Month: April 2012

Wanna See Comiket?

Posted on Posted in Events, Fun and Textiles, IllustrationTagged , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

I’ve been a very naughty blogger. Not only did I fail MISERABLY at bringing you lovely lot the buildup to Comiket (ironically because I was a bit too busy actually doing it) but THEN I also waited a whole week before even bringing the tales to the internet. BAD FORM!

Well, if you pop along to the NEWS section of my website, you’ll see a few little bits, but there are a few more photos so I thought they could live here.

In short, it was an awesome event. Unfortunately I can’t actually bring you the goods in terms of new names to watch out for, as I was pretty much stationary for the whole thing so was very limited in terms of the work I saw. There was no doubt though, that the range of work on offer was unbelievable! It’s the reason I regard Comiket with quite such high esteem; absolutely everybody is welcome. Yeah it’s about comics, but there is so much more to the notion of comic books and graphic novels then just men in tights and capes. Comiket is one of those events that really allows you to explore what graphics mean to you, and what attributes all kinds of illustration can really supply in the arts market. I think that’s such an important realisation when we’re so highly exposed to trends and labels, in every regard, under ordinary circumstances.

And this year was no exception, you just have to look at the mixed bag that is the contributors list. Literally, from the small pressers like me, through to professionals, right along to big business like Walker Books. All with different kinds of work to sell, and all of it worth looking at.

It’s probably a good thing I couldn’t get a gander round actually. I only would have spent any money I made on yet more books and zines to add to my already groaning book shelf. For a start, I know that NoBrow, Tom Gould, Phillipa Rice, Louis Roskosch, Accent UK, Orangutancomics, Twisted Dark and Markosia all had tables there, all of which are very cool people of whom I am a fan or have proved to have done cool stuff in the past. So I KNOW for a FACT that there was definitely a lot of gooood shit there. So unless the possibility of being exposed to just a little bit too much awesome is too much for you, you’ve really no excuse not to go check some more contributors out. And I highly recommend that you do.

And while I was a bit of a Sad Winston and chained to my table for those most part, I was certainly kept busy with the sheer number of people that turned up! It was pretty much manic, and I’m pleased to say a very decent success for a li’l small press guy like me. Yeah okay, giving away free stuff might have helped a little bit, but what can I say, I’m a giver. And besides, as I’ve said on numerous occasions, why not make the most of the *ahem* free photocopiers at Uni?…you know, the ones I pay for with studio fee . Those free photocopiers.

But I’m just kidding, the free zines went down okay, but the real attention seemed to be mainly on Tick and my BRAND NEW ZINE, Bears: Don’t like ’em. I was getting rid of those by the bucket load! Strangely enough, to a lot of people wearing bear t-shirts. I think they may have missed the point a bit but hey, I have their money now! HA!

I also did get rid of a few of the prints I’d been doing in the building weeks which is fantastic. It’s so nice when your time is rewarded, and obviously I don’t for a second just mean with money. There is no greater feeling than knowing something you have created has brought someone joy. And especially at an event like this, where people can, and do, chat to you about what you’ve done that they do like and what they don’t like and it’s all such honest feedback because they don’t for a second have to give it to you.

I met so many different kinds of people last Saturday and I had some incredible conversations with them about such a magnitude of topics. It was just yet more proof to me that the real meaning of the word comic is far broader than the stereotypes could ever allow you to imagine. Old, young, teenage, middle age, fat, thin, male, female, camp and alternative; I swear the entire spectrum of human variation was walking through those doors and browsing the length and breadth of the isles.

Having been to a few small press deals in the past, I knew this was often the case though. It’s one of the reason’s I’m so keen to take part in them over the big, overwhelming cons, and I tried really hard to make sure my table reflected as such.

I think I succeeded, judging by the number of times people asked astonished “did you do ALL of this? It’s all so different!” which is one of those lines that makes you grin like a maniac on the inside when you hear it. And I guess it’s true, my table was some what schizophrenic. All four of my publications were pretty different in a number of ways: from the very artsy, painterly styles of Tick, through to heavily line based Bears, screen printed The Day I Met a Fatty right on over to the very graphic Rumble; I’ve tried to give each of them an identity of their own that was suitable to their purpose. And then of course there were the wild-card, batshit sandwich that was the sock creatures. But they were really just there for fun :P.

