Ned Kelly. Australian icon. Innovator. Misunderstood genius.

Ned Kelly. Australian icon. Innovator. Misunderstood genius. More than a bushranger. Not just another bearded hipster on a fixie...

Inventor of the bicycle helmet, by which means he sought to protect the rider from the perils of Magpie Attack! 

People speak of drop bears and sharks and hundreds of other deadly, bitey and sting-y things in Australia, but what brings true terror to Australians every spring is the magpie, swooping from above with murderous intent, especially to those who dare to ride bikes.
Not many people know that Ned Kelly was a keen early cyclist, and instead of cowering indoors in September, he decided to do something about it.

 He invented the bicycle helmet. 

Admittedly his early prototype was very heavy (remember this was before the invention of polystyrene) and lacked a little in regards to peripheral vision, but he had ongoing plans to develop his ideas.

Unfortunately where he got into trouble was with his early method of crowdfunding. Approaching financial institutions and the public with guns blazing, and promising not to shoot his backers as a reward, was met with a level of misunderstanding by the police of the day.

When Kelly faced the full weight of the law, the judge redefined 'stretch goals' and his enterprise came to an early end.

Such is life...

Here are some photos of my first real attempt at automata - figurative kinetic sculpture. Ned rides his bike as he is continually swooped by a magpie.  Check out the video too!

.Magpie has paper wings and a body made of Kneed-it epoxy putty

Ned is made from pine mostly, with aluminium armour (from old drink cans) and aluminium wire for arms, easy to bend in shape! This photo shows him without his jacket and chest armour.

catatonic

[kat-uh-ton-ik]  

• Examples

adjective

1.

having catatonia, a syndrome characterized by muscular rigidity and mental stupor:

The schizophrenic remained in a catatonic state.

2.

appearing to be in a daze or stupor; unresponsive:

She had the catatonic expression of an avant-garde model.

noun

3.

a person who suffers from catatonia.

twisted

Who knows the burden of naturally curly hair? How it never sits how you want, how humid days make it twist and curl more? How windy can make it hard to manage? Ah well, at least I'm not a ranga, ginger or carrot top...
I finished this small painting yesterday, and the hair isn't really half as curly as I originally planned it to be. But quite often artworks twist beneath your brush and can go in slightly unexpected directions. And they still somehow turn out okay, sometimes even better than expected.
Life is full of twists, no one knows what is just around the corner,so you must face the future with determination, like this young lady, and step out in faith and hope.

Worn

A worn old pair of All-Stars as worn by me standing on the worn floorboards at my old back door. The worn blue paint of the exterior doorsteps contrasts nicely with the worn sealed timber of the interior. Worn. Its funny how if you use a word often enough it somehow becomes strange and meaningless. Anyone else feel this?

By the way, this painting in Acrylic won me second place at the fine art section at my local show a couple of weeks back! I'm putting the $25 prize money towards arts supplies, or maybe a better camera bag.

Prepare

  During the Saturday morning session of 'Faith and the Arts', Josie got up on stage and started painting an amazing portrait of Eric Ajaye, our bass man for the week. As she prepared to paint, she popped on an old shirt, and I was struck by the image of her 'putting on the mantle of an artist'. She had been inspiring me all week with her skills and her being challenged to paint in a much looser style. And as she painted, I did this sketch, also in a slightly looser style than I usually do, trying to capture some of her energy.

  But to paint like this, Josie had to do a certain amount of preparation, preparing her board, preparing her sketch outlines, most of all, preparing herself. As I say, putting on the mantle of an artist...

Definition of MANTLE

1

a : a loose sleeveless garment worn over other clothes :cloak

b : a figurative cloak symbolizing preeminence or authority, mantle of leadership 

variety...

I've just glanced over the things I’ve done for Illustration Friday this last month or so. I hadn’t realised that there was such a variety of styles and techniques! Going backwards from here we have

• ·         paper sculpture combined with carved MDF to create a kinetic artwork
• ·         drawings done in Flash using only the shapes tools
• ·         a cartoon done with a fineline pen and markers
• ·         a cartoon cat scanned, vectorised and coloured in Flash
• ·         a watercolour
• ·         two photos and some drawn elements combined in photoshop
• ·         a gouache painted paper sculpture mounted on a flash back ground
• ·         another cartoon scanned and coloured in Flash
• ·         my old blog header, done in photoshop, probably, with photo of my head which I traced and cartoonified, probably in Flash using my old Wacom tablet
• ·         scan of my sketch pad with other graphic elements added
• ·         fineline drawing
• ·         google sketchup 3d graphics
• ·         and a drawing done with a biro

I have a bunch of other vector drawing programs, but I still like the style that Flash mx gives me. But then, I guess I’m a little weird…