Christmas Card 2016

I admit that recent events in my life kind of intervened in the making of this year's card (I'll explain in a future post). It wasn't until the night of December 22nd I finally had an idea what to do for this year's card. It is something different... a collage, instead of a drawing. Took most of today to make it. Hope you people like it....

Sorry Digimon fans..... and Genwunners.

(But at least I did something for the Pokeshippers.)

THE 100TH POST CHALLENGE!!!!!

You have read right. 

What you are reading now is actually the 100th post ever published on this blog.

So what do I have planned for this milestone?

Nothing. 

I only just noticed this fact when I returned after the four-month lock-out this year.

I didn't have anything planned.

But I do have something to show you....

I made this after seeing a video on YouTube that made me think back in July.

(during the lock-out)

Can you work out the meaning of this collage?

It may look like a random selection of images, but there is a structure. 

It comes in the form of a piece of audio. 

Want to know what it is? 

Here's a clue... Anakin. 

That's all I'm giving... until the day of the release of Pokemon Sun and Moon in November.

GOOD LUCK!

A Cultural Vandal's Favourite Things (October 2015)

While attending a meeting in Glasgow (regarding the newsletter I work on at NAS) I was persuaded to do a piece of work for an art competition NAS is holding. The theme is "My Favourite..." and the winners get to be exhibited in a gallery in London.

I couldn't say no.

As I liked a lot of things (as evident on this blog) the obvious medium was collage. Work on it began last week, with me pondering what to put on it. Then I had an awesome idea - burn on a DVD a selection of video clips, music tracks and images of things I like, then shatter it and stick the fragments onto the collage. At the same time I had another idea - the base should be the musical notation of the song "My Favourite Things" by Rodgers and Hammerstein (from The Sound of Music (which isn't one of my favourite things, but its a cool idea, considering the theme). After sourcing the dark blue A2 card (my favourite colour) I printed out the sheet music of the song.

After that it was the task of selecting and printing the images of the stuff I like onto photo-paper (as regular plain paper produces a haze filter on photos if printed by inkjet). A special case was the Lego DeLorean, which I have photographed especially for this piece.

After the very laborious task of cutting out the things with craft knife/scissors the items were arranged and stuck down using PVA glue. I deliberately places the items in a way it covered the text of the music sheet but left enough for someone who can read musical notation to work out what the song is (as if the title of the work (and the theme of the show, I imagine) would give the viewer a massive clue).

I handed in the final piece yesterday. 

But I did take a few pics of it before hand. 

And this is one of them....

This photo was taken before its mounting onto a thick sheet of black paper-board backing to prevent bending during transportation to Glasgow to hand it in.

I imagine this piece will stand out from the crowd, as I imagine most participants on the contest would paint or draw their favourite things, such as their pets or One Direction (I hear their a big thing with the kids these days). Maybe the gallery show would be like that Big Alphabet draw event took part in back in July. But in the end, the idea that something I made could be on display in London next month kind of excites me.

UPDATE - This piece will be on exhibit in Glasgow from Friday 11th to Sunday 27th March in the basement of a coffee shop called Offshore. Its part of an exhibit relating to the competition it was entered. I didn't win... but I don't care. I'm not that egoistical. I'm happy by the fact that people are able to see it in a public space. 

Oh, I should say (after I visited the place today to check it out before the exhibition begins) that the enterence to the exhibit space is well hidden from view when you enter the place. The flight of stairs that leads to the basement room are hidden behind the counter. You'll see it if you look around the left-hand side of the counter. If somehow you still can't find it, ask a friendly staff member (that's how I found it).

Book intervention project Inventions that changed the world (2010)

For my 3rd year class at uni, I was asked to get a book and "intervene" (vandalize artistically) it. As a book lover, the prospect was a bit troubling, but I got into the swing of it in the end. The book chosen for this project was this children's book on inventions from 1974, which I bought form a secondhand bookshop just a small walk away from campus.

Inventions That Changed The World (1974)

I made a digital copy of this book before I "intervened" it for prosperity

 (and use its graphics for future works).

