Lusciousness...

Lately I've been sort of going through some unsteady times and my mind has wondered far from a perspective that actually makes much sense. 

Time to work with the female figure...

Andrew Gibson...

Having a quick look on the Association of Illustrators thingy and checking out a few of the featured artists...

Came across this swarve gentleman...

Likin' the use of separate elements...

Likin' the composition play...

Good guy...

Good shit...

Might attain a similar technique...

Inspiring...for a change...

HERE! 

Door(WAY) Project Retrospective...

Over the course of this brief i unfortunately suffered a hefty lot of absence due to winter eczema inflammations. After approximately one or two weeks of apologetic phone calls and hopeful promises, i managed to join the rest of my group and get up to speed. At this point, it was really a matter of flowing with the propositions the rest of the guys made and as i fully agreed and was satisfied with their outlines, everything subsequently fell into place. After group meetings and minute sessions, we all progressed well with our separate roles and our intentions came to fruition smoothly. As a group we accomplished a hell of a lot apart from just the work. We huddled comfortably and harmoniously, giving each other helpful feedback as well as consistent support.

The concept of the brief was very open-ended leaving plenty of room for our adventurously creative tendencies to run wild. From the beginning, the rest of the guys brainstormed, coming up with numerous ideas; looking at the essence of what could be lurking on the other side of a door, another world, a monster, time travelling through a doorway, working with things like dreams and emotions, how the experience of walking through a doorway can affect the senses and so on. There was also a key emphasis on a dollhouse. These all began as brief components to snowball with. We settled for a while on the concept of a doorway being part of a psycho ward and how we could initiate it as the envelope to some form of paranoid experience for the viewer. This led us to divulging in reference to films such as `Being John Malkovich`, `The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe` and `Alice in Wonderland` as well as various others.

Thanks to Elizabeth who had researched her ass off bringing many references to the table, she declared the idea of incorporating some form of mask into our work. This happily became a malleable focus to our progression and i, through no fault of my own, took up the pedestal to being the model. She had uncovered an image that looked as if someone had taken photographs of their own or somebody elses head then transferred these pictures onto some fabric and stitched the pieces together to function as a mask. We basically did the same by taking each profile shot of my head then applied it to transfer fabric and Elizabeth finished off the stitching. It was very successful.

After a full group minute session with our project mentor, Esther Freeman, we had an indulgent step back from our work and opinionated the stage at which we were currently at. We concluded that the primary foundation of our idea lacked slightly in substance and was blurry with how we could proceed with it further, especially in relation to how it could be exhibited. As a group we took the chance to transiting to a completely separate idea focusing more on the nature of the urban environment and how this can be viscerally transfused to the viewer. I think this was when we definitively decided we were to create a film as one element of our final product.

Our emphasis became more orientated toward the year trip to New York, which only myself and Steve attended. Unfortunately Elizabeth and Edwina did not have the money to participate. We deliberated over our preparations and everything that was necessary for each of us to do during mine and Steve's leave. The vacation obviously fitted really well with our momentary halt, as we could attain many references as well as as much footage as possible. Because of the set-up of the trip, myself and Steve ended up staying in separate accommodation, so it was difficult to be able to rendezvous and work together. Also not being able to actually get in touch made it practically impossible to coalesce. Overall though, the trip was awesome.

By the time we had returned Steve had collected the perfect amount of wicked footage that would compile just nicely as a montage of our decided storyboard. During mine and Steve's absence the girls were able to finish up the construction of the box pasting it with as much urban crap as possible and giving it a nice run-down glaze. By this point there was approximately one week left before the final deadline.

This was quite an intense period. All that needed to be done was to place and construct our door within our designated space, attain some black curtains and set them up as a backdrop for our door, collect shit-loads of garbage to scatter around our exhibition space, attain a plinth to display our research book and our mask, install a disco ball for behind our door, edit the footage we received and form a video, attain a Mac to display within our doorway tunnel and present our video...and be satisfied with it all. Throughout this time i think we all pulled our weight and managed very well.

In conclusion, i think we all deserved a small applause for the effort that we all put in and as a group i think we have walked away very much delighted as well as relieved to have come to the end. It was wicked to have had the chance to work collaboratively once again.

