White Block Beauty

Fffound.com never fails to provide brilliance. Simplicity being at the heart of it. I think when things are made in real life, away from the screen, real beauty is captured more readily. This may only be because i look it and say "Shit they actually made that" and whilst questioning my devotion to my work in relation to my free time i tend to ask myself, "Am I letting myself down by not pushing myself enough to go the extra distance, for designs sake". If the FreeStudio can do it, then why can't I? So this week my project is to make 3d things. Real things for real eyes. Project starts now.

Radiator and a Slug......

Threadless.com

http://www.threadless.com/ "a friday play, designs pending"

Laura and Marcus | Folk Love

I think, of all the loves that one can have, folk love would be the best. You'd wear flowers in your hair all the time, sandals on your feet (depite the rain) and life would be a banjo. You could be into cravates but also the flights of doves and you'd talk in lyrics and couplets. Maybe folk love would be like the BFG'S cave, you could keep all the moments in jars, coloured jars upon your window sill, next to the flower pots you'd been collecting. Yep, I think folk love is where its at.

Daniel Johnston | The Metro, Sydney

I'd discovered him somewhere back in early 2009. I was on the train and "Happy Time" came on from the film Kids and I remember just being enchanted by the sense of naivity on top of his agonisingly heartfelt and accomplished lyrics. He sounded crazy, he was crazy he is crazy. But crazy is beautiful.

After going on and on about my latest discovery one night, my dear friend Cecilia told me about a DVD, about his artwork, about his insanity and about his tapes. I watched it on Sunday and my allegiance was confirmed. His recurring themes, his manic mind, his pure heart. I had to see him...properly

So off I popped down to the Metro in Sydney, a common haunch for music lovers and general trendy folk all round. The levels of asymmetry in hairstyles blew me away as ever. I'm just a sheep after all. Next? A black out. Everyone out. "Onto the streets with you you raggamuffins". So in the rain we waited, ps I had faith a burning. always.

We piled in, chose our positions. Me behind the tall scary dude with long flicky locksome hair and Mitch next to the slow clapper (bastard man). He came on and silence hit the floor. The rumble tumble man that was dressed in a cowboy hat and an australia t shirt stood infront of some trippy projection and the night was born. Coloured lanterns hung above his head and I was totally there, hanging on every word. His mismatched chords and hokey pokey rythms tumbled in sarcasm and self loathing.

When you believe every lyric and you know every feeling they sing so darkly of, you cant help but fall ever so partmentally in love, right? I mean I am permantently leaning down to my new bike and saying, as I tap it softly on its crisp metal hubcaps "Speeding motorcycle, won't you change me? In a world of funny changes"

Devil and Daniel Johnston Trailer : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qtFPOxDMs4

True Love Will Find You in the End : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ucN4DActxA

Somethink for SomeThinkBlue Magazine : UNCONSCIOUS

Today I made a clown, an unconscious thinking clown.

Before and After with Mr. B. Erd

I think maybe I might just stay away from the computer bit for a while...I think it takes away the natural beauty of the thing...I know I've kind of gone overboard on colour but its just to highlight the point that maybe photoshop isnt all that.......but MR B. ERD is very happy with his latest nest!

Really?

Intriguing beguiling choccie bun bun......and not of the hot cross variety.... Mars got me with their red Mars bar claiming to have more energy..and apparant super powers but the Harry Potter of bars has been over taken by Watership Downs new edible friend "The Malteser Bunny".....so Happy Maltester everyone...for like three months down the line. Maybe theyll hang out in animal conectionary heaven with M&S Percy Pigs and Cadburys Fredo the Frogs......ooh a list is brewing.....

Happy Birthday Norm!

Google and I wish Norman Rockwell a very Happy Birthday.....Born today in 1894 Norman Rockwell was a 20th-century American painter and illustrator. His works enjoy a broad popular appeal in the YOO ESS of AYE.

Enchanting pieces of work.....

Somenew_Joanna_Newsome

Joanna Newsomeis back, the angel of the harp the groen up moon fairy. We worried that Devendra Banheart had stolen her away and made her into an LSD monkey but no, siree she's back and she's got some awesome artwork so wahoo...the lady that brought us "bridges and balloons", "Sprout and the Bean", "Peach, Plum, Pear" and "The Book of Right On".....to name but a few is back and, after feeling like a worried parent I'm both overjoyed and relieved.

Have One On Me will be released on February 22 through Drag City in the US and on March 1 through Domino in the UK.

"Cruella? There's a new DeVille in Town..."

So me and a friend had discussed briefly whilst surrounded by old dust stuffed animals that 2010 was the year for the glamorous taxidermist. I could be ornamenting and stuffing beautiful creatures whilst he ran our posh bespoke shop outfront, all glamourous and fancy.

