MINIATURE CITY

This video is just something that I saw and I still don't know how they managed to do it. It is a video of a city but somehow they have made everything look miniature. It looks like a toy city and although doesn't have anything to do with my current work, it is still interesting and cool. Definitely worth a look.

WELCOME GALLERY

We visited the Welcome Gallery during our trip to London. They had an exhibition on at the time called 'Medicine now' which i found pretty fascinating. Although not illustration, many of the pieces were really interesting. My favourite one (shown below) was a map of the world made entirely out of dead mosquitos. From more than a metre away it looks like the map has just been stitched or made out of string and it is only when you get up close that you actually see how it's made.

 Other sections of the gallery showed collections of medical tools, utensils etc, many of which were antique, unique and unlike anything else I have ever seen. Things like this are always good to look at for inspiration and I have always had a weird kind of interest in medicine and the history behind it so this exhibition was exciting to me. 

I also spent some time in the Science museum down in London, the history of medicine exhibition being my favourite out of all the exhibits. 

LOGORAMA ANIMATION

Apologies to Chris Madden for blatently stealing this off his blog. It is just an amazingly well put together and clever short animation. This is well worth taking 10 minutes to watch.

JOHAN POTMA

It is not usually the main image or character that I find the most pleasing in these illustrations, it is everything else going on around it. There are always tiny little bits of detail or interesting things to find if you look properly, and the more you look at his work the more attached to it you become. Johan Potman always adds in charmng little details like the wings on the back of the monster in the first image that you dont see straight away but when you do notice these little subtleties then you begin to like the work more. Other nice bits such as the line drawing of mountains, the text, stamps and found materials make the image more pleasing. On first inspection of these images they appear to be averagely drawn, slightly weird illustrations (which would have appealed to me a few years ago) but when you spend longer looking at these images and you notice little sketches or bit of text that the artist has put in the background, or little layers of texture or secret shapes drawn in and it adds a whole other level to the illustration. This work has something cute about it, something weird, something interesting, and the guy knows how to use different surfaces and textures. This is the kind of work that you might not like the first time you see it, but you will like some of the things you find when you look closer.

 

BBC Philharmonic

This an illustration I saw for the BBC Philharmonic family concert, sorry for the worst quality image ever, it is just a nice design and a way of showing music in illustration like I'm doing in my major project.

A REQUIEM FOR DETROIT

This was a documentary on BBC about Detroit, it's history and the fall of the car industry that brought in almost 100% of the cities revenue. Detroit used to be the centre of the car industry, it is where Henry Ford designed and built his famed model T and in the past was a rich vibrant industrial city. Nowadays because of the recession and then decline of profits in the car industry, Detroit has become almost a ghost town with vast streets of abandoned buildings, factories, and barely any people. I watched this documentary to inspire me for my final project in which I am focussing on the fall of the music empire. The documentary helped me come up with ideas and imagery and I rarely see something that fits so well with what I am trying to do in my work so finding this documentary was pretty cool. At the start of my final project I didn't have much diirection as I hadn't seen something that had properly inspired me but now it is focussed on the music empire, using the huge grand yet redundant buildings in Detroit as a start point.

This documenary is well worth watching purely for the imagery it shows. Detroit is huge and the way all the buildings have just been abandonned and left to the elements and nature is something you don't see every day. Nature has begun to reclaim lots of the buildings, and others have just fallen by themselves. Although it would be a really difficult place to live, it would be an awesome place to drive through.

The film and details about it can be found below:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1572190/

AMERICAN BEAUTY

This film is directed, scripted, composed and set in the most amazing way. Every shot is well  considered and the imagery in this film is stunning. This film makes me realise that you can find beauty in the most simple things and the most obvious places. It honestly has made me open my eyes more wherever I am and I now seem to find things wherever I go that visually appeal to me and that I can use for ideas for my work, both personal and college.

"..and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYrgHju3d-E

THE VELVET UNDERGROUND

This is always a band I tend to listen to when I'm stuck and need inspiration. I wouldn't say they were one of my favourite bands but they always make me think and look at things differently. When this band came out they were completely new, nobody had heard anything like it before and even now they are still original and inspirational. Music in general is a big inspiration for me and I always use it to help spark off new ideas and think of new directions to take my work in. 

COLLECTING THINGS

I collect too much crap. Everything I see that I think I could use in a piece of art, I pick up, and now I have no space in my room. 

Train tickets for example, I thought if I collected enough of them I would be able to do something amazing with them but I still haven't had an idea. I just have a whole shelf covered in over 200 train tickets. I like the pattern, colour and the type on them and I am thinking eventually something has to come up that they would be useful for.

