whine, whine

Why must I pine for things I cannot afford?

Sigh.

Its just... the thing is... I KNOW we're meant to be together. Maybe one day...

We like you, Adrian Johnson

Those of you who have been admiring the lovely new illustration/animation work in the new Robinson's adverts (raise your kids on Robinson's) should know its all the work of Adrian Johnson. His other work is in a similar style but less sweet; a bit darker and more satirical, but that makes me like him even more.

Go see.
Go.

No, SHEET music.

I am constantly amazed at the sort of stuff you can access on the internet. There are all these databases and resources that are completely free to access, and contain thousands of hi-res images and scans available for download. Most of them are academic or publicly funded institutions opening their archives to the public.

One such institution is Duke University. Situated in North Carolina, Duke Uni has a rare book and manuscript library that they have spent hundreds of man hours scanning in to create a vast digitized collection of books, manuscripts, advertising ephemera, writings, photos and sheet music.

I'm a big fan of old sheet music. Last year, when I couldn't afford to go on holiday, I took a week off and just 'did' Glasgow. I spent a day wandering the west end and came across a second hand bookshop tucked away somewhere behind Otago Street. They had a huge collection of ancient sheet music dating back to the 19th century. I bagged a couple of completely gorgeous examples for less than a tenner each and now have them framed in my flat.

If you fancy some for yourself, Duke Uni has dozens of similar examples at fairly high res (About A4 150dpi) available to download, but it ain't the same as having the original, oh no.

Carrie Chau, carrie chau, wherefore art thou?

I came across illustrator Carrie Chau when i was on holiday in New Zealand earlier this year. I was having a wander up High Street (parallel to Queen St) and found this mall of great little boutiques and vintage shops. One of them had a whole bunch of Carrie Chau products - bloody great hessian bags, postcards, dolls, matchboxes, badges and prints. It was right at the start of my hols and I didn't want to blow all my spending money at once but now I'm kicking myself that I didn't buy any. Because I can't find her work now for love nor money. A google search fails to find her, bar a few random mentions on other people's sites. I actually eventually found her real website through a pdf online magazine called Jolipunk (lovely pics, shame about the writing) that had a short article on her and finally gave me her website [link].

Aside from being the most uselessly-titled website IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE, and the fact that she proudly states on the splash page that she made it with her own fair hands and it requires no plug-ins to view, its AWFUL to navigate and really doesn't showcase her marvellous work to its full potential.

Now Carrie - I realise you may be the lo-tech, old-school, get-your-hands-dirty sort but hire some web-genius whizz kid will you? This simply will not do.

Rene Gruau

Dontcha sometimes wish you'd been born decades earlier? My parents got me (with no prompting from yours truly, I swear) 100 years of Fashion Illustration for my birthday last month. One of the illustrators featured was Rene Gruau. His career spanned almost nine decades; beginning in Paris in 1924, and ending in 2004 with his death at the grand old age of 95.

I confess I'd never heard of him before I read about him in this book, but I fell in love with his stuff immediately. I've been fascinated with fashion illustration for as long as I've been drawing and his style is where I think I've been aiming. Got a long way to go though.

I instantly regretted not coming across him sooner. I kinda wish I'd been around in the 50s when he was in his heyday.

I LOVE the way he does hands. Actually I love the way he does everything. Sigh.

Marian Bantjes

Alright, can someone please tell me why haven't I heard of Marian Bantjes before?

I came across her site following a random link from a flickr set of cool business cards. Her stuff is head-meltingly good; ornate and loss-of-eyesight-inducingly intricate in the vein of Si Scott. She works in lots of different media; hand-drawing (!!) a lot of it, but also working in lace. embroidery and plain ol' vector art too. She's been in the business for about 23 years and has recently collaborated with Sir Sagmeister, and Alessandro Tomassetti, and has appeared in Eye and Step magazines. She now teaches at the Emily Carr institute in Vancouver, and writes for the website Speak up, while simultaneously pursuing her own projects.

She's so good she makes me feel like I'm really not trying hard enough. Felt exactly the same way the first time I saw/read Chris Ware's Acme Novelty Library, and weirdly, the gold embossed pattern on the hardcover looks like Bantjes' work. WTF?

