Flash

This isn't exactly 'flash' in the traditional sense, but it's the nearest I've ever come to preparing possible designs for tattoos. 

Admittedly they are quite specific and will appeal mostly the those who like the smell of camp fires and sleeping outside. 

There's loads of them though, right?

What's new in 2015 so far?

Somehow it's March already with January and February being a mere memory, and a hazy one at that. I think I've left it long enough that this won't be considered a 'new year, new me' style statement that I dislike so much.

My last post was about what I did on the first day of my tattoo apprenticeship, way back in August(!) last year. My current position is that I am on a hiatus from the studio as there is no longer room for us all in the shop, and being able to commit to just one day a week it seemed logical that I step away for a while.

That isn't to say I'm not still wanting to get back into it. I've had a bit of time to reflect on the time that I have spent at the studio and I can see that I didn't embrace the opportunity as energetically as I could have. I was told from the outset that I wouldn't be pushed to progress, that I would learn at my own pace. Sadly, I didn't really push myself! So, progress was non-existant and I'm pretty much in the same position now as I was in August.

I plan to use the time I have available at weekends to continue working on the basics so when I get back into the studio I should be able to contribute more to my learning with actual tattooing, rather than washing tea spoons.

I've just ordered a direct drive from Rotary Works and it's first task will be to put this little axe into my skin.

Aside from the above, 2015 has been 'business as usual' in terms of drawing. I've done a few more InstaPortraits and experimented with a bit of NeoTrad style illustrations. 

    

Here's something a little different to what I normally do;

Tattoo Apprenticeship

I was lucky enough to be asked if I would be interested in a tattoo apprenticeship with a studio in Sheffield.  I work full time monday to friday so I am able only to commit to a Saturday, and this was considered acceptable by the studio owner.

I had my first day yesterday, 30 August 2014. Turned up at 10:30, sat and doodled for 8 hours, watched a tattoo being done, made just a single round of tea/coffee and underwent a drawing test. 6 timed illustrations of a rose, a woman's face, a pocket watch, a koi carp, a skull and an example of some script.  Having only ever drawn a woman's face and a skull before, I thought I did ok.  That said, the drawings were really only good for the bin.

It's a little difficult to sit around doing nothing, and I was hoping I might be able to learn a little faster considering I was invited to do the apprenticeship rather than me asking for one, but I understand that you have to start from the bottom.

Here's what I did on my first day as a tattoo apprentice:

The red face in the bottom right and the green face in the middle were done the evening before.

Assuming the studio want me back next week I'll be practicing drawing using a tattoo machine attached to a pen in order to familiarise myself with the weight of it, and already it's making a huge difference to my natural movements.  It's not radically different, however, the pen grip is much narrower than that of the machine with a grip tube(?) attached, so even if I get comfortable with the weight, I still have some getting used to do with the grip.

The latest Instaportraits ......

Lately I've been trying to employ a looser drawing style, worrying less about the stray lines etc.  I reckon I was getting close with the first of the two pictures below, but the very next portrait was in my usual cautious style.

Must. Get. Loose!

Yet another idea ......

Lately I've found myself trying to find a way to occupy the time between my regular, less-than-fulfilling job and various other distractions like drawing, painting, watching 'bully gets knocked out' videos on YouTube and other such 'stuff'.

I've currently got my eye on a few things on ebay with the intention of setting up a micro-forge in the garage and producing small hand forged bottle openers.

Here's a video I found on YouTube of a VERY little forge, but possibly big enough for what I need:

Just to be clear, I didn't upload the video, I just spotted it on YouTube. All relevant details for the uploader will be under the video when you play it.

So, off I got to ebay to buy manly hammers and anvils!!!

Boner!

Saw a dead fox. Wanted it. Got it. Took it's jacket off. Kept the scaffolding. Process below!

"This fox ain't'nt' saying' sheeit!"

Some bones in a bucket. Bucket of bones. Buck o' Bones. Buckobones. Bckbns.

Some bones in a box. Box of bones. Box o' bones. Boxobones. Bxobns,

A fox pelvis. The pelvis of a fox. Pelvfox. Enough now.

This 'stuff' was found within the stomach of the fox. Shards of long bones, the bulbous end bits of
long bones and what I think is a part of a tail of probably a rat.

Hydrogen Peroxide bath to make the bones white. Looks amazing. 

"Twenty"

I've started a blog to follow the progress of my current charity project "Twenty".  The idea is to get 20 artists to contribute to a single sketchbook that will then b auctioned of and the proceeds given to Prostate Cancer UK.

You can follow the progress and learn more about it here!

Beatherder 2014!!

