fooling around with your conjoined twin

Yeah, relationships can get a bit strained, especially when one of you isn't inclined towards decorous and friendly behaviour... not that I'd know, really, but I imagine things could get fun.

I have also discovered that eating Wotsits with my left hand makes them last longer because it's so useless. It's only 11.30 in the morning and I'm already eating Wotsits. I need to get a grip on myself...

I succumbed to the wax jacket temptation a bit too easily (sorry Kat, your comment didn't deter me enough!) and it came through the post the other day. It's a second hand sage green Barbour Beaufort and it pongs of old wax. I'm not exaggerating, it REEKS like a barn. But I love it anyway and it fits perfectly. Whoop!

lacking in list, and some auction action

Listless, that is. Feeling very tired and a bit overwhelmed. I'm not the best at coping with too much work and a garden that's threatening to turn into a jungle... I went out there yesterday for the first time, it seemed, in weeks to find that the weeds have grown positively Amazonian in size and spread, one of my pumpkin plants is dead (oh woe!), and the grass is ankle deep. I spent a lot of time earlier this year tidying it up and planting my veg but I've been so busy with work and going places at weekends that I've let it slip this last month. And what with all the rain and sun it's now gone BOOOMPH! with all manner of unnameable plants and now I've got a hell of a lot to do to tame it again. That said, I spotted my first pea pod (yeah, they're a bit late...), and the runner beans are going bonkers.


'Le Vieux Roi' Lithograph on paper by Pablo Picasso, 1959.

It is Willingham Auctions time again on Saturday. This month they've got prints by Picasso, Karel Appel, Braque and Matisse up for sale. Plus some more lovely chemist's bottles, which will always sell for more than I'm willing to pay. We're probably going to give it a miss this time though because we really need to practise our housework skills!


Carborundum print by Karel Appel.


I was looking at some watches like these last time and thinking that, with an estimate of £20-40, it might be quite fun to buy something like this and use them as pendants on a long necklace or something like that. I saw such a thing at Urban Outfitters the other day and whilst not all the watches would be suitable (they might be a bit large), a dainty little one would make a much more interesting and unique version of the high-street item, which I think was £24. I particularly like the enamelled one in the picture above. There are also lots of pocket watches and stopwatches, but they might be a bit big for hanging off your neck. Not bad for £20-40, though, eh?


All images from Willingham Auctions.

coasters!

I seem to swing from day to day between pretentious art critique and girly shopping craziness, and missing out posting about my work altogether... So today I've decided to write about coasters! Yes, those things you put drinks on if you're precious about your furniture. And yes, I'm precious about my furniture.


I hate coasters. I think they can be so ugly and unimaginative. I've been looking for sensible and pretty solutions for some time and had the idea of using old tiles. To this end, when we were in the Cotswolds recently I bought two Victorian tiles from an antiques shop. Now they are a bit large for coasters, but they are quite pretty, nay? Much better than the old DVD I was using, which made me want to weep.



Now I've seen these before, but a greetings card that I bought recently reminded of Xenia Taler's lovely hand-made tiles which can be hung on the wall or used as coasters and trivets. They are treated to be heat-resistant, cork backed and have a groove for hanging too.





If you don't fancy tile coasters, how about these fun button coasters from Eden & Eden?



I really need to do something better with my time...

the royal academy summer exhibition 2009

Every year I am afflicted by a short-lived delusion that I should enter something into the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy, usually triggered by a visit to said exhibition. It's not that I think I've got anything to enter, I just have a kind of sad yearning to be a proper 'artist' rather than some kind of commercial sell-out drudge, churning out terrible illustrations for money. But my question after visiting the exhibition last week was what on earth IS art these days? and it's a question I've struggled with for a while.

I used to love printmaking, and the Small and Large Weston Rooms at the Summer Exhibition are full of lovely prints. I'm not fussed about all the other modern stuff, some of which is lovely, but most of which is shocking. Call me traditional, but I like to see some kind of ability or skill - drawing, painting - in the piece if you're going to call it 'art'.


Image of the Small Weston Room by John Bodkin for The Royal Academy.

I am very cynical about a lot of modern art - the old notion of there being a requirement for skill in creating a work of art has been somewhat pushed aside in favour of the need for new art to 'say' something interesting or to impart upon its viewer some kind of emotion derived from the experience of staring at it. But can't a piece of art be both skilled in its execution and emotionally exciting? I could rant forever about this - I just get this niggling feeling every time I'm faced with a squiggle on a blank canvas that someone, somewhere, is pulling my leg very hard.

Tracy Emin is exhibiting a print of her Space Monkey and selling an edition of 300 for £225 per print. I don't know if that would be a good investment on my part or just a money-making gimmick on her part. I mean, the tiny amount of effort that's gone into that for a possible £67,500 in her pocket is mind-boggling. I tend towards the cynical view - pah! I'm not being taken in by that two-minute piece of junk! - but am I kidding myself? Do effort and skill really matter these days?

