Wild @ Art Twilight demonstrations

I thought I'd share with everyone some recent works created at Melbourne Zoo for my Twilight series of demonstrations. Each year Melbourne Zoo holds a series of concerts through summer where people can come to the park and not only see the animals at later times than usual but also listen to live music well into the night.

This February I have had the opportunity to showcase my work as part of these concerts, both as my second solo show and a series of demonstrations in front of nearly 4000 visitors at last count. The results of the these demonstrations are below.

Friday Feb 4th was the first demonstration done in conjunction with the first Tiger Taskforce Foundation fundraising concert. The Foundation has been formed by Zoos Victoria along with the Melbourne Tigers basketball club and Richmond Tigers football club to raise awareness for the plight of tigers around the world. The Richmond Tigers were on hand to sign autographs and captain Troy Simmonds gave an empassioned speech to the crowd highlighting the importance of protecting the tiger in the wild.

The performers for the night were Joe Camilleri & the Black Sorrows, followed by

My subject for the demonstration was a Sumatran tiger to stay with the theme for the night. I worked on a foamcore support prepared with colourfix primer using soft pastel.

"The Hunter"

Pastel on primed board by Leigh Rust

Sunday 6th was a much larger event with more than 2500 people flocking to the grounds for the ever entertaining Babba. The demonstration for the night was a gorilla in pastel. Crowd reaction was wonderful with many people showing their passion for wildlife conservation and great interest in my work. I recorded the demonstration and now have the videos showing on my website.

"Dignity"

Pastel on primed board by Leigh Rust

Sunday 10th was demo 3. The crowd was very laid back and the music supplied by the Moovin and Groovin Orchestra was the epitome of cool. This time we'd set up a multimedia display allowing visitors to access my website and watch my new DVD: From concept to completion. As a personal challenge I aimed to complete 2 demonstrations for the night. The first on the easel was a pygmy hippopotamus. This girl was a great deal of fun to work on as I got to merge two of my favourite subjects in one work: animals and water. The big challenge with this was to get life into the grey hide. To do this I employed my arsenal of warm and cool browns, greens and blues as substitutes. These colours were played into the environment around her for harmony.

Gloria

Pastel on primed board by Leigh Rust

The second demonstration subject was a giraffe but unfortunately the dying light made it difficult to get too far. In the lead up to the final demonstration I completed the piece. I'm very proud of the way it came up.

Tall Timber

Pastel on primed board by Leigh Rust

Sunday 24th Feb was the final demonstration and I gave it my all. The subject was a meerkat, one of my favourite animals. The design was very simple but allowed me to create a dynamic composition. They key element to the work's success was always going to be the light and I attacked the scene rapidly laying down the various tones to create the suggestion of backlit foliage. Once the background had come together so well it was time to let texture do it's job and bring the meerkat to life. The meerkat was built using subtle tones of greys and browns to emulate the animal's coat.

On the lookout

Pastel on primed board by Leigh Rust

Public support has been really good and many people have expressed interest in the workshops at the zoo which I'm taking names for at the moment. I'm hoping to give dates on the workshops in the next week or so.

New DVD available: From concept to completion

This disc shows the unusual jigsaw puzzle process I use to create my works. Watch as the animals come to life before your eyes! With an atmospheric soundtrack by the Emulaterz and downloadable wallpapers for your PC this is going to be a popular item!

(Disc running time approx 14 mins)

If you'd like a copy just click the link below

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