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Has it really been that long? Man. That's what babies do to you! Just wanted to post a few small bits I've been doing. The main thing has been the wedding invite for my lovely friends Lianna and Ben. They gave me the idea of lovebirds to work with and here are some of the first images I made:   I kind of liked the thought if joining the two tear-drop shaped birds to make a love-heart. I still think it's a nice image, but - for a wedding invitation - it ended up looking more rapey and confusing than I had anticipated:  So this was how they ended up, which everybody seemed pleased with. So many people got to see it, and I feel very privileged to have been able to contribute in some way to my friends' special day :)  While still on the subject of weddings, this is some bunting I made for a colleague, to be a part of her wedding invitation. I'm not actually sure if it was ever used, but bunting is fun to make...even on the computer:  What else? I'm still working on this for the lovely Moss and it's shameful that I haven't finished it yet, but it's just so difficult to find a suitable amount of time to just sit down and get on with it:  I've yet to crack this Mum-Illustrator-Despatchassistant-Extrao rdinaire business! Tags: birds, invitation, love, lovebirds, wedding, weddings
Current Mood:  okay
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More bleach and ink. The tree has grown bark and I've moved on. The raccoon is possibly just the beginning of an entire orchestra of angry forest animals with musical instruments. We'll see.   Also, I read an excerpt of this the other day on the Underground and really liked it. I've looked up the full poem and edited it down to just the bits I liked...mainly the bits that aren't repetitive, although the final part is probably my favourite. It's called "Sweet Thames Flow Softly" and it's by Ewan MacColl. I met my girl at Woolwich Pier Beneath a big crane standing, And oh, the love I felt for her It passed all understanding. Took her sailing on the river, London town was mine to give her, Made the Thames into a crown, Made a brooch of Silvertown. At London Yard I held her hand, At Blackwall Point I faced her, At the Isle of Dogs I kissed her mouth, And tenderly embraced her. Heard the bells of Greenwich ringing, All the time my heart was singing, Limehouse Reach I gave her there, As a ribbon for her hair. From Shadwell dock to Nine Elms Reach, We cheek to cheek were dancing, Her necklace made of London Bridge, Her beauty was enhancing. Kissed her once again at Wapping, After that there was no stopping, Richmond Park it was her ring, I'd have given her anything. From Rotherhithe to Putney Bridge, My love I was declaring, And she, from Kew to Isleworth, Her love for me was swearing. Love had set my heart a-burning, Never saw the tide was turning, Gave her Hampton Court to twist, Into a bracelet for her wrist. But now alas the tide has changed, My love she has gone from me, And winter's frost has touched my heart, And put a blight upon me. Creeping fog is on the river, Sun and moon and stars gone with her, Swift the Thames runs to the sea, Bearing ships and part of me. Current Mood:  sleepy
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It's been a busy month...well, busy as far as post-graduate life goes. I got some work off the back of my Ancient Mariner stuff; it's an illustration for a starting out magazine about river living in London. Made in pretty much the same way, with added paper collage goodness:  Here are some of the boats and buildings at a larger scale and out of context:   I really do enjoy working like this. Cutting and pasting shape upon shape until my eyes bleed seems to appeal somewhat to my potential OCD :) Also took my Streetcar prints to two fairs - The Deptford Project and Trash Market...with a distinct lack of car and the help of my wonderful friends! Was in interesting experience, seeing as at college fairs were mainly about screenprints, zines and cloth bags...and I never made any of that stuff so I've not done a fair in my life. But now I have. It was fun. Especially Trash Market; they had nice beers.   And that is pretty much it. I'd love to do some more work, so I guess for now it's self-led projects and possibly entering some competitions or something, while I have the excuse of being on maternity leave to fall back on! Tags: battersea power sation, big ben, fairs, houseboats, london, lost in london, river, river living, st. paul's cathedral, thames, the houses of parliament, the london eye
Current Mood:  accomplished
