The letter reads:

Dear Mr Gordon-Stewart

Thank you for your email of 10 May 2006 to the Treasurer.

The Treasurer has asked me to thank you for your kind words of support and encouragement and to tell you that they are appreciated and for taking the time to write.

Your sincerely

David Gazard
Senior Advisor

There is also a handwritten section which I have had trouble deciphering. Here is a picture of the letter (I have blotted out my address):

Despite the date on the letter being “27 Jul 2006″, the letter appears to have gone throught th post on the 2nd of August, as shown by the envelope (again, address blotted out).

I’ll just zoom in on the postmark imprinted by the post office equipment…the date is partially obscured by the “Postage Paid Australia” mark

So the letter arrived the day after postage, which is excellent. As was the surprise I got when I saw an evelope addressed to me from “Treasurer Canberra”, and the subsequent joy of reading the letter.

Samuel

Samuel

And now it’s time for episode one, which picks up where series one left off, with Samuel drinking coffee after returning home from the now goldless goldfields of Dolgnwot.

The next episode will be shown on Sunday, 12 March, 2006.

Samuel

The new series will be released weekly on Sundays, however the first episode will appear tomorrow (Monday) night. The reason for this is that the new series picks up where the old series left off, and it is important that we quicky recap Series 1 of Samuel In Dolgnwot.

So, here is a quick recap of Series 1, join me tomorrow night for the first episode of Series 2 of Samuel In Dolgnwot.
(Due to the length of having all 27 episodes on the front page, and the way it probably prevents most people from scrolling to the next article, I have hidden them from front page view. Clicking on “more”, or the article’s title or the comments link will show them for you.)

Samuel

This has undoubtedly got you intruiged as to why I have a video accompanying one of my works of art. It’s a bit of a story, so let’s begin with the picture.

This is a picture drawn with a combination of pencil and crayon, in the year 2000 (from memory it was late 2000). In it you can see some flowers, a duck under a table with a fish in a fishbowl on top, as well as a rooster, a tree, plenty of grass, the sky and the sun.

At this time in history, my good friend Daniel Gibson was working as the breakfast host on 2CA and weather presenter on Prime Local News (before it changed name to “Prime News” and was later axed…as was common in regional television circles at the time). I mailed the picture to Daniel at Prime Television, and he subsequently put it to air as the weather picture.

I recorded this on VHS, and have since put it on DVD and converted it to a few web friendly formats for your convenience. Depending on your operating system and installed software, you should be able to play one or more of the following, which I have listed in quality order.

Real Media format (3.76 MB)
Quicktime format (3.79 MB)
MPEG-4 format (3.70 MB)
Windows Media format (3.87 MB)

Each video is 28 seconds long.

I suppose if I were to ustilise the weather stats in the video I could probably find out the date of recording.

For the record, the lineup on Prime Local News at that time was Catherine Garrett reading the news, Phil Lynch presenting sport and Daniel Gibson as the weatherman.

Samuel

They are pictures of a Wheel Of Fortune set where the contestants are trying to solve a puzzle, the first picture was drawn on paper and was designed as a planning picture.

In the picture you can see the puzzle board at the top showing a partially completed puzzle, underneath that you can see the “puzzle genre” graphic and co-host Sophie Faulkner, further down you can see the wheel and host of the time Rob Elliot announcing that there are three “O”s in the puzzle.

The picture was destined to become the cover for my art folder for the art class I was in at the time, and was promptly drawn on there.

There are a few changes in this picture, firstly the picture has colour and the newly revealed letters have a highlighting. The genre graphic has been coloured green to match the TV show’s graphic, and a speaker emitting the sound effects heard on the show has been placed to the left of that. Sophie Faulkner’s dress in now striped. On the far left you can spot two camera operators, one with the camera pointing at the puzzle board and the other pointing at the contestants, who actually appear in this version of the picture. Apart from that, the contestant’s wheel pointers have been coloured to match the TV show. The yellow contestant is requesting “an O for orange” and Rob Elliot is announcing in sentence form “There are three O’s”

In this picture you can see that “Top Dollar” on the wheel is $2000, which means that this was prior to the “inflation” of the money as Rob Elliot called it. This was also at the time when Daewoo were the motor vehicle sponsor of Wheel Of Fortune.

The point of the cover artwork was to identify the owner of the folder, despite the missing letters in the puzzle, it would be fairly easy to identify that I am the owner of the folder.

Samuel

Well, I’ve always liked it, and I know some other people that do to, but now I have official confirmation that Jim Goar from Can Of Corn likes Samuel In Dolgnwot, describing it as “high grade cartoons”.

I must say I’m flattered, I never really thought my drawings were “high grade”, I always liked them, but I never thought an outsider (somebody who isn’t me) would like them that much.

With the support I am receiving for the Samuel In Dolgnwot series, I might just have to draw another series, maybe.

Samuel

Well, we have reached the double image finale of Samuel In Dolgnwot.
With the gold supply in Dolgnwot having run out, Samuel decides it is time to return to his home in Canberra in his futuristic truck.

