The Little World

In one holiday weekend – devoted to Western Australia Day – I found I visited five different Little Worlds. And in most cases the costs were under a sawbuck, including coffee. You can’t beat that on the international travel circuit.

Day One: I appear as a cameo walk-on at a belly dance concert…the Little World of the theatre. There is the roar of the grease paint but as it is a cold night there is little smell from the crowd. But the turn comes off well, and I can retire gracefully and dream of casting calls from the major studios. Now Harvey is off the scene, I should be able to keep my clothing fastened…

Day Two: I visit the model train exhibition. An entire hall filled with Little Worlds and their proud creators. As a senior I get in for $ 2 less and as a person versed in Asian etiquette I get a 6% discount on my coffee and muffin. The Little Worlds are of variable quality but all worth seeing for one reason or another.

Day Two: it is warm and dry and I can mask and paint the RCAF Bolingbroke model. Warm and dry in winter is a circumstance to be capitalized upon.

Day Three: A photographer friend who is making a book of his adventures in the Little Wet World of the ocean brought his entire operational outfit to the studio and we made a set-piece shot of it for the cover of the book. A down shot, with the camera in the rafters and the goods spread out in a precise pattern on the floor.

It’s not easy, folks, and we both agreed that it was a good thing that I had kept all the glamour-girl equipment in the studio that could be re-purposed and turned to commercial use. Product illustration and layout work for publication rarely gets the interest of the artistic or trendy, but it’s the backbone of communication. You have to put in time to do it right – and it often takes more equipment, planning, lighting, physics, and geometry than the customers realise.

The saving grace is most of it can be done with the radio on and coffee in a mug, and you don’t have to shave or make foolish compliments as you work. And most of the subjects don’t have an ego.

Day Three: Back into the Little Workshop for the Extra Dark Sea Grey camouflage pattern for the Bolingbroke. I painted it freehand and I am very pleased with the results. Courage is a good thing to have when you are modelling.