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Last week I saw an old drunkard at the 345 bus stop on Camberwell Green. Half-sitting, half-lying on the narrow seat, he had an empty can of Tenants in each hand and an unopened one sliding out of his coat pocket. Nobody wanted to be near him; more and more people were awkwardly clogging up all the sidewalk space around the bus stop. Unexpectedly, he tried to ease his entire body up onto the bench in his sleep as though it were a bed but, after a few minutes of a persistent struggle, he fell off altogether. His limp and relaxed mass made a thud so flat and loud against the pavement that it filled me with a strange sadness. Most pedestrians scurried past him, back and forth, with their bags and their prams and their high heels a-clicking and their long, colourful skirts brushing his red forehead. And he just lay there on his back. Others judged him. They tutted, they stared, they expressed disgust, some even laughed – the young ones mainly; as though they have never in their lives lay sprawled out on the ground outside some lame East London indie club. I just kept looking at his chest, trying hard to acknowledge a breathing pattern. And I vividly imagined him as a newborn baby, or a toddler in a sun-hat. This nicotine-bearded, deeply-intoxicated man is somebody’s son. He may possibly be somebody’s father. At one point or another, undoubtedly, somebody must have loved him – so when did it all go wrong? When did it get this bad? While I was thinking about all of this, a young man briefly stopped beside him and asked, “Has anybody called this man an ambulance?” Nobody had anything to say. The young man took his mobile out, darted his gaze between the drunk and his phone, then changed his mind and crossed the road. Still partially lost in hazy dreams about the drunk being a baby, I also thought, “Of course! An ambulance! Why are we more likely to call one for a clean, well-dressed teenager who’d passed out from having one-too-many, than an old man with greasy, wayward hair, wearing a dirty, khaki-green coat? Is it because we assume that it’s just his way of life and that he’ll only wake up again tomorrow, buy another six-pack of Tenants and end up passed out in some other stupidly public place at two o'clock in the afternoon? What if it’s his last day on this Earth? I think too much and for too long. The 345 arrived. I went to sit on the upper deck and looked down at him as it pulled away. Looking directly into his face from up there, I realised that he was at least twenty years younger than I had initially thought. The stale smell of cheap beverage still waltzed around my sinuses. Meanwhile, people were scurrying past him, back and forth, with their bags and their prams and their high heels a-clicking and their long, colourful skirts brushing his red forehead.   Current Mood:  lonely
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Been working on Coleridge's 'The Rime of The Ancient Mariner' with all the broken Thames bits. It's going very slowly. Now is not the time for things to go slowly. But, once I do make something, I'm quite happy with it. I like collaging, I like water, I enjoy mudlarking...it's a happy project. It's just so hard to settle to staring at a screen for hours! Initially, I did some doodling over a collage, but I don't like the lost quality once a print of a photo of a Thames bit has been rescanned. In the second image I used digital lines and I quite like them and their subtlety...so if I need anymore lines, I'll probably stick to that. But yeah, essentially, it's the found pieces ONLY that make up the image.    I've been using some of the red bits (or quite select parts of them) to build the sun. ie. the one below was used to make some of these. It looks kinda flowery (hard to avoid considering most of this stuff is Victorian flowerware)...but the result is also very nautical, which I like. The sun is quite a harsh, vicious element of the poem, so it is to be quite large and overpowering in the completed prints.     In other news, the Spirals album art was completed a few weeks ago. I've just not got around to publishing it. It's probably the most un-like myself piece of work I've ever done and towards the end I worked a lot with the client, who had really specific ideas about how he wanted it to be. This sort of makes me like it. In the future I'll always get the client round to sit and do all the work for me :D  Current Mood: busy
