OK, with sufficient warnings out of the way, here goes… At the end of the film of the same name, Zoolander established the “The Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can’t Read Good And Who Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too”. I imagine that Marc Forster (director of Quantum of Solace) must have attended “The Michael Bay Center For Directing Action Sequences For Kids Who Can’t Concentrate On Shots Lasting Longer Than Two Seconds”. I had both read, and heard from others who had already seen the film, that one should be prepared for some headache-inducing cinematography whenever action is occurring on screen. Well, my eyes did hurt a bit after flick back and forth trying to follow things on the screen, but generally I coped OK. This was really my major gripe, now for some more items to mention:

What I liked

• The opening car chase. When you could tell what was going on, it was pretty good. Not one of the great cinematic car chases, but very solid.
• Daniel Craig. No not to look at (maybe if I was a girl. Or liked boys). He’s by far the best Bond in my mind, even after only two films. With the other Bonds, I never got the feeling that they could actually be 00 Agents. Craig ‘keeps it real’, but still brings enough style and dry wit to make the character Bond, not Bourne.
• Judi Dench. Again, not to look at. She’s one of those actors who for me, nails it every time, and I totally believe her (yes, even in The Chronicles of Riddick…).
• The locations. Nothing beats filming on location in exotic (or at least semi-exotic) places. The last act of the film, set in the desert, was quite good in particular.
• The setup for the future. Bond needs villains, but over-the-top villains aren’t going to work for me with the new Bond style. The QUANTUM organisation gives a big enough threat for MI6 (and thus Bond) to deal with, and gives scope for individual players in the organisation to be the ‘big bad’ for a given film. I look forward to more use of QUANTUM in the future.
• The score. David Arnold again impressed me with a reasonably subdued, yet mature orchestration for a Bond film.

What I didn’t like

• Only one car chase! I would have dearly loved to have seen another Aston Martin getting a workout.
• Pushing the bounds of believability. I know Bond has never been that based in reality, but Casino Royale set a new feel for a more realistic Bond, with less camp and crazy stunts. Some have decried this in a ‘it’s not Bond’ kind of way, but I’m all for it. There’s certainly a spot for crazy stunts, but I felt that the line of believability was definitely reached in this film. Please don’t push it any further.
• The Bond Girls. Sure, Olga Kurylenko did a good job as the ‘damaged goods’ girl out for revenge, but Gemma Arterton’s performance, to me, seemed forced and very ‘acting’. More importantly, I like my Bond girls to have more of the traditional voluptuous look going on (like Eva Green from the last movie), not the current ‘skinny chick’ fad. To be fair, Kurylenko’s face is pretty enough (but Arterton doesn’t do anything for me).

My rating: 7/10 (it gets an extra point by virtue of being a Bond film. To compare, I would give Casino Royale an 8.5)

My works are still showing at the Art Factory Gallery, Merivale St, South Brisbane.

I had a good time at the opening night and enjoyed spending time at the gallery on the weekend, but would be happier if I had sold something!  The art will be there until Sunday evening if you’re interested in checking it out.

With all this going on as well as lots of stuff for school, I am proud I managed to get something done for Inspire Me Thursday this week.  The topic was “wardrobe” – I had to think for a while but finally came up with an idea I liked for this:

I took some photos of the different patterns of clothes in my wardrobe – As you can see I wear a lot of flowery things – more than I thought I did, actually!  I played around with the images with photo program to make them a bit more interesting.

Then I printed the images onto some scrapbooking paper (which has a linen like texture).  I used a few different colours of paper.  I painted a canvas with dark blue paint (it looks black here but it is actually a very dark blue), and then glued the paper to the canvas.  I added some details using “dimensional magic” and some silver paint.  I also draped some threads over the top and attached them with dimensional magic.

I’m quite happy with the finished project – let me know what you think!

I wanted to create something with lots of texture.  This is what I came up with:

Sorry, it isn’t a very good picture.  The painting is quite large and I took this photo standing on the table and holding the camera as high as the ceiling, and it still doesn’t quite all fit in the frame.  Hope it shows a little bit of the texture I tried to create.

In other news, next week I will be involved in an exhibition called “Through My Eyes”.  I am one of 6 artists exhibiting, and it is the biggest exhibition I have been involved in.  So, if you’re interested and live in the Brisbane area, I’d love to see you there!  Come along to our opening night and you can sip a glass of wine, meet the artists and view some art.

“Through My Eyes”
Opening night 6pm 08/08/08
& 11am – 6pm on 9, 10, 11 & 12 August

Art Factory Gallery
84 Merivale St,
South Brisbane

You’ll notice that the background is made up of overlapping circles.  I don’t know if they really count as polka dots seeing as they overlap, but oh well.

I will be entering this painting into a community art exhibition at Bella Art Gallery this coming weekend.  Let me know what you think!

I haven’t given up however – I have another exhibition coming up early next month:

I will be including 4 of my paintings in “Art on the Hill”, an exhibition run by St Thomas’ Catholic Primary School, Camp Hill.

I’ll let you know how it goes!

In the meantime, I have some exciting news! I am currently showing my art in my very first exhibition!! OK, it’s not in a gallery and only 6 of my paintings are hanging, but yesterday I hung my paintings at Toscani’s Cavill Ave. Matt will tell you I was a nervous wreck on the way there, and I am still a bit nervous, wondering whether I am wasting my time. I’m not expecting to make any money out of this venture (although enough to buy some more canvases would be great!), but I would be thrilled to sell even one painting.

Update:  I am now featured in the “What’s On” section of the Toscani’s website!  Check it out here.

Of course, this isn’t the first time I’ve played around with melted crayons…

I remember very distinctly one winter morning when my brother and I were little, we woke up before mum and dad.  We sat up next to the old oil heater and for some reason came up with the idea of creating our own multi-coloured crayons: by melting them on the heater and mixing the colours together.

Of course, we didn’t quite perfect the process of catching the melted wax – so basically mum got up to find wax crayons melted all over the heater and into the carpet.  Let’s just say, we never tried that little trick again.

This time around I was a little more sensible in my approach, and I melted the wax with a teaspoon and a candle – and it still felt a little naughty.

I used a technique I do all the time with the kids at school – draw a picture onto a piece of paper using crayons (I used oil pastels here because it’s the closest thing I have). Then, paint over the top of it – the paint will not stick to the spots with the oil pastels. It’s great for doing seascapes with kids, but I chose to do some trees using my white oil pastel & watercolour paints:

Let me know what you think! (I think the top one is the better of the two)

I decided I’m not very good at painting actual doors so this is a doorway:

“Asleep on His Shoulder”

“Sleeping Together” – The title is meant literally – it’s not a euphemism!