Robot Boxer

A couple of weeks ago I went down to London village to the art14 exhibition, where 

we got to see a whole lot of cool art and one of the pieces that really stood out for 

me was a little robot boxer, made out of machine parts.

I enquired of the price and was disappointed to find out that the little guy was way

out of my pocket.....by about £13,000, so I took a couple of pictures of him and

when I got home did this sketch and coloured him in using felt markers.

He reminds me of my cousin Deano, who has been a boxer in his time, and has a 

similar stance and attitude, so I gave it to him for his birthday.

 I think he liked it...

Illustration Friday post - ZODIAC

This is a sketch I did for Illustration Friday. The subject title was 'Zodiac', so 

I decided to go for a different slant on the word and I wanted to have a go a

 drawing a car. For the petrol-heads out there its a Ford Zodiac Mk 1, from 1954....

Second visit to the Print Workshop

So, continuing my screenprint experience, I spent a fruitful day as described in the previous

post at the Leicester Print Workshop with my tutor for the day, Katie, who took me

through the screenprint process from start to finish. It all went swimmingly and by the

end of the day I had, with the help of Katie produced a veritable pile of prints. All I had

to do now was return next time and remember it all.....

No problem I thought....I will go straight back on the Wednesday evening session and

by then, even with my Goldfish memory some of it will have stuck, but no, this plan was 

thwarted by my daughter, Megan who wanted me to go with her to the local dog rescue 

centre with our dog Archie, to do a 'meet and greet' with one of the inmates, 'dee dee',

who Megan was determined to adopt.

On a side note the name 'Dee Dee' was given to her by the home as her original name 

was 'Donna'? Bit Weird..

Anyway, the 'meet and greet' went well but this buggered my chance to go printing, 

so I had to wait until this Wednesday, a whole ten days since my lesson! 

Luckily there is a technician always present and I availed myself of Sarah, the resident print angel, who was always in the background ready to advise where I was going wrong. Its weird how I could remember some parts of the process but couldn't remember others, such as, which way up the frame went and which cupboard contained the 'stuff' for this and the 'thingamajig' for that. So I spent lots of time looking like a spare part whilst the other people there hurried around doing their own work until one of them would make the mistake of eye contact and I would seize this moment to ask things like "where do you keep the masking tape" and "is this upside down?"

Despite this everybody was more than helpful and on one occasion I had three people showing me how to use the print down frame. They were all doing different things and were more than happy to share their knowledge and ideas with me.

So, by the end of the the two hours I spent there I had produced two print frames, each one with a three colour design on, ready for my next visit on Wednesday.

I just wonder if anyone will make eye-contact with me....

New boots!

Been a while so I thought it about time I posted. I'm about to do a 'crash'

screenprint course, along with some lino print, so needed to produce something

nice for my first print....

Hopefully these boots will look good...

I drew the boots freehand and then digitally using a wacom tablet and pen. I seem to get

on better with the pen than a mouse as you can apply pressure to thicken up the lines.

Personally I prefer the image above but think they both will work well as a screen print.

Oh, I drew the boots from a painting by Leicester artist Paul Wright. Check him out.

I'm hoping to print on some nice paper stocks, including a krafty brown. Maybe some

cool solid colours in the background.....who knows? Really looking forward to the course 

and will publish the results as soon as they are done.

I attended the course today and here are the first results! I printed each design in 

one colour for each one. The images above are of the proof pulls.

I also did some lino printing and the prints above were from an existing lino-cut

I had made previously.

Above are the acetates I made in order to burn the images into the screen.

Black screen pull

I intend to return with the boots and print something on top of them as a contrast. Not sure 

what to do yet? I'm thinking of maybe some type going across the back of the print in a large font

or alternatively some fom of large solid block of colour.

Lino prints on the drying rack.

Now that I've done the induction and screenprinting course I can have access to the print studio, so I'm 

hoping to produced lots of new designs......watch this space!

Day 2 - Shy Boy

This was a sketch I was working on for Illustration Friday but didnt manage to 

get it posted in time. I really need to work on my deadlines.

Day 1 - Ukulele lady.

Its day 1, and for my first post I thought I would decorate my little lilac ukulele. I've bought some Posca pens   to draw directly on the the uke, but I have realised since I started that they are waterbased and will rub off without much effort... so, I have since applied a couple of layers of artists gloss varnish and they seem to be holding out, but I am a bit nervous every time I pick it up.

 Unfortunately, the flash paint-job doesn't improve the sound...

P.s. this ukelele lady has gone to another home via e-bay now!

Assignment five - Seven Days - continued.

Research; there is a lot of varied information on this subject depending on which country of origin you are looking at, but most theories seem to confirm that the Greeks named the days after the sun, moon and the five known planets, which were in turn named after the gods Ares, Hermes, Zeus, Aphrodite and Cronus. The Greeks called the days of the week the "days of the Gods". The Romans substituted their equivalent gods for the Greek gods, Mars, Mercury, Jove (Jupiter), Venus and Saturn. The Germanic peoples generally substituted roughly similar gods for the Roman gods, Tiu (Twia), Woden, Thor, Freya (Fria), but did not substitute Saturn. The Germanic peoples adapted the system introduced by the Romans but glossed their indiginous gods over the Roman deities (with the exception of Saturn) in a process known as Interpretatio Germanica. The date of this introduction of this system is not known exactly, but it must have happened later than AD200 but before the introduction of Christianity during the 6th to 7th centuries, i.e. during the final phase or soon after the collapse of the Roman Empire.

