recenda: in a different form

Textual Tourist 3: Now in Three Dee

2011-12-05T14:34:00.001Z

I tried to put this one up at work before the event, but javascript and activex is disabled on their browsers and blogger's terrible new interface is even more fussy about working with any browser that wasn't released in the last two years.

I've got a real corker already lined up for number 4 whenever that happens...

Textual Tourist:: 11/11/11

2011-11-09T18:17:00.001Z

Here's another one I did for the next Textual Tourist night at The Big Green Bookshop (www.biggreenbookshop.com) which is happening on Friday 11th November.

Textual Tourist

2011-09-20T11:04:00.000+01:00

I'm quite pleased with how this one turned out...the original picture of the three people walking along was a shot I took of a bunch of hipsters in a park in Copenhagen.

Poor Johnny

2011-09-03T22:34:00.005+01:00

http://poorjohnny.bandcamp.com

Psychiatric Co-Morbidities

2011-07-29T01:20:00.001+01:00

This was an initial draft illustration for the brochure cover for a conference on adolescent substance misuse, although in the end they decided to go for something in a more surrealist / psychedelic style.

I like the original more.

Obviously.

I made a poster

2011-06-30T17:01:00.001+01:00

So, the place I work for is holding an art exhibition in Dulwich, south east london and appropriately enough for summer time, they're calling it Summer Art Exhibition: Self Portraits. The original title was 'A Blank Canvas', but that name drifted off into the ether after the initial posters asking for submissions were taken down.

It's a showcase of the self-portraits of service users for Lambeth CAMHS; it's a totally worthwhile cause and everyone involved has worked amazingly hard to produce something good with a small budget.

It's free, open to anyone who's curious enough to come along young or old, and it's running from Friday 15th July until Saturday 23rd July at The Lodge, Old College Gate, College Road, Dulwich Park, London, SE21 7BQ.

I made a font

2011-06-20T21:36:00.001+01:00

So, I made a font and all that jazz. It's typically daft, modern and illegible because:

a) It's the first font I ever created

b) I have no idea about typography

c) both of the preceding facts are painfully obvious. (TAUTOLOLOGY!)

Anyway, you can download it here.

Sexually Harassed Panda

2011-03-27T14:36:00.000+01:00

(why does she always want sex?)

Hate is a London (Pride) thing

2011-03-23T20:21:00.002Z

Waves (work in progress)

2011-02-11T16:52:00.002Z

I think I've previously mentioned that Microsoft Publisher is a bit rubbish, inflexible and confusing, but it's surprising what you can do with it you've got patience (read: nothing to do at work) and a bit of imagination. I doodled something similar in a notebook during a meeting nearly two years ago, but never did anything with it once I got home.

Sad Maus 2

2011-01-20T09:53:00.002Z

Sad Maus 1

2011-01-18T16:35:00.002Z

CMYK birds

2011-01-17T10:59:00.002Z

More Lipstick-ed Koalas

2010-11-02T22:52:00.001Z

Worst album covers: what about the rest?

2010-10-16T11:23:00.009+01:00

Your travels hither and thither are a good source of inspiration, but sometimes that urge to create comes out all wonky because you've witnessed something so utterly and truly gash, something that truly epitomises the nature of being a complete gashbasket that you just can't sit by without letting someone else know that you're as mad as hell and you're not going to take it any more...and you're certainly going to quote as much pop culture on the way as possible because that's what everyone loves; complex series of emotions reduced to nifty quotes.

So, enter my thoughts on album covers; there are more than enough lists online and in magazines and invariably they steer towards crimes of the distant past, from an era where image and packaging was secondary to the music...sort of. Coming up with visual crimes is as easy as shooting dead fish in a barrel if you're looking more than 10-ish years into the past, but that's far too easy; every now and then it's nice to hunt out the cream of the (recent) crap and highlight their shitty shittiness in an easy to digest list; incidentally, this could go on for a while so you might want to skip to the end.

My journeys on the London Underground are pretty much my only source of exposure to advertising that I simply don't just mentally block out; for one thing, the ads are too sodding big to completely bypass and sometimes I can't be bothered to read something to pass the time on short journeys, so for the last week or so I've had my eyes molested by Carl Barat's unbelievably gash cover for his solo album and I hate it; it's pretentious, it's boring, it exudes the air of an artist so healvily entrenched in his own world that he doesn't realise that the rest of the world is collectively reaching for the 'W' the 'T' and the 'F'.

