Cityscape - wires and valves

Countdown to Christmas

Despite starting my shopping early - I am rapidly running out of time to get good Christmas presents for everyone.

Carnival Road

An oldie, but one I'm still working on slowly.

Just found out that a postcard I designed is one of 135 selected for a new book about international postcard design - created by http://www.flat33.com/flat33_v2/index_home.html

The book will be out September 2008.

Snail Scale

Happy 100th post today.

Good news I've been asked to make another wee film for Channel 4 so will need to get planning on that this week.

hats

Between the words

(Sample of some of the different artists work)

The Bookmark Project 2007: Parallax

Guest Curator: Danielle Williams

November 4 - 11, 2007

Reception: Sunday, November 4, 2 to 4 pm, Koffler Gallery lobby

For the sixth year in a row, the Koffler Gallery has organized The Bookmark Project. This year's theme, Parallax, examines the bookmark's paradoxical nature, as its very position and purpose appear to vary when viewed from different perspectives. Selected through an open call, artist-designed bookmarks are introduced into the 8,000 books on display during the 30th Annual Jewish Book Fair, Leah Posluns Theatre Lobby at the BJCC, with sample bookmarks on display in the Koffler Centre showcases through November.

This year's participating artists include: Natasha Bailey, Roberly Ann Bel, Mira Berlin, Allistair Burt, Carrie Chisholm, Alex Coley, Heather Courtney, Stephen Cruise, Scott McCarney, Nola L. McConnan, Issha Marie Onoya, Kathy Ouellette, Portia Priegert, Cecilia Tiburzio, Karoline Varin-Jarkowski and Alma Yingyi Wang.

For more info click here http://www.kofflerarts.org/gallery.shtml

Where have I been

My goodness how the time has flewn
Its night before its afternoon,
December is here before its noon,
how did it get so late so soon?

I've not posted a new drawing for three weeks, which is not really very good. I have been maintaining a creative output but its just not been image based.

Over the last month I have pitched for a Channel 4 short film commission, made a film and clay figures for my friends wedding, written a proposal /short script for GMAC's Shortcuts commission scheme and made more postcards for an exhibition in Toronto. So I still feel I've managed to get a bit of creativity done this month - but seriously lacking on the wee pretty pictures scale.

Also - I am still struggling with plumber problems - the heating is still not working 100%. Doh

Grand opening

The blues

Breakfast

Jobs I could do

Jobs I could do

Intro page 3

Intro page 2

Intro page 1

Its working again

Well it took me five weeks but my computer is now working, the server is back on line and the links above should all work again. [Please have a play and let me now if you find any glitches.]

Now that the ball is moving I think all my bad luck over the last few weeks will hopefully disappear, I'll actually get some work done and I'll finally find a decent plumber and get the last leak in the flat sorted .

Water, water everywhere and no a drop to drink

More extracts from my work in progress about the life of a lonely lighthouse keeper.

Plumbers are mean

Unfortunately my hopes for a trouble free September are not going so well.

We spent most of Sunday relaying the floor in my kitchen following the recent leaking to the neighbour downstairs. That night I discovered we had no hot water as the boiler pressure had dropped to zero.

We topped it back up but by next morning it again was at zero. I then refilled it but by the middle of the morning and phone call home confirmed my worst fears. The pressure was again at zero and we still had a leak.

I quickly ran home, only to discover on arrival that I had left my keys behind and I had to phone Ann to drive across the city and let me in. To make matters more difficult the neighbour downstairs has gone on away for three weeks and not left an emergency contact so I have no idea if it really is flooding, just a strong hunch but I can;t take the risk.

In 20 minutes I have undone the 5 hours of work relaying the tiles and floorboards and I have discovered that there is water under the floor. I phone the insurances home emergency number and they send out a plumber who finally arrives late, grumpy, rude and unhelpful. He tells me that until I've lifted ll the floor and identified exactly where the leak is he can't help and he leaves.

