Weird symmetry

No harm came to any of the creatures used in making these videos.

Mini videos

I've been using the free version of Lightworks video software to make some short films lately. I've always been fascinated by symmetry and wanted to share these new creations.

Click on the video to play then best to watch at full screen

Santa City Christmas card

I'm adding a new page to this blog. This page is specifically relating to the limited edition print I made to send as thanks to anyone who bought work during the year. If you're visiting the site to discover the hidden elements within the print then the results are revealed today. For those who didnt receive a print, below is the supplementary text that appeared with the card.

the link to the new page is just over to the right here.......

Nunhead Art Trail at Aquarius Golf Course

I was recently ask to show some work as part of this years Nunhead Art Trail.
The venue was unusual. Tucked away in South London is the Aquarius Golf Club. This 9 hole golf course sits atop a still functioning Victorian reservoir built in 1901. 

the lovely clubhouse

the bar

construction of the reservoir

I chose to gather together a collection of items relating to the local story of the Beast of Brockley. This story is closely linked to an ongoing artwork project of mine i.e. my long term house-guest and friend Bosci (whose blog you can find a link to here). I'm representing the display here for those who didnt get to visit the venue in Sept. 2019. Key pieces were the amazing victorian diorama from Hatcham College collection and an original drawing by John Ruskin. 

Miss Minelle at the moment of encounter

      a newspaper clipping reporting the incident

the full text from the Brockley Gazette 

one of several delicate drawings Ruskin made prior the autopsy

Open Studio. Come and visit

I'll be taking in the Telegraph Hill Festival Open Studio this coming April 6th and 7th 2019.
Click on the link to access information and a map of the area. I'm number 20 on Waller Road in SE14, South London. See a lot of my prints, paintings and sculpture, meet Bosci our long term beastly house guest and enjoy other artists' studios in a lovely part of London.  

Unreal Estates now open

Thanks to all who attended and managed to squeeze in for the private view of Unreal Estates last week. The show looks amazing...my work is downstairs so don't be shy about going down to see my small but very detailed paintings. The show is running in an operating high street estate agents and the staff are friendly and welcoming. 

 My permanent house-guest Bosci attended the p.v. and is negotiating

a 'beast in residence' deal with Homefinders Estate Agents.

Find out more about Bosci on his blog.

Unreal Estates

I have been busy all summer making work for an exhibition that opens next week. 
The venue is Homefinders estate Agents at 146 Kingsland High St. E5 and the show will run from Sept. 13th to Oct 13th 2018. Six artsists are showing work relating directly to the properties for sale or rent in this popular part of London. I've made work that fuses some of my regular favourite themes along with ideas relating to urban living and trendy London. Each artist has been paired with a writer who has created written responses to the art. My collaborator is a fantastically inventive wordsmith called Karina Lickorish Quinn. Please pop in to see show. My works are dealing with a family of obsessive but failed beekeepers, people who keep and worship giant snakes in their pristine apartment, a strange character who grows fungus in his odd house and on his body, and some urban livers who claim to virtually germ free.....  

Helpful Cedric

The work on show will be in the style of my paintings on old found magazine or book pages like this one above. 

HOLBORN LIBRARY, LONDON. Bosci

Some of you know (and love) Bosci, man beast from the woods. He has a small cupboard space in the basement of Holborn Library as part of a group exhibition/collaboration between Morley College and this Camden library.

Here's a link to the Morley College/Holborn Library website.

Check out Boscis blog for full details

Adam West Commemorative Flight print available

Following up on the post below, I am placing one of my Adam West related prints in the 'purchase items' page. Check out this area if you are interested in buying the print shown below through this blog site. This etching is one of my own all time personal favourites and seems particularly poignant today. The print is called 'Disaster on Adam West commemorative Flight HA29' and depicts an unfortunate event befalling a large group of Batman fans all flying together to Hawaii. Full details on the purchase page. Please note the image is a simple camera photo so the real print is beautifully crisp.

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RIP Adam West

I'm truely saddened to hear of the news yesterday that Adam West who starred in the 1960's Batman series has died. He and his Batman character have appeared in several of my artworks. I loved the series as a child and it's influence has stayed with me all this time. Farewell Adam West.