Now to be fair to poor, downtrodden, Carl, none of this means that I think that what's hidden within is a total balls (I do actally); we're all told not to judge a book by it's cover and for the most part that would be true were in not for the way that content is marketed in such an aggressively targeted way these days. The same is true for books, TV, films, etc; advertising has become such an exact science that the ad men know which style of packaging to use in which market location to maximise sales. I'd love to pretend that I'm immune to this, but given my fascination with the visual spectacle, my shelves are full of a parade of items with similarly understated packaging aimed at those who probably pursued the arts in education or career or think of themselves as, like, a sensitive thinker, a real creator-type, y'know? In summary I'm a complete whore for pretty logos, clean lines and flat colours and I make myself sick, completely sick...though not as sick as I get when I look at Carl Barat's album cover or when I accidentally finding myself reading Pitchfork. But that's a whole other story for another day.

I'll make a list at some point. Everyone loves lists.

Gig flyers and the delicate art of Microsoft Publisher

2010-08-19T11:15:00.005+01:00

Continuing with my tradition of knocking together gig flyers in MS Publisher quicker than it normally takes in Adobe Illustrator (mostly because I'm really nit-picky with the latter), here's yet another flyer (because that's pretty much all I do nowadays) for a gig down at London's most amazing boozer, The Bird's Nest, featuring Amazingstoke's (Basingstoke) finest punx, Bastad! Rats!, We Grow Beards, Cynics and The Buildings, They Are Sleeping Now.

Koala Burr...

2010-06-01T00:20:00.002+01:00

Couple Flyers...

2010-02-08T11:27:00.007Z

Yeah, I know; the only thing that ever goes up here these days is flyers. I'm always sticking up flyers, but they're kinda fun to do. If you want me to do one for your band or event, drop me a message in the comments.

I love the zoom lens on my new camera...

2010-01-02T22:19:00.006Z

The French have a funny way of fondly remembering their cartoon classics.

Happy new year (bonne année), folks (mes amis).

In other news, my band, To The Boats..! are playing another DIY gig at the Flea Pit (49 Columbia Road, London E2 7RG) on Saturday 16th January...it starts at 8pm, it's probably going to be £3 or £4 to get in and it'll be good fun. Come down and have a little dance with us.

Five Words: Giant Squid Versus Wooly Mammoth

2009-12-09T23:40:00.006Z

I did say I'd get around to doing all of these original requests, so here's my interpretation of Laurence's request, "giant squid versus wooly mammoth".

Yeah, it's really literal (I'm not very subtle), but I was trying out something different stylistically and I sort of like where I could go with this sort of stuff.

Two down, lots more to go.

FYI MUZYK LUVVERZ: I'm now also in band called Georgia Asphalt and we're hopefully going to be doing a mini tour in April. There's no tunes on the myspack yet, but it's noisy abrasive stuff for lovers of dischordant chords and songs about dead crows and pony play. YOU SHOULD TOTES ADD UZ TO YR MYSPAZZE, BABEZ.

I don't know...I really don't.

2009-12-07T20:47:00.002Z

To The Boats..!

2009-11-20T16:02:00.005Z

Big up, Boat! fans; to celebrate the fact that Thursdays and NovemBEAR are both TOTALLY awesome things, we're playing a gig at the Legion in Old Street on Thursday 26th NovemBEAR in LONDON, ENG-ER-LAND. WOO WOOOOO!!!

Also playing are...Penecillin, Pirate Radio, Hills and Hollows, and Yer Beauties. If you love those bands; BE BEAR (there..AHAHAHALOL) OR BE SQUARE.

Johanna Brewer: Aesthetic Journeys

2009-10-21T11:37:00.003+01:00

A long time ago (3 years) in a land far away (Crystal Palace), I was interviewed by a friend of a friend as part of a series of interviews with people who use the London transport system on a daily basis. The paper was entitled "Aesthetic Journeys", and I was asked (I think) because of my old 3d tube map project, which even at that point, two years after creation, was like a forgotten box of memories under the bed for me.

I'm normally quite poor at remembering the fine details of events, but I remember it being a strange interview in that I went off on all sorts of bizarre tangents about how I get around London and the things I carry with me to survive the journey. In essence, I was never sure how useful my nonsensical ramblings were, but for some reason today, it struck me that I hadn't ever read the research paper, which is here. It's a good read, but I'm ashamed to say that I've only gone through half of it so far; I'll finish the rest on my bus and train journey home, which seems like a fitting way to digest the information.

Incidentally, if you do read through it, I'm the one called "Carey" (my real name is Corey).

Album update: Paypal Link

2009-10-12T13:42:00.012+01:00

Update: It looks like the Paypal page doesn't want to be directly linked to, so the link now points to our band's site, which has the functioning Paypal link.

Paypal - 1 / Recenda - 0

This isn't over...