Train tickets: Future Illustration

KIDROBOT

I decided to post this purely because I cannot walk past anything made by kidrobot without stopping to look at it. I have lots of these toys at home and I just like the simplicity of the characters really. Kidrobot often gets graffiti artists and graphic designers to design some of his limited edition toys. I like having these around because they are just little works of art as well as being fun.

PRE-RAPHAELITES

I realised that most of my inspiration comes from contemporary art and illustration so I decided to visit Manchester Art Gallery to see if I could get some more traditional and classical influences. I looked at a lot of Pre-Raphaelite paintings but found myself most excited by the works of Frederick Lord Leighton. Although not part of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, Leighton associated with many of the Pre-Raphaelite artists, and his paintings had a similar classical aesthetic. The painting that struck me most was Captive Andromach (pictured). This painting shows a scene of women collecting water and is painted in the Pre-Raphaelite style. It is a very traditional scene and the stylised clouds and trees are similar to those of other painters such as James Collinson and William Holman hunt. The first thing that made Leighton stand out for me was his incredible ability to paint fabric. The dresses of women and draped cloths are represented so beautifully and he works so delicately and precisely that his paintings are mind blowing to see in real life. His work also seems a lot more poetic and lifelike than other artists at the time. His portraits have a mood about them that makes them seem that little bit more alive than other portraits but in a beautiful way rather than being eerie or disturbing. 

Seeing this work has influenced me to seriously consider the use of fine detail in my work as small details can make something look incredibly beautiful. I always seem to lack a certain beauty in my work and I feel that Leighton has  inspired me and shown me how to capture this. 

Another thing that struck me about Leighton's work is the way he paints his figures. It is not the actual faces or expressions that I was interested in, but the poses. Every figure in every painting looks relaxed and natural. Many artists paint people in stiff and unrealistic poses but Leighton's figures always look so organic and peaceful, giving his paintings a calmness and in turn making them easy and pleasant to view. 

LAWRENCE STEPHEN LOWRY

After visiting the Lowry in Salford and looking at all his work in detail, my opinion of L S Lowry has completely changed. In the past I had only seen a few of his paintings and had not been excited by his work. Although I always liked his use of muted colour and his gloomy, realistic approach to painting, I did not connect with his figures or use of line. His bold black outlines on everything seem to take something away from the mood of his paintings and reduce the realism he gets across through his colour. 

I often wondered whether Lowry's drawing style was due to lack of skill as his paintings do not hold the same incredible detail as a Leighton or a Di Vinci and they also don't have the same sense of creativity or perfection such as the works of Dali. Viewing Lowry's early work and much of his pencil and ink work made me instantly realise that his simplified and stylised way of painting was definitely a choice rather than a lack of education and skill. His eye for detail and precision is incredible. After seeing his early work I instantly gained respect for him as an artist and started to think that everything in his paintings must be there for a reason. There must be a reason he chooses to simplify his people to their basic lines when, if he wanted, he could draw them realistically. I do not fully understand Lowry's reasoning behind his style but I feel that he just works in a way he enjoys. If he wanted to get across the dirty streets and worn out people he is very capable of representing them as he sees them and including more detail but he chooses to leave this out. Maybe he feels he gets across everything he needs with the way he works, or maybe he loves the city he draws and although somewhat grey and unwelcoming, he doesn't want to make it seem  awful. 

I enjoyed seeing Lowry's work and finding another side to him that i had never realised was there.

DI VINCI AT THE MANCHESTER ART GALLERY

 I recently went to Manchester Art Gallery to see the Di Vinci exhibition. They were showing about 11 original sketches done by Di Vinchi dating between 1480-1510. His skill and imagination are incredible and his drawings are so precise and accurate that it is amazing to think that they were produced 500 years ago. Di Vinci was very intelligent and drew his ideas for inventions such as helicopters, which  back in the day would have seemed completely insane. Looking at his drawings in real life gives you an indescribable feeling, you are held in awe of what is in front of you. Seeing his drawings has made me want to practice and improve my own drawing skills to the point where I can draw almost anything perfectly. Since seeing this exhibit I have noticed that I do draw a lot more, whether I am sitting watching a film or just on the train and I try to keep a sketchbook with me most of the time now.

CAMBRIDGE

I went on a trip to Cambridge recently and was blown away by the architecture and the detail of the buildings that I saw there. Everything that i walked past looked perfect and classy and it made me question the quality of my own work. These photos were taken inside one of the university chapels. Every bench in the chapel was individually carved and beautifully decorated and the carvings in the photos are just a few of the 100's of different creatures and animals there. I want to find a way to bring this idea of perfection and beauty into my illustration work.