Adelaide Fringe Poster Competition 2013

Here are my entries for the 2013 Adelaide Fringe Poster Competition. This year the theme was 'Inside/Out' which could be represented however felt appropriate to you. My concept tries to depict what is trapped inside, being released in a vibrant explosion of movement and pattern. Each figure captures an area of the arts.

This year I tried to produce a piece that would be more versatile in a design sense and that could be used in a number of ways throughout all the promotional material. I was actually happy for once with how this piece turned out! It was loosely based on a piece of Danish art I have come across over the past few months during a restaurant job. I loved how the piece was so bold and simple - hopefully I have been able to capture that with these pieces too.

I can't wait to see the winning entry in October...hopefully next year will be my year!

FLY Surf, Skate, Fashion Posters

Here are the first in a collection of posters I have created for Fly Boardriding International, Seaford.

The first features a mystical being who only shows his fury head after heavy periods of rain and run off. His powers still remain unknown... The Seaford Sewer Rat

Chicks can skate too! A skate/fashion piece - digital watercolour.

Charminar retro inspired wall mural

I recently had the opportunity to create an exterior mural for the newest edition, Henley Beach Charminar, in a chain of popular Indian restaurants. My canvas was a textured 3mx3m wall - when I initially went to survey the site the sun had just started setting and was throwing an amazing orange glow onto the wall. I tried to work this into my design.

Charminar is a beautiful temple in the Indian city of Hyderabad with a striking outline along the city skyline. I had this image of a retro, classic, slightly worn Coco Cola type wall mural stuck in my head. I managed to translate it to the client, they were wrapped so I went ahead and painted the mural. Due to limited outside lighting I tried to keep a lot of contrast in the image.

The highlight of this job was definitely chatting to the oldies on their way down to the beach each day!

Adelaide Icons Poster

This poster features a number of Adelaide's well known traditional icons along with a few more not so conventional ones, like Rundle Mall's very own Johnnie and Farmers Union Iced Coffee!

I created it to be used as part of a wedding invitation package - the poster was for the out of towners. I also entered it into the Adelaide Magazine's youth edition cover competition. I will hopefully organise a few prints for sale later in the year for those die-hard South Aussies out there.

Click on the image to view the detail up close.

Tart Time #3

Time to make another tasty tart! This one was inspired by a chocolate based tart recipe I saw on Heston Blumenthal's 'Heston's Feast' showing right now on SBS. In Heston's recipe he made a passionfruit infused chocolate ganache tart with pop rock candy hidden in the biscuit base.

My version ended up a little different as these things often do, but it was still a pretty mean tart! Instead of putting pop rocks in the base I decided to make a raspberry sticky jam (slightly thicker than average store jam and without gelatine, almost like a toffee) and mix in the pop rocks. I started by pressing a cup of fresh raspberries through a sieve. I then mixed with castor sugar in a heavy bottomed pan and continued as though I were going to make toffee. When the colour became an intense maroon I poured the fixture on a tray line with baking paper and sprinkled the pop rocks on top. Then when ready to served I simply scraped a teaspoon of the mixture and placed on top of the individual tarts. The pop rock jam was so good I had to stop myself from eating the tray. The fresh raspberry flavour worked perfectly with the passionfruit and the result was a tangy, sweet, chocolatey tart...with a burst of suprise with the pop rocks.  A sprig of mint always helps to cut out a bit of the sweetness too I find.

Cutloose Surf's Board Swap 2012

So there's the Gillie's St Markets for those fashion and crafty folk out there...but what is there for surfers? There's the Cutloose Board Swap of course!

Held in late Feb, the board swap was a great day out again, with local shapers doing their thing, being the highlight of the day by far.

This is the poster I created for the event - an eco friendly take with a slightly retro feel!

Cutloose and Surfer Girls Movie Night

Cutloose Surf is again kindly hosting the Surfer Girls annual movie night and this year I got to design the poster. They will be screening a film called 'Dear and Yonder' which gives insight into the history of women's surfing.