To The Boats..! debut album, Bruised Pilgrim

2009-09-13T23:23:00.006+01:00

I don't know why its taken me so long to put this up here, but I'm still quite chuffed about seeing our band's album finally pressed. There's something that's just a bit lovely about having the physical product as opposed to just having the digital audio files stored in a random directory on your computer.

So, if anyone would like to buy a copy, it's only a fiver (not including postage and a heartfelt letter of gratitude), let me know and I'll sort something out.

Deftones - Kentish Town Forum 27/08/09

2009-08-28T13:53:00.005+01:00

Deftones - Needles and Pins: live at the Kentish Town Forum 27th August 2009. Terrible quality recording, but it's a great song.

Update: Date edited...I'm not really correctly oriented in time and space because it's my week off. And because I watched two thirds of Primer.

TTB t-shirt logo idea: refined

2009-08-13T23:06:00.006+01:00

I don't know if anyone reading this remembers the TCB logo from the 1970's/80's, but now that I look at this version, I get that nostalgia vibe that I used to get my my mum used to comb my hair out in front of all her hair products before I went off to nursery school.

There was always this one canister of TCB that was on her dressing table when we lived back in our old house. I didn't even think about it until I finished this, but it's just a nice reminder of a less complicated life.

A Postcard From Edging.

2009-08-13T23:03:00.003+01:00

To The Boats..! t-shirt logo idea

2009-08-06T18:42:00.004+01:00

I was an hour and a half late for work because I stayed up until tweaking the lines on this.

T'Boats

2009-07-27T00:08:00.009+01:00

The band I'm in, To The Boats..!, are having a little album launch shindig on the 5th September at The Flea Pit and to celebrate this, I made a little flyer.

I'm not sure what the co-axial cable/red square hole juxtaposition says about my state of mind.

Update: Obviously there's no Saturday the 4th September...I was just testing to see who's watching. Anyone else need flyer done with lots of mistakes on?

Billy should have stopped

2009-06-29T22:23:00.002+01:00

Ginger is hungry

2009-06-19T23:01:00.004+01:00

We don't want your kind around here

2009-06-19T22:59:00.002+01:00

Dethscalator

2009-06-19T22:55:00.004+01:00

Awesome fucking band.

That's it.

Must stop saying "awesome".

I'm not dead, I'm just resting my eyes

2009-06-15T11:49:00.006+01:00

There is no helping the helpless.

So much for the grand plan to rejuvinate myself artistically, eh? I tried, I failed, my mood went down faster than Monica Lewinsky (old cultural reference, I know) and I deleted myself from social networking sites and became addicted to The Wire (ta' Alex). Honestly, in terms of liberating experiences, binning a Facebook profile is right up there with running naked through the streets on drugs.

Annoyingly, despite my intentions to do something more visual, my attentions have veered recklessly back towards the aural again (fuck you, music). All of the illustrative beginnings of this stupid idea of a "five words" project are there, and honestly, some of them look really good. Honest. I will finish them eventually.

Really.

I will.

Boredoms in the Bathroom

2009-05-29T21:40:00.005+01:00

Savel-oi music lovers,

My friend Martin's band, Boredoms in the Bathroom, are playing their very first gig in London on the 26th of June at the White Hart in Whitechapel (the one opposite the Blind Beggar pub). To celebrate this momentous occasion (and because he asked) I've done him a lovely flyer wot I'm rather pleased with.

The White Hart is a bit of a special venue to me because I've played there with my band five times now and it's genuinely one of the nicer places I've played at. It's not the fanciest, or the one with the loudest and best kit, but the guys who put the nights on, Bedsprings, are some of the nicest guys to play for and it's always a great atmostphere.

Basically what I'm getting at is, you should come and see Martin & co. play on June 26th at the White Hart. It'll be lovely.

Five Words: Shaking out the loose teeth

2009-05-28T22:50:00.006+01:00

A somewhat predictable start for Martin's request, but it was the easiest of the bunch. Lets see if these actually get any better.

Five Words

2009-05-27T14:39:00.005+01:00

I've seen other people do this on other blogs and this is as much of a gauge of whether anyone actually visits this thing as much as it is a way for me to break out of a creative rut.

Give me a sentence; 5 words or less. Or perhaps just a collection of 5 words. I'll try to turn it into something, no matter how flimsy and sketchy, in any medium within 7 days. I'm giving myself a time limit because I'm a procrastinator of epic proportions and I know I'll just end up leaving it if I don't.

So, if there's anyone out there, leave a comment here.

werq'in pro-gress

2009-05-11T20:21:00.003+01:00

unrelated photos

2009-03-30T19:43:00.003+01:00

My vacuum cleaner likes to get a little wild...

