i ♥ data visualisation

October 14, 2026

I like to make stuff. It’s why being a brewer is making me happy (free beer also helps), and why being a designer used to make me happy. Drawing is best of all, but also books, a game, a matryoshka doll and other random stuff.

I’ve been writing an autobiographical timeline for a while, to keep everything straight in my head, to be able to check back when things happened. Writing some details the other day I had an inspiration to make a live / Javascript version and a week later here it is!

I’ve always loved data visualisation and this was mostly for the fun of it. I write book and beer reviews, have journals going back 30 odd years, photos going back even further, and stacks of sketchbooks and artworks. The dream would be to have some mega database that would cross reference it all. I’d love to be able to look at a drawing, then see what I was doing at the time. This is a baby step, at least I can see where I was living, and if it was a good or bad patch.

Before that I made a secret data page on BEERGR!D, to add to the other stat and graph pages, one for me to deep dive into the details, just because I could.

Now I just need to figure out a way to make my giant dice filled hourglass…

baton gules

September 6, 2026

I sometimes struggle with the big why, with the pointlessness of creating things that no one will see. Drawings, notebooks full of ideas, beer reviews, the output of an invisible inner life. Mostly I can answer, the joy of doing is its own reason, not the final result.

I got excited again by the idea of heraldry, of making a personal crest. Joining the blue artist shield with the orange brewer cross, getting baroque with it. Bought a couple of great out of print books with hand drawn examples. Got to the final stages of inking and colouring before realising how naff it was!

My plan had been to also post previous crests I’d drawn back in the day, but they were even more cringeworthy! Full of self indulgent / self important things I wanted to say about myself, like a LinkedIn post in drawing form.

There are a few fun ideas along the way, superheroes, logos, crests, that always seem to run out of steam. They joy may be in the doing, but they need to be worth doing. Misery may not make better art, but it definitely makes it more meaningful to me.

symmetry

August 7, 2026

Finished up my other arm today. Keeping a window to a moment in time, my first tattoo from 2012.

My totem, the winged bull of St Luke, patron saint of artists, I vowed I’d get it done from the first money I earnt from my art. Except I was broke at the time and needed the money!

After making Michael finally go and get his long planned tattoo for his 40th, he returned the favour for mine.

Even further back I had different plans far armbands, and while backpacking through Europe in 1996 filled in the gap in the middle. It’d be pretty faded and hairy by now…

13 years, 159 posts

July 28, 2026

This all started from the realisation that I needed to back up the blog in a way that wasn’t a dataset, a way that was readable by humans.

If my Act 1 was learning to draw, then Act 2 was learning how to create documents, which came in handy automating some big chunks of setting this up.

Back in 2014 I set up volume one. Just 42 posts long and intended to be the first of many, promised as printed copies for the only three people who commented on the blog: my old boss Dan, Melbourne Mike, and cousin Michael.

11 years late, but delivered in full.

(Of course once I had the printed version I found a couple of mistakes! All fixed in the PDF.)

“scorched earth policy”

July 12, 2026

Camping bookings open for Rocky Paddock in April. I’ve been teasing myself checking availability every month or so, knowing the time wasn’t right, yet.

Yesterday I did a lazy search to get to the booking page, thinking early September would be the go, and crashed headlong into a post saying the site was closed due to safety, those pines all too old and set for removal.

It hit me hard, another link to Michael going.

The week had already been a bit tougher than normal. Seeing a tour announcement for Swervedriver, playing “Raise” in full to celebrate it’s 35th anniversary. That night was his cousin Anthony’s 50th birthday, another event he wouldn’t be at. I cried and the seed for this drawing of mourning began to grow.

I cut the board, ready to get started that day, wedging it into the drawing schedule. But got interrupted, Ashley was in the area and offered to pick me up. Turning a quiet night, driving with a couple of light beers, into a session. Getting me merry to celebrate a friend’s birthday rather than dwelling on an absence. Not forgetting, a side conversation with Michael’s aunt at the end keeping him there.

Today I’m following the gist of the policy, turning this drawing into a footnote, not looking back at what is gone.

“green shoots / growth targets”

July 5, 2026

So I wanted to draw something bright, something positive, after that last one seemed so drab.

Feeling positive, the work side going well, making friends, getting confidence. The family side on a calm plateau, feeling like I was going to catch my breath.

But teenagers want to fly, want to change. None of us realising the plateau was me clinging to the cliff face, holding us up. Maybe their wings will lift us all.