I have a few of those left actually, I’ll be sure to get them up on here at some point soon so you can have a giggle at the things I spend my life doing. Most people go out with mates. I stuff Socks. It takes all sorts.

Anyway, for fear of getting even more self-indulgent, I’ll wrap this post up. I would just like to put out a huge, huge thank you to Paul Gravett and everyone who helped to set up the event and make it as enjoyable as it was. I would like to say a MASSIVE thanks to this woman, who literally saved my bacon on Saturday by being my skivvy for the first few hours and keeping me well caffeinated. FYI, she’s also a creative type and has done some truly phenomenal bits of ART (you know, as in fine art. That real life, gallery stuff. Not just robots and ting) and often writes about very interesting thingies and bits here, so definitely have a look if you’re feeling especially cultured.

And also would just like to say how much I appreciated the appearance of the very lovely Patricia, Hugh and Tegwen. All of whom popped over to show their support which was truly lovely of them all. I hope all three of you enjoyed the event and found something exciting buried in those isles of illustrative magic.

Okay, do you know what? I think I’ll stop going on like I’ve just won some kind of Academy Award now. Unless maybe it was the award for going on like a gushing tosser, feel free to get in touch to hear the full speech for that one.

To summarise, Comiket was awesome, people are talented, I like robots and we can all go home happy.

Peace OUT.

B

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Hope your Easter Monday was EGGselent!

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Ah Easter.

That brilliant time of year where you either get a potential 4 days off work, or you all get confused about what day does and doesn’t count as some form of bank holiday. Or which ones hold some kind of Religious significance or not. Like, Which day did Jesus die again? Or is it about now he was coming back? And what does the egg mean again?

…and where do rabbits come into all this?

This is the problem with basing your life around archaic texts that keep contradicting themselves, it’s very hard to keep track of things (BOOM).

But, in all seriousness, Easter is a very confusing time for me. I don’t hold a great deal of significance around it, given that I’m quite happily atheist and I don’t really eat chocolate and I just find cream eggs that little bit too sickly. I guess, for me, it’s all a bit of a non event.

This year is no (egg)ception to this. While my flatmates have all gone to their respective families, I’ve been a bit of a Sad Winston here and have instead spent the weekend hand washing my clothes, with Indesign as my only friend.

The Joy of being a student.

So, last night, in an attempt to get into the mood and out of my cynical rut, I sat down and did a good old fashioned drawing for Easter.

Biro + photoshop x loneliness = err...messed up

Ah. Hmm, well okay, on second viewing it’s not QUITE as successful at celebrating the holiday as I perhaps would have hoped. Still, there’s always Christmas right?

Hopefully you’ve all had chirpier weekends than I. Go eat an egg or something.

B

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My Life of Print!

Posted on Posted in PrintmakingTagged , , , , , , , 3 Comments

I promise not to ramble on for this one. I’ll just deliver the goods and set you on your way. But CHECK OUT how many prints I have!!

Everything I've made in the past few months. It covered the entirety of my floor!

 

Magpies and Robots! Quick, A6 lino-cuts I made on the last day of Uni before Easter! Printed on a vast array of second hand papers.

 

I couldn't afford real print paper...so they're on coloured card and metallics.

 

Not even half of them! Hopefully you can see where I've played around with ink levels during the print process to get different effects. All 100% unique!

Okay, enough of this print making mania now. I’ve gone on about it long enough. Time to get obsessed with something new. Hhmmm…typography next?

B

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Print Workshop Three: The Letter Press Experience

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So I thought I’d log the concluding stage of our printmaking workshops, seeing as I documented the other two so thoroughly. It’s a shame in a way to end on this one as, out of the three of them, it was the one I connected with the least. This is partly due to the fact I didn’t really allow myself enough time to think about my outcome as in-depth as I had for etch and lino, and partly just due to the fact that I find Letter Press just a smidgen too fiddly.