2009-02-27T13:45:00.004Z

"Oh Henry, you said you'd quit!"

It occurred to me that I've never done a lolcat

2009-02-23T19:53:00.001Z

Rumours of a Hurry Came

2008-12-22T18:21:00.005Z

The Crunch raised it's fist and paused to let out a mocking laugh before delivering a final blow.

Our old friend now lies bleeding in the high street as we rifle through its pockets for anything interesting.

Nothing but crap.

Typical.

loc: Woolworths, Lewisham (left) // Woolworths, Brixton (right)

About 4096

2008-12-09T22:23:00.006Z

It's quite weird. I only saw it from the outside when I was younger, but I finally crossed the threshold this year after it was too late. Now that I feel that I'm only just starting to get to know it, it's going to belong to someone else.

Exit

2008-11-10T23:02:00.002Z

Tales From the Sketchpad: Chocolate Tubgirl

2008-10-26T20:48:00.004Z

More sketchy goodness; I'm still terrible at doing hands and I was too lazy to draw her friend, but thankfully there's no "poem" this time.

If you go here the title Chocolate Tubgirl makes more sense.

Tales From The Sketchpad: Mr P

2008-10-22T18:02:00.004+01:00

Dear Mr. P,

Some people think you're a rat with wings,
I think you're a crackhead of the sky,
Please stop rifling through my bins,
You're making the children cry.

Barr @ The Luminaire, Kilburn: 18/10/08

2008-10-20T22:04:00.006+01:00

I missed the first verse because I was in awe, but here's the rest of Barr's first song.

A Simple Plan

2008-10-13T20:43:00.005+01:00

My first attempt at manual photo stitching

2008-10-08T00:00:00.003+01:00

A Blast From the Past

2008-08-20T22:37:00.007+01:00

I rediscovered these old drawings on my hard drive tonight, it just reminded me that I really need to start drawing more cartoons again. As much as I love the precision I can get with vectors, I miss the slow process from pencil sketch to fully colourised picture.

Wolf Eyes

2008-08-04T14:08:00.003+01:00

Wheels: An Update

2008-07-22T22:50:00.005+01:00

Yesterday I made a post about the bus I was travelling on hitting a woman in a wheelchair. It turns out it wasn't actually a woman in a wheelchair, it was a man on a bike. The strange thing is, is that the way the bike was twisted around the guy's waist *did* make it look like it was riding in a wheelchair, and the rims on the wheels were a bit confusing. Anyway, it looks like he did survive.

Still can't get the noise out of my head though. Oh, and that's not my picture...just in case anyone's wondering.

Wheels

2008-07-21T13:39:00.003+01:00

Brixton is slightly chaotic at the moment. Actually, let me rephrase that, Brixton is slightly more chaotic than usual at the moment and it’s all down to the road improvement works that are going on. As a direct knock on effect, it means that all the bus stops and pavements are in various states of disarray and when I need to travel between sites to get to my afternoon job, I generally feel quite lucky if my bus turns up quickly at the temporary stop and stays long enough for me to get on it without getting knocked off the bus by the closing doors. I felt quite lucky when I managed to hop on a number 59 today just as I turned up at the stop and luckier still when I found that the top deck was nice and quiet.

It takes a bit more time to get through the main section of Brixton Rd because of all the road works going on but I was surprised that the bus was nipping through the traffic pretty handily today. We were just at the crossing in front of the underground station I was idly texting a mate and staring out of the window when I heard a pretty loud crash, the distinctive sound of metal scraping on concrete and a few shouts of “oh no!” from pedestrians on the pavement. It felt like it went on forever, but in reality it must have been only five seconds. At this point I wasn’t really sure what to think, and neither did the other passengers. Did the engine just go “pop”? Did we bash into one of the wheelbarrows that the workmen were using? It’s strange how my mind thinks of the most mundane things at the most remarkable times.

And this is where it all got a bit weird.

I looked out of the right hand side of the bus and I could see people running in different directions.

Then people started screaming outside the bus.

And then a couple of people inside the bus started yelling.

“Oh shit,” I said.

This is when time felt like it sped up again. Everyone started getting off the bus and people kept saying we’d hit someone. The woman behind me kept crying and I kept turning around to tell her to calm down because it’d be ok. I don’t know why I said that because it clearly wasn’t true.

As I got off the bus I looked left and I could see a couple of wheels and a lump stuck under the front of the bus. I thought it was a bike of some sort so I looked further up the road for the rider, but there was nobody to be seen. Not good.

And that’s when someone nearby said it, “the bus hit a woman in a wheelchair.”