Vitamins & Minerals

Another day spent googling random words (and occasionally obscenities).

Today's foray into the unknown unearthed excaliburmineral.com. Now, I've always been of the opinion that the sort of people who are into crystals are also the sort who believe in unicorns, wear a lot of tie-dye and are completely unfamiliar with the wonders of frizz-ease. I also know that the reason the makers of this site called it 'excalibur minerals' was because their products have all been pulled from the stone, blah blah, but I'm also pretty sure its cause they're members of one of those historical re-enactment societies that spend their Sunday afternoons wearing armour and shouting things like 'forsooth!' and 'Have at ye!' and taking it all very seriously indeed.

HOWever... their products are nevertheless really rather pretty, so have a squiff at the photo gallery.

Its also kinda interesting to read where all these crystals have come from. Their countries of origin read like a 'where I've been' list written by Indiana Jones; Showa Province, Ethiopia; Huanaco, Peru; Llallagua, Bolivia (colonised by the Welsh, clearly); Shaba Province, Zaire; Graubunden, Switzerland. All let down somewhat by the names of the minerals themselves which I think they're just making up as they go along, or have nicked from the names of baddies in Star Trek (which you KNOW they watch too. Oh yes.).

I mean Labradorite. Honestly.

New toy

OK so I recently started working with Creative Suite 3 (having skipped straight to it from Creative Suite 1) so I'm not sure if this filter was introduced in 2, and I therefore run the risk of looking soooo five minutes ago, but f*** it. THIS IS BRILLIANT. A filter that actually does something USEFUL (apart from Noise, I like Noise. Oh alright, and Unsharp Mask. And maybe Lighting Effects and Blur. But APART from those...).

Lens Correction. Where have you been all my amateur-photographic life? I can fix the dodgy fish eye on my ancient cheap digital camera! I can make aerial shots of brochures look FLAT. Skew-wiff perspective? Gone! And it even fills the transparent edges left by correcting dodgy fish eye! Oh these Adobe boffins are rather clever aren't they?

I think I'm in love.

Bumblebeez

Aside from the fact that I LOVE the Bumblebeez, I also happen to think their video for Dr Love is shit-hot too. Fat, dancing men with drawings on their tummies. What more do you want? Hmmm?

PS may I also recommend their track Pony Ride? Not such a great video but a TUNE.

Automata II

Also on the subject of automata, and slightly less creepy, I also came across this site: automatashop.co.uk. Absolutely amazingly crafted mechanical theatre pieces of varying complexity, but all with a real sense of humour and some beautiful little touches. This one is designed by Paul Spooner and made by Matt Smith. For some reason the character design reminds me of the work of Belleville Rendezvous artist Sylvain Chomet. Whose film studio, Django films, is based in Edinburgh (budding animators take note: they're hiring).

Check them both out.

Automata

Did I mention that my day job is boring the tits off me? The silver lining is that I get to spend some time surfing the net looking for curiosities and interesting things. Usually helps to type random words into google.

I haven't a scooby why but the word 'automata' popped into my noggin, but it was duly googled (think I was listening to Handsome Boy Modelling School at the time so this may have had something to do with it). Some very, very interesting links resulted. There is a whole industry of artists producing kinetic sculptures, wind up 'toys', mobiles etc etc.

And then I find a youtube link to this fella, Theo Jansen. His kinetic wind sculptures move in a rather creepy fashion but you have to admire the dedication and sheer savant-like capabilities that allow him to 'see' how such a complex mechanism will function AND build it (from chair legs and such). Mind boggling.

Photo by Loek van der Klis

The devil gets all the best songs

Every now and then I watch a film that leaves me itching to draw. Like, spend an afternoon with all my crayons and shit out and some weird music on and just draw like there's nothing in my head and all I am is a pair of eyes and ears and hands. The last film that made me feel like that was Great Expectations (mediocre 1998 rehash with Gwyneth and Ethan Hawke, but featuring the fucking amazing artwork of Francesco Clemente). Now I've gone and watched The Devil and Daniel Johnston rather late in the day and I'm thinking about staying up way past my bedtime to do exactly that.

The man is loopy, but when the loopiness or the anti-loopy drugs aren't getting in the way, he is pure, unadulterated, genius. Lovely.