Here is our final installation entitled `There's Two Sides`. 

 

follow the words...

Shane Evans...

I clocked this dude in New York in another gallery that i cannot remember the name of right now, and saying that, i can't quite remember what work in particular of his that made his name linger in my mind. He's an absolutely wicked sketcher, i've just been looking over some of his portraiture work and i adore it like a baby to the bosom. 

His illustrations are delicate but filthy and grungy at the same time. He'd be that kinda guy that you'd spot drawing you from across the coffee house when you look your worst. I could see him caricaturing someone perfectly with his eyes closed.  

Check him out for yourself...
 

Shane Evans

The Society of Illustrators pt.5...

For those of you out there that unfortunately did not have the chance to tag along to New York this year, here are just a few extra names from the Society of Illustrators gallery that may be worth checking out for future inspiration. The majority are mostly graphic based. I thought i'd just throw them up just in case...just a shame there isn't that much info available on the net! 


Brittyn Dewerth


Justin Blyth


Adam Garcia

The Society of Illustrators pt.4...

Following on with the wave of postery goodness, another graphical individual whose work speaks better than words is Taber Calderon. Here are a few examples...

The Society of Illustrators pt.3...

In the exhibition there were these really nice Obama posters by a man named Deroy Peraza. I have no further information really as i've dug as far as i could on the net and there isn't anything of anymore clarity.Posters are dope though...

The Society of Illustrators pt.2...

Mr. Steve Bullock. This guys alright i suppose, i hold no major fondness for him really but i thought he'd be worth at least a mention as his range of stuff is pretty eclectic within the commercial realm. Not my favoured type of work but i congratulate his malleable talent being able to deal with the particular pressures of industrial needs. It is something that feels evermore elusive in my own world...malleability?

check out his personal website...

Dead Leaves...

This is the trippiest film i have ever seen in my entire life. Despite being undoubtedly sober when first watching it, by the end, i actually started questioning whether i had taken some form of narcotics because it just made no fucking sense. I cannot fully express how awesome it actually is. I never thought there would be a human being on this planet that could conjure up such farcical, west things like a dude with a drill as a dick, crazy robot pregnancy-inducing sex, mixed with a shit load of guns, gore and big fucking explosions, and actually managing to pull it off. Surprising how i actually get my ha-has out of this kind of thing. I recommend seeing it for yourself...

oh yeah, and it's got one sick soundtrack...

this is some funky shiznay...

After just looking over some of Mr. Mahfoods recent stoof, i clicked on this totally west link and my face automatically smiled, this is some funky shiznay...check it out for yourself!

http://boulettechan.free.fr/galerie.htm 

The Society of Illustrators pt.1...

When in New York, we all set out for a little visit to the Society of Illustrators gallery. Unfortunately at the time, i didn't have my camera on me to document the excursion, instead making do with my notepad, i jotted anything down that held my attention. It was a fantastic little place and a gorgeously constructed exhibition, sublimely displayed. 

The first thing I'd like to mention is this new Nokia Vine application. I didn't manage to catch who it was done by exactly but there was this smooth little video showcasing the application's many benefits. 

I find it quite surreal how far advanced this kind of technology has expanded so quickly and efficiently. Although, personally, i hold no major reliance upon this kind of thing and generally hate the type of convenience it encourages. I find it simply a money marketing scheme. Saying that, i do hypocritically comply with the people behind these kinds of ideas, only to the degree of attaining such an ability to nurture the aesthetics of appeal and public interest in the interest of broadcasting inventions that invite a positive change. 

Sex, Bondage and the Japanese...

Photographer - Ken-Ichi Murata...

David Hughes...

DH is a brilliant man. He owns the line. He is the puppeteer of the pen. A mark is made and a world is undone. A page is blessed. A composition announced. A face unveiled.

He is the character within all of his drawings. He lays bare who he is with what he draws. You see him pasted over his stories. Not many people show it all right away. He is exuberant to reveal himself. He makes me whimsically laugh. I exalt him immensely.

What i appreciate the most about him is the fluidic form of line he mutually appraises with the surface of his illustrations. He is unaware, unfathomed, unceasing of where his line explores. I beg myself to unhinge the screws of stylisation and luxuriate in this kind of messy garden.

Midori Goto...