It's coming up to that time of year again!! Theme is H this year, so I expect to see lots of Heisenbergs, Harry Stiles's, Homer Simpsons and probably a fair few Hagrids.  I've not decided what or who I'm going as ....... pressure's on!

Here's a link to last year's video to get you in the mood:

MyDogSighs

So, MyDogSighs has finally got round to having a website made.    A 'hub' in which all things MDS can be found. News, new work, upcoming shows etc can all be found here.  If you don't know all ready, MyDogSighs is a British artist who paints melancholic portraits onto cans and leaves them in the street as gifts for those who find them!  He also paints walls and canvasses and exhibits in shows across the world.

You'd be doing your eyeballs a disservice(?!) if you didn't pop over and take a look!!

Here, I'll make it easy for you: MyDogSighs

Flax the way, uh huh, uh huh, I like it (sorry!)

Having grown up with Time Team on the TV I would regularly see one of the team create something from the period they were excavating goodies from.  This usually involved making something sharp and awesome like a flint axe or arrowhead, or melting something to make a dangerous (and therefore exciting) knife/axe/pointy thing.  Occasionally they'd weave something, which I thought was crap.

After Time Team came Ray Mears. By this time I was older, more mature and less interested in the molten iron/stabby tools and I found that the existence in harmony with nature was of equal interest.  After seeing an episode of Ray Mears Bushcraft where he made cordage (string, to most people) out of something unexpected like a goose's eyelashes, spider silk or stinging nettles I was again intrigued as to how a functional tool can be manufactured out of something that just happens to grow out of the ground (or off the eye-lid of a goose).

Using the same technique that Mr Ray Mears very kindly shared I turned something that can't easily be recycled into something useful;

This is bailing twine (nylon, sadly), that is used for bailing up hay/straw.  The local riding school cuts it off the bails and throws it away.  By splitting the cut-off pieces into two strands and splicing in more sections, it's possible to make a perfectly useable, thin rope from what would otherwise become waste.  I don't know the name of the technique, but you twist one strand away from your body, then rotate both strands so your first strand becomes the bottom strand. Repeat until you have enough rope. The nylon's a little tough on the thumbs, but it's a small price to pay really.

Moving on from the nylon rope idea I thought I'd have a crack at growing something that may then be processed into natural fibres. Flax. I would have preferred hemp, but you need a licence to grow it, despite the industrial version having just a tiny amount of THC when compared to the other stuff.

Having done no research this was going to be a hap-hazard bumble through the process of growing flax for fibre production.  It's pretty much all guesswork.

First off, I decided to do this in April I think.  I don't know if that's a good time to plant things, so to help the seeds germinate I sandwiched them between wet paper towels and left them on a windowsill.  My thinking was that if I could get them to sprout in the paper I could then just lay that onto some soil and cover it over without having to fiddle too much.

Germinated flax seeds.

Not very neatly sewn!

I wasn't expecting a large crop for this experiment.

So, sprouting seeds planted I covered them over with compost and watered them when it started to look like it was about to dry on the surface.  That's an old barbecue by the way, a friend left it in my garden about 5 years ago and it's now been re-purposed.

Some green finally showing through.

The small green pairs of leaves grew in size and in number and then one morning my crop had halved. I can only assume a mouse had found my mini plantation and helped itself to the shoots. If I look at it as sharing, I don't get mad.

Fast forward a number of weeks (I didn't count how many. I should have!) and the small shoots had turned into these long, thin whips.  At this stage I wasn't sure that what I even had was flax because I'd actually planted linseed. Turns out they're the same thing. As soon as the flowers popped out I googled it and confirmed that what I had was definitely flax. Or linseed.  If you look closely at the picture on the right you can see a blue flower amongst the white. Cue even more confusion.

Flowers bloom then make way for the seed pods.  They're about the size of a pea and have little striations coming from (or going to?) the centre.  At this point I thought I'd better find out when would be a good time to harvest the fibres and luckily, it was about now! As the leaves lower down the stem start to turn yellow the plant is in a transitional phase and timing is important in order to get the kind of fibre you want. Crop too early and the fibres don't have time to fully establish, crop too late and the fibre becomes very coarse.  I wasn't interested in harvesting the seeds so I've harvested just before the pods change colour and the lower leaves are yellowing. You might be able to see it on the picture above, right.

It would seem that getting the fibre is harder than I imagined. YouTube taught me all kinds of new words and introduced me to lots of specialised looking wooden tools with nails stuck in them.  I'm going to try and do it all by hand at first, no tools. I think I'll be able to manipulate the woody stem away from the fibres just by rolling and bending the stalks.  If that fails, I'll improvise a tool of some sort. 

