apply yourself

Just sent off an application form for a scholarship fund to help me be an artist or something or other. They're either gonna love it or think I'm some psycho. But I can live with that. Any opinion is better than no opinion. I guess this is what it's going to be like now, a graduated artist.

WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD.

you're dead

had a thought and acted on it. how impulsive.
click.click.click.
i found the person that nearly destroyed my most beloved friend.

i will get you.

message from above

walking home one day before it pissed it down, i was greeted by this.

always knew he had a sense of humour

gifts

Neil Morris, my printing tutor at LJMU loaned me this book. i never looked at it once if i'm honest, until i took it back and he said "keep it". Neil likes books and for him to give one away seemed a bit mental to me. maybe it was shit. maybe it wasnt. but i thought best to check incase.

turned out to be a gem.

it's a picture book full of mad collages, telling the story of a man called Moonglow in a post world-war 3 society. absolutely tongue in cheek and no doubt the artist was on one, influenced by some chemical substances. but who am i to judge? JUST LOOK AT IT.

everything about it, from the layout, the paper, the font, the smell, the collages themselves. AGH. i love it. i wish i'd thanked Neil properly.

it's been a while

and i have nothing constructive to show just yet.

well, sort of. i've been saving money and applying for jobs and applying for scholarships and applying for work experience and a load of other shit that requires applying yourself.

art has unfortunately had to take a back seat. i'm not proud.

but i've been perving on other artists work and it has got me wanting to do more work. so this week, when i get paid, i'm buying a brand new sketchbook, and brand new pens, and i'm gonna draw like a compulsive bastard.


edit - i will say this though, my love of music has risen to new heights. it is my constant, my best friend forever. the love will never end, even if the bugger does throw me a red herring from time to time. FOR EXAMPLE i've been bumming a band called Best Coast for a while now, no logical explanation (i heard them once and thought THATS IT - true love). i've just realised why i felt like this. they blatently rip off the Jesus and Mary Chain. BASTARDS.

MINE

3 years

bloodyel

word vom right there. here you go love. cheer up.

DANDY WARHOLS - BOHEMIAN LIKE YOU

yeah i like you x

FML

F.M.L.
It's an abbreviation my friends have been throwing about a lot lately. Today, I'm going to use it for the first time, because today I truly feel like my life is fully fucked.

WHY CAN'T I GET A DECENT JOB. WHY CAN'T IT BE AWAY FROM HERE. WHY CAN'T IT BE WHERE MY FRIENDS ARE. WHY AM I CONSTANTLY LONELY.

According to one Ms GaGa, its the perils of being a creative individual. Well fuck that; I'm not having it. I shouldn't have accept that due to my career path and personality that I'm destined to be the perpetual spinster. Fuck. That.

Being alone here in Mordor (my new nickname for home, cute yeah?) is making me paranoid as fuck as well. Not in the sense that something's going wrong, just that I might be missing out on something good elsewhere. What are my friends up to? Are they having fun? Do they miss me? Do they even notice I'm not there? I know I'm probably being stupid but I can't help myself sometimes. ARFF ARFF ARFF.
And what's worse is that people here don't care that they may be missing out on life elsewhere. It's like Mordor completely missed out on the 60's or something. Well I don't want to miss out on it.
I need to get out.

And so the job hunt continues, because I need a job to get money to get the hell out of here. Applied for a bazillion by now I think; here in Wales, in Liverpool and in Manchester. Only heard back from one; BBC Radio but only to confirm that they got my application for my 3 chosen stations (Wales, Lancashire, Merseyside) and that they were going to review it. Well I already knew you got it cos i got an automated email when i sent it. FFANKS FOR THAT.
(yes, i applied for a job ont RADIO - Boom tings if I get that one reet!)
About the only good thing thus far to have happened since my return home is that pals from Lancashire have used my drawing for their Band t-shirt. Isn't that nice! Here we go, layout and font design and modelled by Luke:

Not sure if they know that's not a dead kestrel... I'm sure they know.
The only other good thing to happen is I got to fly a kite this week with my niece. For an hour. Joy! Family-time is the only joy i'm getting right now.

Right, lets try to end on a lighter note to make myself sleep/ live easier for the next few days. What else can F(uck)M(y)L(ife)? answers on a postcard? x

returning the favour

this is for leigh jennings who is an absolute peach. she says she can never look at a bird without thinking of me; well i can't look at any woman in her underwear without thinking of her.
i'm hoping she'll quite like this.

twitcher.

little birdwatching side-project i started. looking for (different) birds in liverpool.
>pop boutique.

BANTAM BANTER

my dad keeps a lot of chickens, my mum hates a lot of chickens. i don't really mind them much, they're noisy in the mornings but they like to play (hide and seek mainly when they clear the perimiter fence, gits) and THEY LAY EGGS. recently, our bantams have started laying. bantams are miniatures i.e. the little people of the poultry world. so the eggs are miniature too, as you can see in the picture; bantam egg on the right obviously. it might not seem that tiny, but most of you who know me have seen the childlike size of my dainty hands and can make the comparison.


**just like to add, i haven't tasted them yet. my dad's getting a bit too attached if you ask me.


ALSO in other news, i found a hedgehog today. roadkill. goddam nearly broke my heart. took some photos and i'm going to do some drawings, but thinking of going back to collect the carcass later on. got to practise taxidermy sooner or later.

the bitterest pill is mine to take

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1SS-NyohKI

favourite ones

free=love=best=favourite

one i promised kenny

"deth"

TRNGL

being unemployed means a lacking social life but at least ive got a chance to do some drawing. all the posts from today include drawings which were made a few weeks back, when i had no means for uploading images sooner. they fuse some of my ideas from 2nd and 3rd year work at univeristy. all are in ink and pen and hand drawn. cant really get my head round photoshop.

might make the kitty human-size.

triangles

This is back when I really liked triangles. Don't know why I stopped drawing them to be honest. This particular one is probably the last large-scale triangular drawing I made, and one of few that were in an organic shape (in whole).

