Um update!

Aloha!

I'll have to apologize again for such a beefy 'lots of updates' blog post, I simply haven't had the time to do regular posting due to a hectic schedule/life creeping up on me. But fear not! I have an excuse or two, and they're pretty valid ones at that. Please, indulge me...


New ends

The main reason for my time being very limited and busy is that I've been moving flat. A couple of friends (Dave and Steve for future reference) and I have moved to the lovely leafy affulent area of Chiswick. Home to nice pubs, parks and expensive shops (We snagged a great deal on our flat). I moved in a few days after the other two and was welcomed by 'Pippa' outside my bedroom. NOPE-NOPE-NOPE!

So we've been quite giddy explorers discovering new bits and bobs in our area. I've come across a lot of shops selling greeting cards that I'm going to pop into with a few samples with a view of selling at some point. I  popped into a local pub the other day, they had an advertisement on one of their chalkboards asking for artists to get in touch, which is what I did! I gave them my details and they said they'll zap me an email, so all very exciting.
Generally though, Chiswick seems like a very promising area in terms of being a bit more artsy swayed.

At the end of our main road there's a squat that has loads of great graffiti outside it. Dave was explaining how he and Steve knocked on the door of the squat a couple of nights ago and how it was met with no answer despite clear presence inside - which is understandable. He went on to continue to talk about this mosaic graffiti outside their back wall:

It's about an inmate on death row who was wrongly convicted, that's his real I.D card in the top photo, with his final statement in the next photo. The inmate goes onto say that he insists that he did not murder the victim and that he hopes justice will prevail finding the real killer. The statement actually twirls and twines along the rest of the wall, so it's quite hard to take a photo of all of it. Nonetheless it seemed like a very powerful piece of street art, and it's only down the road from us.


Fathers Day cards

My Father's day cards went down a treat to my surprise. I liked them but didn't think Father's Day would be as popular as Mother's Day sales. Overall, Mother's Day did better but Father's Day eclipsed Mother's Day with online sales. Maybe because we find it harder to find Father's Day bits and bobs or maybe there just isn't enough of a selection out there? Anywho, I was quite chuffed. You can find the designs on my Instagram if you fancy a gander.

Re-hashing old work

In relation to moving flat, I had to do the obligatory clean out of stuff I don't want or need anymore. I came across some old works from my days at art school. Some were decent, some were terrible. Considering it's the best part of 4 years ago since I graduated (Wait, what?!?!) I was pleased that some still held up in quality. The others I was very disappointed with. Rather than chuck them away I decided to recycle them, adding to their existing 'quality' with my 4-year mature, refined style. Here are 3 in particular that I've improved upon. Interestingly, I actually added photos of the originals to this blog when I first done them, so click on the hyperlink below each picture to see the original, god damn, awful piece!

Such a nice place! Rehashed (2014)

Original piece (2010)

Protective layer (2014)

Original piece done in 2008

Noir meet up (2014)

Original piece (2010)

I'm doing a few more re-hashes at the moment which I'll post shortly, but otherwise more card venues are on the horizon and I've had a few inquires that I'll divulge about at a better time, kind reader...

TTFN

For Arts Sake - Father's Day A-board 2013.

A-board for Father's Day, drawing on some influence from Norman Rockwell.

Recently..

I've been working a lot at the gallery in my extended role and neglected this space, so I decided I would do a post about the design aspects I do at For Arts Sake. I'll start with the a-boards. I design visuals for the a-boards, an a-board is basically a double sided poster in a typically wooden frame that stands outside the gallery (I did a post about the Mother's Day a-board which went down a treat) The most recent ones I've done are:

This was our Olympic a-board, offering discounts in the form of medals.

This a-board went up earlier in the week, was really pleased with this as I just wanted to create something simple and bold for our newest exhibition based on London.

(Better pictures of both a-boards here )

I also completely forgot I did this little hand-drawn sign for Father's Day. I've been trying to teach myself calligraphy which is a bit stop and start at the moment but I thought I'd give it a go on this. 

It turned out fairly alright although I was a bit gutted it was thrown away straight after Father's day!

Pencil outlines.

Typically you would use a proper calligraphy pen but I pulled it off fine with a big ol' juicy marker.

I just wanted to post this little video up too, it's one of my new roles at the Hendon workshop in which I use the mount cutter for framing jobs. I've become used to it now and you get a great sense of satisfaction and achievement when you understand how a new machine works. I made loads of mistakes to begin with and feared I almost broke it on a couple of occasions or that it was about to explode - it uses a compressor which you have to switch on/off to relieve pressure for it otherwise it will actually explode which wasn't a great thing to be told when I would be working by myself the following day.. 

So I always had an anxious wait/half of my foot out the door whenever I turned it on as it would go like 'ffffffffffffffffffffffffffiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii' for a couple minutes then 'POMF' when it was done. 

The 'POMF' was the worst part. 

Just as you're getting used to the 'fffffffffffffffffffffffffiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii' in the background the 'POMF' would interrupt like an annoying dangerous friend. Make you jump 3 feet in the air and then you open your eyes to reveal that you're still alive.. close call this time..

One of my other main roles is now bringing For Arts Sake into the 21st Century by fine tuning them into the world of online social networking. The blog I set up has made good progress so far and can be found here . Also, the Facebook and Twitter accounts have been developing at a steady pace so please check them out.

But yeah, I've had a few job offers recently which is great as this summer has been a very quiet period in terms of freelancing, just realized it was about this time last year I was assisting on that Samsung animation. So there'll be more exciting news to follow soon, smell ya later!