Otter Design Up for Votes on Threadless now!

Vote now

This otter is my submission to the Threadless T-shirt design Watercolour challenge. You can score it here: https://www.threadless.com/designs/otter-3

Illustration Friday: Silence

Rainbowberry - Vote now in the Threadless Psychedelic Challenge!

Rainbowberry

Vote now for Rainbowberry in the Threadless Psychedelic Challenge: https://www.threadless.com/designs/rainbowberry

Ohh Deer Card Design Competition

Card designs for the Ohh Deer competition up at their site now! 

Hive Mind on Threadless - Voting Open!

I've posted a T-shirt design to Threadless, my very favourite T-shirt shopping site! Voting's open all week, so if you like it click 5!

LOoOk:
Hive Mind on Threadless.com vote now!

You can also do a crowdfunding option, if you'd like to pledge to buy it if it gets printed. My promo code for Fund It! is RJ0HXJ  - gives you $5 off.

Magic Hands Woman Builds ICE PALACE!

Woman runs away and builds herself a FUCKING ICE PALACE! This is so cool. Literally. Figuratively. Well,  thematically.

Builds an ice palace with her MAGIC HANDS!

I am much more inclined to see Frozen after watching this, but still concerned that all previous advertising billed the talentless sister and that overgrown man-child as the main characters. I am really only interested in magic hands woman.

Rulers

I spent half an hour today drawing wobbly lines with a protractor and then I realised, 'I can just go to the shops and buy a ruler for about a quid.' And I go to the shop. And there SO many rulers! Metal ones, plastic ones, fold-ups, flexible, ones longer than 12 inches (tempting, but I would have to buy larger paper). At times like this I wonder whether I would fit in better in a communist country (apart from the repression and lack of Wispa Golds). I only went in for a piece of plastic & I came out with a metal "safety" rule [what are dangerous rulers? Surely a dangerous ruler is a sword] with a non-slip rubber strip and a centre recess to protect fingers from cutting [unnecessary; that is why fingernails grow longer than the ends of your fingers]. At least I knew I didn't want a flexible one. Who wants a BENDY ruler? I find it hard enough to work them as it is.

Back in St Andrews

Back in my old home St Andrews.

St Andrews Bandstand

Butts Wynd

Hamilton Hall

Philosophy Building. Separate entrances for Moral and Logic, but they both lead to the same place.

Harbour

Crumbly cathedral tower

The pier

View from the pier

Reflections in Harbour

Harbour

Cathedral

Principal's Residence. Former Art History Building.

View from 72 Market Street

The Bandstand

The Burrow Open House, Brighton

I spent last weekend in Brighton, participating in an open house art exhibition. The Burrow, a.k.a Moomin House, is home to the very welcoming Laura Honeker. A variety of colourful couchsurfers have stayed under her roof and I am no exception. I couchsurfed with her back in November, as I fancied a jaunt to Brighton, and at that time my travel expenses to London had been paid by the BFI as I took part in the Second Light Documentary Pre-Production workshops.

My poster for The Burrow exhibition

On Friday I saw the sights of Brighton with fellow creatives Nathan Berry and Leti Mortimer. The Brighton Museum desk-man was nice enough to let us leave some Burrow flyers there. The Brighton Museum was also nice, in that it was full of some interesting stuff.

Leti Mortimer, illustrator, and Nathan Berry, photographer, outside the pavilion.

Meg Vaughan, designer.

Saturday was Trans Pride in Brighton. I missed the march and main rally, as I was manning (/womanning) the fort back at the Burrow. But I did end up there later, having taken a walk, and saw some free comedy.

Nick Williams, musician.
In the background is art by Thea Wilkins and Leti Mortimer.

Sunday saw a final party, with live music by Nick Williams with his instrument assortment, Laura Nenonen and her cello. There was also an impromptu performance by a blonde girl on keyboard, whose name I didn't catch.