Oh.

It’s a cliché, I know, but I really hope she’ll make it. The sound of the impact was loud enough to bring a woman living nearby out of her house, so it was fairly severe. There was no sign of blood but she still wasn’t moving at all when I left to get on the tube instead of the bus. It’s going to be weird going past that spot every day.

I woke up and there was...

2008-06-08T17:30:00.005+01:00

It was amazing how quiet the neighbourhood was when I woke up to find the power was out up and down the street. The only noticable noise was the quiet, regular beep of the security alarm downstairs which had switched to battery power.

This city needs more powercuts.

Call the waaaaambulance

2008-05-31T17:07:00.002+01:00

Gigs, gigs, gigs

2008-05-06T15:11:00.007+01:00

So here’s the funny thing, I’ve been in London (off and on) since 2001 and I’ve not really taken advantage of the vast and varied music scene that this city has to offer despite claiming to love music. If I’m honest, I feel a wave of anxiousness wash over me at the thought of attending a gig nowadays because I’m starting to feel like I’d be too old. The major theme in my life as a late-twenty-something seems to be that I need to grow up, and going to see nu-whatever hipster-core bands with a bunch of teenagers who resemble the cast of Skins didn’t quite fit my self-enforced stereotypical concept of maturity.

Then I joined a band in January.

The beautiful thing about hypocrisy is, is that hypocrisy is a beautiful thing.

Fast forward to last night, where I found myself at a free gig at the ICA. The original headliners were meant to be Lucky Dragons, who apparently are big on audience participation. Sadly, Lucky Dragons were held up in Los Angeles so they were replaced by experimental noise architect, John Wiese.

Helhesten kicked off the evening’s entertainment with a seemingly free-form musical assault. I won’t go into major details; I’ll let the pictures do the talking instead. You can’t really see it, but the guitarist was playing the strings with his unplugged cord.

Next up; Pre. Oh Pre, pre, pre, pre…how sonically brutal thou art. Maybe it’s because the singer was a cute asian woman with a tiny speaking voice and a banshee wail of a singing voice. Maybe it’s because she was an incredible maelstrom of flailing limbs. Maybe it’s because of just how aurally crushing it was having two bass players. It doesn’t matter what the reason is, I loved Pre. I wish I’d got better pictures, but I was dancing too much.

John Wiese. It all began with clicks and huge bass overloads that resonated in our chests so hard we thought we were going to be sick. At this point we all thought his equipment was broken because someone that looked like a soundman came on stage to twiddle some dials. It wasn’t broken, that’s how he wanted it to sound. For 20 minutes.

I think we lasted about 5 minutes before we left; I’m not sure if it was so far ahead of the curve or just a predictable noise assault. Either way, I saw Atari Teenage Riot do the same kind of thing 8 years ago and no doubt someone will have done it way before them. Sound art. Blah.

A reply to Jolene

2008-02-17T13:49:00.005Z

So we were having a joke around in band practice a few weeks back about doing a song in reply to Dolly Parton's 'Jolene' in which the other woman had a chance to tell her tale. I didn't really think about it much until this morning when I started singing the first two lines to myself. I wrote a couple more verses than this which paint Jolene as a misunderstood woman, but I think the opening chorus sums it up.

Dance like your dad...

2008-02-05T21:31:00.001Z

Meanwhile, in the basement

2008-01-22T23:35:00.001Z

We're having a fire inspection at work tomorrow so I thought I'd be helpful and clear the empty cardboard boxes [aka, potential fire hazards] from the basement and found this quote on a scrap of paper. In a way, what it says related to tonights counselling course as well since we were discussing Carl Rogers and his theories.

Heavy Metal Machine

2008-01-22T23:30:00.001Z

This is the warehouse where we're practising for our gig. I just love the look of pressure gauges...especially when they're attached to random important looking pipes.

This isn't what I paid for

2007-12-28T15:32:00.003Z

So I decided to buy a popular US science and technology magazine at the station last Friday to keep me entertained on the journey back to Rugby. Unfortunately for me and my wallet, I didn't realise that if I wanted better value for money I'd have been better off throwing the money at into the toilet and spending the journey staring out of the window.

It's not to say that the few articles that actually were in the magazine weren't mildly entertaining, but I think that giving over 56% of your total editorial space (with 49% of that being pure advertising) to things other than articles is a strange move. I suppose I'm not used to leafing through 16 pages of promotional imagery before I get to the contents page. Perhaps I'm being naive in thinking that you can produce a magazine without selling that much space to advertisers, or perhaps the UK is just biding its time before the ad-men get serious.

p.s. I'm probably being unfair by including the letters pages in "Waffle" (of which, there were 2.5 pages worth), but I don't think they qualify as proper articles.