I then have to rip up loads more floor boards and finally identify where the leak is coming from. The insurance company contact the rude plumber who finally calls at 10 to say that he is too tired and is going to his bed. "But its still leaking" I tell him. He tells me how to shut off that part of the system, which I do, but it is still leaking. I phone back the insurance who send out another company who arrives at 1am only to advise he doesn't have the correct equipment to carry out the job and will have to come back. He also advises that the leak in the pipe is not causing my pressure to drop and that there must be another problem???? Arrrrgh

This morning after no sign of the plumber I chase up the depot, who advise that they are still trying to agree the costs with the insurance company. I chase up the insurance company who advise that they are happy to pay the price. I phone up the plumber who then admit they don't have any engineers available to do the repair today anyway. I currently await further news from the insurance company about what is going to happen next.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is a bright new day and all the bad luck of August can be left behind.

Bad luck continues

Something in my flat is dripping into the flat downstairs. I've taken up the floor in the kitchen and moved the washing machine and dishwasher and I've ripped apart my bathroom but sadly I'm yet to find whats causing it.

So add that to the rest of my bad luck:

Server goes wrong - need to redo site
Computer broke - hard drive ruined

Rooflight of flat broke - needs repaired
Ankle broke - well doc says I've got a fracture

I can't wait for August to finish.

Juice

I had a very nice drink of juice the other night - with a great label - check out the the tree trunk turning into a hand holding an orange. Top marks.

Emergency

Sketch for a short comic novel I'm working on about an isolated Lighthouse keeper.

Well - I'm afraid my computer has returned minus my hard drive which has packed in. Meaning I've lost nearly all my work from the last couple of years and lots of my music and more importantly my photos. I've reinstalled what backup files I've got but some of those have packed in as well. Most disappointing of all I've lost the whole of a new project I was about to reveal called 365 days of sky. Last year I took a photo of the sky each day, wherever I was in the world. The result was a beautiful kaleidoscope of blues, greys and whites as the ever changing sky twisted and blurred above me each day. Sadly, it is now, nearly all gone.

There is a chance the retrieval company might be able to get the information back - but their prices start at £500. Doh. Maybe if I go ahead and I do get the images back - I can sell prints of the sky photos to help recover my loses. Here's a couple of the ones I've still got.

St Louis Arch, USA Stockholm, Sweden Glasgow, Scotland

I'll attempt to put the rest of this site back together from the remnants of my back up files.

Still not working

My computer is still in the doctors and so I therefore haven't been able to sort out the server problems. Fingers crossed it comes back on Thursday and I can get back to work.

computers are bad

I'm afraid I've not been able to sort the server problems yet as my own computer is playing up now too. One of the hard drives has disapeared and it looks like it will have to go to the computer doctors.

post of a poster

Colour sketch for a second poster

posters

Hmmm - still not worked out how to fix the links above - i will I'm sure eventually get it sorted. Meanwhile here is a sketch I made working out a colour layout for a poster for our local farmers market. Think I'm going to do it in an old British Rail poster style.

normal service disrupted again

Doh - I've managed to sort the small world experiment website - and correct the server so it directly links http://www.smallworldexperiment.com/ to where the files are stored but its now screwed up the paths to my other files and information. This means that none of the above links to my art, design or film pages are working. This will require a rethink to get working again. Doh.

Normal service will resume once I get the hang of it.

Normal service will resume

Hello all - not a nice thing to discover when you wake up in the morning but I'm afraid that the above web links to my other work (and my other websites) are not working for some reason at the moment.

Unfortunte timing given my exhibition opens tonight but never mind. At least the pages and images stored in my blog are still working, so why not have wander through those and let me know what you think. You can use the labels on the right to navigate.

Also the small world experiment website is going through a redesign - please let me know what you think and add your comments and stories.

EDIT: Whoo hoo, good news the server is working again - everything back up and running.

what a fine smoking jacket

larger

You have to go.

This blog is a year old today. Happy birthday blog - I was going to post a picture of a birthday balloon but instead here is a sad post about what happens when you eat too much birthday cake, jelly and other party foods.

Science geeks

Science Geeks

The Plockton Exhibiton opens on Friday - and the word on the street is that its going to be very good. Obviously chuffed to have work in the show and also equally chuffed that our book is on sale there and doing very well. For those of you who haven't yet had a chance to purchase "Hole in my Pocket - Sketchbooks volume 1" then fear not as there is still a supply left in stock - though not sure how many more print runs there will be with work now progressing on volume 2. Wy not check out the extracts and if you still want a copy then send us an email.

cover

extract 1

extract 2

extract 3

extract 4

back cover

more things i made

Battle Elephant

The Storytelling Machine

Just recieved this copy of an image of the Storytelling Machine in postion. Hard to make it out, but it does look suitablly old and spooky.