Some cool street art.

Psychedelica in Helston

This here's a poster for my exhibition in Helston Museum. ON NOW! If you are a Cornish lass or lad, or a visitor to our fine shores, do pop in. It's free entry to both the museum and the exhibition. So not only do you get some exciting, psychedelic work to soothe your soul, you can first see lots of sparkly rocks, Victorian wagons, military costumes, vintage children's toys and almost every kind (surely) of radio and typewriter this country has ever seen.

My old next-door neighbour died a couple of months ago. He had a grand collection of radios and typewriters. (He also had a lot of biros; rumour had it he'd once had a crush on girl who worked in a newsagents.) I don't know what's happening to them, but I hope his family keep them in one collection. The quantity alone must be impressive. I still have the small transistor radio he gave me when I was a child, though it has been out of batteries for most of the time I used it, so I instead used to pretend it was a high-tech (it was largely silver) communicating device. A walkie-talkie basically. I did in fact have walkie-talkies, but as they were orange and black (Action Man branded, I believe), they didn't feel realistic enough (even though they worked (at least, they did before the batteries ran out). I remember lots of battery-powered toys running down their batteries and then having to run on the power of imagination.

At my Psychedelica exhibition in Helston Museum, there are amusing devices which have no batteries to run down. They are my special Thinking Devices. Through them you can find clever arty things to say to impressive your friends. Although, chances are you might end up with a result that makes you sound a bit of a wally. It's a risk, but I hope it's one people will think worth taking. Art can be fun!

Psychedelic Swirls

Coming Up: The Social Factor

Have been working on my upcoming poster-portraiture exhibition for Bush Bounce, at The Bush Theatre, London on 14 November.

Exciting times. Photoshop has been talking to me more than it ever has before. First it was the scratch disks and then it's converting the hoobaloid*... Then it stops talking to me altogether & all the other programs take its side.

*I forget the actual term, this is an approximation.







All the portraiture subjects in a big hotlinked list:

Michaela Coel

Joe Simpson

Foz Meadows

Alena Walker

Bren Markey

Martin Hendry

Ellie Beadel

Colin Goodfellow

Kingfisher

Return to the Country

Top of my dad's head is not an essential part of the artwork.

After the Fringe, after a brief sojourn in St Andrews, after a 12 hour journey, here I am back in my native land. That is, Cornwall. The picture you see above, is one of the unfinished works that greeted me. It looks much better to me now that I have returned to it after a 7 week hiatus. Expect more works like this in the future.

I arrived home on Monday night at what must have been around twenty to ten. After precisely ten hour ten minutes on the train my patience snapped and I wrote a lot of grumpy twitter updates defaming the train network. I had a seat on the quiet carriage, but they only ban mobile phones, not children. It was quite a noisy carriage for much of the journey.

I overheard from the ladies in front of me in the carriage that one has to 'keep up with new developments in knitting'. Not a phrase I had would have expected, so I am obviously very ignorant in regards to this craft.

After arriving home I relaxed with a bowl of homemade curry (taken from the freezer) and the new episode of Doctor Who. My dad said he liked the episode, because he identified with it. There was then a pause while I thought to myself, doubtfully: "Does he mean he used to think he was a dalek..." He went on to explain that he was thinking of when he was in a mental hospital for a week and thought he was dead, but also knew he was in a hospital; in comparison to the dalek thing, this sounded quite reasonable really. I'd forgotten it was called "Asylum". Most of the daleks in that place seemed just like the supposedly sane daleks, except better at sleeping.

I have eaten homemade bread and homemade jam, listened to the quiet of the trees and lapped up the sunshine; all stuff one should do when in the country. I arrived just in time for my mother's birthday; went out for dinner; terrible vegetarian selection; didn't have a starter as I was already having mushrooms and cheese for main course. And also in time to help decorate my sister and her husband's new house. Fortunately, I have a great variety of clothes suitable for decorating in - i.e. already covered in paint.

