Monday 30 April 2012

An Eclectic Herd Of Antelope


I wrote this manifesto as I wanted to mix the talents of the group and also comment on the emphasis of the word  'collective'
Been interested in animals and the English language, this seemed like the perfect combination. Instead of trying to think of what made us a collective I realised, weather people liked it or not, we were a collective in more ways than one. To illustrate my point i used collective nouns amidst the words that described the talents of the individuals within the group. I don't think many people really cared for it as only a few looked, but regardless of this I am  personally very pleased with it, I like the sentiment behind it and the fact it  isn't something I've ever seen done before.

(Matthew Barney)



The only way I would like to describe Matthew Barney's work would be to use the words strange and beautiful. I like how he has taken anthropomorphism to a whole new level through the use of prosthetics and makeup art combined with computer manipulation. I feel extremely inspired through seeing this work and think that perhaps it could be another area in which i could work myself, as i have already done a lot of prosthetic work (mainly just for fancy dress and my own pleasure) and feel that i could further develop these skills within a fine art context.

Sunday 29 April 2012

(Nancy Wiley)


I came across Nancy Wiley by accident whilst looking for a different Alice in wonderland animation. I looked her up and found she is a doll maker (not animator as I'd previously thought) I find her dolls beautiful and magical, it does help that she  has created another version of Alice, as anyone who does that already has a place in my heart. I enjoyed listening to her explain her thought process for her character development, for instance she has changed the mad hatters hat to an upside down tea pot, (because he was mad and drank tea) it does seem so simple but makes sense. I could relate to this and see a similarity in the thought process she uses and my own.

I like the fact that she is working in a three dimensional way , yet is using her work for so much more  than just using her dolls as objects alone, she uses them to create stories and books and i think that makes me realise just how wide your range of skills can be.

(Marco Evaristti)

I recently saw this piece of art on a television show where people had to  make bids for artifacts and art works they wanted to obtain and sell on , I cant remember the name of the program, but that doesn't matter. I was immediately intrigued by this , admittedly, if it is true that the piece is made from the golden fillings and teeth of the dead Jews from Auschwitz it is a very macabre and sickening thing. Although once i read up on the reasons the artist gave for making this piece, i understood why he'd made it and although it is still 'horrid' and gives you an uncomfortable feeling and a chill down your spine i find myself feeling quite fond of it. If not just for the reasoning behind the piece. Everyone knows of the horrors that went on in the death camps but i feel to actually put this in a piece of sculpture it really makes you look and in a way 'rubs your nose it it' it make you look and feel disgusted but i think that's the point to represent great cruelty and loss but present it in such an elaborate way.


Evaristti said the exhibit wasn’t just a reminder of the death associated with the Holocaust, but also of the looting the Nazis conducted.

(Kristjana S Williams)

I was recently made aware of Kristjana S Williams work by one of my tutors. The main thing i like about these pieces is the sheer amount of animals, objects and nature that fill these pages. I also find the use of 'classical' looking print and etching used alongside brightly coloured flowers and leaves very interesting and pleasing to look at and feel that maybe this technique could be something i possibly experiment with in the future .

(alone)

I'm not sure of the artists name, but i came by this a couple of weeks ago, and i absolutely adore it. I love the simplicity of it and the fact that due to its simplicity it has a certain naive quality to it.

Saturday 28 April 2012

How many more toads?






After looking at some of Van Gogh work i began to experiment with different mark making techniques, I've tried to give the illusion of different types of material and also think i have made better use of the space and created a sense of distance within this piece, when i look back through my work i can clearly see that it is improving and i am extremely proud of this one. I like the sentiment of the piece, how the rabbit looks extremely distressed by the amount of toads around her, i also love the toad prince in the background who has waited so long for all the other toads to move out of the way that he has collapsed and died in the woods, alas, the poor rabbit shall never find her prince, just like in the real world i fear.

Tuesday 24 April 2012

for the love of Wilde

This piece was made as part of our magazine collaboration. I was inspired by one of my favourite Oscar Wilde quotes:
"We're all in the gutter , but some of us are looking up at the stars"
I've often looked upon this quote as inspiration when bitterness and lies have been thrown at me. I just find the sentiment very beautifully written, like Shakespeare often did, i find it brings a tear to my eye when something is written as a metaphor, there's something quite magical about it.
All of this aside, referring back to my own work, this is , i suppose my own version of Wilde's quote, and what i take from the meaning behind it.

