hidden update

right
been a hectic few days
me and eliot got jumped on friday night
i won't go into the details, ive ended up with a broken nose and eliot has snapped a bone in his hand.
but i will say, there was a dozen of them, and they left bleeding while we stood, all fluids safe inside us
been back and fourth to the police station giving statements etc etc as someone else was not so lucky that same night being attacked by the same people.
anyway
struggling to keep my head down for this project
i have been researching and focusing on nursery rhymes and fairy tales
in particular those set in forests, as they are brilliant at hiding things physically
also the way that many of these childrens stories (hansel and gretel is what i am concentrating on) have hidden meanings and side stories...
but not so much
obviously, i am keeping this very illustrative, using a rule pen and india inks on card and good paper.
....be right back i need a roll-up
xx

carpetbear

korky

yesterday me and a few others from my course visited korky paul at his home in oxford to interview him for professional contexts.
it went brilliantly, with about an hour and a half of gold caught on camera
what scares me a little, is that i think i learnt more from him in those few hours yesterday than i have since i started here at bath spa.

i'm still at home with the family at the moment for various reasons
and i have just found out that there is an exhibition that starts on monday and i need to put some work up for it.. great.. im not there
so, kind of in a bad mood today. but also a good mood, as i have just done a few drawings i am very chuffed with towards the hidden project. and also i am quite excited about getting some work together to send to korky paul.

the idea of illustrating kids books is becoming increasingly more appealing.
i'll update again soon.
kind of sucks that no one is actually fucking reading this
x

hidden part one

06.11.07
17.51
Didcot
I have come home for a few days.. needed some time to clear my head
been freaking out a bit lately. maybe freaking out arent the right words. more, panicing about where i am going. what am i doing.
whether i am good enough to be going into this industry.
there's nothing i can really do.. except practise and get better

anyway....
I want to go a bit dark with this HIDDEN project.
the nights are closing in
days are getting shorter

i want to do something eerie.. using lullabies and nursery rhymes and kids stories
brother's grimm style..

'lullabies to paralyse'

words project update

been a while since i posted a blog
after a tutorial with angela on friday, i have decided to push the much more free, illustrative drawings
specifically, the 'peregrine falcon' ones. running out of ink seriously fast, so have to pop into town in a bit. and get spray mount and mount board.. also black lipstick.. and some socks. for halloween of course.
ever seen the film warriors?

with these 'peregrine' drawings, i am trying to keep the colour scheme very limited
using just black ink and the colours on the paper... maybe using one other colour to emphasise the words
i am just doing a4 drafts at the moment, but i aim to produce an a2 one to present on thursday (2.30) at the group crit.

i get the feeling that a lot of other people have taken this very litereally.. i dont know. i hope this is what they are looking for.

Let the letters do the talking

WORDS IN SPACE
project 2.
With the last project i thought too much. I need to just start working, and see what develops from what i produce, which is what i am doing with this project.
I am going to make this project very illustrative, and textured. Lots of inks and paints and scrap paper.
A theme has been developing so far - animals. I want to create a piece of work that has an image with words worked into it. I am thinking probably focusing on endangered animals..
(there is some of my work up on the myspace profile)
more to come soon...

myface

just started a new myspace page to show my work on

www.myspace.com/kookaburrafly

accidental beauty

i am currently listening to 'superstition' by stevie wonder.
just a quick blog to summarise where i am at with this project -
i have been over-thinking this far too much. i just need to remember, i am a designer, not an artist.
yesterday, i was sat out at somerset place on the grass. sat on the freshly fallen leaves, my back to the sun. blue sky above. fresh breeze. and i was drawing, when it hit me. how accidently beautiful.
autumn is a great time of year for me (as i said in a previous blog)
fresh. new. crisp. clear.
this is what i want to show. my aim - to produce 3 - 6 tshirt design referencing this.
clouds. leaves. rain. wind. cold. crisp. change. fall. new.
for the crit i will just produce the designs on paper. if i am pleased with these designs i will submit them to threadless.com
i also want to get back into the screen printing more this year. really enjoyed that last year. so i aim to print out a few of these designs onto shirts.
feeling a good start to the year.
i am now listening to 'what'd i say' by ray charles. back to work.

monday october 8th 11.38am 2 victoria buildings bath

october sessions begin
i find this always a good month to work. weather is becoming cooler. crisper. everything seems to be calmer. and the ink on the page doesn't dry as quick.
Was supposed to have the professional contexts meeting today, but the tutor was not available. so this gives me a chance to think more about my 'accidental beauty' project
what i am struggling with to begin with... is.. what is beauty? and how can i be certain it's accidental?

*1. beauty -- the qualities that give pleasure to the senses
*2. smasher, stunner, knockout, beauty, ravisher, sweetheart, peach, lulu, looker, mantrap, dish -- a very attractive or seductive looking woman
*3. beauty, beaut -- an outstanding example of its kind; "his roses were beauties"; "when I make a mistake it's a beaut"

so, to summarise for this project.. beauty = an outstanding example of its kind, giving pleasure to the senses.

