Laura Marling: Folk Deity

So, this is probably my last post of the year.
So all at once, Merry Christmas, and have a Happy New Year.



Looks like I'm ending this year on a note pretty similar to the beginning of this year.
Way back in October I had the pleasure of seeing Laura Marling perform again.

Once again she managed seemingly effortlessly blow my mind.
If you ever fall upon a chance to be in her audience, I suggest you take it.

The image above depicts the performance of two songs back to back from her most recent album 'A Creature I Don't Know,' titled 'Don't Ask Me Why' and 'Salinas'.
These songs are meant to be heard together, and just for a bit of clarity, I think you should have a listen:

Don't Ask Me Why/Salinas (Live at the WFVU)


This album, that she finished this year, may be my favourite Laura Marling album so far, and is one of the many incredible albums released this year.

I've been tempted to do a typical 'Top # Albums of 2011' post, but instead I've settled on creating a playlist full of some my favourite songs from these albums. I know that's equally as low on the creative scale, but still. I enjoy it.

I hope you do too, just click below to listen:



So yeah, to re-iterate Have a Happy New Year.

Lets start again next year.
In the best possible way.

P-P-P-P-P-P

Hey there, I'm still alive.

Here's just a glimpse of one of the few things that have been
preoccupying me the last couple of months.

I've been extremely busy lately, so much so that I've finally skipped a month of blogging,
which I had a personal vow not to do.

C-C-C-Combo Breaker and whatnot.

You won't hear much from me here until the end of November,
for more information as to why, click right here.

Might seem like it came out of nowhere, but yeah, it's all about Pixel Art,

I've almost finished writing about it, so now it's time to make some more.

On that note here's some awesome Chiptune.

On a completely unrelated note, Happy Halloween!

Headgear

Lady Protection
Lady Super
Lady Taminiau III







Abbey Lee Kershaw
Mariya Markina
Charlotte ?

First Rome

I went to Rome in March.
I've been holding onto these for a while.



For the first time in years I ditched the digital camera
and borrowed my friend's old film camera.
I enjoyed it, it made taking photos more interesting,
as I had to be more selective with what memories I wanted to capture.

Have a gander at a few select pictures after the jump, or if you want to see the whole set, view them on my new brand Flickr page.

Aqua-Don

I had the choice of working in monochrome or colour - biro or paint.



I chose to paint. That choice became the bane of my life for 2 weeks.



I've never been a fast painter, out of all the things I'm slow at, it may be the thing I'm slowest at. I gave myself 7 intricate paintings to do, because compromise wasn't an option for this vision.

2 weeks is a long time without sleep.

Angels

Apparently.

Metronomy. The Look. The Bay.

Back in April I had the pleasure of seeing Metronomy perform at Rough Trade. At the same time I manage to finally get hold of their long awaited 3rd album, The English Riviera. Afterwards with their song 'The Look' stuck in my head I sat down for a while and did this:





I've become aware that all I draw in my personal sketchbook these days are musicians,
but I'm OK with that.

After their performance in a typical fluster to get my album signed I nervously met the band and ended up having the tiniest of conversations with them, which ended up with me receiving these buttons:



I think all I managed to blurt out afterwards was, 'these are awesome!' And then I huddled off. I'm currently annoyed with myself about this encounter, as I completely forgot to ask them who did the illustrations on the buttons, as they're great! If anyone reading this happens to know could you please tell me!

I've always admired the music videos Metronomy come out with, they almost always find the perfect balance between distinct style and narrative, and when they don't, they always excel in one or the other. To keep it short you'll want to see all of their music videos.

Just watch these and you'll see what I mean:

Their last single:


Their latest single:


And I think I'll end with what is my favourite Metronomy video, and probably my favourite music video ever so far. There's no question about it, you will enjoy this:

PCP (Print Crowne Plaza)

Here's a series of screen prints I created for a Crowne Plaza Hotel Competition. The students of CSM were challenged to create illustrations with the London Blackfriars scene as the theme.

Wow these are old, seriously, I did these back in March...







Unfortunately I didn't win, and as far as I'm concerned I didn't even come close (although how am I to know? I had no insider knowledge of the voting panel). I believe this because this project was extremely rushed, as I was horrendously pushed for time, I'd just returned from Rome with just over a week left to work on the project, found myself a week behind work wise, and had 2 other projects and another live brief to work on alongside this one. The plus side was, I became a little bit more competent at screen printing.