Frank? Is that you?

2007-12-22T21:33:00.001Z

My New Years resolution is to be more creative than this..

2007-12-19T14:16:00.001Z

srsly...

I hate solo journeys

2007-11-07T20:51:00.001Z

Literally and metaphorically the longest tube journey I've ever taken

2007-08-27T13:47:00.001+01:00

...and possibly the most 'character' filled journey I've had in this town as well.

I saw a junkie, goths, the happiest and largest family group I've seen in ages, various chattering couples and best of all, a girl bogling and pole dancing to the music on her phone. I may be moving to another part of the city in five days but with stuff like that, how could I ever truly leave?

"I'd really rather process these emotions through my art." - SFU, 2005.

2007-08-12T16:15:00.001+01:00

Facebook...urgh...I feel like I'm cheating on myspace by getting an account on there; although myspace was only ever meant to be a cheap fling. I guess it just turned into something more meaningful; not that we'll be together forever, perhaps only 'til the next social networking site pops up looking seductive in a glossy, web 2.0-ish way (get your [tags] out for the lads). I'm fickle like that, you know.

Bath time

2007-08-09T23:44:00.002+01:00

A not so famous trio

2007-08-09T23:30:00.001+01:00

poptwenty cover art

2007-07-18T23:43:00.002+01:00

I've been in a teenagery mood the last few days and I've been sketching logos for the whole poptwenty thing, although it seems to have spiralled out of control somewhere along the line and turned into a full CD cover mock-up. It's like being 16 all over again...

Jill Doe

2007-07-02T23:26:00.003+01:00

Dog Shit Alley, Rugby, Warickshire.

2007-07-02T19:46:00.001+01:00

Narcissism: Example A

2007-06-16T13:16:00.001+01:00

The Unbearable Compromise

2007-05-23T13:55:00.000+01:00

I hate myself for giving in to the juggernaut that is Myspace but I decided to stick my music up on there instead of Sounclick.

http://www.myspace.com/poptwenty

So there it is, go listen to me...friend me...do whatever it is that people do on that site...I still don't quite understand it, but much like a mobile phone, everyone's got one.

Myspace and Myself

2007-05-20T23:15:00.002+01:00

I'm not in the habit of posting links like some kind of Livejournaler (no memes here...yet), but you should all go look at Martin's band's myspace page:

...and I'm not just saying that because I did the background artwork on the page.

http://www.myspace.com/boredomsinthebathroom

Shameless opportunist? Moi?

Ahh...Rugby, sunny Rugby.

Foxes: discuss

2007-04-03T19:28:00.001+01:00

Just when I thought my love/hate relationship with the foxes in my communal back garden had firmly swung over to the side of hate with a liberal dash of pity (ref: Things you don't want to find when you get home: No. 37), I saw one of them limping up towards the pile of grass cuttings my neighbour had left out there. I hate to be predictable and gushy, but I couldn't help cocking my head to one side, letting out an audible 'awww' and letting my cold, Londonised, bastard-heart melt just a tenth of a centigrade.

Picture the scene as a leapt from my chair at the computer and fired up my camera to engage in the kind of shameless picture snapping that new pet owners engage in. Feel the pseudo emotional tears welling up in your eyes as you marvel at the beauty of nature in action (because at least it's alive this time). Watch as nature makes itself a little bed to lay down for a nap whilst London rages on around it. Say it with me now; 'awww, isn't he cute?'

I can still see him sleeping out there. I think I'll call him Rafa.

This Is Not Very Interesting

2007-03-29T21:07:00.001+01:00

Funk Sunhine

2007-03-18T00:39:00.001Z

This is what happens when you spend all weekend downloading funk carioca...

3d Tube Map: ELL Addition

2007-03-13T23:09:00.002Z

Time for an overhaul perhaps?

It's probably a good couple of years since I did anything with the whole 3d tube map thing and when I 'finished' it, there was always the huge glaring omission of the east london line...mostly because when I lived in Rugby I never used it whenever I visited London and knew nothing about it. Lazy? Pretty much...but then again it was only ever something I did while I was bored and unemployed.

So here's a quick-ish mock up of the map that came from a revised lower res version I made to use as part of an interactive flash model. That didn't quite work out because 1) I didn't/don't have any flash skills and 2) The models got horribly corrupted whenever I tried to import them into another program to make anything.

