A Male Cecaelia Contemplates Miasma

They're not finished but shitting hell I'm definitely moving towards a conclusion with my collages. Kinda silly really because originally they were only meant to be idea experiments but I fell in love with them a little bit. Here's the collection so far

Here's the first one, not completely finished but the most-completed so far. Love the old-fashioned frame I managed to find for it. Really getting on my nerves that it isn't quite centred and the brown paper isn't quite straight but I suppose that's my graphics roots ruining my life again. I haven't stuck it down yet so it can still be adjusted, just wanted to see what it looked like in a frame.

I think it needs more detail round the edges somehow but I love how the graph paper turned out.

Thinking about naming the project 'Catalogue of Creatures that Should Never Exist' but I'm hoping I come up with something a bit more catchy over time. I want them to look like a collection of specimens. Perhaps when I have finished these I can move on to creating 3D aspects to the project.

Trying to come up with fancy names for everybody at the moment. So far I got:

• A Male Cecaelia Contemplates Miasma
• Sword-Wielding Crabtopus (highly territorial, likes collecting shoes)
• Insectile Abomination cheers on its favouite team
• All-Seeing Sea Turtle Plays the Tambourine
• Satan-Powered Motor Trike and Rebel Jesus
• Cetus Rhinocerotidae (The Uncommon Rhinocerfish)

I am so inspired by the work I have seen lately and the people I have met that I can't wait to do more work on this. Might have to beat Lorraine up a little bit to get her to do some work too.

Jesus was a rebel

When Jesus went through his rebellious teenage years, he probably owned a satan-powered motor-trike, but luckily god forgave him eventually and had him hung on a cross to die slowly and painfully.

Building up ideas for another collage and part of the continuing collaborative work between Lorraine Bennett and myself. I forgot to take my scissors with me (I feel naked!) so I can't make the couple of tiny adjustments needed before sticking-down time (chop off deer legs beneath wheel, trim down elephant horn, get rid of jesus' straggling hair).

I need to work on the backgrounds anyways, plain white cheap-ass paper looks a bit rubbish, I wouldn't put it on my wall in that state, so I can't imagine anybody else would want to, let alone kindly give me monies for it at a craft fair.

Through the Grape Vine

My dad has a rare genetic disease that causes muscular dystrophy, and he likes to raise money by building planters and tables out of recycled wood for the charity-run NeuroMuscular Centre in Winsford where he goes for the specialist phsyiotheraphy that helps to make his life more bearable.

While helping my dad kit out their recently-built shed, I got talking to a guy who enjoyed building ceramic dragons and he highly recommended a place in Sandbach called The Potter's Barn. Website is a little bit terrible-looking but it actually seems like a really cool place to go with a huge variety of facilities. Plus, they do Raku firings. So tempting...

By the way, if you have a look at the NeuroMuscular Centre website, they have a pretty cool Design and Print section, created and staffed by designers with muscular dystrophy

Is it illegal to draw pictures of art?

While at the Macclesfield Heritage Centre to see The Button Project, I was told by one lady that I had to write all the names of everybody whose work I drew pictures of underneath each drawing and I was told by another lady that I wasn't even allowed to draw any pictures at all which is something I haven't come across before.

had to rush the bottom right drawing due to circumstances

When I asked why, she mumbled something about copyright and then another lady who was stood next to me started telling the other lady off for being ridiculous. I came away from the experience feeling rather confused and it left a sour taste in my mouth.

Is it illegal to draw pictures of art? 

The sad thing is that all I wanted to do was write more about the exhibition, and publicise it amongst my peers because the artwork was beautiful and looked like a collection of modern-day treasure. I'm hardly raking in profit (none what-so-ever) and it's for an educational purpose.

The experience was definitely not what I wanted to take away from the exhibit.

While in Macc, we met Rachel Grant who had the most beautiful research books and awesome interactive artworks. She posed the question "what makes you feel strong" and asked for responses to be wound together to make a cocoon of fragility and strength.

Landscape is bloody gorgeous up north.

Here is my inadequate doodle response. The two squiggles are cows from a very long distance, and I got distracted while drawing the wall bit.

Some kind of progress

Slowly starting to build up layers on this piece. We got my particular spin on illuminated manuscript, with all the letter forms taken from this old doodle from last year. Originally spelling "In the beginning" the famous phrase that begins a certain controversial old book, this is part of my attempt to recreate a science-based story about the beginning of the universe using religious visual language.