*1. accidental, adventitious -- associated by chance and not an integral part; "poetry is something to which words are the accidental, not by any means the essential form"- Frederick W. Robertson; "they had to decide whether his misconduct was adventitious or the result of a flaw in his character"
*2. accidental, casual, chance -- occurring or appearing or singled out by chance; "their accidental meeting led to a renewal of their friendship"; "seek help from casual passers-by"; "a casual meeting"; "a chance occurrence"
*3. accidental, inadvertent -- without intention; especially resulting from heedless action; "with an inadvertent gesture she swept the vase off the table"; "accidental poisoning";"an accidental shooting"

again, to summarise for this project.. accidental = an occurring event that was not pre-decided and without intention.
but this, surely will be almost impossible to create. there are artists that have made 'accidental' methods of creating work. but, surely the act of setting up an 'accident' to happen, then removes it from being an accident? if something is intentionally set up, then it is not an accident. it has purpose and an intention.
so, i believe i will have to find 'accidental beauty' out and about in streets and towns that have already occurred.

which annoy's me slightly, as this means i will have to work mainly in photography, where i really want to work in drawing based illustration. maybe i can convert photography to hand drawn work. creating 'accidents' i find.. into something 'beautiful'.



(*word definitions from www.dictionarydefinition.net)

Year Two Begins

So
Sign in day yesterday and mini lectures today about options and timetables.

I have chosen to go for the Political Graphics option.
I've always been interetsed in political graphics, having done a bit of work on latin American propaganda already, and i would love to pursue this further. It's something that is always going to be needed, and is always very very provocative.
Looking forward to it. The summer has been a bit of a drag with no projects set, and i seem to have lost the ability to draw
Hopefuly only temporarily

Trying right now to download a PDF from C1RCA shoes to do a design for a competion. But smartly they have not made it mac compatible. nice.

Till next time
Over and Out


mono

weeks ahead

now that my work is all handed in, i am planning on making some tshirts at silkscreen.
for sustainability and my personal mapping i have done some tshirt designs.. which i would like to print up.
lots of lego. zapatista soldiers. and stars and lightning.
its going to be magical.

diagnostic project

for this diagnostic project i started off with chosing my topic word.
Optimism.
i have recently been drawing some super hero characters and wrestlers. not in your conventional marvel way, but in a pretty-grotesque style.
i like these, and decided that id like to make a book out of the images.
having done more research i started looking into mexican wrestlers as a theme.. mostly just for the image to begin with. then i started to research more into the lifestyle of said wrestlers. in mexico, wrestlers are superstars. on tv. radio. seen in every magazine. they are everywhere, YET, many of them still maintain complete anonymity.
being seen everywhere, but only ever masked up. masked in mystery!
so this theme then sparked off the mexican theme.
i have used spanish-mexican language in the images, which i think works well. i wanted to create superheroes that could fill people with optimism. feeling safe that there is someone there to save you whenever something may go wrong.
what i have written on the images i wanted to almost be a mantra. something for people to say, to gain confidence.

i spent a long time drawing up, and then it came to getting the images sorted. i had decided to silk-screen. however, due to people having 'inductions' which meant for some reason that we were not allowed to be anywhere near the vicinity, meant that i had to scrap the idea of doing a book. as all i had time to do was one final image. this image i have made a lot bigger. and added colour on acetate with my touch markers.

i think it works well. i like the image. yet, i love books. i love stories. and i like little 'units'. as you would see from my portfolio - sketchbooks, notebooks, photos mounted in books. and i think a book would have been a nicer thing to hold.

animation

really enjoyed the animation project. was a little tedious with the continuous drawing, but i enjoyed the challenge. although i think i have serious wrist problems now.
mixed the animation into a song by sikth 'wait for something wild'. not one of my favourite bands but i thought the song worked well.

we were supposed to be putting our animations together in groups.but i found the working in a group very annoying. it has proved to make the project so much more work by having to try and arrange to meet up and sort it all out. so mine is still on its own. its basic. but quite cool i think int its 12 second entirety!

been quite hard latley with the work load - everything seems to have been set at the same time. mapping... sustainability.... animation projects... daignostic project soon... and this semina talk. which, i am very uninterested in. not now anyway, at the start of the year i would have found more drive to do it. now i just want to work. im sick of not having specialised in illustration yet. and im just looking forward to getting a clean start this coming september.

flash

flash.
dont dig flash at all. its something i really dont want to be using again any time soon in the future at all!

Photographic Sequences

Recently managed to find myself an old slr camera at the flea market in town. just a little practika camera, similar to the ones at uni. works like a charm. and only £35!
got a wide angle lens to go with it and i had some fun taking photos of the guys in my room. used this mad little filter that blocked out the edges a little... giving it this dreamy almost soft porn sort of effect. i like it.
have gotten quite carried away with the manual photography, and not done much digital. but finding it quite hard to get into doing the digital, as i have done so much of it already, it seems an almost pointless exercise at the moment when i all i want to be doing is trying new things.
still feel a lot like i am repeating my last year at foundation at brookes.