Brian Wildsmith

Brian Wildsmith is amazing. I discovered him in the Seven Stories Gallery in newcastle. There was a room with his paintings covering the walls and his books all along the surfaces. He is really good with paint and I love his work. He is my new favourite illustrator.

Headcases, Marketing

The Second part of our Paper Toys final project of the year... Marketing.

For this part we had to find a partner with similar toys and then market them together. My partner was Grace who had Graphic Design Joke toys who sit on your Mac. My toys were the Headcases (see previous blog for more details on this). The only connection between them is their decorativeness.

We decided to create a shop called Hunkydory...


Which would be online and highstreet but thats far to complicated for a two week project so it became an online shop.
This is the Website homepage I designed for our assessment.


I really like this and think I may do something similar when I create my own website but using all of my own photography instead of sourced off of the internet like in this image here.
I love the till and wish as one of my tutors said that there was a mobile phone in the same style, I'd definately buy it.

Headcases, Paper Toys

Our two final projects of the year involved Paper Toys... Toys that come in nets online and can be printed off on a4 sheets and then put together at home.

We could do anything...

Anything...

and so I went for something entirely crazy that has been obsessing in my head for months.

To explain I must show you the original inspiration:

The concept was take a word from the dictionary, read the phrase and illustrate it.
This was: Escapism - the inclination to retreat from unkind reality through diversion or fantasy.

So for the paper toys I decided to make a Paper version:

These are the Headcases: (from left to right)

- Terry the Vicar who's secretly obsessed with violent video games

- Bobo the Clown who's terrified of children

- Gruesome Greg the Pirate who often dreams of gardens with flowers and butterflies

- Lumberjack Mac who cross dresses and bakes cupcakes in his spare time

- Burgular Bobbie who only steals ladie's shoes

- and Doctor Thompson who practises the Dark Arts and writes a Book of Shadows

My favourite is Lumberjack Mac

might be something to do with the beard but I also think he's got the strongest personality.

And now to travel back in time...

To a project from before Christmas... Close Cropping!

(if you wonder why it's a before Christmas project; it is because I have only scanned them recently (as in today).)

For our Close Cropping project we were given a list of phrases, for example: 'All the Fun of the Fair' and 'Second Hand Bookshop'. We had to choose 4 phrases and then do two final pieces for each phrase; one realistic and one abstract. Here are two of my final pieces:

This is the realistic piece for 'Autumn Leaves'


and this is the realistic piece for 'Childhood Memory'.

Avigdor Arikha

(Self Portrait- 1977)
Avigdor Arikha ... 28 April 1929 - 29 April 2010

Avigdor Arikha was an Israeli artist (originally born in Romania) who I only discovered today via the wonders of BBC Radio 4.
He established himself as an abstract artist and did great, expressive paintings until 1965 when he stopped painting and began drawing. He drew the people and things around him for the next eight or so years up to when he got the urge to paint again.



This is an abstract painting Arikha did in 1961, (I've failed to procure the actual name) I like the mark making and the colour in it, I get the impression of some kind of anger or angst but then again I could be reading far too much into this, due to the fact I don't generally understand abstract art.


Olympia 1977

Arikha had an interesting life. Born in Romania to a Jewish family, during the war his family were relocated to a labour camp where his father died. He and his sister were freed after he drew deportation scenes and showed them to Red Cross Delegates. After some time in another war he eventually went to art school.


The Queen Mother 1983

Arikha did no preliminary drawings before his paintings, he did them all in one session. He had an hour and a half (according to a friend speaking on the radio) to paint the Queen Mother in 1983 (above). This interests me I may try and do some first off paintings in one go.

It's a shame I only discovered him through the Radio telling me that he had died, but I'm glad I found him I like his work very much.