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It's coming to that time of year where all the things I hoped would be done one after the other, have piled up into a great big mess. Everything is officially happening at the same time. And another project starts in April! I'm working really, really slowly, I can't seem to find the time or energy for anything and it's difficult to keep track of things. But I'm trying. We'll get there. Recently, I've been mainly collaging more of these:      They've become more advanced as I've gotten more accustomed to making them and, in a way, the newer ones are making me dislike the older ones. Well, at least the very first one I ever did. But yes, still focused on the idea of some people being half-alive robots - ie. with organs and a warmth of tone - while some people are beyond repair - ie. cold, emotionless flesh, bursting with cogs. They take a while to make and I decided to take a break and think about what I actually want to do with them...or what they are going to do....or do I even need any more and if so how many1? Not got far there except throwing them all onto one page:  But even so, seeing them all together has already put them in a new context and has woken me up a bit. More to follow... In other news, I've been thinking about the website. I've not started writing it yet, and I'm a little terrified because I've not made one in years...but I have collaged a few ideas. Still leaning towards the very first and basic - albeit generic - one here:  Obviously the screen would need to be split into two frames - the left acting as a permanent navigational feature and the right being where all the action happens. Probably just looks like a worse version of a lot of the other arty-farty stuff out there, but it came together naturally one evening. I must be naturally dull. I like stationary, envelopes, letters, notes, writing to-do lists and scattering reminders for myself all over the place. It's very me. I don't mind the fact that I'm not a genius. I had a few versions with my coloured pencils, sketchbooks and all-sorts. They were so rotten and fake that I don't even want to post them, but they looked something like this:  When the hell was the last time I even USED coloured pencils for chrissakes? And in that case, how lame is it to have them as my menu? So yes. Back to the drawing board on that one...but expect the finished thing to look more like the envelopey one. In other news, I've been going into Printmaking on Fridays to work on the Streetcar project (yes, it's still running)...but I've not experienced more flatness about something in a while and it shows in all the recent prints. Also, it's becoming increasingly difficult to breathe up there. A couple of screens. The screens always look better:   I'm wondering whether I ought to just resolve it to the best that it can be at this stage and lay it to rest? No progress with anything else. Quite depressing, really. Still to do: the website, badges, two EP sleeves and Mudlarking - which desperately needs a rivery/watery fairytale/story/whatever. Suggestions Welcome. Current Mood:  gloomy
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Spent the day up in Printmaking...this is probably what I'll be doing until mid-December. Which also means walking around with grubby tramp-hands until mid-December. Anyway, quite a productive day, trial-wise - figured out the best setting for the press and the nicest paper to use, even though it took all day, (ironically not Somerset! Somerset is too grainy). Got gorgeous, smooth results on cheap-ass cartridge paper. Here's a couple of the screens I made up. I love how they look before they're printed. Sometimes moreso than the actual prints:   Also, I just carved the smallest pumpkin in the world without injuring myself. A friend gave it to me a few weeks ago and seriously, it's the size of an apple - and the candle actually cooks the lid somewhat! Anyway, it's a baby pumpkin so it only has one tooth :)  Tags: halloween, perspex, pumpkin, screen
Current Mood: tired
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Today has been the most remotely productive evening in a while. I am fighting tiredness and pressing on. There seems to be no time to do anything during the day and then, as early as 6/7, I feel dead on my feet. Is it Seasonal Affective Disorder? Depression? Little sleep? Or a general lack of direction? Maybe a bit of everything. I feel happiest when I'm sleeping I think. Anyway, I've spent a week taking Streetcar apart scene by scene, writing down everything that took my fancy, everything that was visual, beautiful, surreal...by the end of the week I had a wad of text and no visual material. If only my dissertation reading and note-taking was going as well as this text-breakdown. If only it was going at all. Maybe I should have studied English Lit? Mind, this is the very thing I hated doing when I did do English Lit. I just happened to be freakishly competent at it. I've made a few things, started thinking about what it all looks like. It's quite literal at the moment, but I think it's essential to get the literal crap out of the way first. I felt intimidated by a white page so I've gone through some paper and done washes over it to work with. Also thinking of doodling from the film. I've been turning it on to doodle for the past 4 evenings and something has always managed to distract my attention. Eventually I want these to be quite colourful monoprints. Bought some turquoise printing ink the other day. It's really nice. Can't wait to use it for something decent.    