Patrick Hedges's MySpace Blog |

MySpace.com | rss | sign in

PatrickHedges

Patrick Hedges

Last Updated: 11/18/2009

Send Message
Instant Message
Email to a Friend
Subscribe

Gender: Male
Status: Married
Age: 49
Sign: Taurus

City: Adelaide
State: South Australia
Country: AU
Signup Date: 1/30/2006

Blog Archive

[Older Newer]

/ /

Monday, January 19, 2009

Diptych, "Kusasi's Hope", Scratchboard

These are two 5" x 7" boards, hopefully for a show in Indiana organised by scratchboard artists for scratchboard artists.

These two pieces which will be mounted together tell the amazing story of Kusasi, "the Orangutan King". This guy was orphaned about 40 years ago (mother shot by hunters) and ended up at a sanctuary in Borneo as a very young'un. At the age of three and a half, he disappeared from camp and since orangutans need mother's milk until five, he was presumed dead. He turned up 18 months later at age five none the worse for his escape and proceeded to grow and become king of the jungle, the dominant male in the area. His cheek flaps grew with the new testosterone that dominant males get flushed with and he's a sight to behold.

The actress Julia Roberts had heard about Kusasi and in around 1997 went to see him. She sat next to him. He's not particularly fond of humans (not surprising really - but others that lose their parents to humans or are treated badly by humans can overcome that distrust when good people look after them) and he grabbed her and shook her like a rag doll. His power was immense and the staff had to all charge in and try and break him off otherwise she'd probably have been killed. That's how close we came to not seeing Erin Brockovich

I call it "Kusasi's Hope" because he started out in a box, peering out at the world with young eyes and no mother, and grew into a world famous celebrity and an awesome sight.

1:58 AM

10 Comments

(Add Comment) |

15 Kudos

Translate

Friday, November 21, 2008

Cheetah in scratchboard, tools and closeups

This cheetah came along as a commission. Someone saw me working on another one and specified it needed to be a cheetah's face, closeup. I always like to emphasise the eyes. If I can get them right, I can go a long way towards making a success of a piece like this.

I thought it might be useful to anyone wanting to try scratchboard to see some closeups and also see the tools I used. In this case, the only tools used are the following.

Sharp craft pen to scratch with.

Fibreglass brush to remove ink in a smoother fashion.

So this is the cheetah's face. I re-inked a border as it was going to be mounted in a 'floating' or 'raised' fashion with no glass. The border would make it look quite snazzy. This image is the same size as the original (8" x 10").

And closeups of the eye, muzzle and bridge of the nose to show fur direction, one of the most important aspects of making the shape of the skull believable. Obviously these closeups are many times larger than in real life.

So there we have it. I won't bore you with the details of how to do it as you might get more from simply looking at the closeups, but I scratch in layers, meaning that where there is shadow, I will scratch and then re-ink with a diluted black to show up as lighter or darker grey, and then I will often scratch some more highlights out to get a better three dimensional effect.

I referred earlier to the 'floating' or 'raised' framing technique. This picture should go a long way towards showing what I mean. I use Ampersand scratchboards and they are so well made that they don't need to be behind a mount. I varnish the finished board to protect it and then I put a spacer between the art and the mount (a solid sheet of white card - no hole cut in it) and it looks really good and very different. The reactions have been very positive.

I hope that has been of use to someone

4:31 AM

9 Comments

(Add Comment) |

16 Kudos

Translate

Monday, October 06, 2008

On stage with Dr Jane Goodall!!!!!

Guys, many thanks for all the wonderful comments on the previous blog. I'm truly humbled, as I'm sure Leigh is.

The postscript.

I mentioned that Jane Goodall had invited us (which turns out to be just me because Leigh is now back in Melbourne) to her lecture, free ticket waiting at the door.

The lecture was amazing. She talked for an hour without any notes, and it was great and challenging stuff. Then she said she wanted to honour the staff of the Roots and Shoots program and others who were making a difference. She called up on to the stage the Roots and Shoots people, by name, one by one, a couple more people and then called up the director of the Adelaide / Monarto Zoos, and then she called me up. She also verbally honoured Leigh.

