welcome to Jouranal (journal)
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Worst placed advert EVER
Toilets in a service station where a hairy eastern European trucker was giving himself "a whore's bath".
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Awesome
For my birthday and Christmas present Jess gave me the neutral milk hotel vinyl boxed set which I have wanted since I first heard about it. It is so amazing and awesome. I listened to the first half of airplane over the sea on vinyl and it felt like being underwater in a beautiful sea of music.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Doing stuff
Finished painting a new cube. Next job is construction. Mass construction. :) good stuff. Also working on a painting and dust piggies. It's good to be busy.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Blaog
This is pretty boring these days. But If you look at the previous years it only really picks up twice a year. So there we go.
I had this food 3 weeks ago. It is now in the sea probably.
I had this food 3 weeks ago. It is now in the sea probably.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Sunday
Ugh. I am so fed up. I'm going to make some cheese scones this afternoon. Finished the last painting and really don't want to do another one just know because there is so much going on. Boring.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Link to aforementioned video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIArbJULkPA&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Just saw the new mental health anti discrimination adverts
And it brought me to tears. What a great advert. About fucking time there was some change in attitude in this country.
6 am
Finished painting about 5.30 then finished my Luke warm coffee and lay on the floor and drew. This painting was a strange nightmare. It was a never ceasing fiddle. Ended up being very complex. Hopefully not too much.
Friday, January 13, 2012
I can't sleep. But there is no way
In sweet fudge that i'm getting out if bed, going in the Icey garage and painting. I need to finish the painting before it's got too much distance, but I am not going to do it tonight. If I still can't sleep then I'll play Skyrim.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
http://t.co/3rjOoxIx
For full article go to post title.
Quentin Blake is as large as life
Illustrations of mothers and their babies underwater are among works of art displayed in a new exhibition of the work of Quentin Blake at the Foundling Museum in Holborn, London. Included in the exhibition is Quentin Blake's biggest project 'Mothers and Babies Underwater' commissioned by the maternity unit of the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire in Angers, France. Each of the 11 delivery suites will be animated by drawings by Blake based on the theme of the mother meeting her new baby.
By Martin Chilton, Digital Culture Editor
Last Updated: 6:07PM GMT 12/01/2012
Illustrator Quentin Blake has a marvellous new exhibition at the Foundling Museum in London with works commissioned for hospitals.
It’s no wonder Quentin Blake is one of Britain’s most interesting and best-loved illustrators.
The man whose work graced Roald Dahl’s books - and the BFG is 30 years old now - has a new exhibition which is ambitious, intrepid and joyful.
As Large As Life, which opened today at the Foundling Museum in Holborn, London, is an exhibition of recent works commissioned by four hospitals in the UK and France.
The drawings had their origins in art for the South Kensington and Chelsea Mental Health Centre. “I was asked to provide drawings for a refurbished wing for the elderly,” says Blake, who will be 80 this year. “I felt slightly qualified because I realised I was the same age as some of the patients. I had also done drawings for patients with mental health problems and a consultant later said she was astonished when one of her patients, who was deeply depressed, and who normally did not respond to anything, had looked at these pictures and reacted to them. That kind of thing is very encouraging.”
Encouraging enough to embark on four major series, which took five years to complete. They tackle complex subjects. Planet Zog, begun in 2007, features aliens and young people cheerfully swapping doctor and patient roles. “Going to hospital is rather like going to an alien planet,” says Blake, “so these drawings are not just for the patients, they are for the relatives and friends of the patient, to help them. Someone who took their mother to the Chelsea hospital wrote to say my pictures were like 'sunshine in that gaunt building’.”
The second series, called Our Friends In The Circus, was done in 2009 and depicts elderly people as jugglers, fire-eaters, tightrope-walkers and clowns. The pictures are on display at a mental health ward at Northwick Park Hospital. “I didn’t want to take it too seriously,” says Blake, “so it’s a parallel life. I drew people of my generation swinging from tree-to-tree and things of that kind, and it corresponds to their mental activities. In a strange way I was not personally involved despite the fact that I’m old and I had a brother who suffered in old age. I drew them in a detached way. It’s a bit like acting - imagining yourself into a situation. Old people still have skills they can use even if I show them doing things they can’t do anymore.”
The third group, Ordinary Life, is for the Vincent Square Eating Disorder Clinic in London. The drawings are a subtle celebration of everyday life, with characters doing seemingly mundane and pleasurable things such as having a picnic, feeding the birds or picking some apples.
“There was no brief,” says Blake, “so you go and talk to the patients and the consultants and you get a sense of what might be useful. Most of these pictures are what I call metaphorical in the sense that they are not real life. But these are for people who I think really want to be relaxed. They are people who are very tense about food, about their own appearances and tense about where they fit into things.
“So,” he continued, “what I wanted to have was pictures that were fairly relaxed and soft and slightly scruffy. The drawings don’t insist on food but there is food about as part of everyday life. I hope they are optimistic. There is a lot of humour in them but they are not making fun of anyone. They are a form of praise.”
The fourth and biggest project is called Mothers And Babies Underwater, and was completed last year. There are over 50 pictures in the Centre Hospitalier in Angers, France. “These were done for a newly-built hospital,” says Blake, “and the illustrations are a way of saying 'it’s going to be alright in a minute’. The women and babies are swimming under water. A fanciful idea. It’s not the fact they are swimming but moving easily, both free. They could be flying with a feeling of being released from labour. One of the staff in France said the important thing is the exchange of look between the mother and baby, who are meeting for the first time in a way. I would like to think that the idea of art in maternity wards will take off in England and in fact Scarborough Hospital have taken a set of about nine.”
The impressive Foundling Museum - which tells the story of Foundling Hospital founder Thomas Coram and which also houses work by William Hogarth and composer George Frideric Handel - has lots of ornate old pictures of worthy old bald men. Now, it also houses Blake’s vibrant, colourful illustrations of mothers in the corridors outside the main room.
It’s somehow fitting that these wonderful visions of motherhood came from Blake, an old bald man.
He was very careful about how he drew for As Large As Life, as he explained: “There are more than 60 pictures at the Foundling, and a lot were drawn with quills because that is a slightly scruffier way of drawing. It amuses me that quills are one of the oldest things you can draw with. Some of the mothers and baby ones were drawn with reed pens - bits of bamboo that have been sharpened at one end, dipped in Indian ink - and people have been using them for thousands of years. You get a more adventurous feel from a scratchy pen. A man in France recently sent me a Vulture’s wing feather sharpened to be used as a pen. It was rather splendid.
“What I also like is that the pictures are printed by digital technology. These are larger than the originals but the fidelity and faithfulness to the original is extraordinary. If you put them side by side it is almost impossible to distinguish them. Printing digitally is good for a hospital because the picture can be made to the right size and there are no worries about damaging the original. It’s also cheaper for the hospital because they are not having to buy the original.”
Despite the difficult issues Blake is tackling - old age, mental health, eating problems - the mood of this exhibition is upbeat. Culture can really help people, it says with humourous and humane conviction.
“Ah, being positive may be a character defect of mine,” Blake jokes. “I started off as a cartoonist and there is still humour in my drawings. I have occasionally been criticised for being too cheerful. But I hope these pictures aren’t just cheerful. They don’t dismiss a situation. Not that I think ageing is entirely cheerful. You have to get a balance of mood. I do believe art can help people but these are not, in some ghastly phrase, commissions to be therapeutic. I wouldn’t claim that. The people in some of my drawings are simply in strange situations which they are more or less coping with.”
Blake, whose drawings of Roald Dahl characters were used in a set of Royal Mail stamps this week, has illustrated more than 300 books. Later this year, his drawings will accompany the book Rosie’s Magic House by Russell Hoban, the brilliant American writer who died in London last month at the age of 86.
And people around Britain will also get the chance to see As Large As Life when it leaves London to tour right into 2013, going to seven different galleries including the Paisley Museum in Scotland. The exhibition - which has video interviews and a lovely children’s reading area decorated with Blake’s recent designs for wallpaper - is terrific, and the most eloquent testimony to the success of the art is that more and more hospitals are asking for his work.
“I remember going into a hospital late one evening,” says Blake, “and the night security an looked across and said 'it’s uplifting’ and I thought that’s all I need to know really.”
Quentin Blake will be in conversation with Christopher Frayling on 22 January at 2pm. For ticket information see www.foundlingmuseum.org.uk. The exhibition opens on 12 January and runs until 15 April 2012.
Quentin Blake is as large as life
Illustrations of mothers and their babies underwater are among works of art displayed in a new exhibition of the work of Quentin Blake at the Foundling Museum in Holborn, London. Included in the exhibition is Quentin Blake's biggest project 'Mothers and Babies Underwater' commissioned by the maternity unit of the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire in Angers, France. Each of the 11 delivery suites will be animated by drawings by Blake based on the theme of the mother meeting her new baby.
By Martin Chilton, Digital Culture Editor
Last Updated: 6:07PM GMT 12/01/2012
Illustrator Quentin Blake has a marvellous new exhibition at the Foundling Museum in London with works commissioned for hospitals.
It’s no wonder Quentin Blake is one of Britain’s most interesting and best-loved illustrators.
The man whose work graced Roald Dahl’s books - and the BFG is 30 years old now - has a new exhibition which is ambitious, intrepid and joyful.
As Large As Life, which opened today at the Foundling Museum in Holborn, London, is an exhibition of recent works commissioned by four hospitals in the UK and France.
The drawings had their origins in art for the South Kensington and Chelsea Mental Health Centre. “I was asked to provide drawings for a refurbished wing for the elderly,” says Blake, who will be 80 this year. “I felt slightly qualified because I realised I was the same age as some of the patients. I had also done drawings for patients with mental health problems and a consultant later said she was astonished when one of her patients, who was deeply depressed, and who normally did not respond to anything, had looked at these pictures and reacted to them. That kind of thing is very encouraging.”
Encouraging enough to embark on four major series, which took five years to complete. They tackle complex subjects. Planet Zog, begun in 2007, features aliens and young people cheerfully swapping doctor and patient roles. “Going to hospital is rather like going to an alien planet,” says Blake, “so these drawings are not just for the patients, they are for the relatives and friends of the patient, to help them. Someone who took their mother to the Chelsea hospital wrote to say my pictures were like 'sunshine in that gaunt building’.”
The second series, called Our Friends In The Circus, was done in 2009 and depicts elderly people as jugglers, fire-eaters, tightrope-walkers and clowns. The pictures are on display at a mental health ward at Northwick Park Hospital. “I didn’t want to take it too seriously,” says Blake, “so it’s a parallel life. I drew people of my generation swinging from tree-to-tree and things of that kind, and it corresponds to their mental activities. In a strange way I was not personally involved despite the fact that I’m old and I had a brother who suffered in old age. I drew them in a detached way. It’s a bit like acting - imagining yourself into a situation. Old people still have skills they can use even if I show them doing things they can’t do anymore.”
The third group, Ordinary Life, is for the Vincent Square Eating Disorder Clinic in London. The drawings are a subtle celebration of everyday life, with characters doing seemingly mundane and pleasurable things such as having a picnic, feeding the birds or picking some apples.
“There was no brief,” says Blake, “so you go and talk to the patients and the consultants and you get a sense of what might be useful. Most of these pictures are what I call metaphorical in the sense that they are not real life. But these are for people who I think really want to be relaxed. They are people who are very tense about food, about their own appearances and tense about where they fit into things.
“So,” he continued, “what I wanted to have was pictures that were fairly relaxed and soft and slightly scruffy. The drawings don’t insist on food but there is food about as part of everyday life. I hope they are optimistic. There is a lot of humour in them but they are not making fun of anyone. They are a form of praise.”
The fourth and biggest project is called Mothers And Babies Underwater, and was completed last year. There are over 50 pictures in the Centre Hospitalier in Angers, France. “These were done for a newly-built hospital,” says Blake, “and the illustrations are a way of saying 'it’s going to be alright in a minute’. The women and babies are swimming under water. A fanciful idea. It’s not the fact they are swimming but moving easily, both free. They could be flying with a feeling of being released from labour. One of the staff in France said the important thing is the exchange of look between the mother and baby, who are meeting for the first time in a way. I would like to think that the idea of art in maternity wards will take off in England and in fact Scarborough Hospital have taken a set of about nine.”
The impressive Foundling Museum - which tells the story of Foundling Hospital founder Thomas Coram and which also houses work by William Hogarth and composer George Frideric Handel - has lots of ornate old pictures of worthy old bald men. Now, it also houses Blake’s vibrant, colourful illustrations of mothers in the corridors outside the main room.
It’s somehow fitting that these wonderful visions of motherhood came from Blake, an old bald man.
He was very careful about how he drew for As Large As Life, as he explained: “There are more than 60 pictures at the Foundling, and a lot were drawn with quills because that is a slightly scruffier way of drawing. It amuses me that quills are one of the oldest things you can draw with. Some of the mothers and baby ones were drawn with reed pens - bits of bamboo that have been sharpened at one end, dipped in Indian ink - and people have been using them for thousands of years. You get a more adventurous feel from a scratchy pen. A man in France recently sent me a Vulture’s wing feather sharpened to be used as a pen. It was rather splendid.
“What I also like is that the pictures are printed by digital technology. These are larger than the originals but the fidelity and faithfulness to the original is extraordinary. If you put them side by side it is almost impossible to distinguish them. Printing digitally is good for a hospital because the picture can be made to the right size and there are no worries about damaging the original. It’s also cheaper for the hospital because they are not having to buy the original.”
Despite the difficult issues Blake is tackling - old age, mental health, eating problems - the mood of this exhibition is upbeat. Culture can really help people, it says with humourous and humane conviction.
“Ah, being positive may be a character defect of mine,” Blake jokes. “I started off as a cartoonist and there is still humour in my drawings. I have occasionally been criticised for being too cheerful. But I hope these pictures aren’t just cheerful. They don’t dismiss a situation. Not that I think ageing is entirely cheerful. You have to get a balance of mood. I do believe art can help people but these are not, in some ghastly phrase, commissions to be therapeutic. I wouldn’t claim that. The people in some of my drawings are simply in strange situations which they are more or less coping with.”
Blake, whose drawings of Roald Dahl characters were used in a set of Royal Mail stamps this week, has illustrated more than 300 books. Later this year, his drawings will accompany the book Rosie’s Magic House by Russell Hoban, the brilliant American writer who died in London last month at the age of 86.
And people around Britain will also get the chance to see As Large As Life when it leaves London to tour right into 2013, going to seven different galleries including the Paisley Museum in Scotland. The exhibition - which has video interviews and a lovely children’s reading area decorated with Blake’s recent designs for wallpaper - is terrific, and the most eloquent testimony to the success of the art is that more and more hospitals are asking for his work.
“I remember going into a hospital late one evening,” says Blake, “and the night security an looked across and said 'it’s uplifting’ and I thought that’s all I need to know really.”
Quentin Blake will be in conversation with Christopher Frayling on 22 January at 2pm. For ticket information see www.foundlingmuseum.org.uk. The exhibition opens on 12 January and runs until 15 April 2012.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Sunday, January 08, 2012
Painted this morning.
I am about to finish and then spend the day killing bandits and anyone else in Skyrim.
Can't sleep
But I am exhausted. Tried to paint. Did some back painting but I haven't washed out either of my thermos flasks and that kind of sums it up. So back to bed.
Saturday, January 07, 2012
Check out
Http://www.dustpiggies.com
For comics and tonnes of super awesome fun. Sans talent. Sans is French for 'without'.
For comics and tonnes of super awesome fun. Sans talent. Sans is French for 'without'.
Friday, January 06, 2012
And..
I will update the blog and website with the other paintings I did at the end of last year. Because it makes sense doesn't it? Does n t it?
Up all night painting.
Couldn't sleep so I stayed up and finished the first of the new series of paintings. I want to do 5 by the end of feb. 1 down.
Tuesday, January 03, 2012
Painted all night.
Made lots of progress. Even without the right nib. HO hum. Painted more without detail than I have for a
Long time. Normally ink and paint coexist in order to work but not today.
Long time. Normally ink and paint coexist in order to work but not today.
Monday, January 02, 2012
No rest for the marginally annoying
Can't sleep. Going to try and paint. No no.6 nibs though. Which is a pain.
Started my first painting of the year
And now it's not tidy anymore. Listening to Adam green. From start to finish his entire back catalogue. Got some work done but don't have any size 6 drawing nibs. So that's probably going to draw (arf arf) things to a close for the day.
Sunday, January 01, 2012
2012 the first post.
The new craze that is sweeping the nation. Pigeoning. It is when people inhale a pigeon up their nose in one go and the pigeon lives inside their brain.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Mechacoyotes
I drew these coyotes that are metal and operated with rubber bands and a pulley system.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Painting
Couldn't sleep. So played on Skyrim until 7ish then did some drawings of mechanised coyotes hopefully for an article. Then starting painting for the first time in a while. Got the back painting pretty much sewn up.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Ah.
Drinking white Russians (no egg nog). And chasing my brother around harassing him. Christmas wouldn't be the same without it.
Poor tim :D
Poor tim :D
I hate Jamie Oliver.
Apparently Jamie Oliver is going to "pimp" Christmas. To be clear. He's going to make Christmas have sex with strangers for money?
Article about dust piggies
http://hallalitriocht.com/steampunksunday-the-peculiar-madness-of-mike-bromage/491
How did we ever survive without technology
The irony of this post is that it's on the Internet being posted from a smartphone, while watching muppets Christmas Carroll on a 32 inch flat screen tv. I am not pointing this garbage out in a boastful way. More acknowledging the sheer hypocrisy of posting on a blog about technology in a, yes obviously, a negative way.
At what point did we lose our souls to this fucking garbage? Christmas this year started in august. Stocking up for Christmas with food that goes out of date in October. Kids becoming sociopathic monsters playing computer games mindlessly killing people for points and beating computer sprite prostitutes to death for imaginary money. I hate football but that seems to be the only point most children seem to connect with anything in reality, even of it is via a computer game that is related to football team that play in actually a sub-computer standard to reality. Has anyone every done one of the super moves from the tony hawk skating games? No. They defy reality, gravity etc you know the boring shit.
If there any imagination in anything? You can't really have a child now without it appearing on a social networking site. It's the new birth certificate, like some kind of Truman show reality. Yeah fuck registering your kids, it's fine, people know they're real because a digital impression of them is on Facebook. There's a video of them burping into your 8 megapixel camera. But if your hard drive dies where is your child? Is it still made of meat and screaming or is it now just a rumour of a child that once was.
Art is another example. If you don't have a website does it exist? Does your life mean anything if Simon Cowell isn't breaking wind in your hair as people text message a automated counter to say you are in anyway valid? What if no one is your friend on Facebook? What If you aren't on it??? Suddenly you are anti social. You are shunning your friends and interaction. Or is that actually a total ridiculous idea?
What about when you die on a social network site? You are instantly a deity with people who didn't talk to you identifying themselves as your closest friends. The friend requests flood in, oblivious to the reality that you no longer exist.
What of all the memories you've digitised? Are they no longer real once they've been deleted? If you don't have a photo of yourselves enjoying a night out then how does anyone know your were there? Maybe you weren't. Maybe you aren't actually real. Maybe your memories never happened.
What ever did we do without millions of pixels reminding us of who we are and how super fun we are or were? Shit. I can't remember. Maybe I'll goggle it.
On a final note the muppets Christmas Carroll is at the bit when Scrooge finds redemption. I'm not being Scrooge-like. I'm not shedding the material possession that rot my personality, brain and teeth. Because those dumb asses in the middle ages died of colds in their early 20's with no teeth, worshipping funny looking turnips.
So that is the difference between me and Scrooge. At least he had an epiphany.
At what point did we lose our souls to this fucking garbage? Christmas this year started in august. Stocking up for Christmas with food that goes out of date in October. Kids becoming sociopathic monsters playing computer games mindlessly killing people for points and beating computer sprite prostitutes to death for imaginary money. I hate football but that seems to be the only point most children seem to connect with anything in reality, even of it is via a computer game that is related to football team that play in actually a sub-computer standard to reality. Has anyone every done one of the super moves from the tony hawk skating games? No. They defy reality, gravity etc you know the boring shit.
If there any imagination in anything? You can't really have a child now without it appearing on a social networking site. It's the new birth certificate, like some kind of Truman show reality. Yeah fuck registering your kids, it's fine, people know they're real because a digital impression of them is on Facebook. There's a video of them burping into your 8 megapixel camera. But if your hard drive dies where is your child? Is it still made of meat and screaming or is it now just a rumour of a child that once was.
Art is another example. If you don't have a website does it exist? Does your life mean anything if Simon Cowell isn't breaking wind in your hair as people text message a automated counter to say you are in anyway valid? What if no one is your friend on Facebook? What If you aren't on it??? Suddenly you are anti social. You are shunning your friends and interaction. Or is that actually a total ridiculous idea?
What about when you die on a social network site? You are instantly a deity with people who didn't talk to you identifying themselves as your closest friends. The friend requests flood in, oblivious to the reality that you no longer exist.
What of all the memories you've digitised? Are they no longer real once they've been deleted? If you don't have a photo of yourselves enjoying a night out then how does anyone know your were there? Maybe you weren't. Maybe you aren't actually real. Maybe your memories never happened.
What ever did we do without millions of pixels reminding us of who we are and how super fun we are or were? Shit. I can't remember. Maybe I'll goggle it.
On a final note the muppets Christmas Carroll is at the bit when Scrooge finds redemption. I'm not being Scrooge-like. I'm not shedding the material possession that rot my personality, brain and teeth. Because those dumb asses in the middle ages died of colds in their early 20's with no teeth, worshipping funny looking turnips.
So that is the difference between me and Scrooge. At least he had an epiphany.
Friday, December 23, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
It's raining here in Montreal
I'm in Canada. Just for 2 weeks. I am meeting with Canadians. Hopefully have some time to explore!
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