In life  i believe you should treat others as you would wish to be treated. if someone doesn't have as much as you , then share what you have, If someone is lonely then show them they have a friend, if someone is ill educated then help them to obtain knowledge, never bow to jealousy, there really is no point. never be cruel, if you look at something beautiful appreciate it , don't be green with envy, aspire to make yourself all you can be. And always be polite and kind. These simple qualities are the things i feel make one of the people who are 'looking up at the stars'

However in my version i chose to focus of the people who are the opposite of this, the ones Wilde spoke of and described as the people who were merely in the gutter.
I take these people to be selfish , full of bitterness and lies, envious of anything they don't have or that is 'better' than what they have, people who i feel expect everything to just come to them, without working for it, without trying, just taking and never giving, the type of people who would blame anybody but themselves for their miss fortunes, and usually blame the people who gave them everything. These people i described as the people who would be forever face down in the gutter, expecting the stars to leap from the sky.
I hope Wilde would be proud of this .

You probabelly think this song is about you!

I recently made a piece of work inspired by this. I like the aesthetics of something that looks beautiful whilst the sentiment is bitter sweet, I find the juxtaposition of things like this very beautiful and heartfelt.
      I have always based my work around the macabre and relationships gone sour. I feel this is a popular theme both in the art world and within society as a whole. Admittedly i removed the piece which was based upon this , not because it was aimed at anyone,( because as much as people may like to believe something revolved around them it didn't) , but because , although i love this work i feel my own work is a little wittier and clever. I like the fact that some of my pieces have left people wondering , 'what was that about?' and making people who have experienced these things feel like for once they are in on the joke.I felt that my other pieces were better, and fit my character much more than resorting to vulgarity (even though i do love this piece in it's own right) This is the only reason i removed this piece.
  •        My work has always been, and shall always remain melancholy, it will always have names in it, as i like to characterise my creations. This doesn't mean it is directly aimed at one person, and to believe it is i feel is a foolish and arrogant thing to do. I aim to reach out to a disenchanted world of the lovelorn and unfortunate victims of the emotions. I find it almost comical in a way that anyone would be so vain to think everything i do is about them. If someone wanted to believe that Rossetti's work was about them , i could completely understand, pictures of beautiful women etc,, its perfectly within reason, but quite honestly to believe that all my 'negative' and 'disturbed' words are aimed solely at one person ,, why would you want to admit to been that person? It's beyond all of my comprehension. So to end this statement i would just like to say , that ;
  • I LOVE ME!
  • I LOVE MY WORK
  • I LOVE THE PROGRESS I HAVE MADE
  • I LOVE THE THOUGHT OF ASPIRING TO MAKE MY WORK EVEN MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN IT IS ALREADY
  • I LOVE LEARNING NEW THINGS
  • I LOVE TRYING TO RELATE TO A WIDE AUDIENCE OF THE DISENCHANTED
  • I LOVE BEING TRUE TO MYSELF
  • I WILL CONTINUE TO USE NAMES WITHIN MY WORK FOR MY CHARACTERS
I WILL NEVER STOP CREATING AND DOING WHAT I LOVE THE MOST, REGARDLESS OF HOW MANY TIMES PEOPLE TRY TO STOP ME AND PUT ME DOWN!

Monday 23 April 2012

(Van Gogh)

I have been searching for various ways of mark making with ink, and was advised by my tutor that Van Gogh's ink drawings would be ideal for me to look at, I found this one quite beautiful and relevant to my work, in that it demonstrates how i could further develop space and proportions within my drawing and also how my backgrounds could  be much more elaborate and beautiful than they are. As, at the moment when i look at my work i feel the background needs an awful lot of work. I plan to learn from this beautiful piece and try to make my woodlands just as beautiful and detailed as this.

Pin a smile on my face


As part of the smile project i have put together a short video compiled of the collection of photographs taken by myself and Olivia. I have used one of my favourite poems (Funeral Blues by W H Auden) as i felt it was very fitting with our mournful theme.

Thursday 19 April 2012

What a catch


I made this today as part of a page/ gift section of our magazine
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, if only we could see the outcome of our errors before we begun our own path of destruction. This piece is in homage to that thought.

Sunday 15 April 2012

The long wait





Another image from my drawing book. Over all I am very pleased with this one, again with both the sentiment and the quality of the drawing. I have noticed that my work has developed a lot throughout my drawing book, I'm very fond of all the characters i create but I find myself extremely proud of the images i am creating later on in my book as they have background settings and also i feel i have really begun to catch emotions in my characters faces, I also  feel that the costumes are much more elaborate and detailed than they ever have been.

Saturday 14 April 2012

Oh the shame



The latest edition to my drawing book. I'm very pleased with the way this one turned out. I feel I have really captured the drama and self pity in the wolf's face. It makes me smile when i look at it due to its line quality, especially on the fur, and also it's sentiment, I'm sure everyone reaches a point when their sorrow turns to shame, and regret. Unfortunately no one can turn the clocks back ,, this is the point i have reached and i chose to express it through this illustration.