Dollar Cove, Gunwalloe.
 Featuring my mother as the figure beside the rocks..

Fringe Blogging

I am currently in control of the Back to School blog. Have a look to see updates from my character -  St Dumbiedykes pupil and school newspaper editor.

Update from the Edinburgh Fringe

Alas, I have been too busy to write a well-crafted, funny, amazing post... So I thought I'd write this one instead. It is twenty to two in the morning and my body is very tired, but my mind is quite lively still because I have just been to see stand-up.

I have been quite busy. Nine shows a week, plus disco, and I still have to update the show's blog.

So just now - prior to a wet walk home across the Meadows is what I mean to "just now" - I went to see Andrew O'Neill at the Pleasance Courtyard at 10.45pm. I recommend. Go see. I went with high expectations, for I had to choose between eating the food I was making or walking half an hour through soggy Edinburgh to see the show. No regrets. I enjoyed it immensely.

Sorry this turned out stilted towards the end. Had to update the Back to School blog. Blogged me out.

Back to School

I'm now in Edinburgh for interactive, site-specific, comedy show, Back to School. See you in class!

Collection of Faces

I've not been that idle with the brush recently, you see. Although last week was swallowed up by creating a bespoke table plan for my sister's wedding.

Human faces. Nothing more fascinating to focus on, in my opinion. You can tell the ones that weren't done on watercolour paper by the grey rays emanating off them; that's where the paper has warped. I could remove them in Photoshop, but those guys don't look like they mind too much for now.

Cross Channel Film Lab

Tuesday saw the launch of the Cross Channel Film lab, which aims to build connections between Cornish and Breton based filmmakers. In particular, the scheme purposes to connect writers, directors and producers with people who work in visual effects and 3D technology. Money is involved.

A series of open sessions have been held at University College Falmouth's new AIR building. "AIR" stands for Academy of Innovation and Research; I can imagine whoever came up with this patting themself smugly on the back and taking a month off to recover. I will be disappointed if they do not name their next three buildings Earth, Wind and Fire. Unless this is the case within the next five years, I say they should have followed the tradition of naming buildings after notable alumni. For example, St Andrews now has Blackadder Hall, named after Sir Edmund, a distant relation of Rowan Atkinson. Some say standards in History teaching are declining, but I do not know what they are talking about. UCF alumni include a cyborg. Now that's pretty innovative. They should have named it after him.

Today's session focused on scriptwriting and how visual effects may affect storytelling. Kate Leys gave a lecture via Skype to start it off, focusing on what makes great storytelling.
 Here are the main points, re-explained by me:

• A Great Hook. This is why Peter Pan is such an engaging story and why there are so many films about coathangers.

You should be able to describe the story in incredibly simple terms. One sentence to sum it up. One sentence to guide it; with this sentence in mind, you can check that the whole of your script is 

• A Big Idea. Buy a large notebook. Big notebooks mean big ideas. Plus, you can sit under it when it rains.

What you want the audience to understand. A simple message to be woven into each scene. Making sure it is expressed in every scene will give the film coherence and let the message gain resonance. Don't write it on a sledgehammer that knocks your main character on the head in the denouement.

• Well-Defined Characters. Usually only a problem with animation and anorexic actors. Drawn badly or badly drawn characters will be hard to viewers to spot within the frame.

In real life we may are often contradictory. Our actions and our feelings may not match up, or if they do it would take three years of psycho-analysis and reading all our childhood diaries to work out why. If you want to create a complex character like this, have unprotected sex

• Stake. Particularly important in vampire films and biopics of Alan Titchmarsh [non-UK readers insert alternative garden-dweller here].

What matters to the main character? We all have different priorities, so you as the writer must decide this and make it clear to the audience. It shouldn't be their entire philosophy of life on this planet, unless that really is what you film is about. It needn't be a big thing. Perhaps what really matters to them throughout the film is that they just want a bacon sandwich.