I stood between Carla Litchfield, as previously mentioned the President of the Australiasian Primate Society, and Chris West, the zoo director as she went on to say "These people are making a difference, now stand up those of you who want to make a difference" (and the whole audience of about 700 people stands up of course).

Can you believe it?? She singled me and Leigh out, and made an example of me and the ten or so others for the whole audience to see as people who are doing their bit.

I am on cloud nine!!!

Thanks again. I'm out of here for a week's internet-less holiday in Broken Hill so I'll catch up with you all when I get back. All the best

8:31 PM

7 Comments

(Add Comment) |

13 Kudos

Translate

Sunday, October 05, 2008

Success with our exhibition, Jane Goodall and Monarto Zoo

Today I got to live most artist's dream. On Friday, I went up to Monarto Zoo in the Adelaide Hills to set up for the exhibition Leigh Rust and I were having. Monarto really have got behind this concept and were extremely helpful. We are donating 35% of all takings to them and the Jane Goodall Institute and 35% to the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Sierra Leone. The remaining 30% is destined to cover costs of framing, transport of Leigh, and Noel who I'll refer to later, from Melbourne, etc etc

So the setup entailed carrying in five huge pieces of temporary fencing and putting them together, then covering them with hessian and stitching it all up. Then hanging the work. Pardon if this post is wordy but I want to get over what we've just been through.

I picked up Leigh and Noel on Friday night and had the pleasure of hosting them for the last two days. We went back to Monarto on Saturday to finish setup. This is what it looked like.

.. ..

Leigh with his 'frontispiece'

.. ..

Me with mine

Then the other four walls of chimps

.. ..

and the wall of non chimp pieces

.. ..

Then Noel set up his music. He and a friend had put together an amazing sound track that was both sympathetic to the exhibition and inspiring at the same time. There were 45 minutes of music (his own compositions with a friend - together “The Emulaterz”), individual pieces inspired by our individual works and titles, and interspersed with commentary by Lyndal Davies, the producer of the show about Tacugama that inspired the project in the first place. It really added to the show and created just the right atmosphere.

.. ..

Then we went back today.

.. ..

Firstly Mike Rann, the premier of South Australia wandered through and met us

.. .... ..

And then we met the icon we spent so long trying to get for our opening (persistence pays), Dr Jane Goodall, the world's leading primatologist and the woman who's research changed the way we think about chimps. This woman is an absolute legend, a British Dame, and possibly the finest person I have ever met. She opened the show

.. ..

and here with Dr Chris West, the director of both Adelaide and Monarto Zoos and the ex director of London Zoo

.. ..

Leigh had done a fabulous portrait for Jane and presented it to her as a surprise. She was genuinely thrilled with this as she was with our exhibition and the work we'd poured into it.

.. ..

Then onto the show. The first sale was chalked up to Leigh (bugger :D ). Dr Carla Litchfield bought "Escaping the fires", one of my favourite pieces in the show. This woman knows her primates and vindicates everything we stand for. She's on the board of the Royal Zoological Society and is the president of the Australasian Primate Society. No more credibility needed. This is her with Leigh

.. ..

Three more sales chalked up soon enough, Leigh with two

.. ..

and yes, I'm on the board :)

.. ..

We also sold five prints so it's been an amazing start. The work will be displayed for up to three months. Monarto seem genuinely pleased to have it there and think it's a great addition to what they do. I can't say enough about the staff there, especially a guy by the name of Steve Callery who, along with Belinda Redman, has made it all possible.

.. ..

Then onto the demos. Leigh did a pastel and I worked on a scratchboard. These generated massive interest. Leigh knocked his over quite quickly. When we were there yesterday, we went on the walk around the place and at the lion enclosure, Leigh got a really good reference and produced this from it

.. ..

Due to his massive heart and generosity, I am now the proud owner of that lovely juvenile male lion piece.

I worked on this scratchboard

....

and though it was less than halfway through, I sold it .So now I have to finish it and meet up with the new owner.

