I'm getting better at sketching whenever I can - mainly on the long train journey from work, to my little bush cottage on the outskirts of town. Sometimes I'm not sure what to draw. I could sketch one of the passengers around me. Or, I could sketch based on the IllustrationFriday.com theme of the week. That's often a good starting point. The hardest thing is to make a start!
DD gets impatient with my cynicism sometimes, and calls me a harbinger of doom. Perhaps I could make a series of 'harbinger of doom' Tshirts, with gloomy girls like the one I've sketched here. I'm also thinking of drawing a girl deep in meditation, praying for rain - something we desperately need.

I've given a lot more thought to the Tassie Tiger project. I have some alpaca and merino wool, ready to make felt puppets; I have cardboard boxes to start building a 3d environment; and I've given more thought to the storyline. I would love to assemble a team; someone to polish the script; someone to shoot the animation, someone to cast and direct the feature length version!!! Deaddogma has a clear vision of Cate Blanchett in the lead role as Alison Reid, daughter of the Hobart zoo curator. My puppet animation could become a 'story within the story'. So many ideas, so little time! I've added a sketch here; just to show who I really believe rules in my household!

I'm lucky enough to have met Deaddogma, a photographer and artiste who has rekindled my desire to make art. We've already had fun with one photography session, and lots of visits to galleries. Here's a sketch ... no more excuses about not knowing what to draw! OK, the sketch doesn't really look like D, but it is stylised...
I spend a lot of time on the train. There's no reason that I can't spend that time sketching. I think my next animation will be stop-motion, but sketching will build my confidence and allow me to try out various visual ideas. I have always wanted to develop a body of work to leave behind...

Here's my first sketch of Alison, the main character of my Tasmanian Tiger animation. Next week I'll post a photo of Tilly, her 'pet' Tasmanian Tiger. Alison is based on the real life character of the daughter of the Zoo curator of Hobart Zoo, Alison Reid, who battled bureaucracy and indifference to try and save the animals at the Zoo in the 1930s.

I'm going to build an doll or puppet of Alison as well, using modelling clay over a metal armature. Soon, I will have to decide whether to use sketches to build the animation, or to have a go at stop-motion animation. I think this will be more challenging for me. It will require a lot more hours, space and resources, and it's unfamiliar so it will take longer. However, it might be more satisfying for the audience.

I can't wait to start work on a short film about the last Tasmanian Tiger. I suspect this project will be emotionally difficult. I cried when I read about the death of the Tiger in Hobart Zoo. Still, this makes me all the more committed to the project.
I want to research the 1930s, and invent a beautiful, bleak visual world drawing on art deco zoo architecture. The tiger will be looked after by the daughter of the zookeeper in Hobart. She was involved with the tiger in real life but prevented from taking a bigger part by her gender. I want to find out more about this story. Perhaps she will wear gaudy 'flapper' clothing as she goes about her work at the zoo. Perhaps she will hide the cubs of a tiger, so that there is some hope for the species at the end of the film. She may have a little baby which she hides in a drawer, for one of the workers, because there is no such thing as childcare.
The research will be challenging, but I can't wait to get started. I want to travel to Tasmania to see their tiger exhibits, and to see the wilderness where the tiger may still hide.