A new Website
I've just finished the first version of my new website. I decided to use my name as the URL since i'm not making toys so much anymore. It's all built in flash so i'm afraid if you are trying to view it on an iphone it won't be visible!
There's one known problem with the scroll bars which i'm going to try and fix shortly, but please let me know if you spot any other problems. In fact all constructive criticism is greatfully recieved.
There'll be some re-jigging of links on the blog to point people towards the website and so forth. It feels good to have finished it after 6 months of working away at it. Over time i'll hopefully add some nice features but for now it suits my purposes.
Anyway, hoping all are well. x
Other Artists - Rachel Pedder Smith
I'm tickled pink by Rachel Pedder Smith's selection of Natural History Objects.
There is something so meticulous about how they're rendered. Each object being given the same attention as any other so your eye travels around and around finding new details constantly.
It's almost an anti-composition, there's no focus and no space, everything is spacially flat. And i've always found that patternistic display of forms very pleasing and democratic :)
Rachel studied Natural History Illustration at the Royal College of Art in London and is now completing her PhD in Communication art and design in the same.
Other Artists - Tara Tucker
I stumbled across Tara Tuckers work today in an organic meandering internet way.
If you check Tara's blog you'll be able to click the images and see them full size - the detail is very fine on them, tiny hairs are rendered, delicate flowers and leaves trailing from feathers.
It's odd for me looking at these because i've been doing a very similar thing recently - growing flora from the fauna. and i'm wondering what her motiviations were in doing these? Were they similar to mines? Or totally different? Unfortunately it seems I might not find out as Tara's given up blogging for a while now so there's no information on what direction her work was going in or her motivations.... In fact, there seems to be no examples of her work after 2008. So, all we can do is soak up the drawings before that date.
New Piece - "Ortus"
So the new piece which is going to Strychnin Gallery, Berlin for the Enchanted Forest Exhibition (Opening 13th May) is finished. It seemed to take a long time because my days have been broken up by going to the zoo and going walking in the sun.
Ortus
8" x 11"
Acrylic ink, Watercolour & Gold Leaf on Arches
It's smaller in size than the pieces i've been working on recently
I discovered a little tip too which I thought I would share with you if you ever use Gold Leaf.
In order to apply gold leaf of course you have to put down a size which is sticky and lets the 'leaf' adhere to it. The laying down of the size is fraught with mistakes waiting to happen and it results in a very sticky brush.
So, I dug out my old Rotring Isograph pens. These pens crucially have refillable cartridges so I knew I could put the fairly runny 'size' into one. I chose the biggest pen I had (size .5mm) and pulled out the central needle in the nib, popped the cartidge in and bingo! It hasn't clogged up so far and it draws the most precise line of 'Size' i've ever managed to get.
Any technical pen of this variety would do the trick but it can't be too thin, I tried in a lower width but the size was too thick to run through the nib.
That's all for now - we're off to the beach for a windy walk in the late afternoon sun. Hope you are all enjoying your easter weekend. x
More plethoras
Hello! And a happy easter. I so enjoyed splitting my last post into different miscellany that i'm going to keep doing it! I want it to feel a bit like meandering around a big curiosity shop.
The quite wonderful Suzanne G who runs the the art blog Wurzeltod is starting up a new exhibition space called ArtNerd in Brick Lane, London. I can't tell you how excited I am to hear this. She has a wonderfully unique and incisive voice as well as journalistic rigor which is sometimes entirely lacking on art blogs.
She covers a lot of artists I would never have heard of elsewhere and it's not lazy writing either. It's gloriously literary and it's pretty obvious she has an encyclopeadic knowledge of art history. She may be the only person i've read who has a critical edge to her coverage of the new underground/pop-surrealist/new contemporary arts.
In order to help fund this excellent space she is offering a range of membership options from £15 upwards. They last for two years and come with some great perks.
I suggest if you live anywhere in Britain and want to see an art space with a difference you sign yerself up. I am offically an ArtNerd and will wear my badge with pride. If you can't afford to sign up then I heartily recommend Wurzeltod as a source of visual wonder.