Here, for the first time, we see his truck in it’s entirety. At the front (left) is the driver’s cabin, followed by the gold storage container, the gold digging and sorting machine, the living quarters and the horses living quarters. The horse is of course visible in the first and second episodes of Samuel In Dolgnwot.

The second image shows the teacher (Mrs. Brophy) left a tick on the accompanying page, which is a very good way to end the series.

Clicking on the pictures will show a larger version, you can also find them on the photo gallery.

Samuel’s Artwork will take a short break now and will return in a few days with new and exciting pictures.

Samuel

Today we have the second last episode in the Samuel In Dolgnwot series

In recent days, the amount of gold that people were able to find was getting smaller and smaller, and today the newspaper reports that there is no gold left. Naturally Samuel isn’t terribly pleased about this, but he spends some time deciding what to do.

Tommorow we have a special double image finale to the Samuel In Dolgnwot series.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel

Alrighty then, another episode of Samuel In Dolgnwot
Today sees the return of the working pens, yep no more pencils, as I recall the black pen ran out of ink, and it took me a few days to get some more pens.

On this particular day, Samuel visits the assay office with the masses of gold he has collected, and just happens to find a rather high gold-to-money conversion rate. A little bit later on, his mum drops by to congratulate him.

It looks like Samuel left his arms at home today.

We are now 2 episodes away from finishing the Samuel In Dolgnwot series.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel

Today’s Samuel In Dognwot is not brought to you by any sponsors, but if you want pay me I won’t refuse.
Today Samuel is watching Wheel Of Fortune, and is supporting the person in the middle yellow space, who is currently on $200.

As you can probably tell, this was before I spotted the comments from Mrs. Nash, and before I got a working pen.

We are now 3 episodes away from finishing the Samuel In Dolgnwot series.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel

Samuel In Dolgnwot, Double Image Special.
As time goes by, these images are becoming more and more abstract, and more and more faint, in this one I didn’t even have a working pen to use when I was drawing it.

Today’s first image sees Samuel singing the start of “Rock Around The Clock”, which really has nothing to do with the goldfields, but he was obviously enjoying himself.

According to the caption, Samuel is “singing to a CD”, which is obviously another one of those bits os futuristic technology for 1857.

On this occasion, Mrs Brophy wasn’t marking the diaries, it was Mrs Nash, and she was quite annoyed at the lack of goldfield related entires, she was often annoyed about something, but she was especially unimpressed by this.
“Samuel, I would like to read your ideas & thoughts about the goldfields. Please try to keep to the task.”

I didn’t notice her comments right away, which will probably be evident tommorow.

We are now 4 episodes away from finishing the Samuel In Dolgnwot series.

Clicking on the pictures will show a larger version, you can also find them on the photo gallery.

Samuel

Here we go, more Samuel In Dolgnwot!
Another one of those days where Samuel feels like singing. Actually, a few people were blessed with Samuel’s singing today, one of them described it as “Wolves Crying”.

If you have been watching the series unfold you may have noticed that, as the series has gone on, the pencils have been getting lighter.

We are now 5 episodes away from finishing the Samuel In Dolgnwot series, which reminds me, tomorrow we have another double image special.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel

Do I sense that it is time for another episode of Samuel In Dolgnwot?…..Yep, I do.

Well, it looks like a picture of a computer to me….slightly futuristic for 1857, but not to worry.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel

Before I get angry emails asking me why I haven’t produced today’s episode of Samuel In Dolgnwot, here it is.
In today’s episode, Samuel gets harrassed by about five troopers all asking for the same documentation.

As part of the gold game, a certain number of people chose to be troopers instead of gold diggers for half of the time, they had the job of going around and asking to see certain documents which showed if you had been shopping or kept your digging licence up-to-date, or been cheating.

On this particular day, five troopers visited Samuel (and most of the other gold diggers) to check their shopping documents, this sparked a number of complaints by the gold diggers about the troopers.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel

Roughly four hours later than usual, here is today’s Samuel In Dolgnwot

Samuel has a rather rigid feeding routine, and on this particular day, he is enjoying his morning tea, which is 1 Litre of Corn Soup, he will probably have a cup of coffee when he is done.

The feeding routine is another bit of paper I should dig out of the archive boxes.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel

And here we have another one of those irresistible episodes of Samuel In Dolgnwot.

In today’s episode you can see Samuel enduring another one of those days where he isn’t able to search for gold. He does appear to be making the most of a bad situation by watching TV & listening to the radio simultaneously.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel

Time for another episode of Samuel In Dolgnwot
Samuel has had another big gold find today, and has decided to call the animals at his house to tell them about it.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel

More Samuel In Dolgnwot! Yay!
Today you can see Samuel having fun with his lights and fans in his futuristic truck.

Turning them on and off constantly is obviously quite a good quality source of enjoyment for Samuel, and he is the only person on the goldfields in 1857 with the ability to do it.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel

Another episode of Samuel In Dolgnwot!
Today you can see Samuel doing his weekly shopping.

This was a requirement of the Gold Game and cost some trivial amount of money (I must remember to find that bit of paper that has all the transactions from the Gold Game on it).

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel