Drawing live musicians is great, although it gets harder (and more exciting) the more mobile they are. 

A week or so ago I went to a gig my friend Cynthia of Sophecy played in King's Cross, but managed to catch only the last fading notes of her performance as I rushed from a Year 7 parents evening 

(I made a 12 year old cry, worth it). 

To console myself I drew two of the remaining acts, the Mumfordesque Narrow Plains and the very exciting Shockolady. The latter was an example of the harder kind of live drawing as she was pulling out a lot of sexy moves. 

Okay, more blogging.

So last week, in a joyfully busy evening the kind of which I could never get away with if I had to teach in the near to middling future (this may be the rest of my life. don't laugh. till you see me at a mid week gallery opening drinking water - then congratulate me) I spent a joyful hour drawing and (not as begrudgingly as I'd have you believe) participating in an instance of the One Hour Plays as presented by the amoresome Matey Institute.

that was a very long sentence sorry. I have a job interview on friday to be an english teacher. Yeah that's right laugh.

Anyway. The show is basically sort of reduced shakespeare crossed with who's line is it anyway. There's lots of speedy improv which obviously is a bit risky if there isn't a lot of good quick witted and talented heads on hand - which there pretty much was. So I really enjoyed it.

The fantabulous Lorna Watts hanging bunting pre-show

The idea of the show is that starting from nothing the director Brendan Murphy and writer Bec Boey take a selection of actors and audience suggestions and create a ten minute play in an hour and perform it at the end. Costumes are made by Lorna Watts during the hour on stage using a singer sewing machine in an antique pram, and props are made by the audience using a limited selection of crafty bits and pieces. I can tell you a little what happened that night - but not what will happen if you get to see them do it again - the show is at the Edinburgh fringe for a week at Underbelly and at a variety of festivals over the summer - check out the listings here

putting together audience suggestions into 'The Balls in Your Court' a Greek Romantic Comedy set at a 1920s French Tennis club starring a wine seller, an alien and a 'naughty man'

character development

the great Bec Boey does a spot of performance poetry as an additional filler while the cast put on their new costumes. I'm sure there was a reason why I drew the cat in pyjamas. Pretty sure it wasn't actually there.

The final rendition of the play - an epic romance that will last forever in the hearts of those lucky enough to be there for its single rendition.

Here is a drawing of the Arcade Fire for Amelia's magazine
Here is the drawings i did when we went to see a Prom.

This train terminates at Highbury and Islington, all change I repeat All Change. I moved house again, yes kids, I moved NORTH OF THE RIVER

As I assumed I have instantly become 17% cooler. (and 12% more arrogant). I’ve quit the day job and soon I will be embarking on a full time Art and Design PGCE course at the Institute of education.

So I have to stop swearing.

Blerg.

But it’s the thing again with the waiting for the internets to come in. A month ago I was in Spain for 10 days and internetless proper, it was hard for the first few days but I got into it. Now is not so bad as I have blackberry access and there’s always the option of lugging my novelty oversized laptop to a wifi pub or cafe l’internet. But still. Adds up to a poor online presence and little or no of the blogging.

Here is a painting I did of the house I was staying at in Espagna, it was roughly a million miles from everywhere. Poifect relaxy days and family time.

But just cos I’ve not been around much don’t think I haven’t been, you know, doing stuff. Before I left the South London massive I went to see my old friend Rokhsan at Tracked in Tooting, which was pretty Ace. Because I’ve been meaning to draw her for ages and I know her and stuff the self imposed sub conscious pressure of it all made my drawings a bit crap, this is the best one, I wanted to draw her full length to get in her awesome shoes

You honest to goodness owe it to yourself to check out her music. It’s super catchy and life affirming. I refuse to use any musicy adjectives to describe it because I’ll probably get it wrong, so you just have to listen to it yourselves.

Before she played this band Alms from Bristol were also on. I really liked their song Simply which you can hear on their myspace. They kind of reminded me of Kimya Dawson but I couldn’t tell you why.

Chris

I’ve been pressing on with the facebook project and have now drawn all the Chrises. Although I’m still a way off the end of the Cs. The project was featured by Balled Of Magazine last week as well, they always say the nicest things. It would be enough to make me blush if I were the blushing type and not the alabaster tanless type. I bought some half price Nicola Roberts fake eyelashes, but I havn’t worn them yet.

Forthcoming expect lots of nice fashion stuff as London Fashion Week rolls round again. And some more political stuff should be on the horizon too.

In recent journalising I did a (mostly) nice write up of the Cycling in London Exhibition and I also did an interview of Tigz Rice about her new book Bitten.

Last week I went to the Comica Comiket thing in Battersea Park, I met Paul Shinn and Cliodhna again, made pathetic fangirly conversation with Philippa Rice and oblique zine conversation with Mark Pawson. And I saw Paul Gravett, although I did not speak to him. I only took £10 on purpose so I didn’t buy much.

