And now it's time to look at some of your work..... in the gallery (Post It Note Edition)

The Gallery - Post It Notes

Did you grow up in the 70s/80s? If you did and lived to survive the tale, you'll be able to recall one of your first introductions to the world of Art.

Long before Neil Buchanan (I had to Google him that's how rubbish he was) jumped on the band wagon with Art Attack Tony Hart was the Don of the Children's TV art scene, bridging the gap between potato printing on Playschool and Rolf's Cartoon Time (the less about him the better!).
He made art cool - before we knew (or cared) what that word meant, along with Johnny Ball he was a staple for any kid growing up in a time that the BBC educated us outside of school and made it fun.

From Vision On, via Take Hart to Hart Beat we met Wilf Lunn the Eccentric Inventor, Mr Bennett the Caretaker and of course that lovable piece of plasticine Morph. Another part of all three shows was the Gallery, a place where artwork submitted by the young viewers was displayed on screen accompaniment of music. Each piece would have the name and age of the artist and occasionally Tony would comment on a piece saying what he liked about it, but my main memory of this segment would be me, my brother and sister all sat far too close to the telly saying as each picture came up 'I could do that' 'I could do that' 'I couldn't do that'.......anyone?

And it's with that in mind that I've compiled this blog for your viewing pleasure (and for those without Instagram), just press play on the below clip as now it's time to look at some of my work in the gallery......

 

RIP

TV and Filums

Happy Birthday

Merry Christmas

Making a SPECTRE-cle of himself

James Bond : SPECTRE

A couple of weeks back I went to see Spectre the 24th James Bond film in the series, and as a series spanning 50 years or more it's gone through a few peaks and troughs of popularity.

It's been largely due to the most recent actors portrayal and what's commonly known as a 'reboot' that the last three have been released which much anticipation.

On a personal note (and I'm probably not the only one) James Bond films were with me from my childhood, before Sky or Netflix Christmas would be a time for the latest installment to be aired exclusively on 'normal' telly. As well as that there would be repeated (and welcome) showings on a Sunday afternoon (or at least it seemed like it was always on a Sunday) or during any other holiday season.

So they were ingrained into you, and vague memories would merge as to whether it was on the TV or at the cinema as to where you'd watched a certain one. My Dad was a big Bond fan so he always comes to mind with the latest release and though the early films would have definitely been watched at home, by the time Roger Moore was Bond it would have meant a trip to the cinema and I can vividly remember the pre-credits sequence of the Spy Who Loved Me as Bond skied off the cliff to his apparent doom before a Union Jack parachute unfurled to save his certain fate.


The last trip to the cinema for a Bond film with Dad would have been A View To a Kill, but even after the no smoking in cinemas policy came in (which ended our joint trips to watch films there) he still kept up with them and the latest Bond film out on video would be a safe bet for him for any Birthday or Christmas present. So this way he'd have seen first Timothy Dalton and then Peirce Brosnon's take on the part.

My Dad passed away in 2006 and among the many many many many many things I miss about him would be his love of action films and there were times not long after he gone that I'd still look along the DVD shelves in HMV picking out ones I know he'd enjoy watching even though he was no longer around to see them. So the latest Bond films would definitely have been among those with him in mind, and I think he would have liked these new installments with their new Bond.


With Daniel Craig Bond has become a more human Bond, a man who happens to be an international spy but with failings, shortcomings and vulnerability, not superhuman but wiling to put himself and his body on the line for the sake of his job. In all of his outings he's been battered and bruised both physically and emotionally, it's a realistic portrayal that's arguably been missing from all of the other incarnations.

It's difficult to review the film without giving too much away to those who haven't seen it, but for me it completes the story arc first started in Casino Royale. It starts with Bond discovering a cryptic message from Judi Dench's M which sends him on a mission that uncovers a secret organisation that has held power over him throughout the last three films. Needless to say, there are car chases, fist fights, exotic locations, gadgets and beautiful women. And with the name of the film itself it's no big surprise as to what's it called or who the main protagonist is.
As far as Daniel Craig's Bond films go, for me it's on par with Casino Royale as his second best outing.


4 Phil's out of 5



How I got shit done : Spider-Lennon

                                     

Spider-Lennon - How I got shit done

I'm writing this on what would have been John Lennon's 75th birthday and coincidentally I had started to put together a John Lennon inspired piece.

                                      

I'm a big fan of a Brazilian artist/illustrator named Butcher Billy, he creates images which mash up music personalities with comic book heroes - you can check out his work here , he's done various work incorporating Amy Winehouse with Wonder Woman, Ian Curtis (from Joy Division) as Batman and Morrisey as Superman to name but a few.

So with that in mind and after the Tommy Cooper picture I'd previously done I thought I'd give it a go. An instantly recognisable person and iconic shot would be needed and after much thought I came up with this.

Quite an iconic photo of John Lennon taken by Bob Gruen during his time in New York.

With the way my head works New York made me think of the City's resident web-slinger Spider-Man, I know Lennon wasn't American but for me it was link and it's my idea so there!

 I figured that I could photoshop a peak of Spidey's costume under Lennon's jacket where his New York t-shirt would have been. So after some Photoshop and Illustrator jiggery pokery* we end up with this....