I know, I know. I’m being a bit of a hypocrite and general spoil-sport, but I just can’t really get behind the reasons to engage with letter-press. The outcomes can be truly beautiful, I admit that, but I’m just so aware how easy it would be to create such pieces in a fraction of the time via digital means. And with so much more freedom. I feel so bound by letter-press, firstly by the fact you’re so limited to what font you happen to have available in your inventory, in what specific sizes and that’s supposing that some cheeky arse hasn’t nicked one or two letters (as is usually the case when you’re using a shared press, such as that at uni). And that’s even before we factor in the other variables such as all the right leading sticks being left in the right place, there being enough clamps etc etc etc

THEN, SUPPOSING all that is, indeed in order, you have to painstakingly put the bloody thing together. Letter by letter, line by line. I truly take my hat off to all those poor folk to whom this was a career back in the days of pre digital print. They truly must have had the patience of saints.

But I digress, I don’t think it helped matters any that I’m not overly fond of my outcome. It was rushed, unplanned and generally a little dull, but it is the conclusion to my Henri de Toulouse Lautrec collection, so deserves a mention.

As my lino had gone down so well, I decided to theme the letter-press along a similar bent. For my lino, I’d focused on Lautrec’s alcoholism and fondness for absinthe, and it was through the research for this that I’d stumbled upon the recipe for his famed cocktail. Well, I say cocktail. I think what I actually mean is lethal concoction. One part Absinthe to one part Cognac. That’s it. A 50/50 blend of undiluted spirit, shaken together into a glorious, liver-failure inducing solution that Lautrec refered to as Le Tremblement De Terre: Earthquake to you and me. So called as it was (understandably) assured to shake you up and make you fall over.

So, with this new information to hand, I decided to describe Lautrec, via the press, as Monsieur Tremblement De Terre. See, see what I did there. I put “mister”  in front of it. In French. Like a clever person.

It’s hard being this cultured, it really is.

But this is where I met my downfall. Drunk on my own genius, I decided to attempt to echo the effect of the beverage within the type. This started with the typeface itself, where I set ‘Monsieur’  in one font, all one size (I can’t even remember which font that was now, sorry that’s awful) but then jiggled the rest of it about a bit with different letter sizes. The concept here was to create a contrast within the sentence that alluded to Lautrec’s lifestyle change of aristocratic upbringing, to the bohemian life he led within the Moulin Rouge. (Something I then reinforced with the colours: black fading to absinthe green.)

As if this wasn’t a pain in the arse enough (because where’s the fun in making things easy for yourself?) I then decided the piece just didn’t say “off your tits on potentially lethal levels of alcohol” enough, so sought to reconstruct this by setting the letters at different levels and generally making a mess.

Experimenting with layering the print over itself

So really, it’s my own fault I had such a nightmare with letter-press. This kind of mindless artistic-ness is easy enough on photoshop, but let’s stop to consider what letter-press was actually invented for, for a minute. Had I done that at the time, I probably would have realised how difficult I was about to make things for myself. Letter press once served a very legitimate purpose. To print multiple copies of multiple straight lines of legible text.

Everything about my print is fighting that purpose, and as a result it just doesn’t work. I’ll admit that, I learnt a very valuable lesson. I guess that’s what I find frustrating to an extend. I do not like being restricted, to any degree on any topic. If I want to make something messy and complex, I want the freedom to be able to fulfil that purpose, not be restricted by the natural boundaries of a process.

I mean, true, I did actually get around it. But I know the piece would have been stronger had I conceded and worked with the limitations of the press, not against it.

But I guess though that is part of the charm to old print processes. They could be considered, by and large, redundant, but it’s the level of skill and patience required to master them that has kept them alive. People are desperate to prove their worth in a world where everyone has the potential to be an “artist”, and for many that is done simply by showing that their ability would have been acknowledged to just the same extent in a time where creativity was just that little bit pickier.

Had I paused for a minute to think, I hope I would have come to a conclusion that lead to a different outcome. But my stubborn nature coupled with a shortage of time has led to my discovering something quite different. I don’t enjoy letter-press particularly, but I feel that I’ve learned the secret to any form of print making is an element of forward planning. Concept can get you far under ordinary circumstances, but when relying on processes of the past you must use your head and prepare. Mistakes and accidents can be beautiful, but they are not talent nor skill. If you are to become a craftsman at printmaking, then you must respect the process for the process and work with it.

And at a time when artists like Tracey Emin are being officially titled “Professor of Drawing”, I feel like any process that makes you use a bit of the old brain capacity can’t really be a bad thing.

B

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Print Workshop Two: Return of the Lino

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I’ve finally gotten around to digitalerising (it’s a word) the second and third stage in our Print Making Workshop at Uni. Yeah sure, technically it finished weeks ago, but I’ve been busy. Besides, good things come to those who wait and other such justifying clichés.