Now (if you are still reading), if that's not enough, on the way back home we got a phone call from the staff at the zoo. Jane Goodall has invited us (although unfortunately for Leigh he's now back in Melbourne) to her lecture in the Adelaide Town Hall tomorrow night. Apparently she wants to publically thank us for all the work. I have a free ticket with my name on it at the door and I'll have to report back. At least I'll get to hear her again, and hopefully meet her once more. Sorry Leigh, I'll carry the torch You may have made the first sale, but I get to meet her again

....

Finally, many of you know Leigh's work. If not, he's high up on my myspace page, check him out. It's really amazing. What you may not know is how huge his heart is. I referred to it earlier but it really is. We have other projects in the pipeline with more chimps and other animals and we simply can't wait to get stuck into them

.. ..

Thanks for bearing with me :)

12:39 PM

14 Comments

(Add Comment) |

30 Kudos

Translate

Friday, August 22, 2008

Jane Goodall and our chimps

Well, we got the best news the other day. I had a meeting with the coordinator of 'Visitor Experience' at Monarto Zoo about our upcoming exhibition. Leigh Rust and I are both exhibiting 12 chimpanzee paintings each plus a couple of non chimp paintings each, and there'll be some real chimpanzee's art to make a total of I think about 32 paintings in the exhibition. The profit is destined for Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Sierra Leone and Monarto Zoo in South Australia.

The best news? A British Dame will be opening our modest exhibition! The great Dr Jane Goodall, the legendary chimp researcher and educator, was always going to be opening Monarto's new chimp enclosure, but now we hear she's squeezed us into her already stuffed schedule and will actually open our show. It's brilliant news.

The opening day will be huge. The guys at Monarto expect there will be 3,000 people, and every one of them has to go through our exhibition to get to where they need to go. It really seems like Monarto is getting behind our venture.

The world famous Adelaide Symphony Orchestra will be up there playing and that will attract a different kind of following too.

So, here's another few chimps to go with all the other ones in my previous blog. I've really enjoyed getting to know them. I've never spent so long concentrating on one species of wildlife and I believe my art has really benefitted, and my knowledge certainly has.

"I remember a time.."

"Penny for your thoughts"

"Bruno" (No other title - I want the viewer to make their own up)

"I've tasted better"

3:49 PM

4 Comments

(Add Comment) |

10 Kudos

Translate

Thursday, July 31, 2008

The big Chimpanzee Exhibition
Category: Art and Photography

We've set ourselves some task!! Myself and Melbourne wildlife artist Leigh Rust are donating the profits from up to 15 paintings each, mostly of chimpanzees, to two causes.

The first is to help out the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Sierra Leone in West Africa. The people here left behind a 'normal' life to start up and run this sanctuary which cares for orphaned chimps, orphaned because of the bush meat trade, the pet trade and simply through loss of habitat. They do a fabulous job and any help they can get is much appreciated.

The second is to help with the opening of a new chimp facility at Monarto Zoo in the Adelaide Hills, about 70 kms from Adelaide in South Australia. This facility will be opened by the famous chimpanzee researcher and environmental educator Dr Jane Goodall.

The exhibition will be at the Visitor's Centre at Monarto and will open on the same day Dr Goodall will be there so we hope to generate as much publicity as possible. We understand that plenty of people want to help with the cause of chimpanzee survival and our goal is to allow them to help financially while getting something back in return. So they donate 'x' amount of dollars which goes to the chimp work, and in return they get a piece of fine art.

My pieces (so far) are shown below with a few more still to do. Some are scratchboards, some are pastels, varying in size from a tiny 6" x 4" up to 14" x 17". The varying sizes are so that we can provide varying prices to give everyone a chance to help out and own a piece of art.

Liegh Rust's magnificent artwork relating to this exhibition can be seen here and any updates of my work can be seen on my wildlife and portrait art site

Time to Think

Untitled

Untitled

The late Pinkie, at the time the world's only known albino chimp.

Turn Back in Anger

Contemplation

Untitled

Oops

Untitled

4:35 AM

6 Comments

(Add Comment) |

10 Kudos

Translate

Friday, June 20, 2008

Zebra in scratchboard

Just a few steps I made in the construction of a zebra in scratchboard. It's only small, 5" x 7" on black Ampersand 'Claybord'.

