Declan vs. Himself

Back in Christchurch for the week, I spent Saturday afternoon making silly movies with my cousin on my cellphone. Turns out it's the funnest thing in the world. After being initially pretty suspicious, he got so excited about it.

This is the first one we made, with Declan playing both roles.



Then after we finished that one, while taking my puppy Fritz for a walk, we came up with another idea. This was was all Declan's vision. There's an elaborate sequel involved with a character named "Dr. Zarcophagus", who has a snake that comes out of his chest. But we only had time to make Part 1.


Declan declared himself "Okay with being famous," and allowed me to put the videos on YouTube. Can't wait for the sequel.

And just as an extra bonus movie for the weekend, I made my first viral-cute-puppy-video with our dog Fritz.

Sculptorial Update

I've found out in the past couple months that I'm a slow sculptor. Basically, this means that while I keep coming up with ideas, I'm not quick enough to make them all. So my brains faster than my hands. My sculptures jump from one thing to the next to the next. I guess I'm still trying out ideas.

Anyway. Here's kind of a taste of what I've been up to.

Gil

Big Al

Severus

Sebastian

Amy

Olwen

Olwen in action...

Finlay

Finlay is my absolute favourite (that's why he has the best name). He's made of polystyrene offcuts and wool and a stick. Here's a video of him in action...

He's more impressive in person.

Sculpture Farm

Okay. So this is an extremely valuable Damien Hirst artwork called "The Incredible Journey". It consists of real life, really dead Zebra preserved in formaldehyde. 

 

This is a $2.00 toy I bought at Pricebusters in Newtown of a plastic toy zebra suspended in silly putty. I've chosen this bizarre not-quite-a-knock-off as a starting point for my sculptures this semester.

Starting in paper and string.  

Then cotton thread.

(scary reverse angle)

Masking tape.

Potato. 

Masking tape and cotton thread.

Cotton thread and potato.

And a potato one again to round things off (Note the stripes). 

This is the haul after week two. More to come I'd say. Stay tuned.

I Moved/I Movied

Fred's Dilemma

As promised (for once) here follows the illustrations I did for my grandpa Terry's book. IN SUPER LARGE!!

Chapter One (and front cover) - The mysterious island where it all takes place. Note: scary cliffs, huts on beach, cliche distant flying birds, super dramatic lighting.


The Scary Cliffs: A BODY?!! Oh heavens no! What a terrible accident. Definately an accident... Or was it?? We may never know. Unless a selfless hero becomes a detective to try and solve this dilemma.

Giorgio: What a bully... what a coward... What a fiend! (if you read the book you'd understand my hatred for him. Jerk). The island has it's own laws now, and you will face cage-related consequences if you disobey!


The End: Lot's more stuff happens on the island, but I won't ruin it (or let you know if they get to freedom or descend into savagery). This is a perfect circle-wipe ending, showing the now idylic island. Cue bright sky and a calm mist.


I'll happily illustrate your book if you wrote one. Not that I'm advertising or anything. I'm just super happy with these drawings. I hope you like them and they make you want to buy my grandpa's book. I'll let you know how when I figure it out myself.

TICK

I'm writing a film. It's called Tick. It's about a guy who can't sleep because of the noises in his wall, and in his muddled state has the best/worst week of his life. It's pretty cool, but it's my first one so it probably doesn't make a lot of sense yet.

Here's some concept art...




I'm now setting myself a goal to bang it out. I'm giving myself a month. I thought I'd let you know because you might hold me to it.

"Work" starts tomorrow...

SMOKEY GHOST

Oli and Callum have been productive.

Introducing a track by Hans Pucket.

(artwork by me)

Smokey Ghost

Thanks Thom.

We Are House

My parents are in the process of building their dream home. It has really been a long time coming. When it was initially designed, all three of us kids were living at home. Now, Oli and I may only get a couple months in it before we move away to bigger things. But I know it's going to be the perfect place to come back home to. And I'm still getting my own room.

Anyway, we're at the stage where its finally looking like a house. It has an almost-roof and everything! It seems they really started making progress when Oli and I stopped pretending to be labourers (read "getting-in-the-way-ers) and got different jobs that we could actually do. So last Tuesday I took Paige to see it in all it's skeletal construction-site glory.

(*click on photos for a better view)


This is the view from the front driveway. To the left is the almost-garage, and to the right of that is the almost-front entrance way. Above the garage is a sweet alcove like space which will one day be utilised as a band/(wild) rumpus room.

This is a photo of Paige standing in my parents almost-bedroom.


Here, Paige is making use of the almost-roof by sticking her head through it.

This is Adrian, my ex-manager. He's up very high, isn't he? Hahaha... He knows what he's doing, don't worry. That almost-roof doesn't stand a chance!