For an artist who had an interest in technology since he was a child, this book was the perfect find for a project. But, for added fun, I tried to make it look like it could have been made in the 1970s (when the book was published), so no colour photocopies or subjects that were obviously made after 1979. 

Here's the final result...

The book has a lot of photocopies from Dorling Kindersley Visual Dictionaries. 

Their a good source for images of things dismantled 

(such as the Rolls-Royce Kestrel engine on the right page).

Back at college I purchased from Forbidden Planet an annul containing 

the best cut-away drawings from the Eagle. They feature a lot throughout this book.

A plough cut into the page (with added dirt).

Blue highlighter wetted with water.

Railway tracks drawn to connect the picture on the bottom of the left page to a tunnel cut to...

(see the fourth image below).

Trek was founded in 1976 and the first mountain bikes were made in the late-1970s. 

Only knowledgeable experts can tell that the bike dismantled here is form the late-1980s. 

Most people can't tell the difference between most bikes anyway.

Inspired by Airfix. 

The car dismantled here (for anyone who doesn't know already) is a VW Beetle.

The records come from photos of an installation at the "Wallace & Gromit present a World of Cracking Ideas" exhibition that was in Glasgow Science Centre that year (which I visited with the family and my nephew).

... these pages about cinema (a reference to the Lumiere Brothers).

The locomotive was meant to pop-up, but I didn't know how to do that at the time.

Surrounding this spread was monochrome photocopies of this filmstrip I made a year earlier

as a hand-out for a presentation on the application of sound in animation. 

I tried to make it 35mm wide (like the real thing). 

The images in the frames was a gif animation I found on a Google search

 a long time ago taken apart in Photoshop. The subject of the gif is Hilary Tachibana from Beyblade V-Force punching the camera (possibly Tyson?).

 (It was ready-made, saving time! I know its not period authentic!)

Same thing here (tried to make it pop-up). The camera is made of images of dismantled camera

(as noticed by the iris diaphragm). 

Framed with real photographic negatives I found.

I had smashed a light bulb and photographed the debris for this, 

but the memory card got stuck in the slot on my then laptop (its still in there by the time of writing).

Blue highlighter wetted with water. The diver is cut from a later page.

Featuring a 1960s cover from the Radio Times (featuring the Darleks), a Recency TR-1,

and components purchased from Maplin.

The Moon landing (as filmed by the BBC and ATV)

Drew inside the blank screens, using what was on the original page to guide me.

The paperclips are holding together the pages covering steel.

Inspired by Airfix (again). The plane dismantled here is a Hawker Tempest.

(I bought an actual Airfix kit of the Hawker Tempest for possible use for this spread.

The outline of its parts were stenciled on the left page.)

Simply used a pen to poke the "bullet holes."

I thought it was a good idea for this page to pop-out the book (as it covered sky-scraping structures).

Astonishingly, this book emphases robots more than computers (it was 1974 after all). 

This spread includes a Darlek, Elekto and is companion Sparko,  Astro Boy, Gigantor, and a improvised robot made from a photocopy of a Sinclair Cambridge pocket calculator.

(Gundam came too late to be included here.)

The poem written on these pages (in charcoal) was written by my uncle Ian, 

who was working with related equipment back in the 1950s-60s.

Written on the paper is...

Typewriters

They had been many attempts to mechanise writing throughout the century before the 1870s but many were not successful. The first modern typewriter which was used in the offices of the 20^th century was invented by ex-newspaper editor Christopher Sholes (with the help of US inventors Carlos Glidden and Samuel Soulé.). In 1873, they sold their idea to US gun makers Remington and a year later they produced their first typewriter. 

Written on the piece of plastic sheet (from one of countless bags I collected from Amazon.com) is

Plastic

Polythene 1933

Eric Fawcett + Ray Gibson

by accident in ICI

The scissors square is one reason why I made a digital copy of every page 

of this book before I "intervened" it. under the dismantled fountain pen is

a square covering the fountain pen.

A drip from the tap to the glass tumbler.

The diver is on the submarine pages 14 photos up.

Written on the cassette tape is "Valdemar Poulsen 1898,"

No adhesive was needed to stick the cassette in the book.

Closeup on font cover. A sort of joke and a nail to attach the project to the 1970s.