infestation

my scanner didn't pick this up as well as i would have liked, so some photo fiddling was needed to make the lines nicely visible. still couldn't get them to show up as black though (not without getting all the veins to do the same anyway)

thought it might be easier on a green leaf, but it didn't quite work out, it was no easier or more difficult to draw, and it has flattened out for scanning better, but the colour is harder to see the back line against, and the shine on the leaf gets in the way.

the hunt continues.

My Art Year

Well, it’s nearly over.
I was going to use this post to give a detailed run down off all the art I saw and took care of in my gallery job this year, but after 5 or so aborted attempts at that I’ve come to the conclusion that trying to write an art review up to 7 months after you saw something is nearly impossible, so perhaps something much more general would be a better idea?
Well, this year I’ve looked after 7 works by 3 artists, 2 of which I was lucky enough to be able to be involved in the making of, and 1 of those I featured in.
Not too bad then, after basically just passing time for the last few years I’ve more or less thrown myself in at the deep end with this stuff. My art knowledge has always been ok, but my involvement pretty much non existent, so to be suddenly be faced with a huge warehouse with a 6 ft deep red hole dug in the middle of it and then asked “what is it about?” by a series of people is a pretty steep learning curve.

Hopefully now as I go on I’ll get into the habit of writing down reviews of things, be they fine art, illustration or otherwise, as I go, and hopefully anyone reading this won’t be too bored by it.

to next year!

life cup

click for a larger more visible version (might have along load time)

experiment

drawing on a brasil nut

Wolpertinger

more tea

pine cone

something from my college sketchbook, which makes the drawing not technically procrastination, the childish layout on the other hand...

kittea!

ludicrus and poorly coloured images, how i missed you.

MuZz (volume 1)

Is this the start of a beautiful Friday review slot? No idea.
But it’s a friday again, college commitments have meant I’ve actually managed to not draw much random unrelated stuff this week, and there are other drawing filled books which I’ve read and enjoyed, so, permanent position or no, here we are again.
There was a period in my life a few years ago where I had ambitions to be a comic book nerd, I like pictures, stories, and have a particular leaning towards science fiction, so it seemed a good move for me. Well, sprawling and impenetrable as the comic book world is, I never quite made it, but I did pick up a few interesting things along the way. One of these was the work of illustrator Foo Swee Chin (or FsC), who, when I first found my way to her work, was illustrating a comic called “Nightmares and Fairytales” for Slave Labor Graphics (possibly better known as “the people who published Johnny the Homicidal Maniac”). The comic was... ok, but what drew me in to reading it and kept me there were the drawings, ostensibly “manga” in style, they were also surreal, energetic, elegant, and like any good drawing, seemingly effortlessly executed.
FsC left “Nightmares and Fairytales” after the first two series, and thus so did I, and it was a while before I spotted her work again. Firstly, in the form of a small number of self penned “one shot” comics published by Neko Press, and subsequently in MuZz.

MuZz, is an, as yet, incomplete comic series, and a confusing one. The basic plot follows a character called “Farllee”, who we first meet when she awakens, disorientated and with no idea of her own identity, or history, on a train. The train, we learn, is headed for the city of “MuZz” the place all imagined personalities go when the people who imagine them die. I won’t delve too deep in to the plot, other to say Farllee stands out as peculiar even among the bizarre array of half formed creatures that make up those around her, and this makes their trip to MuZz a very turbulent one, and their subsequent arrival cause a great deal more trouble, as the residents, and leaders, of the city try and figure out who, and indeed what, Farllee is. The book hangs it narrative around the framework of dreams and wondering imaginations, so utter chaos is par of the course. Is it good? Hard to say really, being so far only volume one of, I don’t know how many. But, what it definitely is, is beautiful. You’re reading someone's imagination in full flow, and it’s a vast imagination, every image is wonderfully conceived and designed, and there are enough ideas featured to form the groundwork of several books. I can’t admit to having gone back and reread the text since I purchased it, but I can barely pass it on the shelf without picking it up and revisiting the images.
I wouldn’t suggest MuZz to anyone interested in a narrative, but for lovers of imagery I can’t recommend looking into the work of Foo Swee Chin highly enough myself, and MuZz is her work in its most undiluted form.

swan

The Arrival

Whether this marks a progression into a greater degree of wordiness on this blogs part I'm yet to know, but if you're sitting comfortably I'd like to talk for a bit today rather than offer a picture.

Having been pointed in it's direction a few weeks ago and never following it up, yesterday I finally read Shaun Tan's "The Arrival". Published nearly two years ago now "The Arrival" is an entirely (I'm not counting the title) text free novel, which follows a single nameless character during his emigration and settlement in an unfamiliar country. Unfamiliar not only to the character, but also to the reader, as the the nation, it's flora, fauna, language and customs are all creations of Tan. This has the effect of meaning the narrative does not simply retell the story of an immigrants arrival, but recreates the experience of it. Our protagonist has to struggle to navigate a world where even basic tasks, from food shopping to unskilled labour, although recognisable, function in wildly different ways than thous we know. His only guides through this world are a series of fellow settlers, people who have already undergone the transition into being citizens of this peculiar nation, who retell, or at least, remember, their own journeys, escaping from invasions, wars, and hardships. Quite what the character we follow is escaping from is left deliberately obscure, expressed only as a widely interpretable metaphor, which, like the books word free pages, and black and white images, is all the more effective for it's vagueness.
At just shy of 120 pages of images, and no text in sight, it might seem odd to use the term "novel" to describe Tan's book, but the pictures used to tell this story are so finely detailed, not in a technical sense (although the drawing are beautifully rendered) but in a narrative one, each single visual page would take several in text to adequately describe it.