Thursday 12 April 2012

Tilly's Woe






The latest edition to my drawing book. I'm extremely proud of this one, again its very personal to me, but i feel other people could relate to the general meaning behind this piece. Everyone has their own long list, and even if it isn't very long , I'm sure it's just as painful.
I particularly like' Tilly' in this piece i feel that when i look at it , the line quality almost makes it look like an old photograph, so I'm very proud of that, I also love the almost cathartic expression on her face,and the fact she has a knife in her paws. I feel the picture could suggest different meanings due to this little element. Has she used the knife to merely carve names into the tree, or does Tilly's list entail something more sinister?

world map





I must admit that i really did struggle with this task. I am usually overflowing with ideas each time I am given a task , but this time , i really wasn't. Once i did start on my my map however i found it a little easier to handle. The aesthetics are very different to my usual work, but i quite like this fact. I wanted it to be colourful for a change and to represent aspects of pop culture, famous artworks and revolutionary posters which i associate with certain places. All in all I'm pleased with the outcome now that i have eventually completed it.

Wednesday 11 April 2012

(Hans Bellmer)



I recently discovered Hans Bellmer's doll like sculptures in Tate Liverpool. I was instantly drawn to the glass cabinet sitting on top of a shocking pink pedestal, I'm sure the colour had something to do with the intrigue but what was in the cabinet instantly reminded me of the work of Trevor brown. It was vulgar, thrust into your face, I was left fascinated yet repulsed, with the same thought that fills my mind when I look at Browns work, I found it quite 'pretty' aesthetically pleasing, yet could obviously see that the image in front of me represented a child's body, so felt quite uncomfortable looking at it and wondering if i did like it or not, and wondering if I should.
     I later found out that Bellmer created these dolls in the middle of the Holocaust, and from finding this out could possibly begin to understand why he had created these sculptures, obviously none of his works have faces , perhaps this is a comment on the many pits of mangled bodies that may as well have been faceless, amongst these were numerous children , so to me his work seems to be a comment on the times he was living in.

Friday 6 April 2012

(ecards)




I've only recently found these. I absolutely love them. I like the way old found images are used along side witty typography. They please me visually and also make me chuckle when i read the text, i find them ultimately charming. They also appealed to me because i often use Victorian and other retro style images both my own and found along side witty remarks or sayings, so I find these rather useful inspirational material.

(sympathy cards)

I found this under the category of 'sympathy cards' I must admit it made me laugh an awful lot, and when i thought about it, i suppose if you have dated someone ugly and are perhaps regretting the fact, then i suppose this card would act as a sympathy gesture. I like it because again it falls into the category of, on face value been quite charming and appealing,( i suppose i like the image itself mainly for its bright colour and illustrative quality, mixing an old Victorian style image with such a bright and modern background,) but then of course when we read the text it makes us smile , or at least makes me smile. It gives me one of the feelings i love , which is knowing i really like something and it amuses me immensely ,  but knowing i really shouldn't because it is after all rather cruel.

Its not on my conscience





The latest addition to my drawing book. it did upset me a little to draw a dead stag, but the general meaning behind this was to convey how some people really don't care what they do, although killing is an admittedly extreme way of portraying this i felt the message needed to be strong. Because just like the lynx in this illustration, some people just don't have a conscience. I'm not as pleased with the line quality on this one as i am on the others from the drawing book, i 'm not sure why, perhaps it is just because I'm ill and feel out of sorts. Overall i like the meaning and i do like the way my lynx has turned out.

Monday 2 April 2012

(The type of animation i would like to aspire to)

I recently saw this video and i wanted to add it to my blog as it its the type of animation and quality of animation that i would like to aspire to , i also like the song.

Love Is Like Eating A Table (stop motion animation by myself and Jessica Deacon)

Love is like eating a table is a combination of both my illustrated characters and Jessica Deacons technological, stop motion wizardry and computer skills. The songs lyrics and music were written by myself and performed along side Jessica.

Sunday 1 April 2012

Awfully pretty stitch



I was kindly given a lot of old cross stitch designs by a friend, this one had been partly started so i decided to finish it and add text. The scene, to me looked as though the poor girl in the purple has been replaced by the girl in the pink, so i added tears and a rather nasty tag line, although , i wish it had been the girl in the pink who was the one in tears, if life was perfect it would be. I like the way i have used a cruel line in the text, yet from a far the image looks rather appealing and innocent, some might say , quite pretty and feminine.

This piece shall be used as part of the free gift set in our collaboration magazine, along side other rather horrible delights, there will be lots more wicked stitch, post cards, potions and more , you shall just have to wait and see.