I have always been a fan of classical music. Just recently i have had a sincere craving to try something new, to learn something new i wouldn't have even thought of trying, and i've just been looming over the idea of practicing the violin. A strange choice i know, especially out of the blue. Over the years i've just had a really keen likeness towards the instrument and seen many prodigies and proteges who look so expressive when they play it. They look magnificently infused by their own playing. 


One of my good friends recommended a certain entrepeneur of the classical instrument called Midori Goto. The mastery of the violin she possesses is under no doubt extraordinary. Some of the scores she has learned and adopted are almost beyond physical levels of ability. It has been recorded that Ravel, a famous composer, who wrote the score Tzigane, expressed doubts as to whether certain passages were actually playable within his own  piece. At the age of just 19, Midori performed at Carnegie Hall and perfectly played Tzigane that is tearfully beautiful, not a note is missed. 

She is quite an inspiration to start learning myself but i think we'll see...

Here she is at her best...

A little bit of MoMA pt.7...

I've come across Andy Warhol on quite a few other occasions for instance when i ventured to Berlin not too many years back i managed to see some of his invigorating prints that took up entire two floor walls. They are undoubtedly compelling.

Pop art is something i tend to bemusely sigh at really. I find it influential and inspiring just as much as the next art lover but in all of its glory it just sometimes seems silly. The premise of it all falls on its back in such a world where replications become recurrences and recurrences become replications. They are still, ordinary, recycled.

Fantastic to see the soup cans in a gallery.

Cherry Reynolds...

I came across this awesome Birmingham illustrator in an issue of NEO so i decided to send a quick e-mail her way and find out a few things...

What sort of educational background do you have within art and design?



I studied art and design as soon as I left school because I knew I wanted to be involved in the creative industry from an early age. I went to college to do a national diploma in graphic design. But from being unsuccessful of getting into university at Manchester Metropolitan because my portfolio was shit, I studied a foundation degree at my home town to find my muse in illustration, there I built a style I enjoyed working with. And in 2007 I went onto studying a Degree in Visual Communication at the Birmingham Institute Of Art and Design.


I really admire your focus on the figure, have you ever taken life drawing classes?


Yup, even though it bored me to almost death! I found them invaluable. I have been taking life drawing classes regularly from 2004 until last year, and now I find I understand the human figure enough to draw many poses in my own style without reference. Although I do still have trouble drawing different perspectives.


What kind of influences do you have and do they affect your way of working in any form?


I loved Japanese Anime from the day I discovered it. And I always drew and drew it in my spare time, despite the criticism I received for it (my college tutor advised me to bin all the anime drawings I did). I dropped it for my foundation year to focus on drawing more abstract. Dale Chihuly’s glass sculptures inspired me in my past work, I still use structural forms in my recent work as well as being inspired by organic forms such as shells and leafs. My other inspirations include Egon Schiele, Marcos Chin and Joao Ruas.


From my perspective, your work seems quite conceptual, how do you initiate your ideas?


Most of my illustrations come from my mind. I picture how I want it to look, and begin drawing thumbnails to revise which composition would work best. My figurative style is built on experiments, what I enjoy and is comfortable doing. I work a lot in traditional, and move it into digital. Filling in Colour and playing around with the composition in Photoshop. I always like my illustrations to have a traditional feel, although its finished digitally.


What kind of mediums do you utilise?


I use traditional media, and then transfer it into Photoshop. I use Copic Markers a lot, and ink. But I find I work more detailed in pencil. Right now I’m experimenting with getting a silkscreen print effect with colour, digitally and combining it with my style.

Thanks again Cherry...

http://pink-syrup.blogspot.com/

A little bit of MoMA pt.6...

Although, as surreal as it was to gaze upon this piece with my own eyes, i thought it possessed something quite inexplicable.

There are natural expectations and assumptions made with how such an artistic piece is to be able to affect someone.

In this case, you would assume that there would be quite a pertinent change when baring witness to something like this that attains such a dexterous calibre.

Unfortunately from my own personal perspective, i thought it was rather wank.

Seemingly, from first glance it does embody some form of an evocative ambience, but after a while, i find it just becomes dwindled by an underlying and impending stigma of defiled vibrance.

It feels almost tainted to a degree.