I had the same issue as with the Zine fairs I’ve been to – trying to judge books by their covers basically, as the likelihood of the actual writing in these things being super cynical and depressing is very high. Because, you know, it’s quite depressing being a massive geek and social outcast I imagine. Ha. But then there are really cool people who do this kind of thing as well, but trying to tell the difference with a quick flick through on a table is hard.

The actual hyper comics exhibition in the Pumphouse Gallery is really good though. I think the idea is all about taking Comics into new directions, literally, like different story strands. You can’t really do this in the book format without the old turn to page 156 if you think Joey should slay the monster, turn to page 178 if you think Joey should have a nice cup of tea format (although that is awesome obviously).

So the comics were all over the walls. Warren Pleece’s Montague Terrace has joyfully unlikely simultaneous timestreams, and Daniel Merlin Goodbrey has big complex multistrand puzzle type stories on big squares that take up the whole wall. There are 3 pieces about 3 aspects of The Archivist’s life, all aspects of which pretty much reflect a trippy yet compartmentalized view of life. Very fitting for the format, very very geeky, most definitely addictive reading in a way which again sort of reflects the total focus that these activities encourage. I think, well, maybe that’s not what he meant by it. I’m going to be an Ace art teacher eh?

The awesome awesome one was Dave McKean’s The Rut though. Well, I was expecting it to be super awesome, so maybe that affected my judgement a bit, but nah. Just Awesome. Really haunting, and evocative, looking at how stories branch in different ways and a moment can effect someone’s whole life, whichever way it pans out. Also. There is a bright red stags head mounted on the wall. You can’t get much better than that.

here is a collage with fish.

SO this week I have been doing some journalisting, for Amelia's magazine;
last weekend I went to Southampton and wallowed in nostalgia of various kinds, my review of Ejectorseat festival is up here
this is Baku Bankai, they make minimal dance/electronica, apparently (music talk is all french to me).

I also wrote a bit about the Nancyboy Decade exhibition I went to on Wednesday, I'm more proud of this one, will link to it when it's up.

All these little scenes kind of freak me out tho, I mean, I'm allways banging on about how I think people naturally form social groups of around 100 people and are happier and more productive that way (It's ironic because I'm a massive globalization junkie), so of course I expect people to mark out territory. The problem is that people seem really prone to acting like their mini group perspective is obvious and natural, and anyone coming from slightly leftfield is seen as a bit suspicious. I didn't write about this in the article, I wanted to be predominantly positive, and talk about the work (possibly not what Amelia was hoping for). But I do think it's really interesting. Part of it is a school days echo of desperately hanging on to a feeling of belonging to the cool clique.
Here is a drawing of hipster punters round a unintentionally distorted table at the Book Club, I really liked the venue, and I really like Liat and Klaus altho they were too busy (understandably) to really chat to me.

I'm not saying what I mean, and I worry I'm becoming London centric. If I put a little effort into it I'm at the stage now where I could go to some kind of launch and drink free wine most every night of the week here, it's a big city, there's allways stuff going on. It's not hard to crash things, they put up rsvps to guest lists on their websites, but that's what I'm doing really, crashing. And I'm a little bit over it.

Journalism is hard you know, I'm glad that's not what I want to do with my life.
I much prefer drawing pictures of Nicola Roberts (I super love her), this one is for Matt Bramford's cover of Graduate Fashion Week's Gala Show Finale


I also am very pleased with these creepy arm spiders I drew for Magpie Market's the Spider and the Fly logo competition. I didn't win, but it's the excuse to draw weird things that counts.

adventures

this is me writing on the ceiling at the Pop up Pirates launch party last week. large and less large exciting lettering all over the shop and hipsters a go go.

photo by Amelia Gregory from http://yfrog.com/f/1szrkj/

I snuck in with the alternafashionistasuperethicalsocialite herself, which is to say Amelia, and I introduced her to Derek from the AOI, then we hung out like a load of grumpy old cool kids, complaining about how load the music was. it was a fun night for me, I also met some cool people when i pretended to network after. Including the exciting Klaus from the book club, hopefully I will go see his exciting project next week then I will tell you the story he told me.

Then this week I went to the Oh Comely Launch with Caragh, my lovely illustrator friend who I just drew for my facebook project (yes, I'm on the Cs). I was not feeling the networking so much, probably not enough adrenaline in my bloodstream, but I was definitely feeling the cupcakes, and the band that played who I drew
they are called the foxxbandits, go check out their twinkly tunes.
I also did this drawing of some of the unsuspecting event hipsters, the bearded boy in the top right was the DJ, I don't know his name but if anyone does let me know and I will link to his DJ page or something. If he has one.

In other exciting news, I am featured today on the Ballad Of Magazine Website, it's a really awesome magazine with scary pretty stuff, i mean, do you know what i mean? like, creepy lovely. how good is that? it's pretty good actually. I might even do something for their next issue.