Only last weeekend I stumbled accross this Australian gem..... JULIA DEVILLE.

I shit you not. taxidermy jewellery. fucking brilliant.

Check out her very smart site (very movey movey): http://juliadeville.com/

Subbuteo at The Free Studio

Once again, Callum Crawford and Josh Whitaker triumph at creating something simple and brilliant. I am no art critic, they wouls both tell you that, as my knowledge and art history is comparably abismal in the shadow of theirs. There's just something about the work that they do that makes you take them seriously and makes you wanna say "hey so lets go to the pub and you can tell me all about it until the sun rises"....cos i guess for me it seems like a pure sense of something born out of thought and there's never any bullshit....and there is pleee henty of that around....

This is there three sided Subbuteo game. I'm not going to going into metarphores cos I'd be assuming. All I can say is its a beautiful piece of work, immaculate, complex I'm sure, yet simple to behold.

Check out their blog for past and upcomign works: http://thefreestudio.blogspot.com/

Juliannas Sketches_No Computers Needed

Recently my work has been largely down to drawing for a scanner. Vectorising things or atleast trying to and generally adapting my love of drawign for the technology that allows us to present it on a screen.....now i know thats not how it should be....the computer should merely aid you in you options etc but i have found it somewhat of a struggle.

One of my oldest friends Julianna is applying to Camberwell to do Illustration and has just put up some stunningly beautiful pencil drawing which have inspied me to step away from vectore and photoshop altogether.....

So starting now I aim to start and finish a drawing in pencil and pen only......

Check out her blog here: http://juliannasketches.blogspot.com/

House vs Home

As I'm so frickin far away from home and all that I know to be familiar I find myself asking myself what home actually means in relation to the place where you dwell. I've lived in thenumerous houses/dwellings... ( I'm an avid fan of lists and this is a list i have not yet made,bare with me, insert personal excitement here)...I wonder how many houses have felt like homes.....

1. Chapel House, Baughurst

2. Cherwell House, Dragon School, Oxford

3. Morris House, Marlborough College, Wilts.

4. Cheney Student Village, Oxford Brookes

5. 19 Balantine Street, London

6. St Marys Road, Oxford

7. Furzedown Halls, Tooting, UAL

8. 20 Rosary Gardens, London

9. 25 Spencer Road, London

10. Glenayre Avenue, Bondi, Sydney

11. 227 Crown Street, Darlingurst, Sydney

12. 102 Pitt Street, Surry Hills, Sydney

....a nostalgic experience. This notion has only started growing in my mind since I've been "missing home" and I guess a house never makes a home, its the contents...like a lunchbox never makes the lunch...kinda thing...maybe this excercise was superflous in my understanding of my life and where my home is....but hey, another list completed!

CHINA GORILLA

Now an official member of the CG team I feel it time to post a little of my mentality on the philosophy involved in his exciting venture lead by Monsieur Stevie Thomas.

I approached Stevie on a purely cringe basis when I saw him on Shipwrecked and thought "hey you know this guy may be a tad poshy mc posh but he's got it all going on upstairs etc" so lame old Ocki emailed the poor fellow to inform him of my admiration..... a few years down the line I'm now working with him as le artiste hoping to change the world of the party and we hope that worl domination is on the cards.....

"We want to create this kind of comfortable clubbing; a late night bar/club where you can kick back and have a chin wag without having to stand in a toilet corridor to hear one another, yet still get up and have a quick gurn to a phat tune."

Next Stop? GLASTONBURY.

...with the website on its way and new things and events round every corner ChinaGorilla is something i'm big into...check out the link below for more info.

http://www.facebook.com/#/group.php?gid=106082636062&ref=ts

Bluto vs King Charles

Bluto is big into garage. now personally I don't even really know what that means but I know that its likely that folk lover me is unlikely to find a happy medium with the grungy sounds of the british garage scene.

Whilst leaving my house we'd discussed how listening to music you dislike is worse then eating food you hate. ie I think I'd rather eat coriander all day than listen to bad drum and bass all day........etc

It was on a road trip to Bristol that I was faced with the prospect of popping on a CD that I had made for my sister and off we went. Now on occasion I do personally suffer from music timidness and knowing I had a music mad dj in the back made me hesitant to put on my folk dream playlist.......but born from folk...... came something better.....

TRACK 4 ENDS

TRACK 5 : KING CHARLES / LOVELUST

me and my "galpal" "bezza" "homie" were dancing away in the front pretending to be from a woodstock era of free love and hand movements giggling and chanting melodically as we sailed down the M4. Meanwhile the ominous Bluto was plotting.....

Later that day I recieved an email and a link...... the beauty is in the moment of difference and the conjunction of ideals. Watch this space.