The above gives me more of an idea of the layers and various stencils I'll need and again the window and daylight came in handy with the tracing of the shapes.

With them cut it was then a case of spraying them individually onto the canvas I'd pre-painted with a grey-ish background as you can see.

 

When it came to the jacket detail I'd stayed with the blue as it was in the original photo just so everything wasn't too grey. But I thought I'd try and get a bit of texture in there with some layers of tape which I'd then spray over - don't ask me why I just felt like it

After some more spraying and a touch up here and there with some acrylic paint the overall outcome was not too bad. Not a patch on Butcher Billy and maybe not his exact style but something else altogether.

But is it finished? Well it needs a coat of varnish, I'm not entirely happy with the left hand and maybe I could have done the jacket in grey after all?

Anyway it's an attempt and another picture more or less done, I can move on now to the next project....

As always with this blog it's just an excuse for me to link to the stuff I have for sale, so check out the links on the right yeah? 

*jiggery pokery is an easy technique used in Illustrator which my good friend, design whizz and overall Mod Legend Adam Clark taught me and I may get round to teaching you one day

Glass Bottle Bottle Glass.....updated!

Here's something I did a long time ago. Big Tommy Cooper fan and it's a play on his most famous routine, the idea was to turn him into more of a psychopath/serial killer.
From this came the idea for a story, based on the idea of a pub in London called The Hand & Racquet
linkage (which I've been in) that has now been closed down. The pub as you'll see from the link was frequented by Cooper, Sid James and Tony Hancock........ among others.
The pub is now all boarded up and ready for demolition, the story would involve them coming back from the dead to take revenge on those who are behind the Racquet's demise.
Each character would be a slightly more extreme and horrific version of that which we know and love, with Sid James as a Joker type character.
If anyone wants to make this - be it a comic or graphic novel, get in touch and let's make it happen!


Update

Well nobody got in touch about making a graphic novel of my idea and The Hand and Racquet is now no longer with us. In it's place will be a bright new shiny hotel which really makes me sad,
ever since it was closed down and boarded up I'd been past a few times to take a look and still couldn't understand why this historic pub that did no harm to anyone had to go the way of the bulldozers.
 
The original image I'd done at the top of the screen was digital - I'd drawn Tommy and then altered an image I found online for the background, the two were combined on Photoshop and the wording was also added there.
But for a while I'd been interested making more 'physical' forms of art work and after some less than successful attempts at screen printing which was very time consuming I decided to give spray paint and stenciling a go. Again a few early attempts came and went before the idea to recreate the old Tommy Cooper image this way popped into my head. My techniques in getting the stencils cut were a little unorthodox - with no light box tracing came about by sticking the picture to the window and using daylight to see through to the original and I was kind of making up as I went along really. The main image and wording were stencils and the background acrylic paint on a black spray painted canvas.

The result of this ramshackle process turned out like this......

With a touch of acrylic paint here and there to tidy the piece up and some varnish to protect it and give it a finishing shine I was pleased with how it ended up.My first proper art piece was done and with nothing better to do with it it was hung up on my bedroom wall....

And there it stayed, until I visited the National Open Art Exhibition at Somerset House. After coming out of the exhibition I picked up a leaflet calling for entries for next year's competition and after a bit of encouragement I entered Tommy for next years show.

Well, that was a year ago and just this last month I found out that my piece had made it through to the next round of judging, I now had to send the painting off for the judges to take a proper look.

Yesterday I dropped it off in Acton, all packaged up and set for a journey on to Pulborough where the judges will be judging  some 500 pieces on 1st September.
The the first time though the public get a say and it would please me greatly if you'd give my humble piece your vote. Here

 So from a closed down pub, via Tommy Cooper I've entered my very first art competition. Hopefully I'll enter some more and who knows where inspiration will strike next.

Post Script

Something I forgot to mention...in order to make the stencil I had to print out the original digital image I'd created in Photoshop. With the painting now done I had no use for it unless I was planning on making copies (but I could always print it out again). So.......I was just happening to be passing The Hand and Racquet pub one weekend in London and I just so happened to have some already mixed wallpaper paste on me (as you do) well one thing led to another and before I knew it my picture was plastered up on the front of the soon to be gone hostelry. So for a while at least Tommy Cooper was back at his local.

*Alan Partridge voice*.....JURASSIC PARK!!!

So, I went to see Jurassic World on Sunday and for those of you put off by the trailer - don't be.

Yes we have Chris Pratt as a dinosaur whispering Velociraptor wrangler and a hybrid super dinosaur in the Indominus Rex but if you're looking for a realistic film - one which has the basic premise of recreating dinosaurs from the DNA taken from mosquitoes frozen in amber this is not a good place to start. You could maybe ask how they keep getting liability insurance to open these disaster prone theme parks....

Leave any grasp of reality at the door and just enjoy it, it's a popcorn movie but one of higher quality than some with more action than the original, genuine suspense, levels of threat and hardcore dinosaur on dinosaur battle scenes. I would give it 4.5 Phils* out of 5

As always this blog is just an excuse you promote my drawings, so........buy my stuff!



*as opposed to stars/thumbs up, etc I use my name as a rating system, the more Phils the better the film.