Bicycle 2

After two Dawn services in two days, this afternoon could've been spent snoozing. Instead I hopped on to my trusty deadly treadly and rode across town to the airport. There were no planes due to land within an hour, so I rode home again.

Anyway, two Dawn Services? Well, on Sunday at 6am, people from the Rocky Baptist Tab, and the Cap Region Salvo's hosted an Easter Morning Sunrise service on Mount Archer. A beautiful morning remembering the death and resurrection of Jesus, a time to contemplate sacrifice and suffering and affirm life.

And then today, at 4:27am we commemorated the the ill-fated landing of Australian and New Zealand troops on Gallipoli in Turkey in 1915, and two nations being tried by fire and coming to age as nations on the world stage. A time to contemplate sacrifice and suffering and affirm life.

'Greater love has no man than he lay down his life for his friends...' Not often do Easter and Anzac day coincide, but they do provide a chance to really think about what life is all about, and what is it we are living for.

Life is too short to have prejudices, to judge others without even knowing who they are. Who knows? Elephants may find that mice CAN be their friends. And maybe cars and bikes can even share the same roads. Utopian dream? Maybe, but that doesn't mean we don't try for it!

Bicycle

I ride my bike around town a lot, not actually having a car, and I find Rocky is such a friendly town, drivers are often so courteous, and passengers often wind down windows to yell out helpful advice, like, 'Hey mate, yer wheels. They're going 'round!' or just an encouraging 'aaaaargh!'

Anyway, many years ago now, I drew a sketch of an Elephant on a bicycle, and I thought, what would be a nerve-wracking scenario for him, and I thought, it had to be a big car full of mice giving him a hard time. This gradually morphed into an idea for a picture book, featuring a heap of mice vs elephant scenarios, an examination of prejudice and stereotyping.

This is a rough mock-up of the bicycle page, with an early attempt of mine of paper sculpture. I'd love to re-do this properly one day, in good quality paper and really paint instead of markers and coloured pencils. Maybe I should pull out the old book and give it another shot. It's mostly written, but has lain dormant for far too long...

Journey Man

Strip off Uberdude's muscle suit and super powers, and beneath lies Journeyman, a mild mannered ordinary guy, who nevertheless does what he can with what he has to make the world a better place. No special abilities or extraordinary talents, unable to leap even reasonable short towers, less powerful that a resting locomotive, quite a bit slower than a speeding bullet and yet, through Journeyman, and people just like him, just doing the best they can, the world IS a better place, and that makes him a real hero.

Thank you Journeyman, your work here is not done, but you are not about to to fly of to your Fortress of Solicitude, or your Bat Cavern. You're here for the long run. Because, changing the world IS a journey...

Bottled...

Aye, it's hideous, I grant ye, But what I really want to know is, how did they get something that big out of the bottle?

It's all about perspective. It's been said that we don't see the world how it is, we see the world how we are. Our view is the world is coloured by our culture, our attitudes and our experiences. Mercy is the ability to see the world from someone else's perspective, to walk a mile in their shoes, to really empathise with them, not just sympathise. How many people really know how life is for you? And how many people do you know what life is really like for? That's a measure of the level of community you are currently experiencing.

So, what are you waiting for? Look at life through new lenses. Realise your viewpoint isn't the only one. Get out of your bottle and live life!

IF - Duets

Back in January I went to the fabulous Faith and the Arts week in Poatina, Tasmania to hang out with and be inspired by creative people from many disciplines including drama, music, painting, photography, creative writing (Slam Poetry!) and print making. I've never tried print making before, so I gave it a go, and really loved it. Come to Tassie next Jan to experience it for yourself, or if you can't wait that long, there's the Canada edition in a few months.

Anyway, two of the stars of the week were Eric and Spike, who, despite not having met before inspired us with their duets. Amazing jazz. Check out my Youtube video. And when Spike's wife Lea joined them, there was magic in the air.

So what better subject for Illustration Friday's Duet challenge than Eric and Spike.

It gave me a chance to play with my new Wacom Tablet (a bit easier to draw with than my laptop's scratch pad...) and play around with a demo version of Artrage software. This is a lot looser than what I normally come up with, but I liked the energy of it and had to resist the temptation to clean it up too much in GIMP! Hope you like it.