SUNDAY: Old English Sunnandaeg, meaning “sun’s day”. This is a translation of the latin phrase, dies Solis. English, like most of the Germanic languages preserves the original pagan/sun associations of the day.

MONDAY: Old English Monandaeg, meaning "moon's day". This is likely based on the translation of the Latin name dies lunae. In North Germanic mythology, the moon is presonified as a god, Mani.

TUESDAY: Old English Tiwesdaeg meaning "Tiw's day" Tiw was a one-handed god associated with single combat and pledges in Norse mythology. The name of the day is based on Latin dies Martis, "Day of Mars" (the Roman god of war).

WEDNESDAY: Old English Wodnesdaeg, meaning the day of the Germanic god, Wodan and a prominent god of the Anglo-Saxons (and other Germanic peoples) in England until about the seventh century. It is based on Latin dies Mercurii, "Day of Mercury". The usual connection is that both Wodan and Mercury were considered psychopomps, or leaders of souls, in their respective mythologies; both are also associated with poetic and musical inspiration.

THURSDAY: Old English Punresdaeg, meaning "Punor's day". Punor means thunder or its personification, the Norse god known in Modern English as Thor. Thor's day corresponds to Latin dies lovis, "day of Jupiter", the chief of the Roman gods, wielder of the thunderbolt.

FRIDAY: Old English Frigedaeg, meaning the day of the Norse goddess Frige. The Norse name for the planet Venus was Friggjarstjarna, "Frigg's star'. Based on the Latin dies Veneris, "Day of Venus" was the Roman goddess of  beauty, love and sex.

SATURDAY: the only day of the week to retain its Roman origin in English, named after the Roman god Saturn, associated with the Titan Cronus, father of Zeuz and many Olympians. In Latin it was dies Saturni, "Day of Saturn".

I came across this poster whilst looking for ideas and inspiration and felt the hand-rendered font would 

work really well for the text to go along with my images. It has a sort of 'medieval' feel about it, almost like

something you would use to write Latin in, so I will be writing all my text in this.

Here are some examples of the hand-written font in capitals, I think they work very well.

Same again, but with upper and lower-case.

Sketch before scanning

Images above showing ideas for the Sunday page. Not keen on the top one as its too

bright and goes too far away from the brief of keeping the colours to a minimum but

I like the pale yellow one and may use a version of this for my final image.

Rough Thor sketch

For the Thursday image I have been playing with ideas of depicting the god Thor, but

seem to be going off the idea of using a picture of him and like the idea of something more

symbolic such as maybe just the hammer?

This is the sort of tone I am looking for in the Thor image. Just the hammer and a

hand with maybe some lightning to enhance the 'thunder god'.

Now we're talking! Pretty pleased with this. Just need to add the text and title. I think

the image conveys the feeling of power but is not too fussy.

I need to get on with these hand-fonts!

more to come...

Well the hand-fonts are done finally and have been scanned in, live-traced in Illustrator and are
ready to place, along with my images. I intend to present each image in a landscape format, in the
shape of a postcard. Each of the illustrations are quite different in style so can stand alone but
are laid out in a similar way, with the same type-face (hand-drawn), and can also
stand together as a set with their contrasting colours.

Monday - based on the Old English meaning of 'Moons day', I've stayed with my original
sketch, based on the theme of the 'man in the moon'. I've inversed the originally black type and
image to aid visibility against the dark blue 'moonish' blue.

Monday Final

Tuesday - based on Tiw's day, I went for the obvious image
of the one-handed god proudly showing off his arm.

Tuesday Final

Wednesday - Wodin, or Wodan, apparently the father of 

Thor. I am aware that the three images so far are quite different in 

style, but still think they sit together well.

Wednesday Final

Thursday - Thor's Day. See above for idea behind

this image. My favourite so far....nice and punchy.

Thursday Final

Friday - For this one I was toying with a figurative image to show off

the Goddess, Freya, or Frige, but decided to go with the minimalist view, 

based on an image by Milton Glaser. Although simple, it still

looks playful and sexy.

Friday Final

Saturday - Saturn's Day. In this instance I decided to go for a more

detailed sketch of a statue of Saturn. I really like the contrast of

the grey-toned sketch against the solid background. Apparently

he was quite a nasty character...ate babies....allegedly.

Saturday Final

Sunday - going back to the more graphical approach, and along the 

same lines of the 'man in the moon' but this time, with the face of the 

sun. I've repeated the image throughout, and tried to keep the 

colours complimentary to each other.

Sunday Final

So there it is, finished. It seems this final exercise had taken me the long

way round, and I'm aware that I've started off on one road, gone quite a way down it,

but then decided to stop and go off in a completely different direction. Art is

subjective, so it doesnt neccessarily mean I've taken the correct route, but I feel

like I've arrived at the required destination and I'm quite pleased with the result.

Besides, don't they say its as much about the journey as the destination?