Hey, maybe I'll do a Space Hyena print for next year...

my jelly mascot on Creative Review

Thanks to Damien this morning for the heads-up that the cat I made for Jelly has appeared on the Creative Review website. Apparently he wanted to have his photos taken in the Boothnation photobooth. What a poser!

pretentious country girl in wax jacket?

I can't believe I've just spent the last hour or so looking for wax jackets on eBay - my life is so tragicomedic sometimes. I think this country air must have gone to my head... I used to have one when I was about eight years old, but I can't decide if it would be cute or ridiculous now. Probably dancing on its tippytoes somewhere between the two. I'd probably look like I was pretending to be someone who lives in the countryside, or some foreign girl who wants to look English. Damn, I've got some issues...

Anyhoo, they cost a hell of a lot of money new, so eBay or vintage it would have to be. It should be green and slightly oversized, and most importantly NEVER worn done up to anywhere above the midriff, even in a snowstorm (see how much better the top image looks than the bottom one? or is that just me?). I don't know, I talk such rubbish sometimes.


Image from sellers brudnell (top image) and Yorkshirecountryman on eBay.

anne herbauts

Pieter Brueghel's The Fall of the Rebel Angels depicts the fall from heaven of angels who have turned into all manner of freakish creatures and are seen tumbling into a pit at the bottom of the image. Brueghel had a wonderful way of making his monsters both frightful and faintly ridiculous with their wibbly flesh and comical expressions - are they scary or just silly? Whatever the case, you might think that they are hardly the kind of stuff that you might show to very young children. Yet the monster on the bottom right, which has had its egg-filled belly slashed open and is holding the gaping wound wide with an almost rapturous or pained expression on its face, appears on a spread from L'Arbre Merveilleux by Anne Herbauts. This is ostensibly a children's book but it is packed with difficult French and an eye for the dark and peculiar. I remember stumbling upon Brueghel's painting in the library whilst researching Hieronymus Bosch and Brueghel, and being quite taken aback when I made the connection to where I'd seen the image before - what a revelation it was to me that this lady had so boldly used such disturbing material as her inspiration.

On the previous spread it says (my rough translation):'Suddenly all these birds appear in the sky. Under the tree, the shadow of the magical egg is strange. Too big or too deep, too dark. Is it a stain, or could it be a hole? Monsieur Comme-Toujours asks himself. It's a chasm of mysteries, of metamorphoses! It is the unknown, the forgotten, the magical!'


The French is so poetic and suggestive of things much darker than the mere appearance of the image. Then you turn the page and you see that the birds are all a bit monstrous, with fish heads and bodies like mammals, and with Brueghel's eggy lady at the bottom tumbling into the shadow-chasm.


The story is pretty strange, involving a man who lives in a strictly regimented community made up of coffee pots, lighthouses and hot air balloons amongst other things. He angers the fairy who is in charge of the coffee pot house and ends up running off to 'see the country' with a little monster as his companion.


Along the way they encounter a monster with a bell for a head, a witch who cooks up fairytales from words, a little creature who lives in an apricot and a frog who serves them coffee whilst weeping because he has lost his memories.



What I love about Anne Herbauts' work, apart from her lovely, expressive style, is the way in which she tells stories through her pictures. A red thread - a 'story thread' runs like a vein throughout this book and there is a playfulness in the way that she uses it, for example when the little monster stitchs up the page with the red thread, representing the way in which narrative can be cut and joined up again, or stopped and re-started. The whole narrative is tied to the idea of creating stories, playing with words, and the way in which she links that idea to the very fabric of the book is wonderfully imaginative.


Enough talking. This is the only book of hers that I've got - anyone fancy buying me another?!

jelly at the Portfolio Show

Some photos of the Victorian style room that Damien Weighill and I drew for Jelly's stand at the Portfolio Show in Westminster. They are rather rubbish photos - sorry! In the first picture are the lovely Charlie and Chelsie from Jelly. Amongst other things I drew a side table that ended up with its feet cut off, and a truculent mouse having a sneaky fag outside his house.

design for mankind

Huge thanks to Erin from Design for Mankind for posting about my work this week! I love this blog, so I'm incredibly pleased to be featured on it! Click here for the post.

I also appeared on Desi's blog last week - thanks, Desi!

rébecca dautremer

I adore children's picture books, especially those that have unusual narratives paired with beautiful illustrations. From my (admittedly limited) experience, I have found that children's publishing in England can sometimes be a bit narrow-minded and 'safe'. By that I mean that they like to go with things they already know - I once lost out on a job doing some book jackets because the sales team at that publishing house decided that they wanted an already known illustrator to do the covers :-( Or if a book is deemed too 'scary' they will back off it. Most of the very memorable books I read as a child are quite dark: Maurice Sendak comes to mind in particular. I am sure that the editors are very experienced in terms of knowing their market and knowing what kind of books sell the best, but sometimes I wish I could find books here like the marvellous treasures that I've brought back from France. Over on the continent it seems to me that they are a bit more willing to push the boat out into really surreal territory sometimes. We're talking half-finished puppets coming to life and running amok, parents disappearing from home and surreal adventures involving little demons and Brueghelian tableaux (more on that later).