DOWLOAD HERE:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/yoopjl

BLUTOS SOUNDCLOUD:

http://soundcloud.com/bluto

I thought I'd do a piece of artwork to sslot into my Itunes "album artwork" section.

Snow Far Away

The_Crawford _Technique

At my school up till the age of 18 I was in a boarding house named after the decorative and perfectly elaborate William Morris. I discovered him in the History of Art dungeon and from then on have been ever enamoured by his printwork and papers. Even now with all this technology that surrounds and absorbs us his work remains real and emotive...without vectors and layers.

When drawing of recent I've sat in front of my computer at my desk with my pens all in a pile to the left my a2 sketch pad landscape teetering on the edge of my desk in front of a certain movie that plays over and over. Helvetica_The Documentary...

Its not even that Im so in love with helvetica that I feel I need to be told about its history over and over I think its just the subtle hold that it has upon everyone and hearing people who I admire talking about it...ie Paula Scher and Steven Sagmeister.

Callum Crawford and His partner in crime Josh Whitaker (Students at UAL, St Martins and Wimbledon respectively) have been making work together for a while now and have finally opened up their world to us.....although so far I am the only follower.

This is the poster that I insist on getting a print of that they produced.

http://thefreestudio.blogspot.com/

Callesens Cutouts

Kerensa enlightened me with the stunning work of Peter Callesen. Like him I believe in the motif that is 'a4 paper'-its a symbol of our society and yet so highly overlooked as a medium on which to create "serious art"

"I find the A4 sheet of paper interesting to work with, because it is probably the most common and consumed media and format for carrying information today, and in that sense it is something very loaded. This means that we rarely notice the actual materiality of the A4 paper."

I think im gonna give something like this a try over the weekend maybe with letter forms.....

Cottage Collective

I've been in Australia seven months now and even though I love it here and I maybe might want to spend a few years exploring the industry my family and heart is in England. Ive become a positive happy person (its taken its time i tell you) so I've put an idea out there. On the waves of the world wide web I've merely suggested a plan. All I know is that life is simply too short to spend indoors, trying not to spend money, sitting on a computer all day emailing people job applications and pathetically desperate emails about "how passionate" we are...why not take a walk on the wild side, get back to basics and live a real life it the countryside in a mini community of our own.

Cooks, artists, photographers alike could all live and inspire together..we could have exhibitions and events to create an income for our living ...we could commute to city jobs.....we could have pets...grow vegetables.....get away from relying on things that mean nothing.

My plan is Cottage Collective. email me any thoughts cottagecollective@hotmail.com

Colour Me In All Wonderful

So..we have feedback....he loves them!

fuck! amazing feeling right there. ive just gotta make a few changes and colour them in photoshop etc and pop them onto a tee shirt template and then they go off to the decision makers to be considered.....

so here is coloured owl numero uno!

TEE TIME MOTHER FUCCCCKKKKEERRSSSSS

So finally after much cramming and stealing of time to squeeze in the designing of supposedly four teeshirts for LovePolice. I've finished three and sent them to Brian for him to deliberate. Im now working part-time at News Limited Australia so have been using my lunchbreaks and loo breaks practically to draw me owls and vessels.

Im worried as i think they are too fine to be screen printed and will have to be printed digitally which is gonna up the cost.....Im not feeling too positive at the moment but i put my heart and soul into them so im a crossing me fingers for a little miracle....imagine. festival goers decked out in my lines. (dreamy)

NB. Animal Collective are playing at Meredith Festival and one of their members Panda Bear is amazing (check out his song comfy in nautica, see below) and so on each of the owls i drew a tribute panda bear......for noah...he's called noah.....Noah Lennox:hes a harmony himself.

I'll keep updating this with my progress etc....but potentially v exciting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25_gjUbvqNg

6 Degrees of What?

So irony and conicidence have come up to take a huge bite out of my rational mind in assuring that I carry on dreaming of the light at the end of the tunnel of unemployment. Im currently working on my t shirt designs for LOVEPOLICE but Brian yesterday informed me that he had to pop off to L.A. as one does to go to a gig. Now when I was studying graphics we had to design an album cover for any band, any single band.....so of course I chose the love of my life " Band of Horses". Their sweet melodies with romantic cushioning of guitar sounds just yummy down in my ears and make me feel quite golden.

So who is Brian off to see and "chill with"?....oh yes six followers, the band of hooves and manes.....the band of lovely horses themselves.

Now I'm not being presumptious here but lets say Brian mentions me to them ....we are talking six hot degress of insanely wierd seperation. I love the way the world decreases in size and magnitude as we age and become more decrepid.

This is the design I did for them way back when.

That is peace and harmony for me.......Im thinking a signed polaroid would be preety marvelous?

I'll keep yee posted on how the teeshirt designs come along just gotta find the lead for my camera!