lalala tralala trooloo lala

I forgot to post this image when i did it for the Biba preview before Fashion Week Amelia's Magazine


I like it a lot actually, sometimes you know you're not going to be able to do something justice if you try and be too accurate, so creating an impression is the way to go, which is this case paid off.

I wrote an essay at the weekend. go me. And i ate an enormous almond croissant. In the Rain.

It was all about my art education to date, formal and informal, so here are a few blasts from my past to remind you i was allways awesome, not just now.

Heylow.

I want to talk a bit about some awesome stuff that i have seen and done recently.

I went to the Cicus Bookazine blog slam with Amelia ('s magazine) which was a somewhat unique experience. Can something be somewhat unique? yes. I wrote all about it and posted my sketchings here.

this is Bangs and a Bun - one of the contributing readers.

Then on the PeeGeeCeeEee I've been doing some arty project work with kids like this awesome London cityscape they made.
I am not very good at being a teacher yet, but it's early days.

Then on Thursday I attended the Make Space Studios open studios to help launch a design company I'm, i think the best word is affiliated, with Splash Graphic Design.

I love open studio events, (tho I have no desire to go to all of them - you can have too much of a good thing) you get all the different types of creatives hanging out together and you get exposed to things you wouldn't have seen otherwise. They're better than degree shows I think, although the standard of work is just as variable, because everyone that's there is really determined, or at least successful.

Some fun illustrators like Katie Leamon who does, you know, like birds and swirls and pretty stuff. I don't know whether Tom Leamon is her lover or her brother, I could find out but I prefer not to, but I super love his big eye prints check this out


hot eh?

I also got talking to some nice film makers at Unthank who are super aces. here is one of their videos.

Toy Cars & Grave Yards - an unthank ident from unthank on Vimeo.

I get a bit confused when i start putting other people's who are not me work up here, so here is something wot i made to finish off.

it is of celebrities.

alright Chickens?
feeling friendly? feeling comfy? feeling flat?

this is still my all time favourite song to stop what your doing for a few minutes and recharge your batteries by jumping manicly around the bedsit



can't wait to see what he does for this year.

Here are 2 pictures I did when I was feeling naughty enough to enter a competition, it's to coincide with the comics of my favourite ever book (and film ) the Last Unicorn and the winners will be in the actual comic so I could be reaching many whimsical geeks like me worldwide. so fingers crossed for that.

I am thinking about a realatively major website overhaul. In my copius free time of course, but watch the space that is here.

London Fashion Week Illustration of Carmen Secareanu for Amelia's

I need to work on my Work/Life balance.

I need to stop having so much of a life.

Honestly it's an issue but i'm in massive denial at the moment, 3 weeks into my year long intensive Art and Design PGCE I'm still acting pretty much the same as when I was a dirty freelancer, I need to choose aspects of my lifestyle to cut back on or i will probably break down or fail the course. fun times.

Basically, I may have to not actually watch the entirety of the second season of Australia's Masterchef that's on Watch at the moment. Also I may have to actually learn to say the word no when I'm asked to do work, especially unpaid work. And I suppose I could spend less time looking at pictures of birds and shoes on the internet. maybe. And not go out at all.

I'm not sure which of these would be harder.

I'm not sure I can do it.

hi hi hi, busy busy times,
I've been doing some sketches and reviews for London Fashion week tho pretending I'm on Fashion TV, aces, you can see them here and here.backstage sketch from the Truimph International Awards - i got some free pants. i am wearing them now. bit small.

Pierre Garroudi illustration

Pierre Garroudi catwalk sketches

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.