Travels In The Far East

These pictures date back to a time eight years ago when I was happy, naive and foot loose. I had just traveled across Russia, taught English in china and arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam. This was a dream come true for me. I was constantly confounded and inspired by my surroundings and had the time to take things in and importantly go out and sketch the world around me.

I drew this scene in a cafe. I felt the guy taking the call looks just like gangsta don receiving bad news, while the guy with his back to you is the greasy lackey. Sketching on site really trains you to be observant and to be fast in capturing the action.

I don't carry a sketchbook around with me nearly as much as I should, despite the fact I often encourage others to do the same ( its easy to give advice, harder to follow!). When I'm traveling however it seems the most natural thing in the world to explore, observe and sketch!

I had lunch in a quite restaurant ( its cheap in Vietnam I don't normally do such things!), after serving me the staff seeing as it was hot and quiet decided to take a nap. Which afforded me this beauty of a scene, imagine them doing this in an English restaurant! Note there are no chairs, you sit on the floor.

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In fact I have met many people who have complained that when they are away they do things that they don't normally do, yet when they return full of confidence and new found energy they are quickly cowed down by old inhibitions. The weight of normality constraining there once free spirits

So in conclusion, always carry a sketchbook, embrace you're freedom when you can. And err, here's a picture of a fountain.

Trolls!!!

 

 

I  Drew these after watching the Norwegian  film Trollhunter (Trolljegeren in Norwegian ). Which is a great and unique film, shot in a "found footage" mockumentry style (like The Blair Witch Project, but not crap), it has a wry sense of humour, covers Norwiegan folklore and has Trolls in it! What more could you possibly want?

As for the whys and wherefores of drawing a load of Trolls? Trolls like dinosouars, aliens and robots are fun! We all need to play and have fun in our lives, even our professional ones. In fact, all animals need play; they learn through play; we all learn through play.

  

Sometimes the most profound discoveries and breakthroughs have come about by somone who wasn't doing what they were suposed to, becuase they were too busy pratting about ...

Some beautiful mental ramblings

I sometimes run in an out of favour with sketchbooks. Well I never fall out with them, I've never had an argument with a sketchbook, not even when at my most demented. I do however attack them with greater or less zeal as time and mood permits. This sketch book was produced in a period of sketchbook renaissance, for me, following my picking up of a street art sketchbook showing many artists hidden doddleing's. From here I started looking at other such titles (graphic designers sketchbooks, comic book artists sketchbooks) getting massively turned on by the idea and falling back in love with the sketch book-artist relationship.



Reading this back and seeing phrases like; "argument with a sketchbook", "I do however attack them", "turned on" and "falling in love" I realise the novice psychiatrist may conclude that I am positive insane. I realize sketch books are not people. OK. They are however beautiful mental ramblings as fascinating as the people who make them...

This is me reaching out.

Making more contact with the wide world, via the medium of blog.

For the next seven days I will upload a page or two from one of my sketchbooks with a little commentary. Some times the most interesting things are the back stage goings on; the alchemical inner workings of personal practise. Sketchbooks are all these things made manifest.

Todays offerings are pictures from a sketchbook that I took around India.

Above is is a collage of random bits and pieces that I found day to day on my travels. Bright chaotic and idiosyncratic, the sketchbook brings back memories and inspiration long after returning home and reflects the nature of the places I visited and my reactions to them. The crazy colourfull mess of India stays with me, the visual notes infroming later work or being a direct template for paintings.

 

 

This was painted after climbing a mountain in the Eastern Ghats. All on my lonesome, the inacessability and alien grandeaur of the place had a powerfull efect on me. I don't paint outdoors nearly enough!

The Seeker

The Seeker

Just like a real landscape its mood changed with the changing light.

The seeker physically, is a landscape made from of books. The landscape is a setting for a character (the seeker) and a vehicle for an idea.The Idea for the piece and the idea for the exhibition of the same name, came about at the same time one evolving alongside the other.

The  idea, the theme, for the exhibition, was revelations. It seemed like an interesting topic so I thought of what it meant to have a revelation, of how revelations are a personal experience and how from an outside perspective they may seem very different. Take that thought further, imagine an alien race looking at humanities greatest moments of revelation. Would they relate to our profound experiences or see our insights as trivial or unimportant?

