James Foley

Sculpture- painted quokka and yak

I got around to painting these sculptures from my clay class.
(click here for the pre-painted quokka)
(click here for the pre-painted yak)

I didn’t realise the acrylics would go glossy when they dried – saves me having to varnish them.

Quokka- cinema

This week’s cover features the art deco foyer of the Piccadilly Cinema in Perth.

It’s a lot of fun to put quokkas into movie posters…

Quokka- Abbey Road

I think Ringo looks good as a quokka- I only had to make the nose a little bigger. Here’s the original.

Since I started posting the quokka covers to this blog, I’ve done three that are references to famous images… I hope I’m not getting lazy 🙂

Quokka- End of Financial Year, Stonehenge

There’s two covers for the Quokka this week- one for a special ‘End of Financial Year’ wraparound, and one normal cover.

The one below is the first time I can remember using panels in my Quokka covers… the brief asked for lots of quokkas buying lots of stuff, including fridges, heaters, cars, houses, tools and couches. This was the easiest way I could think of to show all the required items at once.

Quokka, June 11 2009- End of Financial Year

This next one was fun- I got halfway through colouring it and started worrying that people might think that the quokkas were members of a strange cult. I meant them to be druids. The older one, stirring the potion in the cauldron, is a nod to the druid from my favourite comic series.

Quokka- heaters

A bit left field, but good fun to draw.

Quokka- Foundation Day

Here’s the cover for issue 669 of the Quokka newspaper– the theme was Foundation Day, a public holiday in Western Australia. Like last week’s cover, this is a reference to a famous image- this time it’s a painting by George Pitt Morrison called The Foundation of Perth.

The original painting tells a story from the early history of Western Australia- on the 12th of August 1829, Mrs Helen Dance, the wife of the captain of the HMS Sulphur, cut down a tree to commemorate the founding of the colony. Apparently the tree was close to where the Perth Town Hall now stands. I think that’s the Narrows off in the distance, and Mt Eliza- which is now Kings Park. There’s not a hint of an Aboriginal person anywhere.

sculpture- Aztec thingy and a yak

I finished off this sculpture in clay class last week- he’s almost dry now and should be fired in the next week or so. He’s a re-creation of a Latin American figurine I found in a reference book once.

Here’s the reference photo I found in the first place- and no, he’s not Aztec, because they didn’t live in Colombia. That’s what Wikipedia told me, and Wikipedia never lies.

pottery figurine from Colombia, Quimbaya style, after 1300- Baltimore Museum of Art, Wurtzburger Collection

This week in clay class I finished off a model of a yak. Why? I’d seen some billboards around town with big yaks on them. Later, a drawing of a yak turned up in my sketchbook. Then when I was looking for inspiration in clay class, I found the drawing of the yak, and it seemed like it would be fun to make one. So… that’s why I made a yak.

He’s got lots of little clay crumbs on him at the moment, but once he’s dried off this week, I’ll brush them off. I may paint him later as well.

Illustration Friday- contagious

This Illustration Friday entry is one week late… no matter, I enjoyed it.

The theme was ‘contagious’- I figured there would be a lot of swine flu references, but hopefully not many three little pigs.

Sculpture – Quokka clay model

Here’s a model I made in clay sculpture class at the Fremantle Arts Centre. It’s one of my characters from the covers I do each week for the Quokka newspaper.

He’s not painted yet, but he’s been fired in the kiln and come out looking spiffy.

It’s been an eye-opener to go from working in 2D to 3D.