Paper Mechanics

We are exploring two processes in our 'Process and Practise' module - one is print, and the other is paper mechanics. I had been waiting for this set of workshops since I started this course! And now we have FOUR one day sessions with the extraordinary Mr Duncan Birmingham (he's SUCH a nice guy...).


This isn't a very flattering picture of my coursemates I'm afraid, but I just wanted to give you a sense of the explosion of colored paper in the studio earlier this week.

We're making a 'pop-up sketchbook', ie Duncan is going through the basic techniques with us and we're making them as we go along and writing notes on our pop-ups and embellishing them. We have him for 4 sessions (over 4 weeks). This week was fundamentals; next week building on those and more complex mechanisms; the following week we're doing things like pull tabs and such; and in the last week he's going to work with us individually on our projects (we have to make two double page spreads, again on the theme of culture)...

Here's my set of pages from this week - I'm SO happy to be doing this :) ....

Cultural jazz (!?)

I thought I'd better update you on the "Culture" project for the Process and Practice module. Its still very much in development, but its slowly moving along.

You might remember from this where I was drawing bacteria - well the tutors wanted me to get out of my comfort zone and asked me to put the bacteria out-of-context... I've found this very VERY hard but have slowly (after much random sketching) come to the idea of a micro-organism jazz band (because I love jazz music). Above are some very crude initial ideas and sketches ... hopefully I can develop this further into a full blown project ...

(yes, that's E.coli Fitzgerald, Louis Amoebastrong and Helicobacter Pianolory .... I am so geeky)

Don't trust your clock!

Phew! We've just been handed ANOTHER brief for the 'word and image' module (the one with the 'Curious Incident' and abstract book briefs). The new brief is basically to produce two images for this competition. Its all about generating ideas from words. And to start us off we had a one-day workshop today where we were handed an aphorism each. We had to explore it visually and generate as many quick ideas for it as we could; and then take a couple to completion.

My aphorism was "You must have a rough idea of the time, to believe a clock"

I started with clocks with obviously the wrong times on for the time of day (for example a digital clock that says 4:37 am, but its sunny outside the window, etc)... I worked through a few ideas and one thing led to another which made me come to the central idea of a "Is your clock telling the truth?". These are my final two images:



The abstract book, for which I uploaded the patterns earlier this week, is also almost done - I still need to tweak a couple of pages and bind the whole thing nicely; so you'll just have to wait till I'm done. The Curious Incident and Culture projects on the other hand are slightly stuck - but I do have till January (eeep!)

Help Cafe Kino by buying ART!!!

Cafe Kino is a gorgeous little independant co-op cafe in Stoke's Croft, Bristol - conveniently placed within stumbling distance of the ultra fabulous Here Gallery (which also has a show opening tonight) and the uber querky Cube Cinema. Some local artists (including me and Milla and Claire and other exciting peoples) have work on show (and sale) there from today till 13th December. A percentage of the sales go towards supporting the cafe - "cafe kino is a not-for-profit co-operative owned and operated by its' workers and run in part by volunteers. We strive to create a viable business which is open, fair and mutually supportive of all those with whom we are associated" ...how could you not want to support that??!!??

So, if you want to get your hands on any of my stitch'n'bitch inspired hoops - I've got all 6 on sale there ... grab yourself an early Christmas goodie whilst helping keep Kino afloat!

Patterns

Here are some pattern/textures I've been making to use in the abstract book project...

The Island

Here's something I did for a competition (the first competition I've done being a illustration student). I knew when I entered that I was unlikely to get even within earshot of a prize, but it forced me to finish a narrative started as some sketchbook ideas and I learned a lot in just tidying the whole thing up and getting it into a submittable form. Its based on the story of Easter Island as told by Sir Richard Attenborough in a BBC TV documentary some years ago. See it here.

Abstractions...

