St. Patricks Day

I am a huge fan of St.Patricks Day, an excuse to drink more, go out in the mid week and pretend that everyone is Irish, bas it become to commercial like Christmas where everything has to be green? I am however a massive fan of turning the river Green in Chicago and Boston. So just uploaded a few inspirational ideas and creative images to wish you a Happy St. Patricks Day 2011!

Reggae Inspiration

I have bee trying to find some new musical influences and have gone from CCR, to 10CC now onto the wonderfully happy world of Reggae. 'Wonderful World, Beautiful People' by Jimmy Cliff ... if this song is not one of your top 3 feel good songs of all time then you're pretty clueless! This dramatic change from Rock 'n' Roll and Country has given me a sence of inspiration and a definite 'spurt on' to finish my current part time Art + Design Diploma. Fingers crossed this should then lead me onto a Masters course. In this recent sence of inspiration, I spent most of today day completing painted illustrations of Tobasco bottles and pencils. Let's see what magical creations I can come up with in the next day or two?

illustration

This is a loose term for anything that is displayed visually, whether it be hand drawn sketches or painting. Now I love to doodle and experiment with ink, paint and god knows whatever else, however it takes great skill and patience to provide visual representation to a story, article or poem graphically. Here are a few original attempts at illustration of the powerful novel, 1984 by George Orwell . During this short study of the discipline, I came across a few professional illustrators who's work caught my imaginative eye. They both share a great talent and love for capturing the modern metropolis. First is Chris Dent who takes a unique approach to drawing very dence interpratations of city scapes, including Manhatten Island below (which as a Geography graduate, I must say is slightly inaccurate!)

On a much quirkier and more intricate approach to the big city is Laura Barnard. If you visit her website, you can clearly see the amount of effort and consentration has gone into the detail of the buildings.

Bucket List

My goodness - well into the start of January and I need to set myself some targets for 2011. So here goes with my bash at a bucket list for start of 2011.

1. Complete Basic Training with the British Army (Pirbright).

2. Blog more often.

3. Apply for Creative Masters (Creative Advertising at Falmouth).

4. Complete Course + show in Final Exhibition (Foundation Degree in Art + Design).

5. Work Experience (Gain more experience in a large busy + bustling agency).

6. Attend a friends up-state New York wedding in May.

7. Swim more often.



Will be sure to add to this as the months go on ...

Winter Blues

I love how blue seems to creep in as a major colour of Winter. My Winter blues has kicked in now the snow has all dissapeared and sadly melted away. Without forgetting the true meaning of this this time of year, I adore how brands + retail go all out, to cash in on the religious event.

I was able to brave the worst of the snow and drove up to Birmingham for my annual pilgrimage to UK's largest outdoor German Market, where every stall looked like Santas Grotto!

I did however, manage to take many digital photos in the white stuff as well as getting to grips with my recently acquired Canon AE-1 film camera. This oldschool relic has a multitude of shutter speeds + exposure settings that have been perfect at this time of year to capture Christmas lights.

Seasons Greetings.

the bigger the better

This image has been a wallpaper on one of the mac's in the design studio since September and has always caught my eye. So I finally decided to look into the work of American photographer Greg Crewdson. His style and techniques are well known for being large scale and rather elaborate with most focusing on American small town suburbs and rural neighbourhoods. He brings the use of light into the equation due to his fascination of the 'poetic condition of twilight', which give a distinct signiture to his photography. Each image is a staged scene with actors on a large set, a crew and the use of lighting and other special effects like fake rain, smoke and dry ice, all affecting how you see the image.
His collection “Beneath the Roses” came together with work from over six years and was completed in 2008. The image below is of Massachusetts in Winter (obviously) and is hanging in the V&A photography gallery. It is needed to be seen, as this small image does not do it justice. With so much going on, details and aspects of the image can be easily missed. So well brought together, his techniques would prove to be powerful images for an advertising campaign.
You can clearly see from this small selection of his photography, that a lot of time and work goes into setting up the scenes. On a much less grand a scale is a small creeative project I brought together last month using a few Swansea Met Art and Design Students. Below you can see the effort that has gone into staging this image, that was a part of a small series that were meant to play a trick on the viewer. Let me know what you think!

Another London Visit

Just back from another magical yet hectic exhibition filled trip to London...

• On the top of my list was the Design Museum. Quite happily flashed my student card to gain discount to the two exhibitions - top floor was the Plain Space exhibition - the work of 'The father of modern architectural minimalism' John Pawson and the middle floor was fashion illustration from over the centuries with Drawing Fasion. There were interviews and film clips but nothing took the attention away from the original illustrations. The collection displays some of the most 'remarkable fashion illustrations from the 20th and 21st centuries', so I spent a good while with my sketch book open sketching and scribbling down work by Karl Lagerfeld, Antonio Lopez and more recently Mats Gustafson (illustrated for Alexander McQueen in Vogue China, 2010).
• My second port of call was the V&A. After standing outside in the cold for what seemed like forever - was dissapointed to find the fashion collection, that always deserves a walk through was closed. Also the photography room was only showing about 8 new images! It was still inspiring as it displays examples of different photographic techniques and saw work by British photographer Nick Veasy, who uses a camera less x-ray as an alternative form of fashion photography.
• Last on my list was the The Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park. It was showing the first exhibition in the UK of Philippe Parreno. Guiding you through the gallery space, it was a small collection of shorts films. One film titled June 8, 1968, (2009) recalled the transportation of assassinated senator Robert Kennedy's corpse from NYC to Washington D.C. It was so interesting I had to see it twice!