pages 3-4 text to go on the left

not sure how this reads what you think going on.

Cut Click

Just in case anyone's interested, I found this:

http://cut-click.tumblr.com/

Mail art is going to be the theme of their next exhibition and I thought people here might find it quite interesting; books are also mentioned. The magazine that they make (link at the top) is quite interesting too :)

Craig Atkinson TALK & WORKSHOP

Hi all!

Can you please note that preparation for CRAIG'S workshop starts on the 18th of November (and lasts a week - 18th - 25th November):

-----Original Message-----
From: Craig Atkinson

I thought for my talk I'd mention the following:

Education and lead up to returning to drawing.
Why zines.
Start of Café Royal / setting up a business
Selling other peoples' work
Publishing other peoples' work
Marketing
Book fairs
The future!


What I'd like the students to do, for the workshop, is to:

Bearing in mind that the outcome will be a b/w zine, document the week ahead [18th - 25th November] in a way that suits them. E.G. photography, collecting, drawing, recording etc. The collections / photos etc will then be collated into a zine called 'seven days'. Each student will make a zine of the same title, but the content and format is entirely their choice.

Although zines will be photocopied b/w, they might have screen printed / photographic images within, or collage, or original drawings etc. Indesign could be used to lay the zine out. The student can decide on the print run, I suppose depending on what is available. A minimum is a run of 10.

The zine doesn't have to be a 'diary' as such. It could be a collection of sweet wrappers found through the week, each carefully documented and presented as a series of b/w photographs, for example. It could be a drawing made at exactly 10am each day for exactly five minutes, or it could be a Richard Long type documented journey, or a
record of gps positions...

I'll bring some artists' books and zines with me to show various formats. I think if the students who want to do this get their stuff together by the 25th, then we can talk about it and they can look through what I bring in, then decide how they want to produce their zine. So I suppose rather than a 'class' type workshop it'll be a discussion,over a table, of ideas and examples which they can take forward in their own time. The main thing is that they collect the weeks bits for their publication and have it with them on Wednesday."

Manchester Artists' Book fair report

Had a great time meeting loads of interesting exhibitors as well as punters. Such a good time, that I forgot to take pictures of our own table. Daisy however may have some? Meanwhile I took a selection of photos of other tables:

Met Craig Atkinson of Cafe Royal, and he will be coming up on the 25th of November to give a talk and hold a workshop: http://www.caferoyal.org/
Wirral Metropolitan College produces some beautifully crafted fine art books http://www.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/523609

Selling a fusion of monochromatic retro psychedelic vintage engraving styled books, Borbonesa: http://www.borbonesa.co.uk/

The infamous Tom Sowden of Centre for Fine Print Research http://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/people.htm.

individuals also hired their own table, such as Mary Lundguist http://www.marylundquist.com/

and Sarah Morpeth http://www.sarahmorpeth.com/

ABC Friday collection time 11:00 o'clock Print room

All books that you want to sell at the fair to be ready for selection & collection at 11 o'clock Friday 6th in print room

Your books should be:

1, signed, dated & editioned in pencil, with contact details preferably on separate card,

2, packaged in either cellophane, or paper bags or more bespoke methods

3, priced - you can tell me the price and I will list it accordingly - let me have a desired sale price (beginning of day), and a lowest sale price (end of day)

good luck

I tried redrawing the character from my artist book 'what not to put on your face' a few times to try and find a way that was more my style but because I rarely draw people I couldn't draw anything I was happy with so I turned to my sketchbook for other ideas. I just as rarely draw cats but after drawing the Icarus comic for Ink Soup I felt that I could at least draw a passable one.

(click to enlarge)


In my opinion this came out alot better than the first try with a human character. I had to rework a few of the ideas but most stayed intact.
I might try making posters of each panel with 'What not to put on your cat' as the title along with a number and then the act i.e #7 Radiation.

But anyway I have another 6 to draw for the morning so back to work.


(edit) p.s the writing is just there for coherency its not the final type. which I might hand draw

this is my book as it stands the paper works well but i cant get it to go through a printer any suggestions.

Journey Details for Manchester Artist Book Fair

Outward BIRMINGHAM NEW STREET to MANCHESTER PICCADILLY
Saturday 7 November 2009
Depart 08:31

Return MANCHESTER PICCADILLY to BIRMINGHAM NEW STREET
Saturday 7 November 2009
Depart 19:07

White Ninja Comics

Thought I would introduce anyone who hasn't seen it before to one of my influences White Ninja.
Web comic with a new comic every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
(click to see them bigger)






All of the comics and published in books and he even does badges



White Ninja Comics

A few really good books...

Wanted to share this book with you all because it's AWESOME!!! I bought it from Borders because I love typography but don't know much about it, and this is exactly the kind of type I like.

Here's a proper review of it:

http://www.graphic-design.com/Type/vintage_type/index.html

Some other books I use (which I would recommend) are:

Ripleys Believe It Or Not Annuals(there's a new one every year!)- these are wicked for odd stories which I think help with my work because they give me a basis for my odd stories. Also just a good read!

Wildlife of the British Isles by Alice Tomsett- I just like animals.

There's lots more but that's just what I've been looking at lately. Hope you like them!

Hi all I've been looking at the theme of journey and how i collect random memorabilia on trips. i have been experimenting with a collage, ink and photoshop and wanted to see how my image might look screen printed. i love the form of old and new buildings merging to form one.