As Surfer Girls are also helping to launch on the night their new branch Surfer Mums, I thought it only fitting to try and capture women and girls all surfing together...on a MAAAAAASIVE SUP! The three surfers at the back are loosely based on pros Silvana Lima, Steph Gilmore and Sally Fitzgibbons...all awesome surfers that the young groms in the club look up to!

Red Bull Design Sally's Board Comp 2012

This year Red Bull put on a sweet competition to design a surfboard for world #2 Sally Fitzgibbons. They provided entrants with a template and then you were let loose to come up with an original, bold design that reflects Sally's personality. 

The winner got an awesome prize - A trip to the Roxy Pro, their design on Sally's new board and some cashola!! Waaaaah I didn't win but fortunately Red Bull are also hosting an exhibition of the top 20 designs in Sydney and I was lucky enough to be chosen for my design "The Fitz Stick #3" (the icy-pole one). You can view the top 20 and my design here Red Bull Top 20 Gallery

I reckon I might end up using the middle design on a new board for myself...why not!!

Deadset Digest 3D text

Just a bit of fun and something to do when there is no swell...

Experimenting with rendering 3d type in Maya. I like doing this because unlike most 3d projects you can get results quickly and don't need too many technical skills (of which I have very little!). Occlusions shaders make me happy :D

Lyne gets his trees

For the past six years I have worked as a lifeguard at Adelaide's oldest community pool, the Norwood Outdoor Pool. Every Wednesday my Favourite swimmer comes in to brighten up the day, Lyne. He has been swimming at the pool for over 25 years and every time I see him he asks me when I will draw him a picture of the gum trees around the pool. So finally I pulled my finger out and painted him my representation of the huge gums that shade the pool. He was delighted and said that the picture had made his year'!

My new summer stick...

Finally after months and months of waiting (my fault entirely) my new board is finished! This is the first custom board I have ever had and I absolutely love it! It is a 6"2, 19", 2 3/4" swallow tail, five fin set up, which for all you non surfers translates to a SUPER FUN & FAST RIDE!! Christened in Indo as a quad, I can confirm that this board is absolutely amazing and I had plenty of offers from locals to buy it off me.

When designing the concept I tried to kept in mind the time of year that I would be riding this board the most - late autumn through to winter. For those of you who have never surfed a South Oz winter I can tell you now...they suck...even with a super toasty premium wetsuit from Cutloose! So this is my attempt at bringing some 'warmth' to those cold clear south coast days. I have since learnt from Shark Week on Discovery that sharks are most attracted to yellow and orange...oops, my bad...let's see how that works out for me!

This custom decal took me 4 hours from concept to finished hi-res artwork. It was printed by the super efficient Surfboard Graphics http://www.surfboardgraphics.com/. The decal was cut to size and applied under the resin tint to avoid having to use another layer of glass. The black turned up a treat and 'pops' over the warm tones. Mick @Cutloose did an awesome job shaping, glassing and applying the graphics for me. One very happy customer :D

Dreaming of Hawaii...

This is the first year in four that I didn't get to Hawaii and I am definitely feeling island deprived (although I do have a Bali trip coming up soon :D). So this was my latest project to help me fill the void - working up a longboard skateboard deck. If I can't go to Hawaii, I will uproot it and bring it to me! This is the finished deck...clear grip tape was applied to the top. Gullwing 10" charger trucks and 68mm Seismic Avilia wheels...rides like a 8ft longboard out at Tungs, Diamond Head SWEET! I am stoked with the result just wish I could keep it for myself!!

The maple and bamboo ply deck came pre-varnished with sand glassing on the top. I spent the good part of a day scrapping and sanding it off to start fresh. Bamboo is such a dense wood with a waxy coat so eventually I had to resort to the power sander. I stained the top and bottom and then used a stain varnish on the top of the deck to achieve the 'rising sun' pattern. The palm tree design on the bottom was done with permanent marker and then a spray varnish was applied.