Plockton ideas

Where the animals hide (2007)

Inital colour test sketch for a painting inspired by the book "The testement of Gideon Mack." Will try and complete this and a further series of 6 paintings by this time next week.

Hmmm can't decide if pen and ink overlaid looks good or not http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1277/589423855_fab8a2ee37_o.jpg

Wormy

I'll be showing work as part of the Plockton Gallery show from the 14th of July. Plockton is a beautiful place like a pirates cove and the gallery has a fantastic array of work every year. I'm really looking forward to being part of it. For more info - direcitons openings times etc follow the link. www.plocktongallery.co.uk

The man with a cardboard box for a head

Explorations

On Monday night we went to hear a talk by explorer extraordinaire Sir Ranolph Fiennes. He gave a rather excellent account of several of his amazing explorations around the world - the main one being his trip around the Earth on its axis. Starting in the UK heading south through Antarctica and the south pole, then back up the other side, though the north pole and back home to UK. The whole talk was illustrated with amazing photos of some of the places he had been and some rather disturbing images, explained in a Sir Ranpolph's very dry black sense of humor showing some of the disasters/ injuries and diseases that befell them on the three year journey. These injuries included the skin on the soles of the teams feet going gangrenous and falling off, blisters on hands freezing up to the size of tennis balls, loosing fingers by not being careful when going to the toilet and people cracking their heads and their eyes filling with blood. To give an idea of the tone of the talk Sir Ranolph finished this segment by saying that after the eye blood problem his team mate just wouldn't stop whinging.

After the talk we stayed around for the free wine and some of the best canopy treats ever . The little tiny raspberry cheese cake was one of the tastiest things I've eaten. All in all a very interesting night - even including bumping into the most boring man in the world during the networking. Not realising why you recognise him until its to late and you have engaged him in conversation. Lucky I ran out of cake and did a runner, leaving the others to entertain him.

Shetland is open

Hmmm it was the opening of the new Shetland gallery and museum yesterday for which I designed the above storytelling machine. Sadly I didn't get to go to the opening or I could have met up with Charlie and his mrs and the Queen of Norway. Instead I had to make do with listening to a tour of the new museum on Front Row on Radio 4. Big Charles gave it two thumbs up.

Sadly also meant we never got any really good photos of the piece finally put together but it still looked pretty cool in its construction phase. Take a gander here.

travels with my trolley

Our short film - Seanchaidh which charts our adventures around Scotland with an air-hostess trolley full of wine - is showing as part of the "Going Places" exhibition at the Riverhouse Barn, Manor Road, Walton from the 30th of May until the 24 June. To find out more visit www.riverhousebarn.co.uk

Cars are bad

Transport in Glasgow and Scotland as a whole is a bit of a mess. Our neighbours across in mainland Eurpoe seem to have it so much better sorted. Not only do many of these countries have clean, efficent, reliable and cheap transport systems many are also intergrated and you can by a single ticket that will cover your travel on any mode of public transport within a city for the whole day. Glasgow on the other hand has a quite bewildering range of different companies fighting for your attention and your pennies. This could however be about to change as Glasgow City Council has just advertised a job for someone to work with the various companies and develop some kind of smart card system.

The above is all sounding good but there is also worrying news that the largest bus company has raised their ticket prices again and an all day ticket which not long ago was £1.80 will now be £3. Pretty steep rise to use a slightly smelly and opften not brilliant service when the company in question posted profits last year of £210million.

See my previous car rant here.

Last summer

Last Summer (2007)
clay, cement, wire [45cm x 10cm] Inspired by a poster for the band the Wrens.

Went to see a talk by Demos yesterday about their project "Glasgow 2020" it was very interesting and the discussion about positive change and action in Glasgow was quite enheartening, but I am unsure exactly what action or direction their results suggest. They did hand a out free copies of the report in book format so I shall look forward to reading this and finding out about their conclusions.

