Yesterday BRW published their 10 best places to work.

Looking through the list I noticed that I’ve had the pleasure with working with 4 out of the 10 companies. Here is some commentary on how I have worked with them in bold

Here is the list:

THE TOP 10 GREAT PLACES TO WORK:

Sorted by: Rank, company, number of employees, industry sector, location of head office

1 Google Australia 312 Internet Services Sydney
Last year my business www.redfaces.com.au supplied the entertainment for the Google Christmas Party. There were four caricature artists entertaining the 300 strong crowd!

2 NetApp Australia 146 Information Technology Sydney

3 Russell Investments 241 Financial Services Sydney
Last year my business www.redfaces.com.au drew caricatures of the head management team for a conference.

4 Diageo 553 Manufacturing (food, beverages) Sydney
Last week I worked with the Diageo Marketing heads at a conference in NSW. Along with Robert from Bridge Consulting (http://www.bridge-partnership.com) the team formed a vision of their future. My job was to interpret their vision and speed paint it.

5 Dynamic Property Services 41 Business services (property management) Sydney

6 ETM Group 73 (55 full-time) Business services (Travel, events management) Melbourne

7 BMD Group 1194 Construction Brisbane

8 MRWED Training & Assessment 20 (11 fulltime) Education services Sunshine Coast

9 Red Balloon 46 (38 full-time) Retail, speciality Sydney
I’ve entertained at their staff parties - and do these guys know how to party! I also run into Naomi Simson everywhere at events (Hi Naomi!)

10 OBS 102 (98 full-time) Information technology Melbourne

Did 2 shows over the weekend and both went absolutely awesome. Some shows just seem to ‘click’ right into place and this was the weekend..

The first show was up at Hamilton Island and it was a ripper.  The second was at a 200 people wedding here in Sydney, where along with my normal show I painted a 6 foot Celine Dion! Anyway, I just received an email from the event organiser:

“Your show was fantastic, the feedback from the dealers was wonderful. We raised approximately $7500 for the Alana and Madeline Foundation from auctioning your work, so thank you very much for that. The picture of Steve’s car brought on a very entertaining bidding war.

We do have some great photos from the night, especially of Steve Richards fantastic air guitar moves. I havent received the disk with the images from Hamilton Island yet, but when I do I will forward some
through to you.”

Another great weekend down, next weekend I am in Melbourne which I’m looking forward to…

for the weekend… This weekend I’m off to Hamilton Island to perform for a Dunlop dealer conference.

Now I’ve just received a photograph of the V8 car they want speed painted during the conference.

WHAT A CO-INCIDENCE!! The picture they provided is of Steven ‘Richo’ Richards No. 6 Ford Falcon (sponsored by Orrcon). Last year

I did a show for Orrcon and was lucky enough to do a HOT LAP IN THIS VERY CAR around Phillip Island, Melbourne.

I did the hot lap with V8 driver Dean Canto and let me tell you, there is nothing more thrilling than hitting 270kmph down the straight. I’ll try and paint about that speed this weekend.

Whilst I was in the US, Channel 9 showed my appearance on “The Shak”.

This video has a funny story to it - alot of paints were warm and started to get gluggy (this was filmed in Brisbane in summer). Anyway, when they actually shot my segment of the show - the blue paint was no longer runny and during my first few brushstrokes, I got a thick gluggy piece of it paint right in the corner of my left eye. I literally couldn’t open my eye, so I just closed it and completed the speed painting with one eye. Still it was alot of fun (TV always is) and the show must go on!