“tonnage”

April 19, 2026

After the joy of “AD&D” I couldn’t nail what to draw next. There were some interesting ideas that looked negative but weren’t, inspired by my time in the packing area, turning some old ideas about repetition into something more zen.

Then a great idea that will be super labour intensive and challenging, then this quickie that raced out first. Drawn in one sitting, finished in three weekends.

Maybe still a bit Sisyphean and open to a negative reading, nailed to it with no turning back, showing actual physical pain, but loving it with no regrets.

BEER NIGHT

March 22, 2026

We’ve had too many people die during our kid’s lifetime. G-pa. Nana Wilma. Great Nana. Poppy. Auntie Margaret. Scott. Michael.

Michael was the first where I was also mourning the loss of a part of myself, the person I could be around him. I never had to explain the backstory, my cousin who knew the pressures of growing up in the Taplin clan, had met the friends from the three phases of my life, had been to nearly all of the fifteen houses I’ve lived in, and slept at most of them. Whether art, pop culture, music or whatever, he got the reference.

The beer nights had started pretty casually but turned into a solid tradition over six years, especially once he moved to Gawler. That house was a sanctuary to him, but also to me over an intense couple of years. It was a fraught process to organise at my end, navigating anxieties and guilt trips and rescheduling, never certain until the last minute.

The process of unwinding started as soon as I sat in the car in the driveway. Picked the music and sent a message to Michael. I’m on my way.

I’d never understood why people loved road trips, the concept of Sunday drives, until those journeys out to Gawler. Somewhere in that time I gained confidence in driving, loved the speed and the curves through the hills. An inextricable part of the event, the decompression and anticipation.

I got to be someone else at his house. Not a father or husband or manager, not even a responsible adult. Off the leash, back out on the edges. Talk shit, play air guitar, blow off steam. Bring out any beer or put on any music without judgement. Maybe with debate but always with appreciation.

I didn’t realise how much I needed those nights until they were gone. Auntie Fran always thanked me for seeing him so much and supporting him, but I was mostly doing it for me.

The start of 2024 was rock bottom. Counselling started the climb back up and making this game was another part of the process. Remembering and grieving the beer nights, but letting them go. Letting Michael go.

I was ready for the next step before the game was, and it sat mostly done but untouched for a year so. Adobe’s price gouging prompted me to cancel my subscription and I realised I had to finish this first.

Celebrating but not forgetting.

“Advanced Drinking & Drawing”

February 3, 2026

A year ago today I took a hard left turn in life, risking my family’s financial and emotional stability to change jobs, from a government desk drone to a factory shift worker. Luckily the bet paid off!

This idea came six days later, and seemed very unlikely. Not miserable. Zany even. Some other intense ideas lapped past. But I made it the wallpaper on my phone and kept looking at it.

Partly inspired by the cover of the 2nd edition AD&D Monster Manual II, shaped by a crazy reference photo mockup, and finishing in a hot streak of days off during the brewery holiday shutdowns. I love the final work, one of the few full background drawings I’ve ever done, but there’s still something about the raw pencil that gets lost along the way.

By accident it was finished for this anniversary, and hopefully in time to be included in an exhibition at the venue…

the meaning of life

November 5, 2025

A few weeks back I did an overnighter at Rocky Paddock. There were a few tears but it was a great night, sitting by a fire at site 24 drinking beers.

Definitely time away to recharge, reclaiming the place and not needing to write myself off. Writing haiku and reminding myself to think about the good memories.

Scrawled at the end of the beer reviews, a poster slogan, not ironic or sarcastic. I had grand plans to do it as an elaborate hand lettered thing, set it up on a cliche poster mockup with wooden pegs and a cactus on the side. Funnily enough after the last two drawings also involved custom lettering I lost enthusiasm!

Working on the laborious scribble writing I remembered back to 1991, a visit with the Gover St crew to somewhere nearby at Mount Crawford. Tripping, I had crawled into a thorn bush and gotten stuck, had an epiphany and was writing down the meaning of life. Slowly. Scribbling out the letters, convinced that an out of control four wheel drive would come down a nearby track, would kill me before I could finish and reveal it. But didn’t write it any simpler or faster!

There was no ultimate neutral standpoint to contemplate from, but not everything after was crap.

Ironically I’m working on this while drinking heavy duty laxative to prep for a colonoscopy tomorrow. Shitting the past indeed.