I went to Edinburgh zoo yesterday even though it was raining and all the animals were sitting dripping wet or else hiding under rocky outcrops.Whatever one may feel about zoos they are essential for breeding programs and unfortunately many creatures will not survive in the wild for much longer, the only realistic option left in such cases is captive breeding programs.
The monkeys & apes made me uncomfortable, but I can't deny the fascination of watching them, the chimpanzees especially. A fight broke out in the indoors space where they shelter with one dominant male slamming himself around the place. The booms of the fight echoed around the entire building and everyone ran to watch his fantastic display. For anyone who wants to know more about the politics & psychology of the great apes then I can heartily recommend this book:
Morris as you probably know wrote the Naked Ape. Whatever you might feel about that book and its conclusions 'Planet Ape' is a marvel. It's thick, beautifully illustrated and describes all of the great apes in detail. It offers some quite startling insights on the basis of which I wouldn't ever want to be a chimp, they're so Machivellian they put the court of Henry VIII to shame.
As I wrote last time i'll be submitting a small piece to an exhibition at Strychnin Gallery in Berlin. Another artist taking part in the show is Caitlin Hackett. She recently posted one of the pieces she'll be sending and I thought i'd share its strange beauty here.
Caitlin Hackett for the Enchanted Forest show
Strychnin Gallery, Berlin
My freind, artist and travelling wonder Rima Staines is offering some original paintings for sale through her Etsy shop. It's pretty rare for her to sell her originals and some are already gone so if you appreciate their folky depths then I would snap them up swiftly if you can. They all come framed and ready to hang.
Rima Staines
There's a stair in her hair
I like Jeremy Hush's work a lot and it so happens that he has a new show called 'Threaded Whisper' coming up on May 6th at PartTime Studios, Philadelphia, USA. If you want to buy some of Jeremy's work but won't be in Philadelphia then it'll also be available for sale through their online store.
Droning Glow
Jeremy Hush
The piece above sold out quickly at the Tiny Trifecta show at Cotton Candy Machine.
Just a note to mention that The Threadneedle Prize in the UK is now open for this years submissions.
If you don't know what the prize is all about then the brief description is that it's a new (only 3 years old) prize given for representational art (2D and 3D) with over £40,000 worth of prize money. Read more about it here. They've improved the pre-selection process this year by allowing you to submit your work online. Registrations are open until 1 June 2011 (midnight).
Well that's all for now, I have plenty to do before the weekend is over. I hope you're having a good Easter holidays.
A plethora of stuff
I seem to be having long periods of non-blogging and always come back with a big backlog of stuff I noted to write about but never got the chance. It probably doesn't make for the easiest reading experience but i'll try to seperate the post out into digestible chunks!
Little Helpers
Diminishing Glass
I don't know if anyone remembers a previous post about Claude Glass's? * Well I had been looking for a glass which reduces rather than magnifies, I'd got hold of a convex mirror but it doesn't reduce to the kind of proportions i'd like - also it's rather big. Then I discovered the diminishing glass.
It reduces the image x2 and is perfect for looking at large pieces you're working on in a small space. I've found one supplier here in the uk.
Digital Photo Viewer
This is my favourite find of the past year. I always find myself surrounded by A4 sheets curling and crumpled around the place - print outs of all my reference images. Not only is it wasteful, it clutters up my tiny studio. I thought briefly of buying an iPad to look at reference images on and then realised there is a piece of hardware dedicated to the job - the digital photo viewer!
There are a wide variety of specs with a price range to suit everyone, from £15 - £100. At the lower end of the scale they need to be plugged in and you switch through the images busing buttons on the back or side. At the higher end of the scale you can get portable albums which you can charge up. I have one with a remote control which I have to say is an addition I couldn't do without.
References
Life on White
If you follow me on Twitter then you've probably already seen my excitement on finding the excellent photographer Eric Isselée who is a photographer and founder of Life on White . His sprawling documentation of animal, bird and plant life is exceptional. My excitement lies in several facts.
- He has photographed around 629 animal/bird species and there are currently 16432 Royalty Free images on the website
- Everything is photographed in a white studio.
