Monday 16 August 2010

Summertime bluuuuuuuue-ms.

Got all carried away with my Hipstamtic...

3D ANIMATION COLLABORATION!?! AAAaagghhhh.

Okay so weeks into having had ’a meeting’ with my uber smart animator buddy GoughStar, I am still continuing to pull ideas together for a 3D illustrated animation which we are hoping to plop out at some point soon/in the next few months/year/s… :/



We want to produce something which HASN’T been done before, meaning those pre-movie cinema swirling psychedelic inked lines, scriptic unfolding graffiti and strolling gaggles of big-specked teens (I'm just secretly jealous I cant parade around with backcombed-to-eff bird nest hair and plastic neon glasses the size of my knackered car). 

Me and my, actual, middle aged buddy, want to do well informed sophistication, something worthy of a 1cm squared slice in Monocle. No neon (because I'm not from Shoreditch OR sixteen), hand drawn blocked fonts or sprawling baroque florals. So that leaves me wiiiiiiiiith zero ideas of what is do-able. Half an hour of basic research into what is already out there….keeps leading me into the internet vortex that is Vimeo, video hopping and finding absolute treats like this...



COMBO a collaborative animation by Blu and David Ellis (2 times loop) from blu on Vimeo.

SURFACE//PHILIA Artist In Residence at We Are Open.

Surface//Philia was artist in residence at the Middlesbrough Council pop-up shop scheme We Are Open, during April-June ‘10. After moving the Designers Marketplace Pop-Up Shop out of the unit the space was then offered to me as an individual artist to work in the empty space for the following two months.

I took this opportunity to continue working on a very large scale. Having always worked in quite an organic way my awareness as a designer has evolved massively and I wanted to begin drawing my fresh exciting ideas into new work. My loyalties and unquenchable thirst for print and pattern is still to remain the key factor, but practising a more ambidextrous and graphic approach is something I've been wanting to try for TOOooooo long. My inspiration for this project has started with looking at costume jewellery for the abstract geometric forms found within the pieces and not concentrating on the whole item making the patterns as unrecognisable and abstract as possible. This is the beginning of what I hope will be a very long and creatively satisfying project!

All of the work below is work in progress and some is old project work which I am detemined to add to and turn into pieces Im happy with, also hoping they might offer a different angle and edge to my new ideas.

And so it begins...

This was the beginning of something fun and simple and ended with being a four week painting project that I would not let defeat me! Started as a simple Posca pen doodle at our live Draw event which saw myself (Surface//Phila) collaborate with The Cloud Commission, The Wednesday Project, Tubbyphunk, Mr.Owl, Malarky, Audrey Newhouse and a bunch of other super talented artists and illustrators from the north-east.

I'd never worked on this scale previous and so put no thought into where the piece was going.
Looking at the weight of the lines the next day I hated what I had produced and so set to work on what would be a behemoth 5 layered, therapeutic, late night BBC radio 6 mission.

I think its still not done, but Ive ran out of paper...