In other news, I've been thinking about a friend's album art. Going for robots at the moment. Been doodling robots. Robots are so fun and effortless to doodle:  I do however intend to digitally collage them up from envelope bits, which has resulted in my cataloging my sad collection of the insides of envelopes. Thinking of working them into a brown or a green though...or a grey for that matter. Blue is too watery. Water and robots = bad idea. But otherwise they just seem so impersonal and institutional, symmetrical and harsh. Robots, envelopes. Yeah:     It's making me want to get a little wind up robot just to have on my desk and smile at. Had a look on eBay. Can't see one that I like yet, though. Over and out. Tags: a streetcar named desire
Current Mood:  nostalgic
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Been thinking a lot about spindly hands lately. I think it may become another obsession, alongside cute little houses and nudity. Did a quick spindly drawing today with minimal colour:   Also, really been wanting to get back into bleach and ink. Made a few sheets, been doodling:   Been reading for my dissertation. It's all very interesting. Don't know what to do with it though. Read quite a bit about outsider art. Finding all the biographies really engaging - like an intellectualized version of Take a Break magazine or something - and all the theoretical rubbish is unfortunately really, REALLY boring. Can't make sense of anything. This one guy I read about, Clarence Schmidt - he spent 30 years building a house out of junk alongside a mountain. By the time he was done, it was 7 stories high and had something like 35 rooms. He was a nice old man and liked visitors, especially if they bought him unwanted things that he could use. However, his materialistic cunt neighbours were worried that the prices of their properties might go down due to the weird structure that was erected so close by...so they burnt it down (or at least we assume this). The old man was upset, but what he did was incredible - he just started building it again from scratch. This is the awesome house:  I know that he was just a crazy old man, but he's a role model I think. I need to be more like him, than like myself at the moment. Who am I kidding? I've not done anything. Current Mood: crushed
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I'm afraid there was hardly any time for drawing, so I have mainly been scrap-booking. This is rather pointless and memories are already evading me. In fact, I got told off for drawing twice - the first, in a museum and the second time by a woman at a market stall, who was incredibly rude and was close to swearing at me...just for standing some 5 meters away from her with a sketchbook... ...so yes, little drawing...but, nonetheless, this is all I have; a mess drenched in the usual pathos:      And I wrote this, unable to sleep on a 13-hour night train, while watching the stars on the jet-black sky at about 4am: I want to let my body rest
And look out to the sky,
Then maybe I could get a glimpse
Of centuries gone by.
Large flocks of stars watch over us
And hear all that we say,
As shepherds of the dawn creep in
To mind their cattle's play.
I asked the very brightest star
If it has loved before;
It smiled and glowed and faded pale
Until it was no more.That's all. Current Mood: blank
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So, today, after hours at the LCC library, I've learned about The 'Humors' of a person. According to the Greek physician Hippocrates (4th century BC) we are governed by natural 'juices' that are essential to the life of all things. These are blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm. Apparently one enjoys perfect health when these elements are proportioned with one another, and experiences pain when there is an excess or a defect of one or more of these elements.
- Blood is the most positive humor - a person governed by blood is the Sanguine type - adaptable, hopeful, optimistic and in a good state of mind.
- Yellow Bile is symbolic of the Choleric - he or she are prone to hyperactivity and flying into irritable and violent rages.
- Black bile governs the indolent, timid and ailing Melancholic. They are darkly introspective and intermittently creative.