We've now been given our second brief for the 'Word and Image' module (Curious incident is still on-going). Its to find a self contained piece of text and make a 'book' (or equivalent) of at least 12 pages. I looked at a few bits of poetry and had a go at quickly sketching out some ideas:

Prayers for the Imperfect by Henry Normal

Indian Prayer (starts "When I am dead, cry for me a little")

Invitus by W.E. Henley (one of my favourite poems of all time)

High Flight (an Airman's Ecstasy) by J.G. Magee

Have had a tutorial and the tutors suggested I follow up both the Indian prayer and Airman's Ecstasy with a bit more work - then pick one to work up into a final piece. Am quite looking forward to this ...

Cars

Just some drawings I'm doing for the "Curious Incident" brief ... sometimes I wish I'd embarked on just an illustration, rather than all this drawing AND making AND photographing that I'm attempting to do ...

Characters

Mithi's world is currently a very busy place with projects left right and center. But I just wanted to put in an update to show that things ARE progressing, albeit very slowly...

After some discussion with the tutor, I've gone down the 'boardgame' route with my 'Word and Image' module; interpreting The Curios Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. The main character really likes games and puzzles and it seemed quite appropriate to represent the story as a game, like Cluedo. So that's what I've been doing. I'm making cards to represent all the main characters, and will hopefully have a few more bits-and-bobs that go into a box that I need to design, and also an actual game board. The idea is to make it visually hang together (going for a 50s feel); but I'm not going to try and make it actually playable - that would just take up too much time. When its all done I'll set it up as if people are playing the game and take some photos and convert them to double page spreads (as that's what the final outcome needs to be)

Above are some initial attempts at drawing up the characters - the colours and what they're doing are based on things from the book (Christopher loves RED and wants to be an astronaut and go away into space with his pet rat Toby). Its early days yet, and I'm feeling a bit "artists blocked" about the game board ... but will get there eventually ...

Proverbial forest

We had a talk today from Tom Burns and then a really short and sharp workshop for the 'Word and Image' module where we were given a list of proverbs, and had three hours to come up with illustrations for one that we choose. We were also in groups so that had to tie in somehow. Our group each picked a nature themed proverb (mine being "Can't see the wood for the trees") and we also choose the colour green, and for some obscure reason making all our images have something to do with food and/or eating (!).

So you have a chap here who is so overwhelmed by the lush green trees in the forest, he doesn't even notice the thing that he's eating is a dead branch! Hmmm...... yesss....

I'm not particularly happy with the execution (this is what 3 hours gets you!). The text was hand painted in acrylic on a sheet of acetate (yes, not even enough time to scan it in a make it into a photoshop layer...); and below is the set up - the dead branch is a piece of dead plant from our garden, and the green thing at the back is a green towel - work with what you have, I say ...

Culture Vulture

Click on the images for bigger versions

This year's 'Process and Practice' module (mostly print making and paper engineering) is going by the theme of 'Culture'. Here are some sketches out of my sketchbook whilst I was thinking of imagery around 'culture'. The top two are me playing with the idea of 'bacterial culture'... something very close to my heart ;) The bottom two are looking at Malaysia and its wide mix of cultures and traditions/religions/customs etc.

I haven't quite decided what path I'm going to go down (have to produce an editioned final piece using print processes, and two double page spreads using pop-up techniques), but we've got a workshop session tomorrow where we have to bring in a colour image that we've made, and learn how to do colour separations for printmaking. I think I might bring along these two as they are both relevant to the Asian cultures thing ... and anyways, this is not the final piece but just something to help us learn the process ...

Back at it!

Wow! What a busy week this has been! Its back to school - second year of my Illustration BA, and we're off to a running start. We've got two modules running parallel this semester - 'Process and Practice' - which is a combination of print and pop-ups; and 'Word and Image' - which, as it says, is about working from texts.

The Word and Image summer work was actually to read and do some background research/ideas on a book /piece of text from a list of about 8. I chose Mark Haddon's "The Curios Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time". I'd read it a couple of years ago and it really appealed to my scientific, logical side.