But, as a minus every other part of the project went wrong, and I may have screwed everything else up. A few years ago I wrote in the 'About Me' Section; 'I have a problem, I want to do everything at once causing me to treat time & fatigue as the greatest of enemies.'

I'm not sure what to think about the fact that nothing has changed.

CSM Pop Up Shop/Off Sight Exhibition

This is happening right now!



CSM students are having a Pop Up Shop! In which we're selling a great selection of hand made items! It's running from 8-10th of this month! So yeah, todays the second day, once again another slightly late post. The pop up shop is running alongside the CSM Off Sight print protest exhibition, running until the 21st of June. Th exhibition shows a plethora of brilliant print work from the students of CSM, in response to recent problems with our print and bookbinding studios.

For more info on the Pop Up Shop check out: csmpopup.tumblr.com
For more info on the Off Sight exhibition check out: off-sight.tumblr.com


My contribution to the shop is a hand-bound narrative zine called Summer/Winter.
I've unintentionally been keeping this under wraps the last few months. It'a a story of gods seasons, based in a universe in which the seasons are run by gods, and the problems which would be bound to occur. This is where my characters Summer and Winter stemmed from.

The zine comes in a special package:


In the package you get a copy of the zine along with a free print of Summer or Winter!










The zine has 3 different covers to choose from, a neuteral cover, summer cover, and winter cover! Overall there are only 10 copies in total, so if you feel like it come pick up a copy!

The shop is on right now! If you're in London you've still got a couple of hours to check it out tonight! If not, the last day is tomorrow from 12-7! There are some awesome stuff on sale here and you won't want to miss out!

Let's just say I'm surrounded by some incredibly talented people.

See you there.

57 Protagonists

Tomorrow the Central Saint Martins 2nd year illustration work in progress exhibition begins.
We've called the show 57 Protagonists:



I probably should have mentioned this earlier, ah well.
The show shall be from 2nd-11th June at the SW1 Gallery in Victoria.
If you're based in London, come on down for the private view tomorrow (2nd) and enjoy some lovely illustration with a touch of added alcohol & cake courtesy of Bea's of Bloomsbury just for the night.

For more information check out the show's...
Work in progress blog: http://57protagonists.blogspot.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/57protagonists
Facebook Event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=201041676597544

Oh and one more thing,
a sneak peek of what you'll see from me at the show:

IV-V-VI

The Damage

Hai guise, I'm back.


This is how I've felt the last 2 months.

Just been constantly bombarded with work. I spent the holidays interning with the wonderful Inca Starzinksy, whilst at the same time trying to figure out what to do my impending dissertation on! When I finally made up my mind, the holiday was over and it was back to work. And, as it was the last project of the year, I decided to do something I'm not that great at.... paintings... 7 frikkin paintings.

Let's just say I'm still blinded by ambition and foolish as ever.

I just managed to hand in work for this year's final assessment on Friday, but at a cost:


That illustration was probably a metaphor for my room too.

I haven't been here for a while, so my list of things to post here has grown over time. Expect a ton of new stuff soon. But not too soon. I'm still very lost in a swamp of academia.

Ghostpoet. Liiines.

I've been listening to a lot of Ghostpoet recently, particularly this song:

Liiines


Hot damn, I think this man must be at least 60% of what I want to be.

I'll admit, drawing on lines was a conscious decision, but only because Roxie Vizcarra very indirectly suggested I do so...
I didn't have any graph paper OK.

Seasonal Proof

Ah, I was only meant to scan them in...





A couple of month old character sketches from my last narrative project
that I want to redux before I post here.
You've seen the apparently androgynous one before.

Just so you know Spring and Autumn exist too, they just didn't get as far as these two. If they were in the final story, it would have become a 50 page epic. Accomplishing something like that that in 3 weeks is something that's only possible in my dreams.

Mother

Yeah I came back for her.

Our Lethaby

Ok so...



Yes, this is what that was all about.

This animation is a response to the "My Lethaby" project we had recently, in which we had to create a form of moving image that celebrates the Central Saint Martins Lethaby Building located on Southampton Row. We are leaving the building for King's Cross next year you see.

The aim was to display the building as even more beautiful visions, so that the world outside of Central Saint Martins would appreciate the beauty too, a beauty that it has taken many time to fall in love with. It also displays the students' nostalgic thoughts as they mentally prepare themselves for the KX move.

