The 100 day project
I walk and paint a lot on the urban fringe of Ballarat, where the suburbs collide uncomfortably with the bush. This area is part leisure amenity, part cash-crop plantation, part teen hangout, and part dump. I often encounter trash, lost or discarded items, or burned out vehicles, but none of these finds its way into my paintings. This felt like only telling one side of a story. I’d been searching around for a way to document these things when I came upon the #100dayproject that folks were doing on Instagram, so I started making these drawings. One a day for 100 days.
The drawings, combined with my paintings, make for a more complete picture. Full disclosure. They’re deliberately flat and pop-culture cartoon-like as I wanted to both reflect the throwaway nature of the subjects, and to have them contrast as strongly as possible with my landscape paintings.
When I can, I pick up and pack out a lot of this stuff. Sadly, most of it ends up in landfill as it’s not in a state to be recycled or it’s simply not recyclable, but at least it’s no longer a hazard to wildlife, or unobservant walkers.
You can follow the fun and the day-by-day progress on my Instagram feed.
Here are the first 24 days. Click/tap for a larger image and a short comment on each.