This is an illustration by Kerrie Jane Stritton who's style is similar to mine. i particularly like the colours used as they create an urban feel to the work. She also looks at the everyday and see's beauty in the urban jungle, very much like myself.

"I spend most of my life in a perpetual dream world, my mind drifting through landscapes where narratives start to form. Some spill out as a single image where, within an empty landscape, i imagine what strange incident has taken place. Others are ongoing, larger and can only be expressed within a series of images. i am always inspired by places i visit, but Britain has often been my main inspiration, There are so many different exciting environments but sadly people feel they have to go backpacking up a mountain to experience a "real view", disregarding the everyday. Me? i can almost have an orgasm over an industrial wasteland."

Taken from The Picture Book by Angus Hyland

Spike Island Zine Fair Sat 31st October

Artists' Book and Zine Fair, Free entry
Sat 31 October, 1-6pm
followed by drinking, dancing, mingling in Spike Café til 9pm

more info here:
http://www.spike-island.org.uk/?q=events/bookandzinefair/2009

After searching through artist books websites and getting disheartened by page upon page of people trying to one up each other with their crazy designs I picked up a copy of Hand to Eye and found Tom Gauld. I read one of his mini books when Chiu brought us some examples in but I didn't think much about him until I went on his website and found his short comics which I felt my work related to not so much in style but the short narratives and pictorial one liners.

Taken from the Cabanon Press Website
I found this small comic of Gauld's after I wrote the one I'm about to show but if I had found it sooner I think I could have took some tips from it to help me write 'Things not to put on your face'. For such a broad title it took me ages to think of things that would actually be funny to illustrate and some of them are still a bit hit and miss. I indent to go back and redraw each panel adding shading and maybe colour. ( I have the hand writing of a cracked up spider so i might change the text )

(these are just some examples of panels for 'Things not to put on your face' not sure how I want to set it out yet.)

I like the openness of the 'things not to put on your face' idea but I've also been sketching out ideas for a few short stories. I've be looking at Greek mythology and thinking of other myths I could make a collection of. So far I've been playing with the story of Icarus.

"Icarus' father, Daedalus, a talented and remarkable Athenian craftsman, attempted to escape from his exile in the place of Crete, where he and his son were imprisoned at the hands of King Minos. Daedalus fashioned two pairs of wings out of wax and feathers for himself and his son. Before they took off from the island, Daedalus warned his son not to fly too close to the sun, nor too close to the sea. Overcome by the giddiness that flying lent him, Icarus soared through the sky curiously, but in the process he came too close to the sun, which melted the wax. Icarus kept flapping his wings but soon realized that he had no feathers left and that he was only flapping his bare arms. And so, Icarus fell into the sea."(Taken from Wikipedia and edited slightly)

I took this story and twisted it turning Icarus and his father Daedalus into birds cornered in a room and held captive by a cat. Every time they try to fly away the cat wakes and pins them back down. They sit and wait for their death until a baby comes along and wakes the cat. Noticing the cat doesn't attack the baby Daedalus comes up with the idea to make wax bodies for them both to make themselves look human and escape. Using a nearby candle they pack wax around their wings and legs molding them into a human shape. They walk past the cat who wakes then ignores them until Icarus gets too excited by the thought of freedom and walks too close to the fire where the wax melts and the cat pounces.

This first sketch was the rough ideas for the wax bodies and the baby.
I used pencil and fine liner for the sketches and then calligraphy pens and acrylic in for the rough panel. I think the pen and inks give the feathers on the birds a much better look than just a fine liner.

And a rough sketch of how the first panel will be composted with the two cornered birds and the shadow of the cat.


And heres a sketch from Tom Gauld to tie everything together.

hiii.. ..i did some sketches scanned them in and used photoshop, experimented around with the colours, to see how these would look if they were screen printed.iv chosen to illustrate a book about shoes&the different styles.

These are Tymn Armstrong's illustration which i feel my work relates to.probably because of the bold colour and the composition of his work.These illustrated for Threadless.

i also loved Hilary Judd's artist book from the Tate Britain Artists book collection.

"Shoebox is a book containing drawings of all the shoes I own, drawn from above and below and housed in a minature shoe box. Shoes are the only garment we wear which retains the shape, the personality, the essence of the wearer. The shoes are a complete variety of shapes and sizes designed for different uses. Inviting the viewer to explore the differences between them whilst having to regard them all in the same category."
http://www.hilaryj.co.uk/books.htmlFinally just wanted to add iv been looking Andy Warhol's shoe illustration's,very inspiring http://www.dougsartgallery.com/Andy-Warhol-Shoes.html

Any Comments appreciated :)

Sideshow Curiosities

Hello everyone! This is my 1st artist's book on the theme 'collections', 'The Lottie Street Sideshow Curiosities':

You can see all the pages from those images, it's just a single sheet of paper folded, printed front and back so the bearded lady is kind of a poster inside. I'm re-doing the text on the banners as I think it's messy, and I've experimented with screen printing a section of it which I think looks good so I'm looking at simplifying the designs to print them (this is watercolour and so far I've had to print with 3 colours).

Also been looking for artists books in a similar vein to mine which I am inspired by, and I can't stop looking at William Blake's books:

He's one of my favourite artists. I love his work so much because of the beautiful fluid colours and the way that his text is as much a part of the book as the drawing, rather than one being used in support of the other. I've tried to do this too in my book by making all the words part of the images, for example in the banners. Although my style is more contemporary with bolder colours and not so realistic drawings, I draw a lot of inspiration from William Blake.