Ettamogah Pub/Aussie World and other venues

In 1989, Murray Views management saw the potential in employing computer graphics, then just emerging on the Aussie commerce stage, to enhance their souvenir designs. I was offered training in the new medium but declined as I was not, myself, prepared for the change.

As reported in an earlier blog, I had been preparing, instead, to take my caricaturing to the next step, namely "Live, on-site caricature." This was my impetus for launching into the field.

My first setup was at the Mooloolaba Wharf precinct, Sunshine Coast. My first work there was primitive but results encouraging. I employed no shading to my brush and ink drawings. Also missing were teeth!   Nearby, at Palmview, Lindsay Cooper was constructing a second Ettamogah Pub, inspired by the Australasian Post (?) cartoons of the same name by Aussie cartoonist, Ken Maynard, alive at that time. Where better to set up for a ready supply of Aussie and international visitors looking for some Aussie humour? Lindsay was agreeable, so in November of that year, I commenced my seventeen-year run and approx. 64,000 live caricatures there. Concurrently, I accepted numerous engagements at conventions, conferences, parties and events in Brisbane and surrounds.

From 1998 to 2000, Joy and I undertook three winter tours of several Queensland Agricultural Shows in stages from Brisbane north, as far as Cairns in 2000. That year was an uncomfortable one for Joy, whose bronchiectasis was beginning to assert its claim to her health, so we did not continue touring after that.   

Over the years, my early struggles with drawing fidgeting children became one of my greatest joys as I found myself capturing good likenesses within their caricatures. My drawings of women, too, developed towards portraiture while most men were happiest with exaggerated likenesses. I soon described my work as: "Gals so glamorous, Children so cute, Guys so............." and that by-line continued until retirement in 2007, aged 72, enabled me to take on the role of full-time carer for Joy for the remainder of her life for the next 6 years until December 2013.

In 2014/15, I briefly returned to onsite work, including another tour of Qld Shows from Maryborough to Cairns and Kuranda in 2015. Although I felt I was doing my best work in these later years, my age was not so keen on the physical discipline, so I resorted to studio work in 2016, aged 80.  I remarried in March, 2016.