Untitled, Pencil on Paper, approx 70x70cm

Untitled (detail)


Untitled (detail)



Untitled (detail)

giraff

Here's some drawings I made about a year ago, because I have no means to upload new work at the minute. C'est la vie!

Giraff. Pencil on Board, approx 45cm tall

the boycott boogie

"and you could be so lonely"

aiii aiii

babooshka

smiling ridiculously because of the littlest gestures is my forté

leaving things too late and regretting it immensely is a very close second

lost and found

photos of me and job

fact of the day

you can't freeze a badger...

may need to test that one out

fake fresh air

Just watched KES. and tomorrow i might watch ring of bright water, the belstone fox and tarka the otter. reminds me of sundays back home with pappa briggs... with a bevvy and a nature program on after being out in the mountains all day. you know, cos there's bugger all else to do in north wales.

post script: i know i moan about home a lot. but i do miss it. i mean look at this:

the devil's kitchen

ogwen valley

s'alright isn't it.

a bird in the hand...

lighting

something i didn't find in a fair and more stories

but i want to be there

sometimes something beautiful makes the days go more smoothly. like a bit of beirut in the morning. this mans voice makes my heart flutter, and makes me tingle in my pants. aweeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

more stories:

yesterday me and emma saw the neighbours cat carry the FATTEST pigeon in its mouth. we then commenced to watch the moggy eat its catch across the street. i was pretty fascinated; the manner in which it was going at its meal you'd think he was tucking into a 3 course meal... such decorum! this afternoon me and lewis went to investigate further, and to see if there were any remains for him to use for his artwork. we found a headless pigeon corpse with a broken wing. delicious. the street i live on is pretty quiet but unfortunately at the moment of retrieval there were a number of witnesses, including two men who walked into the house we were stood in front of. so they're either gonna think we're some dead-bird loving freaks (which i guess we are) or roadkill-eating doleys (which we aren't. or i'm not anyway).

something i found in a fair

sometimes coming second place feels like coming first

anniversary

i found this photo which i took when i was at college in wales about 4 years ago. that's maddy's legs on the left. this is the tester copy, and its the only one i have because my tutors wanted me to take the "proper" one around for interviews and i lost it en transit and i can't find the film. i always preferred this one anyway. glad i've still got it.

in other news...

my i-tunes is being a little bastard and won't play anything out loud, won't acknowledge my ipod. to sooth my angry thoughts i've been youtubing classic jools holland. came across this beirut performance. i remember watching it over 2 years ago now, and being absolutely speechless; it was the first time i'd ever heard them and i fell in love with zach condon's voice, and i haven't looked back since.

it's been a good two years

cut me up and start again

screenprints, cut up and re-arranged

pigeons are special

victoria crown pigeon

and to finish off the day...

one for the lads.

final countdown

its coming up to assessment time and i havnt really done half as much as i did last year... and this year's work counts more.

shitbollocksbollocks.

top photo is a wee snapshot of my studio wall (i use the term "my" loosely as its not meant to be "mine" but communal, its just that my stuff occupies it for the current present). candy-coloured paper cages vs. dead bird drawings; make of that what you will.

second photo is a close-up of one of the newer cages. printed on the paper before i cut it was the drawing of the Mourning Finch (which is posted earlier on the blog)... you can just see his little sticky-uppy feet. poor thing.

i guess at the minute i'm trying to juxtapose death and corpses with freedom and life, all-the-while packaging it in pretty, candy-floss like colours as a way of drawing in the viewer into a false sense of security...? yeah?? sounds good??

and thats about as deep as i'm going to get today

twist

i photocopied an old seagull picture i'd done ages ago, and cut each one out (immaculately may i add), and then sewed them together. i wanted to make a 3D-mobile type object, but it wasn't going to plan, so i just twisted them to make a circle... or maybe it's more like a fan? i might make a large-scale one, because this is roughly the size of my tiny childlike hands. problem is... i'm not sure it'll have the same presence, because the delicacy of it really works with the detail of the drawing itself. either way it looks pretty so its going up here.

blowup babe

BLOWUP - its a film starring david hemmings as a mod photographer, who thinks he's captured someone being murdered in his photographs. its meant to be dead good and i really want to watch it. and when i do get round to it, i'm gonna make katie watch it with me and she's gonna frikkin like it, and love mr hemmings just as much as i do.

Mourning Sierra Finch

went to the museum this week and took some photos of the taxidermy birds on display. this was the only one in its drawer that wasn't on its back with its legs tied together.

pen and ink on paper. shadow created using grey/blue paper cut to appropriate shape.

another one bites the dust.

woopa!

Just found out that my work might be getting published in magazine in london!? It's just one made by a student, but it will be circulated around big arty type business' down south... hubba hubba!

candyfloss

bloody bleached my roots again. my hair is now dryer than candyfloss... it's like white smoke swirling above and around my head. while in hiding i've been doing little animations and stuff. here's a still from an unfinished one: it's basically a stop start animation of the drawing of the flower coming about and then lifting from the paper. once i've mastered getting the animations to run smoothly and uploaded on the web, i'll post them here. ta.x

music. good for the soul

animal collective <3