"The Arrival" is one of thous books which is just on the cusp of being something I'm almost a little angry at for not being my own work. But I'll forgive it this small failing, as even in the 24 hours since I was able to read it, it's made me think very much about both how I do, and how I would like to, present and use my own work.
Whether you work with images or words yourself, if your interests are artistic or political, or if you just really like a good book, I would gladly and stongly suggest you give Shaun Tan's "The Arrival" a read.

sketchbook

don't worry jon, i'll get back to abominations tomorrow

butterfly world

earlier
earlier still

...thinking of expanding these into a book, thoughts anyone?
(as with the first effort, this is now avaliable as a wallpaper for thoughs who wish to ask for it)

The Man Worm

there are many reasons i'm not a creator god, this is one of them.

ring

alturnate quilt piece

as promised

Quilt

ooh look! the results of the b3ta collaboration project. i submitted two images myself, and the compiler (happytoast) in his infinite wisdom plumped for my sand dune picture (i'll post the alternative up here soon). looks a bit lost up there along side everyone else's colourful work i think, but still.

of you want to download the full poster sized image, it's available here

dune II

not generally in the habit of loading work done at college here, seeing as it's college work and thus not procrastination. however, seeing as i was basically arsing about with a piece of eqipment i've not used before all day, and i used a bit of yesterdays image as the basis of this, i thought i'd share it.

sand dune

if the montauk monster lost some weight... and limbs, and wasn't a racoon.

Study

Study

(it's a dress)

carrier

dead letter

flutterbye

something nice

moon on a stick

you can class this one as another mail satire if you like.

that little man with the sack cloth head does seem to get the short end of the stick quite a lot doesn't he?

more satire, daily mail edition

lots has been made of jan moir over the last couple of days, although, depressingly, what was written by her wasn't as bad as many previous efforts by the papers raft of columnists, it simply managed to anger enough people in one go, at the right time, and under the right conditions.
the real focus of attention here should be towards the editor, the person in charge of deciding to actually run this kind of vitriol. regularly.
top to bottom, editor paul dacre, columnists richard littlejohn, melanie phillips, peter hitchens, jan moir, and too small to attempt a caricature.

with apologies to rob bottin.

travelling companion

Shepherd

torso

was just going to post this up as a basic sketch before making this into a finished drawing, but i had a little fiddle around on photoshop whilst i was doing so...

Back pain

St Schlitzie

feather

Variation

The Hollow Earth is a bass menace

it's always fun to take things literally i find.
also avaliable as a wallpaper if you ask nicely.

museum 3

Museum 2

Museum

sorry for the lack of updates recently, i'm going to attempt to cram a bit more into this week before i go vacationing and then return to college to make it up to you all, all 5 of you all.

Day of the Triffids

attended a "drawing to film" screening of the 1963 movie version of this last week, this wasn't one of the resulting images, because they were all a3, and thus too big for my scanner. this is kind of based on one of those though. i should do a few more of these as i did get qute a few ideas sketches done there that i'd like to develop, there is another one this week of "creature from the black lagoon" in 3d no less, which i'm going to attened, as i really enjoyed this one.

the film itself was awful btw.

Seeds

ideas sketch
figure sketch

For The Kid II

"Under the water is a golden fish who grants all the wishes of the kids of the sun. She loves the fruit of the earth, most of all, the apple, but if by chance she eats a pip, it will grow in her body like a raging man and tear apart her golden flesh. "

For The Kid

the experiment comes to a head

well, that was my little excersion into random drawing, not that i was doing something else before this, but never anywhere near so often or so much.
i'm still going to make sure i get at least one drawing done a day of course, but i think i should focus myself now, i have one outstanding project, one outstanding commission, and from this week of madness at least 2 ideas i should follow up on.
but there is also another reason why i have decided to call a halt to the experiment here, you may have noticed over the last week that many of the drawings i've been doing are frankly, well, mental. not that there is anything wrong with that mind you, many if not all of my influances veer towards the mad so this is only to be expected, but as the week went on things started to go away from weird and into, well, slightly nasty, coming to a head yesterday afternoon with this.


quite.
now, i like gore and horror as much as the next person (who likes gore and horror), but, fankly, bloody hell, i had a go at a few things after this but i only ended up with more of the same.
so, unless i want to get stuck in a cycle of gross mutiation and mean spirited pain (as opposed to pretty mutilation and fun pain, which i'm fine with) i should pull back for a bit and focus.

still, it was a enjoyable experiance and one i'll probably repeat later on, also i will still try and update this place as often as possible, hopefully several times a week.
:)

twin lambs

taken from some of the utterly brilliant walter potter preservations quite wrongly located here: crappy taxidermy

a drawing on request

for mr otterby

assassination

two for one today.

vines

clean shot