Surfer moles Cutloose boards

The last few months I have been doing design work for South Australian surf board manufacture, Cutloose. A lot of the work has been designing decals to be applied to boards.

Fortunately two "moles" (members) of the fully sick club Surfer Girls SA, were getting new custom made shortboards so I saw it as a great opportunity to get my new decals out there.

They loved the Cutloose Popsicle decal I had done...a treat that all Aussie kids dream of on a stinking hot summers day!

Colors were chosen, decals were printed, then the resin tints and graphs were applied. Finally the boards were glassed and ready to go. Here are some pics of the finished boards...

Now to get off the interwebz and design my new board which has been on the shelf for the last month...

*Just a tip for anyone out there using colored decals on a colored board - always mask out and spray white the area of the board where the decal will be applied. Otherwise the base color will show through.

Its Tart Time!!

I have begun my journey to create the ULTIMATE tart! Here was attempt #1...there were many flaws but the saving grace was the flavour. Dark chocolate, orange and mint YUM. Hot tip: always follow the instructions when using gelatine!!

When your tart doesn't set properly, don't stress, just let your friends get plastered and they will eat it from the dish with their hands and never know!

Attempt #2 - I have almost perfected it now...Double chocolate ganache tart with blood orange creme anglaise and mint. The blood orange is what makes this tart. I reckon it is going to be a sweet recipe for summer.

Lucky Lupitas' Fiesta

I have been busy over the last couple of months doing the graphic design for a new Mexican restaurant, set to open in Adelaide in late November. As a sneak peak the restaurant is hosting a gala 'Fiesta' to raise money for the Make A Wish Foundation. Here is the poster and ticket design I did...

This is work and this is fun!

A little sketch from my latest work in the restaurant game...plenty more to come! A new restaurant I'm working on is opening hopefully in December...keep your eyes peeled!

Bake-off #2

Yay its cake time again. Lately I have been finding cake decorating super fun, which is not really surprising as it is definitely a challenging creative outlet. This time the brief was to make a cake for a 'paradise' themed party. Most of the guests were also surfers so I wanted to make something appealing for them. I sketched out a few concepts...sadly the morbid blood red shark cake was rejected and I decided to go with the island scene. Here goes..

Always important to practice your piping technique!!!...I was trying to capture a wave pattern. For any foody geeks out there I used a #233 and #47 nozzle. I worked with a basic buttercream icing recipe. Edible yellow glitter for the sand....and a basic chocolate cake with chocolate ganache filling.

And the end result...Everyone loved the shark bite out of the white chocolate surfboard!

Adelaide Fringe 2012 Poster Competition

I thought it about time I finally enter the Adelaide Fringe poster comp. This year the theme was 'Tour of the Unexpected' - they wanted a poster that would "conjure up images of the ultimate tour where you get to expand your mind, be entertained and be changed forever". Here is my entry...

This was my first idea - its meant to be a flying dog-ship...inspired by the airships from the 1950s. I think there is definitely a little Falcor luck dragon coming out here.

My next idea was similar to the dog-ship but a little more conventional...yeh right! I looked at a lot of retro travel posters and wanted to try and replicate some of the cool techniques. This is what I imagine The Garden of Unearthly Delights would look like if you uprooted it and squeezed it on a ship. The brief called for the design to be a stand alone element that could be reproduced in a number of different ways.

And my final design... I was happy with how this turned out but as always got carried away with the detail and the design became way more complex than intended! Click on image to view more detail. All Aboard!!

Yorkes Fest Poster

The poster for this years Yorkes Fest/Classic event...the longest running surf comp in South Australia. Its gonna be RAD!!

RIP Amy...

A piece in honour of the late Amy Winehouse...she was operating in her own world, RESPECT!