Pickled Onions

Posted on January 30, 2016 by Guthlac

Harly Q Impossible Girl NP 001 Princess Amadarla

Doodles and sketches … just doodles and sketches…

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The start of something new

Posted on January 30, 2016 by Guthlac

Loughborough Parish Church - Loughborough Trees - Loughborough

Yesterday, in quite a long time, I went out and captured some images with my camera.  Nothing new there you might suggest and of course you would be right.  What is new is that this was the first part of project that I am undertaking with my good friend David Manley that he has been itching to do called Playground of the Midlands.  The link explains what the purpose(?) of the project is far better than I can.  Anyway it will be interested to compare the work he produces from this project compared to that I produce.

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And it’s a ha ha ha hard

Posted on January 28, 2016 by Guthlac

Aging Scottish Artist Girl with Harvest Yellow Hair Girl with Yellow Ring Green Top Woman Samson Woman

Over night I thought I might try an experiment to prove or disprove something I have been heard to say more than once – that I can write anything about anything without the first bit of prompting.  What I write may well be totally nonsensical and possibly grammatically incorrect (my few suffering readers may well suggest that this is what this blog is all about and I guess they have a point).  I may well still do that but not today.  Today I have to address weightier matters and this involves where my art is taking me.

Yesterday I spent the day examining the work of Phil Noto and Frank Cho – both are comic book artists and both have a very distinct approach to their art.  Noto has a very much more traditional approach to what he creates.  His art has a Mad Men feel to it but because it is designed to be reproduced has a simplified approach which I love. Cho on the other hand has a far more end of the pier approach to his art saucy seaside card approach.  His mark making is very much more matter of fact and most of his images are laced with teenage sexual tension.  However it would be a mistake to dismiss his approach because of this as his mark making is simply wonderful.

The simple mark making is what attracts me to these two artists because I am finding traditional painting not to my liking – in truth I don’t have the mental stamina to making painting work and so I am looking for another approach.  One, of course would be to return to digital painting and this is an option.  However, a way around this is to take the simplified approach of all the great illustrators artists, of which Noto and Cho are but the latest examples, and this is what I was working on yesterday.  In short the results were encouraging and fit into my limited attention span way of working – who said it is just the youth of today who have suffer from limited attention spans!

BTW that was 352 words.

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They ask me how I knew?

Posted on January 27, 2016 by Guthlac

Orange Belt Pink Dress Young Woman

De dum de dum de daa.

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Want to fall from the stars

Posted on January 26, 2016 by Guthlac

Lenin 001 Lenin 002

We think we know the stars but we don’t.  Very few people know the bad breath they no doubt have from time to time.  We have no real clue what the stars really look like with their perfectly managed images.  This thought went through my mind this morning as I was working on this two little drawings.

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Ode to my lower back

Posted on January 26, 2016 by Guthlac

Lower Back

I read a report yesterday which I thought had been lifted straight out the pages of the comic book world – the scientists that maintain the Doomsday Clock are  thinking of moving the minute arm to 2 minutes to midnight.  Midnight of course is when the world comes to an unceremonious  end. The argument is that with all the expansion of nuclear weapons, climate change and general uncertainty we are back to the height of the cold war.  I have to say I think this is nonsense for two reasons:  Firstly whilst the threat of nuclear annihilation is still there it doesn’t feel anything like as real as during the cold war and secondly we humans have a track record of surviving – after all the Doomsday clock has been set at near to midnight for the whole time it has existed yet here I am calling into question the whole notion of the doom and gloom implied by the clock.

Which in a strange way brings me to my back.  Over the past fortnight it has been giving me hell but I’m glad to say it seems to be getting a little better.  During that fortnight there have been times when I thought that the end was nigh (over exaggeration I think!)   yet experience has taught   me that things will slowly get better and I will survive for another day.  Which, in a small way, is the same with life – we all have periods when things seem really bad but eventually things start to pick up and get back to an even keel or am I just being too optimistic and the world, along with my back, is going to hell in a hand cart?  What a strange thought to start the day with.

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The truth is stranger than fiction – an encounter with Room 237

Posted on January 24, 2016 by Guthlac


Stanley Kubrick

Scruffy Man

This afternoon I sat down and watched the completely incredible Room 237 documentary about people obsessed with the Stanley Kubrick movie The Shining.  Now I don’t know that much about the movie other than I remember watching it when it first came out in the 1980’s and not thinking anymore of it.  Clearly I was wrong if the contributors to Room 237 are to be believed who seem to see subliminal messages in any detail of the film.  The basis for the obsession is Kubrick himself who was renowned to be obsessive about every little detail.  Once this is accepted then all bets are off and you can read anything into the movie from an attack on the way that the native people  of the North America were treated to the Holocaust by way of the faked moon landings.

Of course the only problem with all of these ideas is that you can do the same thing to any movie.  Continuity errors were no longer errors but deliberate and you reach the point where one contributor felt he was being watched by the US government.  Of course at one level he may well be right given what Edward Snowden has leaked but back in the real world it is far more likely that all the  movie was just that and should be considered along with all of Kubrick’s other works.  However I might be just being naive and missing the big picture. Perhaps.

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Turn it on again experiment No IV

Posted on January 23, 2016 by Guthlac

A Serious Man Snape

One of the few joys of having a bad back is that when you find somewhere that is comfortable then you tend to gravitate towards there.  For me at the moment the most comfortable chair is my study chair in front of the iMac.  So what to do whilst grabbing some relief?   This afternoon a little light sketching was called for.

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Are you going to Scarborough Fair?

Posted on January 23, 2016 by Guthlac

1

Well I won’t be going anytime soon…back still playing up and the thought of driving  to Scarborough wouldn’t be my idea of a good idea.  Because of this I have been getting ahead of myself by starting the editorial process for the 2015 book.  For those of my few readers who don’t know every year I produce a yearbook of the work I produced over the previous year.  I usually get around to this task towards the middle of the year which gives the whole process a certain distance or hindsight.  This year will be different.

For anyone who has never had to edit their work down it can be a very painful process.  Image that you really like may not work when placed against images and so you have to jettison your favourite.  Of course the ultimate test would be to get someone else edit the book which would be interesting but for me would miss the point.  This is my selection of my images and that, in itself, has a value.

2

One thing I have learnt about last year – my photographic output would have been almost nil without the Autumn project.  I was hoping to create a Winter project but that has fallen by the wayside for a number of reasons.

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Can you feel it?

Posted on January 22, 2016 by Guthlac

Band of Gold Harley Q Wolverine

I certainly know I can.

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