Book illustration - Aliens Ghosts and Vanishings

 

Aliens Ghosts and Vanishings Strange and Possibly True Australian Stories Written by Stella Tarakson illustrated by Richard Morden Penguin Random House Australia

In store November 2016!!

http://pen.gy/2eHiWnI

A year ago I was approached to illustrate Aliens Ghosts and Vanishings a book examining the most bizarre stories from Australia’s culture and history. It is a joyride of Australian gothic weirdness written for 10 to 15 year olds, however I enjoyed reading it and I’m quite a bit older than that.

Did a UFO drag a family’s car off the road in the middle of the outback? How did rocks rain from the sky in WA? And what became of the prime minister who went into the surf and was never seen again?

Explore the strangest tales, most incredible encounters and creepiest urban legends in Australia’s history. Read about the investigations and weigh up the facts – do you believe the official explanations for these weird and wonderful events?

Here's a few examples of the strange tales it examines...

Mythical creatures! This particular beastie is the Hawkesbury River monster, illustrated with the appearance of a plesiosaur. Next time you’re dabbling your toes in a river look carefully to be sure there is not one of these lurking in the deep. Chomp chomp!

Haunted places! Some ghost hunters believe haunting spirits can be located with an electromagnetic field detector. Well I'm not so sure about that, but you can decide for yourself.

Mysterious locations! Have you heard of the falling stones of Mayanup, Western Australia? This is Audrey of Mayanup in the 1950s, around whom things would move strangely and rocks would appear, slowly falling to the ground. I'm not sure if she could actually levitate, but it felt appropriately telekinetic and spooky, so thats how I illustrated her. 

UFO Sightings! In 1966 in the Melbourne suburb of Westall more than 200 students and teachers from two schools saw a mysterious object land in a nearby grassy field. I was delighted when I learned I was to be illustrating a scene form the Westal UFO sighting. I had heard some of the witnesses speak at a convention and personally asked them to describe what they remember seeing and feeling when they approached the object. Best illustration reference ever.

Bizarre disappearances! What was behind the disappearance of Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt? The conspiracy theories speak of a shark attack, CIA intervention, eloping with a love interest, UFO abduction, and even a Chinese submarine waiting to take him away! 

This was the first illustration completed for Aliens Ghosts and Vanishings, setting the style for the rest of the images. The plan was to create dark, mysterious illustrations with simple line work and lots of texture. I was also keen not to patronise the teenage readers with twee illustrations, instead aiming high and assuming an audience of sophistication.

Strange happenings! Does the existence of the Gosford Glyphs prove ancient Egyptians travelled to Australia, or are the markings simply a prank by some cheeky school children? Hmmm, what would be more likely... let me think. Ancient Egyptians, obviously!

So many wonderfully strange tales. A book I thoroughly enjoyed illustrating. 

Aliens Ghosts and Vanishings is available in stores and on-line November 2016.

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.

Roller Skating Robot Santa Christmas card

Roller Skating Robot Santa.
Scanned stencil art.

There is no reason for Robot Santa to be on skates. No underlying metaphor, or commentary on the Christmas season. It's just how he rolls.

Visit Pixbyrichard on Redbubble to shop for Roller Skating Robot Santa as Christmas cards, t-shirts. mugs, tote bags and other decorated gift items

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?

Cthulhu menaces the planet Earth

This photograph was taken to go into the October/November Edition of Ethel the Aardvark, the Melbourne Science Fiction Club's bimonthly fanzine, for which I am currently the layout guy (so I get to decide on what artwork goes in - oh the power!) It was intended to go into the zine as a random art image with vague Halloween overtones. You will be happy to know I put the photo on page 13.

All taken in-camera, except for the grungy texture which I found on the underside of a baking tray.

I bought the pink Cthulhu plush toy off KRin Pender-Gun of Pink K Designs at a club mini-convention a couple of years ago. The globe is actually a pencil sharpener, the stars were cut out of aluminium foil and the background is a velvet garment.

Here's the concept sketch

Dinosaurs asleep - poster illustration

Dinosaurs Asleep is available as poster art via my Redbubble shop

The Illustrators Australia A3 print show is over and I have picked up my prints.

And a big surprise, I recieved the A3 Show Peoples Choice Award with my print 'Dinosaurs Asleep' :)

There was a little box people could drop their People's Choice votes into and somehow an image of sleeping dinosaurs under a city caught enough peoples attention.

So thank you to Illustrators Australia for organising the fine event, and thank you to fine art printers Image Science for sponsoring the award - the print voucher and monitor calibrator will both be very handy. I had Image Science print my A3 artwork for the show - they did a high quality, fast and friendly job, as always.

My Peoples Choice vote actually went towards Gregory Roberts' piece Life in the paddock. A clever beautiful image and totally right-now.

At the opening I found an abundance of excellent work to admire and loads of friendly, talented illustrators to talk to and be quietly in awe of. In particular I had a great time chatting to fellow illustrators Tali Gal-on and Nicole Onslow.

So if you did not catch the fun this year then make sure you drop in for a wine and a squiz next year!

R :)

narrative illustrations for a school reader

 

Just finished the illustrations for a school reader.

It was a narrative of hardship, cunning, triumph, kooky parents, and running shoes.

Here's a couple of samples.

R :)

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!

Illustration Friday - stripes

I saw a great documentary on tv called 'Cuttlefish - Kings of Camouflage'.

One of the cuttlefish featured in the documentary was a Broadclub Cuttlefish which has the remarkable ability to bamboozle its prey with a crazy strobing stripe pattern. Truly bizzare stuff.

If you want to see a real one in action here's a link I found to a clip from the documentary.

Cuttlefish are so cool.

R :)