Not sure if it needs more doing to it yet but I'm liking where it's heading. Softened some of the rigid felt-tip lines with water to create a more organic look, to compliment the glass forms. Torn up graph paper, netting and stitching are used similarly to move away from the rigid outline of the squared paper. A lot of religious-based art borrows heavily from nature, so it wouldn't make sense to create an excessively man-made industrial-feeling piece.

Staffordshire Open Art Exhibition 2013

Memories by Mandy Billington, clay and mixed media

Not Another Soul- Coniston by Tracy Barlow, etching

Sketch Snapshots of Stafford by Keri Jayne, pen and ink

Seed Heads in Autumn by Rebecca Doyle, mixed media

Joyous days I have a goddamn phone! hooray! Above are photos taken (by my handy new 2 mega pixel phone camera) from the 2013 Staffordshire Open Art Exhibition at Shire Hall Gallery in Stafford. Exhibition is open til 14th July 2013.

Currently the only way I can get photos off said phone is by posting them on Facebook, so I had to spam folks with fuzzy mobile pictures, which I feel slightly guilty of. Speaking of which, I made a handy little failbook page for this happy little blog which whoever's interested or too polite to refuse my invitation is welcome to like. Who knows, maybe I can trick somebody into reading this shit on a regular basis.

http://dribbble.com/eristine
http://christinekawasakichan.com/

Just sharing the love, found a series of food pictures, turns out the lady who made them also has a super neat website. People should give her all of the money.

The last Links post for a while

Just got a few links left that I wasn't able to make into a nice shiney themed post. So I suppose this weeks links are all relatively unlinked links (hur hur hur!)

http://www.uva.co.uk/category/work

United Visual Artists. It's so...geometry and shiney lights. I love flicking through the stuff on their work page, gorgeous.

http://www.valentinatanni.com/

Art blog about internet culture, which is a super interesting read. It's been going on for over ten years! Christ I am way too late on this whole thing, bloody fascinating.

http://dappledsky.com/

This blog is about nurturing the artistic community in Stoke-on-Trent, which is currently something I'm really interested in. It kind of blows my mind that there even is an art community in Stoke, since there's not much else. It's like discovering an orchid growing out of a turd.

http://www.site.rachel-grant.com/Portfolio.html

Somehow I've only just come across the work of Rachel Grant because somebody brought up her name when I was making more glass with the Cultural Sisters and Percy the dog. What have I been doing with my life???

http://cargocollective.com/justyna_sarsari

Last but not least, Justyna's portfolio. She was in my class before I had to leave university and the photo above is of work from her degree show. The lady is a force of nature and her work is fucking fantastic. I'd tell somebody to give her a prize, but shit man, they already did.

Began mounting the glass work for my portfolio, just needs silicon-ing in place. Squared paper gives it a nice scrap-book feel. Blue felt-tip pen geometric drawings to make the thin blue glass strips melt in seamlessly. It's strange because I preferred the top drawing the most when it was in front of me, but I think the bottom image looks better now it's on the computer screen.

Can't help thinking that it's missing something though. Stitching? Inks? collage? Not quite sure yet so it might be one of those leave-it-for-a-few-days-and-come-back-to-it jobs. It's gonna drive me mad trying to think of what it needs. Letters? Might try dabbing water onto the lines in the top drawing (I always use washable felt tips for that exact purpose). Or maybe it just needs re-drawing completely.

It's so irritating knowing that there's just something not quite right about it.

Comic update post

Been thinking and working on ideas for comic project, this is its most recent incarnation. part of me feels like I need to make it into several pages instead of just one canvas. Considering making a long wall-hanging. The blank triangles are where I've stared placing my glass pieces to work them into the composition. 

I kinda have visions of black netting and hand-stitched writing and squares and glass, hand-generated typography that becomes part of the story instead of just telling the story. 

Starting to wonder if I even need to create an angel narrator. I might use the research I've got so far into angels as motifs and collage instead.

I feel really inspired by the people I've met and the techniques I've learned during my year away from university, and I feel like I should bring these feelings and ideas together. I started out months and months ago reading up on cosmology and visiting observatories, drawing churches and researching the stories and language I was brought up with.

