Christmas Whale Christmas card

Will the Christmas whale be climbing down your chimney this year?
One can only hope!

Visit Pixbyrichard on Redbubble  to shop for Christmas Whale on Christmas cards, t-shirts and other fun decorated gift items

The Christmas whale is here with its friends the Christmas dolphins. Echo locating by Christmas carol they bring their cetacean joy to all the boys and girls of the ocean.

The Christmas Whale is part of an ongoing personal challenge to create the most absurd yet fun Christmas card I can. There is so much of the Christmas festival I find utterly bewildering yet enjoyable, so I feel a little nonsense actually makes a Christmas card design more relevant not less!

Combining ocean going creatures and Christmas festivities has been a bit of a theme for me this year. Nothing says absurd as much as a whale wearing a hat and fake beard, so I am pretty happy with this card. Hopefully it hits the right balance of mad, festive and cute for you too.

Celebration Sunfish, probably a Christmas card

Celebration Sunfish
The Ocean Sunfish, also known as a Mola Mola, loves a reason to celebrate. Christmas, holidays, birthdays, whatever the occasion it will be there dressed as a present with a big bow on its head.

Visit Pixbyrichard on Redbubble to shop for Celebration Sunfish on gift cards and lots of other stuff like t-shirts and mugs

Not quite sure why those jellyfish look so happy. Sunfish eat jellyfish.

When I drew this I had it in mind that it was to be for Christmas card. Now that I look at it I can see it would work equally well as a card for birthdays or in fact any celebration. A versatile sunfish!

painting a Troodon for Dinosaur Hamlet

Dinosaur Hamlet is my entry to the 2015 Illustrators Australia 9x5 art show. 

It took much longer to paint than anticipated, and being no expert with acrylic paints I battled with the medium throughout the entire process. Oh well, the battle is over, the painting is completed and has been delivered to the gallery in time to be part of the show.

The theme this year is 'Playtime', so I painted a Troodon, which is small relatively intelligent bird-like dinosaur from the Cretaceous period. It poses with a dinosaur skull as if performing the famous 'Alas poor Yorick' monologue from Shakespear's Hamlet. An obvious response to the theme, don't you think? 

This Illustrators Australia 9x5 art show will be up until 5 Dec 2015. More than 60 illustrators have each done an artwork in response to the theme 'playtime' on a 9x5 inch ply board. So if you are in Melbourne get along to the Abbotsford Convent and have a look. You will be glad you did!  

Oh, and I illustrated and designed this year's invite featuring a playtime kitten. Inspired by Miso the wonder cat attacking my toes in the middle of the night. 

And finally, here is an animated gif of the Dinosaur Hamlet in progress, so you can see how I went about painting it. It took a lot longer than this gif does!

lace monitor makes lace

Lace Monitor crochets lace underwear.
Her name is Anna. Go Anna!

This lace monitor was originally one half of a spot-the-difference puzzle in a book of Aussie Puzzle Adventures. I think she is sweet enough to be crocheting out in the big wide world on her own merit. So now she is on Redbubble and Society 6 as prints, gift cards, t shirts and the like. Long may she craft!

Visit Pixbyrichard on Redbubble to shop for Lace Monitor makes lace on gift cards, carry bags, t-shirts and stuff

Puzzle illustration - Collect Ten Flowers for a Pavlova Picnic

 

Handsome Yowie has a Flower. Beautiful Bunyip has a Pavlova.

Collect Ten Flowers for a Pavlova Picnic!
Help the handsome Yowie find his way through the maze to a picnic with the beautiful Bunyip. If he collects 10 flowers along the way she will give him a great big slice of pavlova. Yum. This is another of my Aussie Puzzle Adventures

Visit Pixbyrichard on Redbubble to shop for Collect Ten Flowers for a Pavlova Picnic, Handsome Yowie and Beautiful Bunyip on gift cards, posters, t-shirts and stuff

What are these strange beasties?

Yowies and Bunyips are Australian mythical animals or cryptids.

Yowies live in the darkest unexplored reaches of the Australian bush. They are big hairy ape-like beings similar to a Sasquatch or Yeti. Bunyips are dangerous magical creatures that inhabit isolated rivers and billabongs.

Both are to be feared and treated with the utmost caution, unless you are have brought flowers or pavlova.

Puzzle illustration - Who threw which boomerang?