- Phlegm is the docile and somnambulant Phlegmatic. Apparently these are also applicable to different points in people's lives and complimented by seasons:
Blood - Youth
Yellow Bile - Maturity
Black Bile - Middle Age
Phlegm - Old Age
And hence - spring, summer, autumn, winter. Also, these 17th century engravings complimenting each one were amazing. The more you look at them, the more graphic they become. I love the hinged body parts, as though the people are cupboards, and the symbolism in the birds carrying the seasonal banners...and the last one is so scary!  Anyway, I thought that it was an interesting way to categorize life and people and, although everyone is essentially a mix of most humors, it's amazing that at one point basic medicine was based on this sort of spiritual, mythical kinda thing. I'm so good at expressing myself. The Melancholic I find is particularly accurate in a strange way - I mean, I definitely know a few people like that. Hence, I also really loved looking at Dürer's 'Melencolia', 1514.  </a> This girl is surrounded by failed attempts at creation. In a more Aristotelian kind of way (Physiognomics etc), the black bile within her seeps through her dark and morose complexion. Her saddened companions (a worn hunting dog and a scary toddler) and her folded wings are definitely not taking her to any happy places either. However, there are the scales, the sand clock and the bell which allude to some sort of impending future - but good or bad, who knows? There is also ambivalence in the sunrise/set and the rainbow over it - from one point of view, it could be an optimistic sign, from another we can perceive that all happiness and rebirth is taken over by the demonic bat which drapes the eponymous banner across this idyllic view. Notably, it is the melancholics that are the most creative - "when set free by the humour melancholicus, the soul is fully concentrated in the imagination, and it immediately becomes a habitation for the lower spirits, from whom it often receives wonderful instruction in the manual arts..." - Agrippa. So this is why we can't seem to create unless we are on the brink of depression or madness. Well, at least I can't...though recently I can't at all. Anyway, I want to touch again on Physiognomy - this is the idea that the soul and the form of the body are interconnected. And so, when the character of the soul changes, so does the form of the body. Simple but true. I liked how the text alluded to madness as the affection of the soul and stated that nonetheless, by purging the body with drugs, physicians are able to free the soul from madness. Also, I thought this Charles le Brun was fun:  It looks like I've done so much research, but this is all coming from one book so far...and to be honest, I started off looking for materials related to humans associating themselves with animals....and somehow spent all day thinking about all this stuff instead. I don't know how I'm going to do this dissertation. Even when you do find extremely relevant things then there they are, right? How are you supposed to write anything interesting or original? So, so, so stuck and stupid...but enlightened about blood and bile and phlegm...what what about if there's an over-abundance of semen? Does that make good rapists? I couldn't resist. In other news, I really, really, really want to go to the pub right now. Or better still - onto the sofa with a can of cold beer and someone to talk rubbish at and dance like morons to happy music with :( Oh, and a 2-second doodle from last night, which I really liked for some reason. You know, when you just like something that you've done in 2 seconds? And what the fuck is it about rosy cheeks being so satisfying on doodles and so annoying in real life? Gotta stop putting goddamn rosy cheeks on everything one of these days..  Current Mood: sad
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I've really slacked. I'm not even going to try and make out as though I haven't. It's not even due to procrastination - more like lack of energy to even scan things in and gather my thoughts together. Everything has been happening all at once, the year is coming to a close. The only thing I have managed to upload are some images from a drawing workshop the other week. It really challenged everyone's way of looking at things and, although it probably will not directly affect my work, I'm sure it will feed some sort of subconscious texture. We were basically focusing on negative space vs the object, tone vs line and the ability to pretend you've never seen something before and hence you are able to split it up into abstract parts instead of working from preconceptions. I've scanned in some that I liked the best:    This is the one that Peter liked the best:  And these are some drawings of Peter when he did a half an hour sitting for us, which was very kind of him. I focused on the surroundings and negative spaces for both, but they are very different. I was really focusing on the first one, enjoying the textures that I could see, particularly the hair and bristle; I was beginning to enjoy the jumper, but ran out of time...I guess I was being more myself in the first one and more someone new in the second one, who knows:    I think these sessions are a great idea for next year. Current Mood: tired
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