When people think of revelations they often think of the grand and spectacular or of religious connotations, yet a moment of revelation could be as mundane as "oh so that's where I left that cheese sandwich". Our lives are full of these moments, mundane and prophetic, and there is something extremely funny about this.

So the seeker seeks. Is he looking for that grand and prophetic moment of revelation? Or is he just passing the time? Does he gaze into the sky hoping to see the face of God, or powerful beings from another dimension? Does he seek for something other or to find himself? What if we do some seeking of our own? What will we see? Will we see the same thing...

From words to ideas and stories, from books to hills, from the physical to the philosophical

Seek and you shall find

Oh look a pile of books. Is that? Some kinda landscape... What's this here?

Go on take a look. No, the other side. Climb on the plinth and look through the binoculars.

I cant see anything...Oh, ha ha. Ohh...
 

What you lookin at?

Just what is is hes looking for what does he see?

I have to say that I got a kick out of watching people stare through the binoculars and see the little guy staring back. They may not have discovered some hither to unrealised aspect of existence or seen the face of God but they were definitely having a little moment of revelation, all their own.
How I grinned.

Book rage aftermath!

1000000 cuts of books,
100 cuts of self,
1000 profanities uttered,
400 books mutilated in the name of art ( they weren't very good books)
and a lot of time.

This is not good for my health.



 Was it all worth it? What was the point? Whats the point in anything?

A happy boy, a painting monsters

What a fun job! I still vividly remember working hurriedly to finish whatever task the teacher would set way back in primary school when I was around the tender age of five. I worked with such feverish determination. Finishing meant I was allowed to get on with the far more important task of drawing down on paper, the jumbled fantasies in my head. At this time they went under the name of warrior land and crawled and slithered across the page as blurry multi armed, many fanged, sometimes tentacled, monstrosities of chalk on brightly coloured paper.




Er, well that was then and this is now, and somehow Ive ended up doing a job that requires me to draw colourful renditions of fantasy monsters and the like. Five year old me would be very pleased, present day me definitely is.



The pictures on this page are glow in the dark paintings on the walls of a recently opened Laser Quest in the centre of Bristol (Ive still to take some better quality photos that truly show the work, glowing, but for now these give a good impression of what its like).

It was a lucky gob to get; the laser quest was moving into a larger basement area in the old fire station in town, which is thankfully where my studio is and as I have said painting monsters is a long time passion. However it was a really large space and a little daunting, though thankfully my experience painting in autonomous spaces gave me the confidence to work on a large scale.


It seems the hard work I've put into exhibitions and projects in Bristol seems to finally be paying off. So long as I find the time and space to paint another day I'll be a happy boy.

Ahh! More arrrt! Few its hard work this art malarkey.

For instance I started the wheels of motion for this exhibition " One Man Travel Plan" about three years ago when I began planning a travel documentary type thing only with out a film crew or anything, just myself and a camcorder.

After a couple of months planning and deciding on West Africa as the most unusual and unknown place for me to go I set of for five and a half moths of writing, filming, taking photos and sketching. Less a holiday more a creative work trip, a long one.

The show had been a long time in coming, from planing the trip, undertaking it and many hours pouring over photos and sketches since Ive been back. It represents three years of work and I still have to finish writing up my experiences, putting on a bigger more in depth show, there's, there's so much more I could do...


Anyway, the work has been put together ( finally) in some semblance of order for public consumption.Which is good.

I just have to figure out where to go from here?



Here is a map of my trip showing the route and places I visited. I made it out of tissue paper and got really carried away with it (it took ages).


The exhibit starts with the map for orientation and follows the places I visited chronologically.
The pictures follow a wavy course, in part this allowed me to fit in 30 photos, paintings and sketches with out the appearance of clutter and retaining some aesthetic grace. It also symbolises the route of my trip staring as it does near the beginning and finishing, well near the end. It spiralled around the gallery in a really nice way which I cant convey here but it was good trust me.This was a table for comments and to sell prints and cards.The plan is to make the art pay for more trips and projects. This is the dream. I hope it works.