I read it again, this time doodling as I went through... Here's a selection of my doodles - there's at least one almost every page.


Will update on 'Process and Practice' once I've built up a bit more work on it ... we've been given the overall theme of "Culture".

Another thing worth mentioning is that on Thursday I went down to the opening of the Here Gallery's 5th Birthday show with the Peskimos. Its called "Even Dwarves Started Small" and is a completely Gocco themed show - Hurray! Some lovely work on show and definitely worth a visit (the show is on all month).

Kampung house

Malaysia has some lovely traditional architecture. I've always wanted to do a project on traditional Malaysian buildings. I had hoped to take lots of reference photos this last holiday, but the weather and family commitments meant I only got one photo - of a Malaysian village, or 'kampung' house; as you see here.

There's something really compelling about these lovely wooden structures on stilts (safe from flash floods and wild animals). I might start looking up pictures on flickr - but its not quite the same as drawing from your OWN inspiration...

The return of MOLECULAR!

Hello folks, remember this from a year and a half ago? Well, sometime this summer I was contacted by the people over at Spanish magazine NEO2 to ask whether they could publish my font on their 'molecular' themed October issue ... and these came in the mail for me just the other day:

See it says 'EXPLOSION MOLECULAR' on the bottom left.

Basically I re-made and re-photographed the original alphabet set; and I also did a photograph (the 'M' with the lab stuff in the background) to be used inside the magazine (seen above).

If you want the font set (as a folder of small jpegs - not actual 'fonts'), they can be downloaded from the NEO2 website. On the bottom left of the site you'll find a link to "CLUB DOWNLOADS". You'll get a pop-up from which you can choose the 'Molecular' font from a drop-down menu.

You'll then need to enter the downloading code (which is printed in the paper magazine):
M542TH852RTLP54GFWTRPB98325

If you can't be bothered by the code, the type gets archived at the end of the month here (have a look around - there's some fun stuff there! I especially like the Wash and Lego fonts), from where you can download without any codes once the month is up.

Happy Birthday Tiara!

Today is my lovely little sis's birthday and I made her a little sleeping batty (because she really loves bats!). I'm sorry it still hasn't arrived in the post (its been more than a week - from UK to Australia...). I wasn't going to post these pictures till you'd received it, but now I'm concerned that it may have gone missing in the post - so I though I'd at least let you see what she looks like (and she squeaks too!):



She's based on Miss Lucy's Sleeping Babies. I spent a bit of time with Lucy over the summer helping out in the studio; and in return she taught me how to make a sleeping baby, and gave me some supplies. I must say the first one I made was a bit wonky, but this one has turned out much better (complete with batty wings!)

Thank you Miss Lucy!

Also, Happy Anniversary Abbu & Ammu!

Typewriter

Hmmm.... I'm not entirely sure what possessed me to draw a typewriter ...
I guess I've always enjoyed drawing 'things'...

Camp

I mean, why WOULDN'T you take your multicoloured towel camping with you ???

Experimenting...

Just an idea I'm playing with at the moment .... hmmmm...

(thats my 'engagement tempora-ring')

Big Top

Doodling

Travel drawing

I'm back, and here are some drawings I did while I was away...

Guy asleep on the train

Two patients at an eye-doctors (both had eye drops in and hence were sitting there quietly with their eyes shut - perfect drawing fodder!).

Head-scarfed Aunty Laila - mum's friend

Changi airport Singapore has all manner of wildlife to keep the passengers amused!

At the Art House Co-op

JohnEllis_20080822-2372, originally uploaded by arthousecoop.

This is just a quicky to say thanks to all the people at Art House Co-op - my book got there and here it is on their gallery wall. See more photos of the opening night here.

I'm still out in Malaysia enjoying being at home with the folks and not really doing much ;) Will be back in good 'ol Blighty at the end of the week!

How to save the world

Art House Coop Sketchbook Project 2008

"How would you save the world?"

"With Love Compassion and Respect"