When I started experimenting with materials in the beginning of January this year I stepped away from the ideologies and started creating my own visual language. Now I know how this piece is going to feel. Gothic, arts and crafts, cute with serious undertones.

Recently went back to the Cultural Sisters to make some more flat glass pieces. When I saw the glass from before, they looked like test pieces and I just wanted to make more and experiment with shapes and colours. Because of how much glass can change in firing, I'm not totally sure what to expect yet but I'm looking forward to seeing the finished results. They look bigger than the last few things I've made and use more bluey purpley colours with a hint of green, moving away from red completely. 

Also this is the dog I've been looking after this week, because this post has far too much writing in it and needs more pictures!

Detail from one of my portfolio pages

Le webcam

 Le Shiny Big camera <3

Le Not-so-great camera

 Le Big Shiney Camera <3 (painting now slightly damaged by cigarette smoke though, grandmother you fiend!)

oh my god the pixels.

squared paper

So I found an old pad of squared paper with some really old doodle in that I totally can't remember drawing but I know that they were definitely drawn by me, not really sure when exactly. The writing in the doodle above says 'Handlebar mustaches are always amusing! I am in love with you <3 yes, you! I love everyone and no one, especially you (and Marvin the flying sheep)' and the monster's little thought bubble says '...I love Marvin the flying sheep'

This one's a crying flaming heart plant thing.

I think this one is part dragon, part concertina slash clockwork orange enthusiast. I imagine its arm plays jolly sea-shanties.

Joseph Cornell Wallpapers?

http://www.josephcornellbox.com/wallpaper.htm

I remember my first week of University I was told to go to the library and study Joseph Cornell just because, and so I grabbed the first book I found and took some half-arsed photos that I had long forgotten about until I was sorting through my picture files yesterday. Thought I'd give it a google today to jog my memory and OH MY GOD YES there's a website dedicated to him with free wallpapers <3 beautiful, sexy wallpapers.

I sincerely regret not immediately building a shrine to this guy's artwork in my shitty dorm in halls, what on earth was I thinking??? I guess I can always correct this mistake when I go back there in September.

I am not worthy.

Learn those vowels kids! by order of the queen.. and buttons

I bought some tiny canvasses that cost 60p each and I found an old pad of squared paper so I made a generic cutesy-looking wall decoration and took a crap picture of it on my webcam because I'm too lazy to get my nice big shiney camera out, and I'm too impatient to wait for proper lighting.

Was thinking about taking my earlier collages and making them into bizarre little decorative canvasses. Another idea I had was getting old doll-house furniture and making models of little monsters emerging from tiny porcelain toilets and beneath little wooden bedframes.

Alan Fletcher's Archives

http://alanfletcherarchive.com

This website makes me very happy :) You can organise by genre! You can organise by era! You can organise by all those other things that they let you organise his work by. Fun!

Links

This week's post is inspired by The Macabre and Beautifully Grotesque's facebook page. (their cover photo is Bosch, the saucy minx!)

http://www.whokilledbambi.co.uk/
Basically a site dedicated to art that defecates on your childhood dreams, which is something I am always able to take the time out to enjoy.

http://www.eyesuckink.com/

Speaking of things I always have time for, Alex Pardee's website. Grew out of my shady teenage years loving his style and trying to emulate it, and then I got involved in ceramics and that all went to shit and my work somehow became rather cutesy in comparison.

http://www.rustin.be/exposition-passees
Unsettling? Genitalia on every page? Somewhat disturbing? Why yes, yes it is, and yet it's still so painfully compelling.

http://www.miguellealart.com/

Portraits. Scary, scary portraits! Wonderful textures, collage and intense mark-making, loving Miguel Leal right now.

http://www.helenelagnieu.fr/

From her website "Mes recherches se concentrent sur les processus d’ hybridation, la mise à nu et la décortication de l’anatomie humaine et animale." and in case you can't read french she's all about the process of hybridisation mixing the anatomies of humans and animals. At least that's how I roughly interpret it because I can also barely read french and I'm too lazy to stick it into google translate and then go back and correct everything it gets wrong. My abysmal linguistics aside, those drawings! Oh my god those beautiful drawings <3

I'm finally running low on links so this might be the last of one of these posts, but I have actually really enjoyed compiling these things.