Strange but at the same time illuminating at how my own perception of such a great piece can instinctively change when perceived in the flesh.

A little bit of MoMA pt.5...

Hypnotising...
Profusely visceral...
Intensely evocative...
Magical...
...and huge!

A little bit of MoMA pt.4...

I've seen this photograph many a time before and i really kinda like it. The perspective is unusual and the model fits the movement, it is an unorthodox frame but moulds well as a composition, also considering the monochrome palette.

This was pretty much the only photographic image in MoMAs collection that really caught my eye as the majority were emphatically portrait-based and seemingly mundane but this definitely brightened my day.  

A little bit of MoMA pt.3...

This guy is high on my hero list. He's some kinda Santa Claus. After studying him for quite some time i found out, it is said that he was allegedly shot down from a warplane, crashed unconscious and was revived back to full health by a couple of locals who pasted his body in animal fat and then wrapped him in felt in order to keep him warm. This was considered the epitome of his artistic pioneering. Ever since then the way his work has expanded is a matter of momentum so it seems. No matter how much of a necessity there may be to negate his past, it becomes irrelevant in relation to the way in which he has cleverly mastered the logistics of the era in which he was present and eveything he did to make such a hardened mark as a political activist. Beautiful work to see in the flesh, never thought i'd see the day.

He combined his life with art...quite a sincere sacrifice if you ask me!

A little bit of MoMA pt.2...

I have come across Hans Bellmer in the past and I studied him briefly over the course of my first year. I first witnessed this fetishistic sculpture in all its glory in the Liverpool Tate gallery. It's quite relenting to see with your own eyes. Its one of those kind of pieces that envelops itself, to be able to see it from every angle, an affirming and discomforting resonance becomes present, and at the same time it occupies more of an embellished sense of beauty. Rather than just looking at it upon a computer screen, it cannot be encapsulated. I definitely did not suspect such a piece to have been part of MoMAs collection, it was quite a smiley surprise.

This piece merely acts as the perverse ingredient into which an erotic blend of naivety and temptational desire fervents the youthful feminity of a childlike infancy and brands a new-found semblance of sexuality and maturity. The piece as a singular element resists this incarnation, only through the photographic lens can it be accomplished and through Bellmer's personal experiences of carnality is it truely revealed. I just find his photographs undoubtedly enlightenening. There is an unsettling authenticity evident within them to the point where they also most seem unfathomable.

A little bit of MoMA pt.1...

I think one of the most special things from going to the MoMA in New York was a very small corner displaying a selection of some very eclectically astounding Polish posters. I have seen this one before many a time across the web but to set eyes on it in the flesh is oh-so-much-more mesmerising. Personally i never grew much of a great fondness for the Polish shizzle but when having the opportunity to square up to one of these, an inch away from the composition, there is an underlying quality of illustrative grandeur they unseemingly possess that just cannot be ignored. They become so much more admirable and indulgent. I wanted to steal them and place them all above my bed to remind me on a daily basis of what illustrative awesome-ness is out there.

this is a nice lil' video...

thought this would be worth a mention...
i love the feel of the animation...
i have no idea who it's done by...
despite it being so basic...
i think it's just pretty...

Lord Bunn...

This is some pretty funky shiz. The band is 65daysofstatic, song Drove Through Ghosts to Get Here. I have loved them for quite some time but i wanted to allocate this video with some special merit as since I've loomed over animation briefly this video is quite an admirable piece of gorgeousness. The drawings are done by Lord Bunn (http://www.lordbunn.com), who's pretty simplistically decent, and the incorporation of movement is done by Tza and Medlo (http://www.medlo.com). 

Chiho Aoshima...

Now this girl really takes the piss...as you may not have guessed, the majority of her work is created using the incredibly fist-clenchingly annoying tool of Bezier curves on Adobe Illustrator. I find it unbearable to even contemplate how long and soul-destroying these kinds of pieces must take to produce, as if i were to dare attempt something of such calibre i think i'd end up cutting my tongue off. Fair play to her as they play perfectly to the themes of her imagination. There is consistent use of certain elements such as ghosts, zombies and schoolgirls that are exquisitely organic inhibiting the beautiful landscapes she illuminates. She is very good at what she does...plus she has a nice face.