From La Tortue Géante des Galapagos.

I thought I'd share the work of one of my absolute favourite French illustrators, Rébecca Dautremer (sadly her site isn't too great for looking at her work, so you're actually better off with her gallery). I own at least four books illustrated by her and I keep them all on our coffee table because they are so inspiring. Her use of colour and tone are stunning, and the compositions she creates are both unusual and effective. I think the way she captures the light and atmosphere in some of her work is extraordinary - such luminosity juxtaposed against the quietness of shadow and space. She also has a way of scraping and scratching back into her painting to give it texture or highlights that is pretty brave but works a treat. I've just done a quick search on Fnac's website and they seem to stock most of the books. My favourites would have to be Nasreddine, Sentimento and La Tortue Géante des Galapagos. Unfortunately whilst I can translate the large part of the first two books, the last has me completely baffled without a dictionary. Such complex language for a children's book!


From Nasreddine et Son Âne.

I've not been able to find many images online, so I've photographed some of her spreads. I don't think they really do the books justice (plus it's been so gloomy these last few days in England), so go out and buy some if you want to see just how amazing they are.



From La Tortue Géante des Galapagos.



From Nasreddine.


From Sentimento.

busy busy!

Had a marvellous weekend in the rainy Cotswolds, where we spent a lot of time in antique shops and walking around the countryside looking for long barrows (ancient burial grounds). Not had a chance to see the pics yet. Mostly we took photos of mounds of earth in the rain, so I'm not too hopeful that any will be worth looking at apart from for posterity's sake.

I've been away today at the Portfolio Show in London helping my agent, Jelly, set up their stand. We have been drawing an old-fashioned room scene on the boards that will form the backdrop. I must be getting old - three hours drawing on my knees and I'm starting to creak! I've got to be there tomorrow too, so I'll not post anything new up until Wednesday when I'll be writing about some French children's book illustrators. I will also be posting photos of our lovely stand if I get any good shots. I'm looking forward to eating their home-made cakes tomorrow as my reward... yum yum!

annecy animation festival

Image from 'Yulia' by Antoine Arditti

Every year since 2005 I've been attending the big animation festival in Annecy, France. This year, like damn fools, we decided not to go. When I received the newsletter a couple of weeks ago it made me feel quite sad that I wasn't going to be there trying to crash parties that I'm not cool enough to attend, or eating delicious apricot pastries for breakfast. I have great memories of swimming, walking, eating out and, of course, sitting in that magnificent Grande Salle watching films. Last year we stayed in a stunning 17th century loft apartment with beams and a view across the rooftops of the old town. I bet the weather will be great this year too - we froze our arses off in the lake last year :-/ I'm not bitter or anything, not me.




Image from 'Spãrni un Airi' by Vladimir Leschiov

It starts this Monday and I've been looking around the short film selection to see what looks interesting. Only two out of forty films are British this year - pretty poor, really! One is the latest Wallace and Gromit film and the other is this colourful one below, by the Brothers McLeod and titled 'Codswallop':


I have to say very few of the short films have impressed me in the last couple of years. I recall a discussion with one of my tutors at university about the quality of the short films at the big festivals and how he thought that a lot of them were chosen for their style over substance. For him, the key to a short film should always, always be the story. Whether it's serious, funny, factual or whatever, inspirational content and good storytelling should always be at its heart. Last year's winner of the Annecy Cristal (and an Oscar too!) was a Japanese film, 'The House of Small Cubes' by Kunio Katō. It was both beautiful to look at and carried by a very sweet story that was just on the right side of sentimental. Click here to watch it (image below).


Of course, the graduation films are usually a better prospect - I think students haven't had the time to disappear up their own arses about their 'art' yet and often make refreshing use of an old medium. The commercial films (TV ads, music videos) are a lot of fun too.

In fact, whilst putting this post together, I discovered that my supertalented, lovely friend Mia Nilsson and Linda Kalcov made a music video for One Eskimo, and it will be screened at Annecy this year. Well done ladies - I'm so jealous! Click here to watch a clip from this lovely, whimsical video.


Image from 'One Eskimo - Kandi' by Linda Kalcov and Mia Nilsson.

Phew, that was a long post! I'm off for a couple of days in the Cotswolds (in the rain :-/). See you after the weekend!

animation

Here are a couple of ideas for this animation job that I've just sent over. I bet they'll hate it and ask me to use brighter colours and draw some really cheesy characters. It's always the case with me... We'll see, eh?

grumpy bunny

I'm feeling a bit like this little dude today. A bit down in the dumps. I feel like I'm still asleep even though I've been at my desk for two hours. I've been working pretty hard on this new animation project for the last few days, so haven't had time to play as much as I'd like :-) My stuffing arrived the day after I ordered it, so whilst I've had the materials for making toys, I've not had the time. The stuffing (all 6 kilos of it) is currently sitting in a huge box in the middle of the sitting room like, as Mark calls it, a carbuncle. I think I'd better deal with it before he gets annoyed! If it were his stuff, I'd have made him put it away days ago! I can be such a hypocrite...