I actually ended up with a larger crop than expected, especially considering I had no idea what I was doing and the fact that mice eat flax seedlings. 

Currently the crop is drying in the sun, after which I think I submerge it in water for a few days. After that I let it dry fully and I can then begin teasing out the fibres.  What I hope to with them once I have them processed is turn them into a basic cordage and from that I'll make a bracelet for myself and my girlfriend.

Happy Monday!

I have time to kill in the morning for the next two weeks. Can I get a mushroom out every day for the next ten days? 😃

Free Art Friday

Tomorrow I'll be secretly dropping 8 mushrooms around the city of Sheffield, to be found by passers by, picked up and taken home, to be enjoyed by whoever finds them.

This will be the first time I've dropped more than one piece at once and I'm excited not just because of the number of mushrooms, but because I'm really happy with the designs that I ended up with.  There's no theme, just a variety of treatments that came to mind this week, hopefully they're eye-catching enough that people find them!

So here they are, the 8 mushrooms that are going out tomorrow (despite heavy rain forecast for most of the day!)

Check out the Facebook page to see who finds them: RunFastEscape

Early mornings, mushrooms and FREE street art.

At some point in the last year, I came across Mydog Sighs.  An artist who was creating artwork and leaving it out for people to pick up and keep.  I initially thought he was a little mad, creating something beautiful only to abandon it; left to an uncertain fate.  I would get a bit precious about my own stuff, so the very idea of pouring your creativity into something that will just be given away didn't make any sense to me.

Over time I saw more and more of his work being left on the street (through he power of the internet, not in real life), and I saw comments and pictures posted on his Facebook page by people who had found his work.  Each of them evidently thrilled with what they had discovered and were brave enough to pick up.

Gradually it started to make sense.  

I dabbled in a little free art, creating pointillism portraits of people I followed, or who followed me, on Instagram.  After a month or so I came to the idea that a portrait sitting in a closed sketchbook might as well never have been created.  So I offered to send them to those who wanted them.  It felt good knowing that someone had received something they never set out to obtain.

I may have been a little slow on the uptake, but I've come to the conclusion that art appreciated only by it's creator may not be fulfilling it's potential.  If it can be enjoyed by many, then why not share it?

Written on the Free Art Friday Facebook page is the following quote/sentiment - "Artwork placed on the street for any member of the public to enjoy and take home. Go on, make someone's day!"

It is with that in mind I've decided to start dropping art on the streets of Sheffield.  

I present to you, a mushroom.

Now, this might require a little explaining.

I walk to work very early in the morning, knowing that I'll spend the best part of a day staring at a computer screen, doing work I'm less than passionate about.  The walk itself is a chore, knowing that each step is taking me closer to recycled air, office monotony and the tedium that is inherent in the 'work' I need to do.

Knowing that I can't be the only one feeling this way I've decided to create something that might make that journey to work just a tiny bit less awful for others.  I hope to punctuate the dull, grey trudge through the city with flashes of colour! Something unexpected. Something beautiful, and something to (hopefully) be treasured.

Mushrooms come in a variety of shapes, sizes and colours and these are no exception! 

If you see something out of place, take a second to look a little closer!! 

If what I've written interests you, here are a couple of links you really should check out:

Mydog Sighs

Free Art Friday

If you want to keep up to date with what I'm leaving around for you to find, go here:

RunFastEscape

Or, if you're on Instagram you can find me by searching for RunFastEscape - this is probably the best way to find the mushrooms as I'll try and geo-tag the pictures of them in situ (it's not 100% accurate, but it's a start!)

BeatHerder 2013!

Tickets have been bought!  The theme this year is the letter 'T' - meaning I can go as anything provided it begins with, or has something to do with, the letter T.  Ideally I'd go as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle but there's too much work to be done and too little time!

Fingers crossed for better weather - the mud wore me down a bit and the damp conditions weren't good for the camera!!

Here's the video I made of last year's festival, recently re-uploaded to YouTube.  I'll hopefully be doing another this year, so if you see someone pointing a camera in your direction, smile/wave/dance/generally be nice to me!!

It's not just about running ....

As well as running about a bit, I also draw a bit.  Some time back I sketched a robin and a barn owl and turned them into paintings (see the earlier blog posts).  These have now been re-worked and put up in my Society6 shop for sale!

Below is an example of how they look on an iPhone case, not bad if I say so myself!  They can also be ordered as fine art prints, stationary cards or even canvasses if you feel the need for a MASSIVE version.  I personally think they look best on the iPhone cases myself.

 

Head on over to Society6 and take a look, see what's on offer, and if you want to buy something, go for it! 

In the coming days I'll be adding more birds and possibly some other British creatures if there's a demand.  People love squirrels right?