So First up was Lino Cut time. Now I’ve had bad experiences with Lino Cut in the past, in that I was forced to give it a go as part of our GCSE Landscapes project in art class. Bear in mind, this was in a school where the facilities were not geared up to cope with the ambition of print making. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to cut out a seascape from a chunk of lino with an old craft knife and the point of a compass (I shit you not) but it is not a creatively invigorating experience. I suppose it was character building to an extent, and it gave me a new appreciation for my health given the worryingly high chance of contracting Tetanus or losing digits, but I can’t really say it was an artistic high point. Needless to say, the project was swiftly abandoned when it became obvious (both to me and my teacher) that is was going to look shit.

As a result, I’ve been stubbornly against Lino Cut ever since, turning my nose up at it in my Foundation in favour of screen print and other seducingly exotic and more health friendly forms of image making.

So this was not one I was looking forward to. But, like a good student, I purchased my strip of lino and haphazardly scribbled out  a design. I decided not to make my distaste too obvious by ignoring the possibilities of colour, but equally wanted to keep the process to a minimum so I could be done with it quickly, and found 3 colours to be a decent compromise.

Now, I’m a fan of print making. I love screen printing and I couldn’t be much happier with my first attempt at etching earlier this year, but I had just assumed that this love was to forever be reserved for the more elaborate and high-tech forms of print, and Lino just wouldn’t cut the mustard. Let me tell you now, I will one hundred percent eat my proverbial hat. I will eat it with my face smeared in proverbial egg.

Lino Cut and I have worked out our differences and decided to give our relationship another shot. It’s on the provision that never again do I attempt it without the appropriate materials, but that’s the great thing about mistakes; you learn a big, fat, hand bleeding lessons from them and use said lessons to make improvements.

I love my Lino outcomes. They’re bright and fun and were easy to produce. I found the process enjoyable from beginning to end, discovering the gouging of the lino to be pleasantly therapeutic and indisputably pleasing when all went to plan, and the inking of the plate was just as quick. A quick wipe of chosen colour onto the stone, a few seconds rolling it out into a thin, tacky consistency and you’re ready to (rock and) roll straight onto the lino. Whatever you’ve cut out remains clear, only the spaces left behind catch the ink and then you can begin your process of layering colour over colour, gradually removing sections of plate until an image has built up. It’s at this point that you can give yourself a big old pat on the back for successfully accessing the appropriate side of the brain that deals in spacial awareness.

There’s even a mini press for the mechanically obsessed such as myself. It’s not as big as the Etching beastie, but it’s Becky sized and still creaks in that endearing tone of the past, when processes like this were a necessity, not just a novelty.

3 Colour, 2 Stage Lino Cut. Green on white, black on green.
4 Colours, 3 Stage Lino cut. Yellow on white, green on yellow, back on green.

I enjoyed it so much, I shelled out for a bit more paper in order to have a few more outcomes. When I made this decision, I’d already cut out my first layer, so some of my prints consist of 3 colours, some 4. Either way, I’m proud of the results and am really happy I approached it with an open mind rather than stuck to my original convictions.

For those who are interested, the image is an absinthe bottle as it was Toulouse Lautrec’s beverage of choice. I attempted to echo the stunted shape of Lautrec, due to his deformity, in the bottle and used the hat to reinforce this.

Alright, maybe not the best print in the world, but damn good fun and an important learning curve I reckon!

B

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Caterpaulted out of the Comfort Zone!

Posted on Posted in Illustration, TypographyTagged , , , , 4 Comments

Okay, so today I’ve taken a break from the robots and boxing animals that is preparation for Comiket to work on something that is SO, TOTALLY different I think I might have a stroke. Basically I’ve been working with Lucy and Carrie of fashion blogging fame to help them with some bits and pieces for their new publication, WishWishWish.

That’s right. Fashion. I did a fashion thing.

I know it’s not my usual area of expertise (I’ll get back to you when I work out what IS) but it’s good to broaden your horizons I reckon.

Here are a few of the spot illustrations I’ve been working on for a piece on freelancing within the industry. Hopefully the girls are happy with them. And if not we can just blame it on the fact that I have no idea what I’m doing eh? Win Win situation.

B

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