Open Studio coming soon

Here's a  link to this spring's Telegraph Hill Open Studio. This is an opportunity to come and visit me in situ in my house in South London and see lots of work in the flesh. I have a lot to see over the weekend of April 8th and 9th from 2 to 6 on both those days. There will be new etchings and a series of paintings, a few examples of which are here. Its easy to get to this part of town from either Nunhead, New Cross Gate or Brockley rail stations or multi-various buses.

The tradegy of lost species

Those who know my work either in the flesh or through this blog and the sister blog of my live in animal friend Bosci will be aware that I have an long standing interest in anatomy. One way this love, combined with my drive for making strange things manifests, is in my collection of homemade specimens. Checkout previous posts on Bosci's blog
 blog http://boscisblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/guatemalan-flying-froga-chance-to-see.html
to see some of these.
Recently I have had the opportunity to make some new specimen artworks as part of a year long initiative commemorating the death of the last thylacine in existence. The thylacine, is also know as the Tasmanian tiger and was a strange Australian marsupial. Marsupials are wonderfully weird mammals whose young are born in a highly unformed virtually embryo like state. The young called joey's, emerge from their mothers, then grapple and clamber with overly large forelimbs to the distintive maruspial pouch where they find sustenance and develop. 

Thylacine specimen joey, cloning trial 1

2 days old

Thylacine trial 2

6 days old

The Thylacine became extinct 80 years ago when on September 7th 1936, 'Benjamin' died of neglect, locked out of his sheltered sleeping quarters in Hobart Zoo, Australia. I have speculated what might happen should science try to reintroduce the long lost beast using cloning technology. I have made several thylacine clone attempts. And because these mal-formed, ill-bred specimens are in jars, dead and preserved we must presume that the scientist have found the tasks beyond their means. The task has proved to be too complex and difficult and is way beyond them. They have failed. 

Thylacine trial 7

14 days old

two views of trial number 11

 having survived for 21 days

longest surviving creature;

perished at 1 month and 1 day

The way I create these beastly specimens is by using rubber and carefully crafted, complicated inside-out moulds. One inherent factor with this process is that the final outcome (when the skin is reversed and rolled over itself) manifests unpredictable peculiarities and flaws giving the creature surprising, odd mishapen characterisitcs and features. I liken these errors and foibles to the struggles encountered when modern science, expecting to fully comprehend nature finds that things dont always go according to plan.

For more about the ongoing Thylacine memorial....

https://www.lostspeciesday.org/?page_id=29

and 

https://onca.org.uk/.

The message I'm wanting to project is that its far better to preserve wondrousness than to expect to pick up the pieces later.

Humans and dinosaurs

Here is a monotype made for a small exhibition of work made using unusual devices and methods of creating a print. I had been reading about recent scientific theories that attempt to describe the true nature of everything. One theory postulates that there are in fact 11 dimensions extant in our universe. In  the 11th dimension absolutley everything is connected in a weblike network that can span distance and time. I like this idea and it seems to explain certain phenomonen well. My print is entitled ' In the 11th dimension, humans and dinosaurs do indeed exist together'.
It was made by running inked up rubber toys through the printing press.

Drypoint interventions

I've recently been running a course focussing on a printmaking process called 'drypoint'. Over the years a lot of the work I have made and shown here on my blog uses this technique. Drypoint prints are printed from plates that are made by simply being scratched into with a sharp pointy tool, like a needle. I'm showing here a suite of work incorporating some beautiful old family photograph postcards which I came across at Deptford market, South London. I made drypoint plates on polycarbonate and printed them directly onto the old photographs.

Creating dense blacks with a new approach.

