Some shots from my degree show exhibition, and another exhib at the Mailbox in Birmingham I was invited to take part with along with some of my friends from uni. The degree show opening night was amazing, fun had by all, partly to do with the excellent array of complimentary food and wine being waitered around by the poor 2nd years who had been roped into volunteering. There was even little cubes of cheese on sticks..
This is the latest of the roughs I’ve been sketching for lovely people You Slut! and their new album cover.
And some postcard designs. (BEHOLD my use of colour. I finally stopped avoiding Photoshop - cue interesting yet feverish weekend poring over layers, swatches and opacity levels)
What does one do when bored on a train? Have a conversation with yourself of course, via the medium of comics.
my scanner is awful…will anyone buy me a new one? 
some random bits…some bits from trowbridge pump fest (always a favourite) and that. love x
And a little strip I did the finishing work on in a workshop at uni (I can’t credit the writing and the drawing to myself - I just did the finishing pencil)
Been getting frustrated with this so have stopped for the day. But this is what it looks like now…
It’s a bit rough, plus the photo is poor quality (excuses!), but I’m just playing. Painted in a background first, then worked on it with a combination of pencil, charcoal and pencil crayon. This isn’t quality enough to be a finished spread but I can again use it as a guide to something more final and polished.
A productive and thought-provoking day. More to come.
nay.
Today I am sketching from my dioramas. This is a new way of working for me that I discovered recently. I have started to recycle my work.. First I photocopied a lot of images from newpapers and stuff I had lying about in my room, as well as some photos I had taken and sketches and that. Then I cut them all up and played about with compositions and collage. This then morphed into dioramas which are like 3D collages - I made all the photocopies little card stands, played with more compositions and scenes and took photos of them. Tidied them up on photoshop, then drew from the compositions I’d made as a guide to a final spread.. You can see two steps of the process in the photos above. The sketch is roughly A4 size. I’ve enlarged it to about 4 times the original size and am intending to work back into it…possibly with acrylic. I am excited about the concept of continually rebuilding and working into an image…I think this could be good for me and my crappy attention span…
…watch this space!
nay.
Through recent experience, I have become a firm believer in the concept of the “Birthday Weekend”, in which you draw out the anniversary of your birth over two or possibly three days, not nessecarily consecutive, with a fun mix of extensive drinking (cider), favourite foods (prawns), BBQs (sunshine), hottubs (bubbly), shopping (ukulele), talking cards (moonpig), drunken acrobatics (Mitch), free drinks (note to self: baileys and taboo literally do not mix), rowing (avoid angry swans), charity shops (offensive mugs), take aways (chicken kebab), mix tapes, toilet humour and watching Tim swat wasps with a placemat.
Marvellous.
Radiohead are the greatest. I had the honour of watching them live and in the flesh at the Manchester L.C.C.C last night, and they were absolutely PHENOMENAL! Everything about the show was sheer class - amazing venue, awesome light show, a PERFECT set list and some cool ass funky dancing from Thom Yorke to boot!!!
I shall go and see them again and again until the day I die or the day I go bankrupt!!
Found this beautiful video of Thom and Jonny covering Portishead’s The Rip. The link is being annoying so just scroll down the main blog entrys to Mon 09 June
http://www.radiohead.com/deadairspace/
X
Greetings and salutations! I return to the blog. I confess I have been neglecting it slightly. Anyway, on with it!
In Other News today!
1. Book Of The Moment is The Lies Of Locke Lamora. This is a debut, I repeat debut novel of the fantasy/con artist/dastardly evil plot genre by a guy called Scott Lynch, and it was (excuse my french) fucking awesome! I’m so eloquent aren’t I? It’s gripping exciting funny mysterious violent scary and above all else completely hooked me from the first page in! I suggest you look it up, it won’t disappoint. Again if you are morally encompased and do not approve of foul language then don’t bother. You’ll be missing out on a cracking story though!
2. I’m starting to wonder why all the books I’m buying recently have an excess of swearing in them. Hide them on the top shelf!
3. I watched Time Bandits last night and fell in love with all the little dwarf people!! Unhealthy obsession perhaps.
4. Lots of boring blah about uni going OK but a bit stressful and I can’t be bothered to go into it.
5. We have a shiny new house to move in to for our last university year. The main pro I can see about it is there’s a dodgy looking greasy spoon cafe just around the corner which I can imagine purchasing bacon cobs and tea in unmatching mugs from! 
Simple pleasures in life. I wouldn’t have it any other way!
6. Pump Festival! I am officially going! Well, I have saved up enough money for my ticket so that’ll do for now heh… I’m looking forward to wearing a ridiculous assortement of clothes that I’d usually get beaten up for wearing in normal circumstances. The oppression of society eh! Can’t even wear a pair of brightly coloured patchwork trousers without being assaulted! Or being called a paedophile clown or something! Lol sorry.
Right then, I’d better skidaddle, as my Dad would say. Work to do! People to see! Distasteful jokes to crack!
Sayonara
BOOK of the moment is Pilo Family Circus by Will Elliot, deeply depraved and hilarious in more ways than one, a tale of a boy forced to join a very un-ordinary circus to become a very un-ordinary clown. When our hero Jamie dons his white greasepaint he falls victim to JJ, his evil clown alter ego, who gets Jamie into trouble at every oppurtunity. Jamie has to work out a way of escaping the circus but his clown boss, Gonko, the other circus minions and especially JJ himself have different ideas..
Mwahaha… If this sounds like your cup of tea please support the cause and buy a copy. It’s wicked storytelling. Only, if you don’t go for large amounts of profanity and violence then this may not be the book for you!! Personally I thought it was brilliant mate. A piece of sheer joy.
I am feeling unnaturally optimistic that I will be able to finish all my university work on time for my deadlines next week. To put it mildly, I have an awful lot to do. I’m trying to stay calm. I like doing my illustration at the moment but I seem to have other annoying things conflicting in which I am having trouble ignoring. Nothing is fitting together, things are constantly obstructing each other and not lying how they should. So many things! I wish everyone would just fuck off. I wish my course wasn’t so great one second and ultimately shocking the next. So shocking it’s ridiculous. Yes I know lets have all the deadlines in the world within 2 days of each other.
Bolllllocks to it!