In a funny way I actually like this version more than the original one that used cylindrical tube lines. I think it looks cleaner with the flat edges and lack of glossy reflections that you get with rounded objects. I could either keep it like this or play around with the object properties on the rounded version to reflect less light. Additionally I'm not so sure about the jaggedness of the east london line. In reality it doesn't descend very far underground and it's more like a gradual descent which is harder to represent with only 45 degree angles; a series of steps represents it more 'accurately' but one big dip is more aesthetically pleasing. Decisions, decisions eh?

Science

2007-02-19T23:55:00.001Z

I think I'm in love with the Science Museum:

Things I like About London

2007-02-04T13:29:00.001Z

Things I like about London: No. 44
Being able to see and photograph wild parrots in the parks.

Things I don't like about London: No 57
Hearing the wild parrots squawking in my back garden all summer.

Mr Blue Sky

2007-01-28T21:41:00.001Z

Things you don't want to find when you get home

2007-01-09T22:06:00.001Z

Things you don't want to find when you get home:

No. 37: A dead fox on your doorstep complete with 'last moments' leakage.

Its funny when it happens to other people; when it happens to you its just mortifying. I still can't decide whether or not it's heartbreaking that it crawled up the concrete steps just so it could have its last few moments in the semi-warm stairwell outside ours and our neighbours front doors rather than shivering its way into the afterlife in the garden where the foxes usually play. It would have saved me buying bleach and a scrubbing brush if it had done though.

On a lighter note, I saw one of the new fox cubs pouncing around the garden over the weekend, and in a fit of soft-headedness I took a picture and let out an involuntary "aww" even though there was no-one around to hear me (thank fuck). Incidentally, thats not my picture there; I deleted mine because the zoom wasn't powerful enough to pick up the little cub as more than a blur of orange and white pixels...but doesn't it just make you want to go "aww" as well?

So yeah...foxes; they're cute until they start shrieking when you want to sleep, or die on your welcome mat.

Panorama-rama

2007-01-08T20:46:00.001Z

or 'Why I love advances in camera-phones'
or 'Things Londoners do when they're searching for a shop that's still open'

We'll Always Be Together

2006-12-19T22:49:00.000Z

We plant the seed, nature grows the seed...

2006-12-14T21:08:00.000Z

Ou est la guerre?

2006-11-29T23:23:00.000Z

I started this little one below back in summer 2005 and left it sitting on my computer until a month ago. Funnily enough it looks better now than it would have done had I finished it back then because I've learned so many new tricks...my French puns are still clearly as bad though.

Charming...

2006-11-26T17:57:00.000Z

Oh those scallies...

2006-10-10T22:09:00.000+01:00

As grown up as I'd like to be, when I saw this street sign whilst in the Gorton area of Manchester over the weekend, I couldn't resist taking a picture. I had to admire the determination of the scally who did it because its at least 15 feet above the ground. If only I went that far for my own art...

Alcohol Aids Creativity

2006-08-06T17:34:00.000+01:00

I had the idea for this one when I was tipsy on the bus home. Alcohol clearly aids creativity...

Fractured Locks

2006-08-06T15:49:00.001+01:00

All done...no more tinkering.

Reginald Gash

2006-07-28T20:40:00.000+01:00

Typical me...I can never finish one thing without getting distracted by something newer and shinier and in this case its music rather than artwork for once. So umm...yes, I made a new song and actually finished it for once so thats why I'm putting it up here (sort of).

Its the song at the top entitled, Reginald Gash. Yes, I know...its a classy name :o)

Work in progress - hair thing

2006-07-09T21:24:00.000+01:00

Still evolving...

The Evolution of Ideas

2006-06-29T16:36:00.000+01:00

I was thinking earlier today about how ideas evolve from one thing to the next while I was working on the first brand new bit of artwork I've done in ages. With the exception of the blob photo, nothing on here is under a year old because I hardly ever finish anything once I get started. So yes, evolution; I never would have thought that something I'd thought about years ago as possibly being an educational tool, would turn into the 3d tube map, which is possibly the only great idea I'll have (hopefully not), and which is still in a state of not being any where near what I wanted it to be.

When I was doing A-Level art I found it hard to think beyond the original idea of what I wanted a piece to look like. I had one vision, my teacher had another, and I reluctantly took his ideas on board without much enthusiasm. If I could repeat A-Level art, I'd have done a lot more exciting things than I did back then and I probably would have mouthed off a lot more knowing my current level of bluntness.

My end point is really that I never would have imagined that a doodle I did in an economics class when I was 18 would turn into such a source of inspiration.

Obviously, this one is nowhere near finished...I only started at 9pm last night, but it feels good to know that the lessons I learned in school are starting to sink in and yield results.

3d stuff - Engine

2006-06-21T17:06:00.000+01:00

This is only something I've been thinking about for a little while, but lets see if this turns into more over time.