From the talk last night what it seems to boil down to, is that they do not believe that the current plans for Glasgow regeneration are working and may actually be harmful in the long term. To find out more about them and the project and make up your own mind visit www.demos.co.uk

religous enlightenment

viking

Viking (2007)
Clay, cement, wire [45cm x 10cm]

I remembered a story the other day about the time a few years ago when I was asked to go to a big corporate pub quiz event as the representitive of our office. I was the guest of this engineering company we worked with and they picked me up to drive to the hotel where the event was on.

Now, I'm not the best passenger in the world, I tend to get car sick quite quickly even on this most gentle of rides. There were four of us in the car, me and some guy I didn't know in the back and two people in the front. The driver wasn't the best, and did quite a lot of weaving in the road and did a lot of accelerating and then hard braking. Within a few minutes of getting on the road, I started to feel quesy. The car was roasting as they had the heating on full blast so I tried to put down the windows only to discover that thay didn't work. I sat there feeling worse and worse, either too embarrassed or just feeling too ill to think properly and ask them to stop. I think the later cloudyness of the brain due to illness was pretty high as I started to search the back of the car for something to be sick into. But the car was spotless inside and I didn't have a bag or anything with me. For some reason, I decided it would be a good idea to take my shoe off and use this. I am not sure of the logic behind this decision. I am not sure if I thought it would be less embarrasing to be sick into a shoe rather than ask them to stop. So there I am, in a car with four people I don't really know, speeding through the Scottish Countryside with a shoe in my hands and watching the other back seat passenger out the corner of my eye to make sure he hasn't noticed the shoe. He didn't.

Luckily the knowledge of having the shoe ready, just in case, was enough of a placebo and I managed to survive the evening unscathed. Just as well as I have no idea what I would have done with the shoe once we arrived?

red bird

Lemon tree

My lemon tree has bloomed again which gave the room a lovely just cleaned smell. The lemons from last years bloom are now a bright yellow and are quite swollen and look ready for picking. Just in time for some fresh lemonade on the roof this summer. yum.

Neighbours

I had a very enjoyable weekend at a screen printing class - where I screen printed a nice image of some numbers and shapes. Turned out reasonably well - slight problem with the outline seperation but that was just due to the quality of the original print.

I also found out that my sculpture "pirate wood" has made it into the RSA show in Edinburgh. The opening was last Friday, but I found out to late and missed it. Never mind its on until the 20th of June.

hundreds and thousands

Last night I learned that if you drop a jar of "hundreds and thousands" onto a tiled floor then it takes over an hour to clean them up. I also learned that a hover is no use as when it passes over the tiny sweets it fires them round the room like a machine gun.

stamp stamp stamp stamp

I bought a date stamp yesterday. Its great, I've been date stamping everything I can get my hands on.

Hold the page

Bookmark - designed for an exhibition of artist created bookmarks at Leeds Library. The call asked that you look at ways to use the bookmark as a source of inspiration to create new work and to recirculate ideas. My design has holes, which when overlaid onto the page create an abstract poem from the book being read. The user is then asked to write this poem on a scrap of paper and leave in the book for the next person to find. If you'd like a bookmark yourself, then click here to download and print one out.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/200/465101731_532294e9ca_b.jpg

ps - the holes are a nightmare to cut out - my fingers are still killing me

pps - I think I'll start posting links to other sites that i like at the bottom of posts. Like for example today go visit - http://www.martin-munoz.com/main.html

Cambridge

We had a grand time in Cambridge. Only there three days but we managed to cram lots in - a massage on my shoulder, a punt, assisting the sausage man, port in the guest lodge of st johns collage, a wander at night around the bridge of sighs, a wedding in the grand hall, books from the market, many hours of sleeping in the sun and a visit to some baby ducks in the Botanic Gardens. I think Ann liked the ducks the best.

When i grow up

I've always been suspicous of people who say they can read your fortune.

Firstly because I don't believe they actually can. (For if they can see the future, why are none of them millionaires on the lottery.)

My second concern is that if it does works, and they really can see what is going to happen to me, do I really want to know anyway, or would knowing what the future holds take all the fun out of it?

I need to start making some proper pictures. These little doodles are just not real work.