This is a cool photo. Its Paige crouching inside my closet in my very own almost-bedroom. Yeah, I know, but Adrian assures me that when the house is finished it won't have such a draft.


And here, in all its autumnal beauty, is the view from my bedroom window. I love it. Second stories man! It is a vast improvement on my current view: a seedy overgrown tennis court through a chain-link fence.

"One day son, all this will be yours!"

Sleight Of Hand

This year for printmaking, I'm using lot's of old images of stage magicians and the like. Through my research I found this video of Hugh Jackman promoting his blasphemic powers of witchcraft.

To-do

Man, these past two months have really disappeared. School for me this year has been an ever ceasing to-do list, so I've been living under self-imposed hibernation for a while now (see this time last year), forcing myself to do work that I've managed to go to ludicrous lengths to avoid (art art art art english english english classics classics music).

Procrastination is a young mans game. Being a young man, I take every opportunity to live up to this expectation.

For instance, I was given a copy of Thomas Hardy's novel Mayor of Caterbridge (a gripping account of the ups and downs of English wheat exchanges) on sign out day last year, preparing me for the 7th form Scholarship English class that I had managed to get into. The thought of completing ample preparation for classwork ahead of time (no doubt resulting in an engaging and stimulating learning environment) produced an excitement that motivated me through the first three pages of the novel. And that was where it stayed until about a month ago. I'm not going to lie to you. I had plenty of time to read it during the entire term we spent studying the book (an entire term that was essentially lost on me). And yet, I somehow managed to convince myself that the months lying ahead of me until the november exam provided me with endless opportunities to catch up, at my leisure, and read one fucking book. How wrong I was.

I'm currently halfway through, reading a strict chapter a night. It's actually not too bad. Everythings sosososooo melodramatic! Can I get a big *M* for melodrama? Look, I don't CARE that your daughters actually not your daughter but shes kept unawares while she lives with your mistress who's actually in love with your competitor who your dead wife wanted your daughter marying but she can't because she's meek but slowly coming to terms with herself and her hidden beauty but the townspeop;'.le hate you becaus...e you're actually a cunt but her!!! real fgathers!!! actually alive acxfnd reclaims her and yoru forieigi ntioe wheatiodknrojtbro88k;....8...ensobrietyoa..th. ntoiwu';.erbh religiousechosekpepe!!1!!

AHHRHGG IT'S ALL SO IMPORTANT TO EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE!!!!

I need to go outside for a moment.

Crafts For Today

Today I made a frog. Its fucking legit. His name is Kim Fowley and he's a rock and roll legend who knows the score. And he can jump like a demon.

Whatch him jump!! (nb. scroll very fast)



I forged him out of my classics assignment task sheet. Oooooo catharsis.
And I took my sweet time, not because it was difficult. Just because I'm a champ and I earned it.

"Well spent Wednesday evening Callum!"

Why, thank you blog!

"You're welcome. now...Shouldn't you be doing you're art research?"

Quiet blog. I'm taking my moment of pride.

christmas 2005

Vampire Weekend Trailer from ezra on Vimeo.

Poster Bear

I made this poster for a band competition. I hope you like it. It took me two whole evenings. It's done with collaged oil pastels, which is pretty much the best thing ever.

Photo Bear

Lovely Alex took some photos of our band playing our first bar gig and standing akwardly on some grass and in a tree. I got to scan them! It was mean! The gig was at GBM with Lonely Harris Club and Piha Rescue, two wickedly awesome bands. And I'm not just saying that because they gave us reason to stay up past 10 on a school night.

Holidays

So the first term went all right. But all in all it was school, wasn't it? Oh, I did have the production (being West Side Story) and that was pretty awesome. Wicked fun all the way through, and the after party was quite memorable. I brought Paige. Yeah, I bring her everywhere now. Awesome, I know. She even came to Easter with our family (didn't she do well?) with declans and photos and foood and chocolate. After that it was pretty much the holidays where all life is real and happy and good. So we decided to go to thoms birthday party and make him turn 18. It was good fun.

Holiday activities include; hanging out with Paige way too much; cooking (mashed potatoes (twice), salsa, indian, mexican breakfast (for dinner), pasta out of thin air etc etc....etc); eating said food; drinking responsibly; sexy parties; sleeping... oh so much sleep; gig wenting (sidewalk meese, rackets, and others....happy birthday georgia by the by...); singing; watching films (finally make paige watch Superbad and Dirty Dancing... a couple of my favourites); anniversaring (bookaramaing... as well as duck feeding, hand holding, park kissing, bagel eating, movies watching, food eating.. all the good things); fort building (ROMG!); homework avoiding; bike riding; walking; room cleaning; new queen size bed assembling; napping in said queen size bed too much; and more things which probably come up in these photos...