Amorphous Pink Blob

2006-06-15T20:37:00.000+01:00

Its hardly the pretty picture I promised in my last post but I quite like this one and I'm finding that a camera phone can produce results just as good as anything I ever took with my digital camera, apart from the benefit of higher resolutions.

In my defence I'm jobless again so I'll have the time and inclination to finish the many many illustrations lying around on my computer...I suppose I've been almost slightly inspired to keep up producing things after seeing the sheer volume of material that Bobo_Dreams puts out on a daily basis. I have to admit there's a guilty pleasure in reading his Lil' Racists strip, which to be honest, is nowhere near as offensive as you think it will be from the title...as long as you've got an open enough mind to laugh at the ridiculousness of stereotyping.

2006-06-01T14:22:00.000+01:00

So I did say that I wouldn't use this blog to post my views about this that and the other like everyone else, but now and then you read something in the news that just spurs you on to comment...I'll probably offset this by adding a pretty picture at the end...cos y'know, that makes it art innit?

Anyway, to the point...I came across this story on bbc news:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5029984.stm

Some of you will already know her as the Wandering Scribe but I'm slow at finding out about all of these internet phenomena so I haven't been following the whole sorry tale. At first I was a little amazed that someone had lived for so long in their car and come out the other side. Then I was confused that she'd blogged the whole experience despite being homeless. Then I was slightly annoyed that she'd blogged the whole experience for so long instead of finding a home.

We all know that homelessness is a terrible thing. We can see how it trashes people's lives..well possibly..it depends on whether you bother to look at the bloke/woman sitting next to the cash machine while you get some money out to go and mash up your liver on a friday/saturday/sunday/every night (delete where applicable). However, the one thing that strikes me about all this is that she never truly lost everything...sure, she had no home, but she had a car...she was in receipt of state benefits to buy petrol and food...she had an asset in the form of her car which she could have sold to pay for some kind of lodging temporarily which could have led to finding a job because she had an address..etc etc. She could have got out of her situation in many ways because she's not a stupid person...in fact she comes across as very intelligent and resourceful but yet she seemed to choose to remain on the streets to soak up the experience and write about it.

I can't help feeling extremely disappointed in her after reading her story, especially now that it's been picked up by a publisher. Its not that a big publishing house really cares about her welfare, its that stories that make you cry sell books. She'll probably appear on Richard and Judy (or whoever it is these days) and it'll most likely be a bestseller but it just feels like she didn't really try hard enough to escape her situation despite being in a relatively good position (compared to those who sleep in doorways) to make a change. I'm not even sure if her writing would have been good enough to get a deal if she was just writing fiction...I know I'm not a fan of her slightly over-melodramatic writing style.

But hey, I'm not a writer so what do I know?

Let's just hope it doesn't turn out to be another James Frey situation.

Le Chien Est Dans La Piscine

2006-05-15T19:46:00.000+01:00

I should point out that this is intended to be a place to display my artwork rather than a place to rant about the world; there are enough of the former type of blog...although if I'm honest theres enough of the latter too.

Laurence will get this one...

And yes, I know the french is bad...je ne parle pas français très bien.

Why do I keep giving in like this?

2006-05-15T18:46:00.000+01:00

Because I'm lazy...

Because I have to use a modem to update my old site rather than the broadband connection.

Because everyone's doing it.

This is why I have gone back on everything I've always said and decided to get a blog...I don't even like the word "blog". Its an awful portmanteau much like all the ones created by meeja types who sit around in their comfy offices, drinking expensive coffee, talking about last night's episode of Lost or perhaps the new Kaiser Chefs [sic(k)] mp3's that they've downloaded to their ipod.

Unfortunately for me, the more vitriol I spill in the direction of the residents of Hoxton and the like, the more I realise that living in London is turning me into what I spend hours slating (to hilarious effect...of course). There was a time when I hated mobiles and mp3 players, a time when I'd rather sit indoors on my own all weekend rather than going out to nightclubs because the noise and the people would just turn my stomach. There was even a point where I couldn't see the point of the internet and yet now I can't quite imagine how I got along without any of these things (apart from the nightclubs). Even if I close my eyes and think hard, I can't quite remember just how I managed to meet people at the right place, at the right time without the assistance of a mobile phone to receive directions/apologise for lateness.

I suppose what I'm really trying to do is somehow justify another instance of doing the exact opposite to what I swore I'd never do...or perhaps I'm just trying to appear deeper than a puddle in a drought and offer up my thoughts on progress...either way I need to create some kind of introduction to my thought process.

Ah well, I'll still never buy an ipod or listen to the Kaiser Chiefs...