Spethanie Says: 2011

moving pictures

Animation for uni. They are not excellent. This is the first one, it had to start and end with a circle:

it was supposed to be 10 seconds long but for some reason it's 5. just watch it slowly.

This is the second one, which had to be 30 seconds long and include three words from a list; I chose 'train', 'bird', and 'paper plane'.

Rollo Press

It's Nice That is one of my absolute favourite websites, and the main cause for my dire financial situation (you don't need things until you know they exist...)

Whilst having a browse the other day I came across this article, an interview with Urs Lehni of Rollo Press. Rollo Press is a small print studio in Zurich, they use a Risograph printer to publish his own works, and those of friends and accomplices.

They describe their work using a very apt William Morris quote from Art and its Producers:

To own the means of production is the only way to gain back pleasure in work, and this, in return, is considered as a prerequisite for the production of (applied) art and beauty.

You can see Morris' maxim of "everything should be either purposeful or beautiful" here...

I may use this quote in my essay next term to illustrate the aims and reasons behind self-publishing. Unfortunately I can't fit it into my (already significantly over the word limit) essay proposal.

Adam Dant/Donald Parsnips

Adam Dant - The Theatre, Shoreditch, three-colour chiaroscuro woodcut, 2010

Whilst researching Adam Dant for both my essay and reprographic project, i came across this: http://blog.eyemagazine.com/?p=4545, an article about printmakers' responses to Shakespeare by printmakers from RCA, on the Eye blog. There are some lovely examples of printmaking.

also this http://spitalfieldslife.com/2010/05/29/adam-dant-artist/ is an excellent article about Adam Dant, which talks about his early life and also his print The New Street Cries of Spittelfields. For five years he self-published a sort of daily newspaper which he distributed for free each day, which he described as "the strategy of the fine artist, confounding people with preposterousness". Definite links with dada there.

'Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one'

I have been thinking about this quote (from A J Liebling) a lot, it is a central idea to my essay proposal. I am trying to talk about how folk art, play, and dada influence illustration through DIY self-publishing, especially self publishing as a folk tradition.

Here is a lovely little video about Mark Hearld, who is one of my favourite illustrators (and he

lives in York!)

DO IT

This amazing website, Do Lectures, is very inspiring....a bit like TED, they are all about inspiration through doing. They invite people to give lectures about what they do...

when you listen to their stories, they light a fire in your belly to go and Do your thing, your passion, the thing that sits in the back of your head each day, just waiting, and waiting for you to follow your heart.

also they sell some pretty cool posters, this is my favourite (by Andy Smith), mostly because I never finish what I start.

http://www.dolectures.com/lectures/do-trust-in-the-things-you-love/ this was the first one I watched.

LOTS OF THINGS i am excited about

Hello I went to see all the work in the Illustration Symposium exhibition in the Holden Gallery, in particular Jonny Hannah's. I was planning on writing my essay on one of them, however I couldn't find enough information so instead I'm writing about his piece for the Images 35 exhibition:

Also here is a lovely animation designed by Jonny Hannah (lots of Jonny Hannah at the moment), it's an interpretation of Charles Bukowski's The Man With the Beautiful Eyes and it is brilliant, I've got loads of ideas for my animation now.

And this http://www.houseofillustration.org.uk/ is a brilliant website, the "Online Exhibitions" section has some nice nice things.

Jonny Hannah and essays and things

Jonny Hannah is doing an exhibition in the Holden Gallery on the 3rd and 4th November as part of the Illustration Symposium, how exciting! I'm planning on writing about one of his pieces for the "Analysis" part of my essay. I think I will go to the opening evening and canvass some opinions. He is one of my favourite illustrators.

via: http://illustrationresearch.co.uk/secondsymposium/index.php/2011/07/exhibition-jonny-hannah/