We were working in pairs this time round, indeed this is a collaborative effort with Kenny Yu. I must admit this animation isn't what I'd usually come up with, and it may be the first piece of moving image I've ever done that isn't narrative based,
about time eh.

Now to end with a few still moments:

SCRN PRNT WNTR

Finally done my screen printing induction. For the induction we could create an image based on anything we wanted, so I opted for one of my brand new characters.

I present to you, Winter:



I put these together using a paper stencil and 2 images exposed from acetate prints. In the end I managed to create 24 2-3 colour screen prints in total, and each one is completely unique. Not too shab.

Here are 6 more of my favourites, just click on any of them to view them at a reasonable size.





Ah, to think I'm technically on my 3rd year at CSM and I've only just got round to screen printing seems a bit ridiculous. A little part of that is my fault, but most of it isn't, seeing as I wasn't even allowed to use the facilities until the start of this academic year.

***

There has been a lot of controversy recently at Central Saint Martins about the proposed future state of our printing & bookbinding facilities. The CSM administration have proposed to move all our print facilities to Byam Shaw as a consequence of our big move to Kings Cross, and that in their place we have more computer suites and desks. They have changed things from their original (and logical) plan to keep the facilities on the same site as the people who would use them, which is a massive shame, sacrificing the traditional for the digital.

The students of CSM Graphic Design are not happy, and have been protesting ever since.
So please help us, and sign our petition, we only need a few more signatures:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/csm-to-lose-print-workshops-to-byam-shaw/

Also, to keep up to date with and find out more about what's going on, check out the protest blog here: http://csmprintprotest.tumblr.com/

Thank you.

Disconnecting from Desire

Phew,
it's been a busy busy month, and now I've got a quite a few things just dying to be posted here. I'll start with something simple.

A few weeks ago we were asked to create one A4 image based on desire. However, after the hand in, I made a few changes:



Desire is the motivation behind all human action, it controls us.
Without desire, people would do nothing.

After I created this image, I looked back at it, and I just didn't like it.
So I decided I need to change what I consider my drawing style.

Now I just have to see if my subconscious will allow it.

Lethaby

And now for something completely different.

Objects of Undesire

This has been a long time coming.

Here is the redux of that project I was talking about a few posts ago, part 1 of a 3 part project. We simply had to illustrate 4 personal annoyances.
My 4 things, were quite hard to muster,
but I dug deep into that unhappy place and pulled something out.

Now I've never wanted to use this blog as a platform for whining, but this project basically dictates me to do so. Hey, at least my mostly ashamedly trivial persecutions are illustrated. Here goes:

No.1: Sleep


I have a love hate relationship with sleep, there are some times when I just can't get enough of it, but sadly most the time I dislike the whole idea. I'm no insomniac, I have no problem sleeping, my problem is that I've somehow grown up with the mentality that when I'm sleeping I could be doing something else, so I like to stay awake for as long as possible.
I have chronic sleep guilt.

No.2: 'Spelling Nazis' who aren't 'Grammar Nazis' and vice versa


There's something that just infuriates me when people correct my spelling whilst simultaneously using incorrect grammar. The moments when this specifically happen are no doubt rare, but they do happen. Still there are people who insist on pointing out your spelling/grammar mistakes, at times with an annoying sense of 1-upmanship, even though they really didn't need to, and even though they themselves get things wrong all the time.

If you're going to constantly correct me on an aspect of the English language, please at least try to be constant with yours. And with a line like that, maybe I'm a hypocrite? In retrospect it does sound very silly asking only people perfect at speaking English to correct me when I'm wrong.

Overall I think the crux of this problem is I don't like being wrong, which is a problem for someone who gets things wrong all the goddamn time. I don't think I've had one day where I haven't said something that's left fact in fits of laughter or rage.
I just don't enjoy being corrected by someone who's wrong.

No.3: Unnecessary narrow passage blockers


I must point out that it's still possible to maintain conversation whilst walking in single file. To the offenders out there, you do realise that by doing this you leave me only 3 routes of passage, all of which are faux pas. (4 if you happen to be a high jumping star with catlike reflexes)

No.4: When people tell you to do things... that you're already doing


If this happens to you, you'll get it.

Talking to my friends recently, it's occurred to me that there's a severe lack of work in progress on this blog. Seeing as this project really evolved over time, this seems to be the ideal time to start showing this sort of work again. So, here, here & here are some of the initial drawings that I did for this project, looking at them, you can see why I started them again...