• Problems. For nerds with over-active minds, you should include some maths problems up on the screen during the latter half of the film. They should be in the bottom right hand corner and include jokes in binary form. If you cannot manage this, give up all dreams of becoming a scriptwriter now.

Keep bringing in problems throughout the film for your characters to contend with. They'll keep the story ticking along.

• Whose Story Is It? Protect your copyright at all times and punch any producer who tries to interfere with you on the schnoz.

It's not yours, unless it's an autobiopic. Do those happen? The story must have one person at its centre. They need not be the loudest character or the one with most screentime. The example Kate gave is that in Little Miss Sunshine the story is organised around the mother. She helps things happen. She is the only one who gets what she wants in the end, which is for her family to get on just a little better.

• An Ending. Unlike a puppy, an film-goer is not for life. An audience will turn up at the cinema and probably leave before they've bothered to read your name in the credits. To avoid this happening, some films have secret scenes inserted after the credits, forming a second ending. Go one better and have your credits put in the middle of the film. If the director disagrees, compromise: just have your name flashed up for ten seconds.

The ending should be worked in to the story. A snooker ball goes in a certain trajectory, which you had to decide at the beginning, before you placed your shot. If you're good, it'll go where you intended it to. There's no skill in shooting the ball of the table and screaming 'it was all a dream!'

Kate also stressed that what drives a film is a character's dramatic struggle. The plot must not be just a series of events, but happenings in the course of a particular human struggle. Big crowd scenes and flashy effects must be there to help a story along. Don't look at Scene 5 and think: this is boring, I'll add fifty thousand women in loincloths / a mutant dinosaur-moth and leave it to the costume department and the effects guys to create something good.

The Blank Canvas Project

Myself and two team mates - Natalie Collins and Anna Brimley. Kimberley Webb was also on our team, but had left at this point. Hooray for team Mangrove.

On Sunday I took part in The Blank Canvas Project at Falmouth Moor. Six teams of artists, who were arranged in groups based on their style and method of working, produced an artwork over the course of the day. Lunch was provided by Pizza Express, but when it arrived all I could think of was paintpaintpaint. Still, it was a very necessary energy boost when I remembered it. I spoke to a few members of the public, but I couldn't say how many passers-by came to watch. Unless they actually engaged me in conversation, it was hard to notice, absorbed as we were in our work. I do remember though, that I kept having a last little fiddle around with my mermaid (this sounds far dirtier than it should), when I turned around to find four tourists staring at me.

One of the good things about working in a team, is that other people are there to calm you down if you start to get stressed: 'Ah, we've still got two hours left,' said Natalie.

'Aargh!' said I. 'Only two hours left! Argh!.'

'Yes, but we've almost finished,' said Natalie.

'Argh.' I said, but less certain.

Indeed, we did finish with an hour to spare, so I stand corrected.

Our completed work: Enchanted Deep.

 We took inspiration from a couple of topics that Matt, one of the organisers of the event, had suggested: Enchanted Forest and Ancient Mariner. Anna and Natalie freely confessed to being obsessed with trees. I am fascinated by waves and Kimberley likes fantasy realms.

We thought that both the topics hinted at the myths and legends associated with Cornwall. Not to mention the beautiful scenery that is unescapable in these parts. I've never known what to say, when confronted with the question which I prefer: the forest of the sea. That is, I think it is something I've thought of several times. The recent instance that comes to mind is being asked this question by Pottermore, so it could decide what house I would be in. (Ravenclaw.) I'm very acquainted with both coast and woodland, having grown up here in West Cornwall.

One thing I like about our completed work is the sense that something is happening.

Ash working on his team's artwork.

At work on the Ancient Mariner.

Very precise work being done by another team.

Check out The Blank Canvas Project's official blog for more pictures of the completed artworks: http://blankcollabproject.blogspot.co.uk/