Mr. Malcom X and I are pals for the next ten weeks.

My new proj is to make a book. My tutors thought up some sick (or so they thought) famous people and we all had to draw a name from a hat. To be fair, there were some cool ones, Hitler's girlfriend, French cereal killer, LSD guinea pig, and so on. But I got goldie; pretty much encompassing everything I hate. I was not best pleased and spent the rest of the day whining about it. Anyway, as soon as I got home it came to my knowledge that my flatmate didnt want Malcom X because she found him too depressing, so we swapped. Woosh!

But really, come on, Malcom X is so obviously choosable for this type of project, I'm not impressed with their creativing. I could have thought of some way more amazing people. What if you got Jesus..?

August

So I did have a summer project to do prior to the start of my course. I’m now with UCA Maidstone, doing an illustration BA. The summer project was to drawn one’s personal space. But I was doodling in this book before I got the letter so here are some ambient-mind type doodles, and a few sketches;

I got totally obsessed with lines...

Max is easy to draw because he stays still quite often.

I also have these sweet rubber alphabet stamps which I love a lot. I know it’s kind of cheating, because if I want to use stamps so much I should probably make some, it would be more original. I do plan to do that this year. But I really love these, I think they are beautiful, so I used the stamps to record things I was over-hearing people say that seemed interesting to me. I like listening in to peoples’ conversations. It’s so interesting, getting I little bit of conversation and trying to think up the story behind it. Like, for example, yesterday I was at the cash point and a little way behind me there was a man on the phone having a heated conversation and he said “you’re a coward, and if you do this I won’t ever speak to you again, and that a promise.” Shit.

Final major catch up

So these are some brief images illustrating my final major proj from last year which to be frank wasn’t the most awesome project I’ve ever attempted to apply myself to, but I did like the outcome. Apart from the last day when I spent about six hours trying to get into the studio to set up my exhibition the day before it opened. Oops.

What I did was to bind a book, something I’ve never done before and only ever did once, so I think my book was...okay. And I cut into the pages in such a way that I created a 3D scene in the relief of the paper. So I cut a forest into the book. Here are some photographs I took while I was making the mock up and the actual thing.

Then I stamped quotes from the play onto the fabric of the binding, and made a lectern...or rather stood around awkwardly while a technician made it for me. And then I set it up in my studio

The exhibition was really good, I thought. But I’m kind glad it’s over now. I have illustration degree related projects to look forward to now.

This ends the dead air since May

Man. I really kind of abandoned this small slot of internet since I finished foundation. Pretty much as soon as it was over I was so sick of art that I couldn’t stand to do anything for a while. And then it got so long that I just stopped thinking about continuing this blog. But I’m here now. Upon finishing my foundation at Camberwell, I lurked around the streets of London town for about three months not doing anything with my life and then moved on down to Maidstone.
That’s where I am right now. Sitting in my little room at halls, looking out of my, frankly human rights-encroachingly tiny window, at the studio rooms opposite the road. There are still sirens. And there are still shoes floating up high on telephone wires. But I miss London like nothing else. Maidstone is beautiful though, and the course is so much better than Camberwell. Everyone is so much more friendly and the projects are way more interesting and I feel really enthused to learn. So it’s a good start to the year I guess.