prefer going to a bricks and mortar gallery.

I went to a talk at the Melbourne Writers Festival on Aug 31 entitled.

"Gala : A Better Tomorrow", at Deakin Edge at Federation Square.

A number of writers spoke on the topic, the most impressive talk for me was by Yasmin Abdel-Magied, I found it a thought provoking look on diversity in a new way. I recommend it. I'm looking forward to going to more of Melbourne Writers Festival events.

Reading : Button Button by James Matheson

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl (always loved the illustrations by Nancy Ekholm Burkert from my childhood).

Capricorn Games by Robert Silverberg

Stochastic Man by Robert Silverberg

Watching : John Wick

Listening : Sibelius Symphonies 1, 4th movement

Eating : Smoked Salmon