The Education of an Artist

Ben Shahn, The Education of an Artist

"Attend a university if you possibly can. There is no content or knowledge that is not pertinent to the work you will want to do. But before you attend a university work at something for a while. Do anything. Get a job in a potato field; or work as a grease-monkey in an auto repair shop. But if you do work in a field do not fail to observe the look and the feel of earth and all the things that you handle – yes, even potatoes! Or, in the auto shop, the smell of oil and grease and burning rubber. Paint of course, but if you have to lay aside painting for a time, continue to draw. Listen well to all conversations and be instructed by them and take all seriousness seriously. Never look down upon anything or anyone as not worthy of notice. In college or out of college, read. And form opinions! Read Sophocles and Euripides and Dante and Proust. Read everything that you can find about art except reviews. Read the Bible; read Hume; read Pogo. Read all kinds of poetry and know many poets and many artists. Go to an art school, or two, or three, or take art courses at night if necessary. And paint and paint and draw and draw. Know all that you can, both curricular and noncurricular – mathematics and physics and economics, logic, and particularly history. Know at least two languages besides your own, but anyway, know French. Look at pictures and more pictures. Look at every kind of visual symbol, every kind of emblem; do not spurn sign-boards or furniture drawings or this style of art or that style of art. Do not be afraid to like paintings honestly or to dislike them honestly, but if you do dislike them retain an open mind. Do not dismiss any school of art, not the Pre-Raphaelites nor the Hudson River School nor the German Genre Painters. Talk and talk and sit at cafés, and listen to everything, to Brahms, to Brubeck, to the Italian hour on the radio. Listen to preachers in small town churches and in big city churches. Listen to politicians in New England town meetings and to rabble-rousers in Alabama. Even draw them. And remember that you are trying to learn to think what you want to think, that you are trying to co-ordinate mind and hand and eye. Go to all sorts of museums and galleries and to the studios of artists. Go to Paris and Madrid and Rome and Ravenna and Padua. Stand alone in Sainte Chapelle, in the Sistine Chapel, in the Church of the Carmine in Florence. Draw and draw and paint and learn to work in many media; try lithography and aquatint and silkscreen. Know all that you can about art, and by all means have opinions. Never be afraid to become embroiled in art or life or politics; never be afraid to learn to draw or paint better than you already do; and never be afraid to undertake any kind of art at all, however exalted or however common, but do it with distinction."

I love this, it makes me want to do things and learn things.

some words:

scanner is broke, & am diggin film slr & disposables at the mo. soooooo......

currently doing some lino (i.e. gouging out bits of my hand) in lovely sick-yellow and blue and black. it will be amazing, gonna try remember to do a mirror image next time though haha. it is for beautiful lyndsay but it's takin forever.

also been doing some nice observational drawing of various things and stuff.

and i did some work for an exhibiton ages ago, i drew some australian animals wot i saw in australia. i called it "antipodes". i did the whole thing in two weeks of some bad jetlagging.

anddddd i've started accidently collecting mugs

also now wearing a stylish elasticated ankle support on my...ankle, bet all the kids will be wanting soon. might try falling off my bike less.

and i knitted three green cardigans and a purple one and an orange one and some lamby hand cuffs and a top and a hat and designed some snazzy leggings and a jumper and sewn a purse.

and some more stuff

uploading pics takes forever so just imagine them

I AM HAVING A NICE TIME

I have done museuming, art gallerying, nature reserving, rock climbing, sea-swimming, shopping, eating, drinking, wine tasting, meeting people, and more stuff

I have seen kangaroos, koalas, wallabies, emus, echidnas, wombats, Tasmanian devils, possums, cockatoos, parrots, exotic birds, pelicans, snakes and spiders.

Yesterday I did drawing in the museum, lions and tigers and such, and Papua New Guinea/Solomon Islands stuff coz I like the patterns. And then I cycled all the way down the river to Henley Beach, and all the way back again.
Good things about yesterday: nice drawing; beautiful bike ride down the river to the sea; seeing pelicans and other exotic birds; finding a lovely sandy deserted beach; beautiful sunset.
Bad things about yesterday: forgetting to take a towel, bike lights, and water (on my late-afternoon cycle to the beach); getting bitten by every single insect in all of the land; terrifying ride home in absolute darkness next to a river; narrowly avoiding a bird shitting on my head.

I'm only coming home because I've run out of money.

jus me chillin with the wallabies, in the rain.

In the Kingdom of Fiction

On Friday and Saturday I participated in an exhibition with some AMAZING artists

It will be on again this Friday 7-10pm (with wine and nibbles, yum yum) and on Saturday 11-7

go here for information about all the amazingly talented people contributing work:

http://in-the-kingdom-of-fiction.blogspot.com/

Also here I am posing with a fireplace

Ta to lovely Nathan Vasey for the photos :)

still makin waves

I haven't done anything useful like drawing recently.

I have however done other useful things like getting into uni and getting an amazing job and doing knitting and seeing Mr Scruff and making cake.

Here's something I did do today - I took about 10 beeeeeeautiful photos then realised i was on number 33....on a 24 exp film. just kept windin on. fml.

NO PICTURES BECAUSE I AM LAYZEEEEE

"I've been working like a Japanese prisoner of war. But a happy one"

not my words, the words of alan partridge.

something old:

something new:

something new-ish:

I am doing online portfolios and it makes me hate whoever invented internets and anyone else who is applying to uni and making it harder for me.

The other night we went to Dr Sketchy's and drew a lady with cocktail umbrellas on her nipples and drank beer. It was good. I would post pics of what I drew but they are mostly terrible.