‘Coffee at Gio Vintage’ - Daily Sketch
Lunch time today was spent having a cappuccino and biscotto. Luckily Gio Vintage (a great little vintage shop in Caloundra) had tables in the courtyard covered with paper and a supply of crayons. So after missing a few days of sketching as a result of travelling to the beautiful tropical North Queensland, I got to work on a quick 5 minute sketch. This was the result.
I highly recommend their coffee and biscotti I’m thinking it’s the best I’ve had so far in this part of town.
I decided a month ago that I should commit to a daily sketch or at least one every second day. This, I’m told, would be a great exercise in improving and developing drawing and observation skills - a good healthy regime for anybody in visual arts or design. I’m hoping some future sketches will lead to inspiration for developing characters or a specific body of work like Kevin Cornell’s Bearskinrug.
So to start, here is a recent quick sketch of…my foot.
This is another quick sketch from my journal that I found it a few days ago. Although this is an anthropomorphic rabbit, the traits and attitude of the character was probably influenced by a few people I went to school with - it’s amazing to think it was 17 years ago! Thought It might be fun to do a digital paint version. Will be up next week.
Knowmore: House of Commons‘ was on show from the Saturday 21st of February 2009 to Sunday 24 May 2009 at the State Library of Queensland. It received positive feedback from the large amount of traffic that visited it while it was in the Infozone.
Keith Armstrong also drew a good crowd for his artists talk on the development of our work, which was held on Friday 6 March at the State Library. Keith will be talking again at the IDEAS Festival 2009 in the artscience@theinterface 2009 symposium.
Symbol of stillness - Stuart Lawson
The ‘Knowmore: House of Commons‘ interactive installation officially wrapped up production last week 30 January 2009.
I wanted to take the opportunity to thank all involved for a great experience - Keith Armstrong, Chris Barker, Darren Pack and Luke Lickfold. The project was also supported by The Australia
Council, Arts Queensland, QUT Creative Industries and e2evisuals.
The first showing of the installation will be held at the State Library of Queensland from Sat 21 Feb 09 – Sun 24 May 09, on Level 1 in the Infozone. Entry is Free.
If you would like more information about the project and please feel free to contact me.
Symbol of stillness - Stuart Lawson
The image above - Symbol of stillness - is a still from a small concept animation of one of the items a participant might have seen emerging from the depths of the table as they spun its surface and traversed its perimeter. I say ‘might have seen’, because it doesn’t really fit in with the existing imagery in that part of the work. With a bit of tweaking and finessing, this abstract image (along with some other concepts not yet posted), may appear in the final act/section of the work - which is ultimately better suited to host this type of visual treatment.
Where we are so far…
There are 5 areas around the table in which interaction can take place. The floor pads that react to movement and the specially engineered spinning table-top have been up and running for the past few months - which has allowed us to test and experiment with the imagery, sound and interaction progressively as we experience the work in a way that a participant might.
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Cactus Larry - Digital painting. Copyright Stuart Lawson
Introducing Cactus Larry. He’s a character in a short animation I thought up back in 2002. I’ve embarked on bringing that animation to life - starting with this digitally painted character design I did two days ago…
Click here to see Larry.
Click here to see a close-up version.
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Karl Schmidt-Rottluff study
Another natural media exercise. This one involves examining other artists techniques and using them to apply different rendering possibilities that you can apply to your own work. Lessons learnt here, and with any art exercise, crossover into the digital domain; especially the principles of colour, general composition and overall aesthetic appearance. I really recommend giving it a try, especially if you are a designer who has never tried anything other than digital media.
The image above is an acrylic study of expressionist Karl Schmidt-Rottluff’s painting.
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Studio Shot - 2006 Annual report cover
Back in 2006 I created a small Photoshop image to showcase document designs as if they were taken in a studio. I’m giving the template away for FREE!
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Knowmore - stage 1. Image of table being tested in production meeting
What is Knowmore?
Knowmore is an interactive installation (or immersive kinetic artwork) - it is best described by Keith Armstrong as:
“… a tabletop interactive work where the evolution of the images projected upon its top surface and spatial soundscape depends upon both how participants spin the table and how they move around it. Imagery projected onto a round table, can be interacted with by standing in various areas around the table and spinning its surface at varying speeds or direction.”
The artists involved are:
- Keith Armstrong (Artistic Director)
- Chris Barker (Co-director/3D Designer)
- Darren Pack (3D Engine Programming)
- Stuart Lawson (Visual Design)
The ideas present in Knowmore look at the impact of our actions upon a multitude of ecological systems. The work is a subtle metaphor that can be applied to our individual lives and to humanity as a whole.
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