Here is a picture of ME, that I drew. Its a bit pink. It's for online bios and stuff, there should be more of them about in the coming weeks. justsaying.
Yes.

here is a picture of Barny from the facebook project. you may remember I met his brother. well I am going to his not wedding next week. that is all.

I am listening to the Younger Younger 28s to get me in the mood to go dancing, whatever happened to them?

here are some drawings that i did in Paris last week, cos thats where I was, in Paris.
here are some drawings at Musee de L'Orangerie, or De Lingerie as i prefer to call it

these are drawings in the famous cemetery with Oscar Wilde in, we didn't find Oscar, but we couldn't help seeing Jim Morrison, there were flocks of tourists seeking him. including many spanish preteens. just like being in Brighton.

this is a band that were playing in Montmartre, it was funny on me because i said to Alex, I said, i want to draw them they look really french. but they were American. Also the star of my failing at cultural recognition is where I was aproached by a clipboard person near the catacoombs (which were cool) and i panicked and told her i did not ablo a spaniel. which is bad. cos she was french. not spanish. obviously.

on the plus side. I had a macaroon from McDonalds, as featured in The Stylist.

Here are some recent Amelia's magazine pictures I did.

this one is from this article about women and the election and stuff.
this is my fave, see how it looks like i drew London Bridge actually there, but actually I drew it at my messy desk looking at Google image search. that's cos i drew it REALLY FAST.

Anyway its all about how there's these elephants, you know like there was those cows before? the Elephants are all over London, they are a bit too My Little Pony in their original form you know, with big cartoony eyes, what's that about? but the art done on them is mostly awesome, so read Matt's article about it with my picture and loads of other cool ones here.

In a little while there will also be toads. in Hull.
really what's next?

but no, it's a good thing because my amazingly talented and special illustrator friend Sasha Heath
is doing one and you can be a part of it! splains here.

oh yes. also, after the other day when I was bitching and moaning cos I failed to draw Robin Ince, I got to draw comediens for Amelia's article about some comedy thing she went to. Including that Mr Ince, I put him in a Pink Stetson which was a reference to the stuff he said when I saw him not when she saw him, yeah? the best bit is that the visual reference I used for the Stetson was a picture of Borris Johnson
and then also I drew Marcus Brigstock talking about political evolution.

that is all.

last night i went to the solipsistic pop 2 launch. it was a pretty fun night, it wasn't super dull at all. i kept my adrenaline levels high by repeatedly talking to strangers and aquaintances, and tenuously connected people. It was nice to see Cliodhna and Jimi there, the zinecore. zinescenecore. yeah. possibly.

anyway. It was awesome and stuff, the book is a thing of beauty, i like the weird comics best, there are a few themes like childhood memories and serendipity snapshot, defining moment type stories. my faves in the comic are Sweet Mystery by Jack Noel, Mud by Matilda Tristram and the back page of the funnies by Joe Decie, who i love anyway. postives positives. it's all good. go comics. I talked to a tall boy called Tom, and he said maybe i can be in Solipsistic Pop 4. so that would be uber cool.

Also at the event was the famous comedien Robin Ince, he talked about comics and philosophy. and mooning. I enjoyed it, especially the bit about the stranger. I failed to draw him and missed his second bit because i was talking to Barny's brother.

This is the story of how i met Barny's Brother: he had only just walked in to the pub but i saw his face as i was coming back from making a phonecall to my friend clare. I asked him if he was Barny's brother, he said he was. we had not met previously. Later i talked to him again and recomended that he read Love and Rockets. sometimes i can be a bit agressively friendly when talking to strangers. I get this from my dad.

Also some musiciens played. this is dogtanioni met them after by mistake, although it didn't look like a mistake, tho it was. they were very nice. i have mentioned before that i am not a music journalist even a little bit, so i will say that i enjoyed their tunes and lyrics. At the bottom in a different blue you can see my aborted drawing of Robin Ince. It was aborted (at 20 weeks) because he stopped talking and left. i should have started earlier, but you know, what's life without regrets?
this is Tristsamor one of him, them, it. whatever. as you can see. he is pretty. his music was too.

stuff and things.

I finally got round to making one of those facebook fan pages that all the kids are talking about. I'm going to do a silly project based there soon i think, you know like one of those, 365 drawings of my cat, or illustrating every single beatles song using only moulding icing projects. not actually one of those two. a different one.
my Cabal design is being made into one of 8 postcards of the super dog, which should be available in May. woo.

I went to see Chilly Gonzales on thursday and did some drawing. he is a great entertainer and awesome musician, but very tricky to draw as his head is allways moving, hair greasin' and flinging about, fingers flying across the keyboard, that sort of thing. here are the 2 i was happy with.

yeah, he was wearing a dressing gown and slippers, the girl is the one he molested as a finale. guess he wanted to make his audience feel violated. the hipsters were loving it.

I also found one of my favourite band drawings i ever did which i am scanning in for your pleasure here:
it's of a band called Skitanja who i saw in 2007, obviously, they seem to like dressing up.