Here are some images of a small set of prints I have made using a refinement of a traditional etching process. One technique I use a lot to make plates to print images from is something called 'hardground'. Maybe 70% of the work on this blog is made using solely this etching process. Simply put the process involves covering a copper or zinc plate with a thin waxy substance that is impermeable to acid. I draw through the waxy 'ground' and then cover the whole thing with acid (or a similarly agressive liquid called ferric chloride). The acid eats away into the plate and when done, the ground is removed. The little grooves hold ink and that is how one prints. In etching, deep black tones are often made using a process called aquatint but I wanted to make images with similarly rich tones without using this technique. I made these dark and looming figures by repeatedly added hardgrounds, drawing and etching then doing more, many times over to gradually build up a complex network of tiny etched lines. Eventually the network is so entwined and full that it will print a beautiful dense black. One thing that I really enjoy with this practice is that as the multiple layers are added, certain elements of the drawing take on a life of their own and unplanned things appear and evolve.

Visit to see my work

This coming weekend of March 19th and 20th 2016 you have the chance to visit my house in South London. I am taking part in the Telegraph Hill Open Studios and just below here is a link to the Telegraph Hill Festival page relating to this. The page shows information about opening times and includes a link to a map showing not just me but where the other 40 or so artists are exhbiting around SE14 in London UK. I am numbe 33 on the map.

http://telegraphhillfestival.org.uk/open-studio-2016/

There will be a lot of work to see and if you check out the blog my house guest, Bosci, in the links bar on the side here, you'll see that he is planning to have some interesting items on show too....All are welcome.

Building snowmen

Continuing the thread that follows on further below, of past work I've made for my special Christmas card editions, here are more prints from previous years. The first is entitled 'the competition' and is a small drypoint print. Drypoint is such a super process in that it is so simple, direct and easy and in skilled hands can produce images that mimic almost any other more involved and process-heavy printmaking technique, liking etching for instance. The term drypoint refers to a print made by scratching a plate with a sharp fine tool, like a sewing needle, which is what I use. Generally I scratch into a thin transparent polycarbonate material but one can also use metals like copper, aluminium or zinc. 

The next two images here are archival digital editions.

Perhaps some of you out there have received all of my editions sent out for people who have bought work during any particular year. I'm always keen to sell work directly to you via the blog here so have a browse; use the 'older posts to explore' tab in the sidebar or at the bottom of every page to see things form the past. My e-mail address is findable in 'PROFILE' or contact me by 'leaving a comment' if you would like to pursue the purchase of some work at a very reasonable price. I have sold and sent many works worldwide and would be very happy to deal with anyone keen on my prints and 3D creations.

Christmas card images

My Christmas card Zombie in snow-shoes series utilizes my special home-made etching ground. In etching processes, a 'ground' is a term for anything that is applied to a metal printing plate surface that one then interacts with. The open and closed areas of the ground then allow acid to 'bite' the plate making grooves that hold ink. Usually grounds are intended to be perfectly even and strong. I wanted a ground that had different properties and that would autiomatically create extremely fine detail as in the zombies bodies. Here are two more from the series of four zombies and one test plate made when experimanting with solvents to get the correct mix. The third image is another older digital Christmas edition from 2012.

Old Christmas cards

A follower asked to see other Christmas card editions that I have sent to buyers in the past (see post below this one for more). I've been doing this for nearly ten years now. 

Here's the full card, with close-ups above. This was a digital archival print, but more usually  the cards I make use a conventional intaglio process. Below is an early etching. This is a good example of an approach I adopt for Christmas card editions, in that, to save on time in the actual printing up stage (which is pretty time consuming) I sometimes make two almost identical plates. They can be inked and printed at the same time, halving the amount of effort in the printing up stage. Individual receivers of cards are unaware that they are getting one of two (or sometimes three or four) almost identical images. 

I always keep one copy of each years print. I this case here of the Santa with squid picture and insects, I only have one of the two versions of the image left. For those who dont know about printing  intaglio plates, like an etching or a drypoint, I'll explain that each print in an edition has to be inked, wiped and run through a large press. An edition of fifty or more is a major undertaking. Small plates are quite fiddly to print up so my trick of making a single bigger plate with two versions of the image on the same plate makes the printing easier with a doubling of actual print output. Each version of the image is numbered as a separate edition.

This year for the Christmas card edition I made a series of small etchings utilizing a specially developed home-made etching ground. There were four different 'Christmas zombie' s, each wearing snow-shoes. The bulk of the body is depicted using this etching ground and then small refinements and additions are etched on top. This print above is one of the four zombies.