Today the boomerang testing range is a whirl of confusion.
Can you tell who has thrown which boomerang?
Here’s a hint, the patterns on their helmets are coded to the boomerangs.
Who threw which Boomerang is another Aussie Puzzle Adventure

Thorny Devil

The Thorny Devil is available on its very own range of gifty items.
Also known as the Moloch or Thorny Dragon, these little lizards live in the Australian desert.
They are covered with spikes.
They are super cute.

Visit Pixbyrichard on Redbubble to shop for Who Threw Which Boomerang and for the Thorny Devil on great things like tshirts, cushions, posters, gift cards, and lots of other stuff.

It's a stick.
And when you throw it... it comes back!

Despite the old stereotypes most Australians live in cities not in the outback, we almost never ride to work on kangaroos and most of us are not expert boomerang throwers. Though as it happens I actually do have a collection of returning boomerangs, some of which seem to be missing. I must have thrown them away. I wonder if they will come back?

R :)

Puzzle illustration - Spot the Tawny Frogmouths

Can you find all five Tawny Frogmouths?
Of course you can, but you have to admit they are pretty good at hiding.

Tawny Frogmouths are birds found (or not found) hiding in trees throughout Australia. They look like owls, but are actually more closely related to nightjars. Experts at camouflage they can look just like a tree stump, even up close! That is, until they open their big yellow eyes.

Spot the Tawny Frogmouths is one of my series of Aussie Puzzle Adventures.

It was originally in of a puzzle book of mine called Puzzles Down Under, published by Black Dog Books in 2009. The publisher has since reverted the rights, allowing me to make the puzzles available as beautifully printed posters gift cards, art prints and t-shirts. So you can expect a lot more of these puzzles very soon.

Visit Pixbyrichard on Redbubble to shop for Spot the Tawny Frogmouths on gift cards, posters, cushions and stuff

spruced up the website

Too often have I thought 'Must update my portfolio website' and gone on to do exactly nothing about it. Well a few days ago I broke with this long standing tradition. I reviewed and changed my portfolio images and updated the layout of my website and blog. I also gave the site a shiny new domain name www.richardmordenillustration.com.au

My aim was to make a site visually clean and simple to navigate. All the information a potential customer needs is on one page. No need for a separate landing page, folio page, contact page or about page. The website is built with blogger so folio images are easy to update and the responsive blogger layout means all should look fine on a mobile device.

You will notice inky octopuses in the side bar. These tentacled critters were painted as decorative devices to visually break up the text and give the site some added personality. I took photos of the octopuses on the drawing board. Here they are...

wee wish you a merry Christmas

Wee wish you a merry Christmas
available as printed Christmas cards

I have an artwork in... the Illustrators Australia Annual 9x5 Exhibition 

The exhibition is at St Helliers Gallery, Abbotsford Convent
From October the 19th to November the 3rd

The theme is 'FLOURISH'
Each artwork has been done on a 9x5 inch piece of plywood

If you happen to be in the vicinity of the Abbotsford Convent over the next couple of weeks this exhibition is worth popping in to have a look at. I promise most of the works are more tasteful than mine.

For further details and to see previews of the artworks
see the Illustrators Australia page about the exhibition

Responding to the theme 'Flourish'

Illustrators Australia like to give us a tough theme each year for this group show. Flourish was no exception to this rule. I struggled for weeks with what to do.

I decided if I was to spend hours doing an artwork it may as well have some sort of practical application. A Christmas design I can sell as cards fits the bill pretty well. Great idea but I still didn't know exactly what I should be painting.

Three days before the deadline, exasperated, I commented flippantly to my partner "Why don't I just paint some kid peeing a flourishing Christmas message into the snow".

A concept of questionable taste.

Painting process

I tried a painting technique I have seen others use to great effect - starting with a dark background and painting light shapes over this to create form, leaving gaps to make outlines. Sounds easy, but nothing is ever easy. Especially painting.

And snow, what made me think painting snow would be a good idea? Snow is a bugger to paint, especially in acrylics which dry substantially darker then when you apply them. I now hate snow.

 

 

 

I wasn't totally unhappy with the end result, but it was an exasperating journey with brushes not acting as expected and colours not looking as intended. I don't do much painting. Maybe these vexations are just part of the deal.

Any painters out there, what say you? Painting always tricky, or does it get easier with practice?

