ONE SMALL SNACK FOR MAN, ONE GIANT FEAST FOR MANKIND

Here's something I drew around 3 this morning, when really I should've been sleeping. I was rugged up in two jackets, while sitting outside underneath the stars and the censor light.

That's me being pushed into a rocket ship.

This is a drawing about me not wanting space.

I was feeling pretty lonely.

Despite all my carrying on though space isn't all bad, in fact I've always loved space and often wish I were an astronaut. One day I will be.

In the meantime though I just finished a new work in celebration of NASA's recent successful landing of the Curiosity Voyager onto the surface of Mars.

I still can't get over how awesome that is.

The work is acrylic on ceramic.

Did you know that Mars bars are made using RAINFOREST ALLIANCE CERTIFIED COCOA? 

Neither did I. 

But apparently they are, it's written right there on the front of the wrapper. 

For this work though rather than paint the little thing that tells you about the COCOA I decided instead to paint the NASA logo in it's place.

Here it is at my supermarket.

And finally, as a little tribute to the great Neil Armstrong, who sadly passed away yesterday at age 82, here's a thing I did back in 2010. 

It's a self portrait of me as the first man on Mars. 

(Acrylic, ink and marker on textured canvas paper. 29.7 x 42 cm.)
 

Last week I heard it reported that if all goes to plan then apparently the children who are in kindergarten right now are actually in the correct age bracket to become the first astronauts to walk on Mars.

Who knows, maybe the first person to walk on Mars will be this girl, who just this morning walked by my Mars bar.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realise that we're living in unbelievably exciting times. 

Watch this space.

The gift of the Gabby

Hey! Avril Lavigne is talking about me. Allegedly. And I'll tell you what, you know you're going places when Avril Lavigne is talking about you. Allegedly.

Yesterday the news website LUNA Digital published the best article I've ever read.

This sentence is a link to the article.

Brilliant hard hitting journalism by the wonderful Gabby Easter, you'd have to be crazy to suspect that this article was actually secretly written by me.

LUNA exists both online and in print, it's an Australian magazine that aims to report all the latest happenings in music, popular culture, fashion, TV/film, gaming and technology.

I just created a Twitter account so that I could personally thank Avril for her very kind
alleged words. I also let her know that I'm a big fan of hers as well, and wished her a big congratulations on her terrific engaging news.

I haven't heard back from Avril yet, I imagine she's very busy from people going and making things so complicated, but I'll keep you posted.

I also sent a similar tweet to Mr. Nickelback.

So there you go, I now have twitter. I don't know if I want it, but I have it.

If you're on twitter too you should definitely follow me on @kennypittock

What a funny morning.

A NEWSWORTHY VIDEO

We interrupt your regular blog excitement to bring you this breaking news.

Hi.

Nelson and I, who recently made the song Nightly News, have just put together one of those music film clip lyric videos that are all the rage on youtube.

Here it is, hope you like it, feel free to sing along. 

Now that you've enjoyed that, here's a viral youtube clip of a baby that smiles, as referenced in the song.

This video currently has 6,438,768 views, which is a lot, I don't think anyone would try and say that it isn't, (especially not me whose video at the top of this page currently has 1 views), but still, six and a half million hits is not two billion hits.

So if you've got the time why not help me out and for the good of the lyrics all I'm asking is that you please watch this viral baby clip just a measly one hundred thousand times a day for the next 3076.9 days, (I've done the math), and lets get its view count up to 2,000,000,000. 

In other news related news, here's a painting I did yesterday. 

It's best viewed if you click on it, so that it gets the black border.

It's acrylic on 225 gsm paper, 21 x 29.5cm.

TRIBUTE TO ADAM CULLEN. Or; What Adam shame. (Part One of Two)

Here's a drawing I made four and a bit years ago in 2008. It's oil pastel on lined paper.

I made the drawing around the first time I ever really saw the work of Adam Cullen.It was a nice coincidence that a couple of weeks later I went up to Sydney with some tafe buddies to see the Bienalle and there happened to be a big Adam Cullen show on at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. I was still carrying the same book I'd done the drawing in which meant that I was able to take these photos.

(I'm skinny now but I forget how skinny I was.)

Below is another work I made, also back in 2008, titled Dog Food; Serving you better. 

It's acrylic, marker, pencil and highlighter on a stretched Coles canvas bag, (at the time I was a Coles employee).

When I made this painting I felt that the text I'd written in the piece had a vaguely similar attitude to Cullen's work. I guess I'd wanted to reference this and so rather than paint my own dog I painted the dog from one of Cullens paintings.

It feels a bit funny writing about these two works, I literally hadn't looked at them for years.

I dug them up just recently after Monday morning, June 30, when I arrived at uni and a friend said to me "Hey so'd you hear Adam Cullen died yesterday?"

Way too young, Adam has joined the 47 club. 

A few days ago I decided to give him a bit of a tribute, it felt necessary. I'd go into it now but this post is probably long enough as it is, so, ok, stay tuned for part two. What a gripping cliffhanger, thanks for reading, come back soon, TO BE CONTINUED...

Nairy, Nairy, quite contrary

On August 14, 2012, Berlin based Iranian artist Nairy Baghramian was in Melbourne, Australia, and gave a public lecture type thing at Federation Hall. I was lucky enough to have been in the audience.

During the talk I made a drawing and after the talk I gave it to her. 
She's amazing. Here's the video.

Here's a photo of two of Nairy's pieces that are in the latest show on at ACCA, (the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art).

The piece at the front is titled Big Mouth 1. It's made of coloured rubber and polished aluminium. You can see my lower half in the reflection.

The piece behind that is Waste baskets (Bins for rejected ideas), made of coloured rubber and wire mesh. Apparently this smorning a woman threw her coffee cup into it, thinking she was supposed to.

At the very back of the photo is a professional photographer photographing some guy who I'm told is an American Congressman.

To the right there's a girl in a jumper. It's blue. The same colour as the bin, and also the professional photographers underwear.

I love you and I want you to be happy and

(Marker on 225gsm paper. 21 x 29.5cm. 2012.)

A NEWSWORTHY SONG

Hey, you ever write poetry? 
I bet you do. 
I bet you're real darn good at it too.

Last year, on 18.03.2011, I watched the channel Ten six o'clock news and I wrote a poem about it.
The poem's on this blog, here's a link to it.

We all know that no news is good news, but this news is even better; 
yesterday my buddy Nelson Walkom, an unbelievably talented musician, made a song out of the poem.

I really love the song.
The music, the delivery, it's just so cool. 
And I can't get over how exciting it is to hear my words come alive.

I think where Nel turned The Biggest Loser into the The Fattest Loser, and laughs while saying it, is probably my favourite part.

Nelson, (or Nelvis Presley as I like to call him), is incredible.
This sentence is a link to his music page.
And this sentence is a link to his youtube channel. 
you should have a listen to his other stuff too, it'll be music to your ears.

I really love the song. I know I already wrote that, but I really do.