- Each animal is photographed from different angles with various close-ups
- You can buy digital versions from 1 Euro for the smallest size to 11 Euros for XXL resolution and you can pay with many different options including Paypal
- They give a significant amount of their earnings to charitable foundations. See their Donations Page
Exhibitions
Enchanted Forest @ Strychnin Gallery
I've been busy working on a piece which is going to a really great exhibition held at Strychnin Gallery in Berlin called Enchanted Forest on May 13th. It's a group show held in accordance with the UN's International year of Forests. There are 30 something atists taking part including Caitlin Hackett, Yumiko Kayumawa, Tom Bagshaw, Mia Araujo and of course many more. There's going to be quite a wonderful installation I hear so if you are in Berlin i'd recommend going to see it!
10% of each sold piece goes to a project of the WWF.
Selling
Prints and Frames
I'm not sure if i've actually mentioned that i've started selling Ltd Edition and hand-embellished prints again through my Etsy Store? Well if not, then I am! I'm offering framing on 2 of them and hope to offer it on many more in future. The frames are lovely - I don't do these myself I have to confess.
Working
I'm working away on my small US solo in September and it is really the best time i've ever had working on anything and I think this is because I have an actual theme going on. This isn't something i've ever had before...I think I was too involved in the technicalities of how to handle the paint to really pay attention to the broader picture before.I can't really show anything but sneak peeks.
There's a lot of Gold Leaf involved - it was on special offer!
Anyway, that's all for now - Can't help but think perhaps this might have been better as seperate posts scheduled to go out at different times?
I hope you are all well and good x
* You can read the Claude Glass post here.
I'm afraid this is a very businessy post
Hello and first of all apologies, this post feels all self-promotey....After i'm done though i've put some excellent links I found on the web for artists and business :)
I just released Dukkha as a Limited edition Giclee print of 50 - because my good freind Bec wanted one and so I thought I would do an edition. It's here.
I also put 2 recent pieces from the Imagine exhibition up as prints onto Society6.
The Great Hornbill available here.
La Bizarre Singerie here.
I'm pretty excited about these as i've not listed any of my more recent work on Society6 for prints yet. There's no signature or edition, however they have excellent print quality and they are very affordable. My store is here.
Links to excellent Artists Business posts
I've often followed links to articles claiming to completely revolutionise an artists business model and then been slightly underwhelmed. Often times it's nothing you couldn't figure out yourself, and indeed many of us already do the elementary stuff. Blogging - Tick. Tweeting - Tick. Networking - Tick. Revenue streams - Reluctant Tick.
Anyway here's a couple of links I actually did think were a bit more than 'Get a blog'
This is a long, detailed and very worthwhile post from the self-proclaimed 'Queen of grants' on how to get funding. If you follow her blog you'll also see that she maintains a list of residencies and grants and other resources which are excellent.
This isn't just a post so much as one artist's many years of experience and seemingly never-ending energy for sharing information and being damn helpful. There is a list for Art Business resources which are well worth checking out.
Anyway, all from me for now, I have some semi-exciting news coming up about the opening of a new shop! I just need to make sure everything is in order first. Otherwise, things are good, the weather's improving and I have many paintings to paint of course ;) I hope you're all well...
Natural Dark Threadless Tee!
Hello folks.
A wee note that my Natural Dark design is up for voting on Threadless at the moment! I actually would genuinely love this lady on a tee for myself :) In any case, if it's easy enough would be so grateful if you could vote for it here.
Mandrillus Sphynx
Here's my piece for the upcoming LAX/PDX show at Together Gallery in Portland.
The frame is a nice antique piece of gilt gesso and wood. The title 'Dolens Fecund' is some dodgy latin meaning 'Painfully fecund' (I did latin at school but only because I found the latin teacher hilariously funny, and so I learnt nothing).
Apparently there is such a condition as Super-fecundity but it's quite normal and not some super-power - it means the ability to store sperm within the body for use at some later date....I think this is how chickens fertilise their eggs?
Anyway, I hope you're all well x