Puzzle illustration - bush rangers in the fish and chip shop

These puzzled bushrangers are from Puzzles Down Under, a book of mine which was published long, long ago in 2008. It featured puzzles, spot-the-items and mazes with an Australian theme and was written for 6 to 10 year old children.

Recently the rights for this book were reverted back to me. This is quite exciting as it means I can republish the book or publish individual images from the book without treading on the original publisher's toes. The artwork and text are once again mine to do with as I choose - I can sell the images as prints, put them on t shirts or post them on-line. 

Obviously there is the potential to use the existing artwork to make a fun puzzle ebook. 

Now it is my turn to be puzzled! I have never made an interactive ebook before so I am a little unsure where to start. I am hoping I can do most of it with Flash and Indesign.

Does anybody have suggestions, tips or thoughts about how to make an interactive ebook out of existing art? Any and all ideas are welcome!

R :)

cartoon megafauna t-shirts and kid's clothes

Hug like a Megatherium! - megafauna t-shirt

This 8 ton prehistoric American ground sloth gives very big hugs.

No little Glyptodon… don't sit on the Pudú! - megafauna t-shirt

A Glyptodon (South American giant armadillo) plonks itself down on a hapless Pudu (a tiny deer).

Thylacoleo goes rarr! - megafauna t-shirt

Thylacoleo, the Australian marsupial lion and one time terror of the outback, assails a moth.

Mammoth adventure! - megafauna t-shirt

This Mammoth has its motor started, it is out and on the highway, it is looking for adventure. Oh yeah, whatever comes its way.

Z is for Zygomaturus! - megafauna t-shirt

Zygomaturus, a prehistoric Australian marsupial swamp-cow takes ownership of the letter Z.



These t-shirts feature megafauna, a fancy name for large animals. All these particular megafauna have become extinct during the time modern humans have been around. Chances are you have ancestors who saw, ran away from or ate some of the following prehistoric beasties!

These designs are available via my Redbubble page where they can be ordered online and delivered to you. They are available as men's or women's t-shirts and hoodies and as kids sized t-shirts and clothes.

Original hand painted brush-and-ink artwork, scanned and coloured.
I designed these with kids in mind, but hey, if you are an adult and want to wear one that's okay too!

map of the supercontinent Pangaea

"Our world long ago, all the lands joined together

When first appeared beasties of fur and of feather"

This is a map of the world as it may have looked around 240 million years ago in the middle of the Triassic period. Drawn with pen and ink, coloured and textured digitally.

Two massive lands Gondwana and Laurasia had just bumped into each other, creating the Appelation Mountains and forming the supercontinent Pangaea.

Although there are other maps of Pangaea around, I could not find any illustrated in an old world style with monsters roaming the land and seas. So I just had to have a go at making one myself. Yep... nerd. I know.

Please note, I am an artist not a scientist. Although I did a fair bit of research to get it as right as I could, there is still plenty of artistic license. For instance, I made up all the rivers - sorry, I just couldn't find reference which told me where the real ones were. A few of the mountains could well be wrong too. And that volcano in between South America and Africa, well it just looked good there. So to any time travellers out there, this map is not to be used for navigation, it is decoration only!

This artwork is available to buy as poster art via Redbubble.

Meet the beasties...

The animals featured are all carefully based on life that would have been kicking around within ten million years or so of that time. I intentionally didn't label them on the map, as I think leaving the creatures a little vague and generic aids imagination. Further more, when these creatures actually existed they didn't have titles such as Saurisichisan or Amonite, instead they would have thought of each other as 'the scaley thing with big teeth it is better not to go near' or 'the tasty little furred critter' or maybe 'the giant winged one who poos from the sky'.

But for the curious, and for a closer look at all the detail going on, here is a list of what the beasties are meant to represent. (You are allowed to scroll quickly through this bit. I am being a little self indulgent)

Cynodont

Eoraptor

Nothosaur

Stagonolepis

Coelophysis

Placodont

Pterorynchus

Thalattosaur

Rutiodon

Panphagia

Cynognathian

Ichtheosaur

Eudimorphodon

Amonite

Eoraptor

Rauisuchus

Dicynodont

Helicoprion - alas I drew its mouth
swirl upside down. Whoops!

Temnospondyl

The Triassic plants featured are fern trees, ferns, conifers, giant club mosses, quillworts and cycads.

As you can see this artwork has an extraordinary amount of texture and detail. It is designed to look its best when printed at poster sizes. It would be ideal educational artwork for a classroom or decoration for a kids room.

R :)