Firstly I cleared the white stripes with a curved blade

Then I did the eye and scratched away at the black stripes to get the hairs looking right

And finally I added colour with a combination of watercolours and coloured pencils, keeping it all fairly muted to allow the black and white to do the main work, rescratching where the colour has been added and trying to get the hair direction correct.

Here's a couple of closeups. Of course, they are massively magnified, probably four or five times larger than life, but it shows that the scratches are hard to do when they are small but though they are fairly random, the overall effect is fairly easy to achieve

12:31 PM

6 Comments

(Add Comment) |

12 Kudos

Translate

Friday, May 16, 2008

Orangutan, mixed media WIP

I just got hold of some Ampersand scratchboard, 5" x 7". Prior to this I've been using the EssDee brand (English) which is superb. It's a card covered in the kaolin clay and is easy to cut. However, I thought I'd try the American Ampersand which is the clay on hardboard - very robust. I'm using the white (cream actually) rather than the black inked type. If this was EssDee I would have to colour it with inks or acrylic paints (though acrylics are hard to scratch through) but with this brand, I've noticed that it takes coloured pencils fairly well and also watercolours sit on there quite well if you don't overdo the water and keep it fairly dry. So this piece will be a portrait of a male Borneo Orangutan with the wide cheeks. They're in big trouble in the wild, we really need to highlight their cause.
I'm using a variety of media - coloured pencil, watercolour, fibre tipped ink pens, marker pen and of course scratches. This is the start.

I'm working in layers too, so colour on, scratch off, then more colour on and more scratch off (sounds like the Karate Kid - wax on, wax off, wax on, wax off Very Happy

). One of the reasons for trying marker pen is I'm hoping, being permanent, I'll be able to watercolour over it without it smudging. The fibre tip pens I use are waterbased so when I go over them with watercolour, they may well smear and that would mess things up, so I have to be careful.

Next stages

And the final stage - shown larger than actual size. Being 5" x 7" it's quite small in real life

Here's a closeup of the eye area to show how I went about trying to do the folds in the skin. It's massively magnified, quite a few times larger than actual size

2:26 AM

2 Comments

(Add Comment) |

4 Kudos

Translate

Friday, May 09, 2008

"The end of the world is High", elephant in scratchboard

This scratchboard piece was inspired by a guy who made it into the 'Darwin Awards', which are awarded to people who find strange, unique and usually stupid ways to die. The following quote shows that this guy was a bit unlucky but he was also certainly a bit too conscientious.

PADERBORN, GERMANY - Overzealous zookeeper Friedrich Riesfeldt fed his constipated elephant Stefan 22 doses of animal laxative and more than a bushel of berries, figs and prunes before the plugged-up pachyderm finally let fly - and suffocated the keeper under 200 pounds of elephant dung ! Investigators say the ill-fated Friedrich, 46, was attempting to give the ailing elephant an olive oil enema when the relieved beast unloaded on him like a dump truck full of mud. "The sheer force of the elephant's unexpected defecation knocked Mr. Riesfeldt to the ground, where he struck his head on a rock and lay unconscious as the elephant continued to evacuate his bowels on top of him," said flabbergasted Paderborn police detective Erik Dern. "With no one there to help him, he lay under all that dung for at least an hour before a watchman came along, and during that time he suffocated. It seems to be just one of those freak accidents that happen every now and then," said Dern.

Bearing this in mind, I assume what you see in my picture is the last view he saw and given the angle he would have seen it from, I've titled it "The end of the world is High"

We shouldn't laugh

12:46 AM

5 Comments

(Add Comment) |

4 Kudos

Translate

Monday, May 05, 2008

A couple of portraits step by step

It's good fun to do portraits, but much better if you actually know or met the person. In the following two cases, the lady is from Malawi and we met her in her village of Chilicoti. She's the chief's wife and is just a beautiful person. The second is a guard in Egypt. I thought he had such a fascinating face and couldn't resist this portrait. In both cases, I'm working in soft pastels on terra cotta coloured colourfix pastel paper, which is a surface like sandpaper so you can add layers and layers of pastels to get the results you want. Cheif Chilicoti's Wife is 10" x 16" and my Egyptian guard is 11" x 11". Also, in both cases, I used a grid to get as close a likeness as possible.