some quiet advice

irina gusakova

hari roser

me

a few shots from an intriguing show i took part in recently: some quiet advice. the show was set in a greenhouse and i just love roughness of the setting and how the photographs just seem to float in amongst it all.

there's also a great flickr set documenting all of the amazing artists who took part.

it is happening again

i spent ages obsessing over this album when it first came out and i've come back to it again this week. beach house's teen dream is nothing short of musical genius and makes me wish that i could write songs. there isn't a musical bone in my body but sometimes i like to pretend that my drawings are little songs in themselves.

jolly days

25th may: sentinel

gouache on book page

for one day only...

kurt vile's new ep square shells is available for free over at matador. i couldn't ask for anything better on my fuggy grump day! go, enjoy!

24th may: futile apparitions

gouache on book page

notes: i'm struggling to get any assemblance of a decent drawing out of myself these days. but this one came out nice. i feel like i need a break from the white lines at the moment but no new obsessive mark making has moved in to take their place. sometimes you have to work through the crap to have that revelation that sets you off in a new direction.

moments

inspirational mollusk abode saves the day

19th may: all that remains

pencil on book page

notes: after the disappointment of last week i'm having a little bit of trouble getting back into the drawing groove. white just isn't working for me at all right now and after several false starts i decided on just working with some pencils and on studying a piece of tape i picked up on one of my recent beach walks that has some kind of miniscule mollusk abode attached all over it.

i have no idea what this stuff is but it looks amazing! the section above is a blown up section about 1cm in width and it's kind of like honeycomb - what is it?!

answers on a postcard...

absence

wow, i have been away from this space for a long while. and i've really missed it which makes me smile because i never thought i'd be one of those bloggers.

for sometime now i have been searching for a small studio space. but let's just say trying to find the right space in the right place at a good price has been somewhat troublesome and left me agonizing over the right thing to do. last week it seemed that everything was about to fall into place.

i spent most of last week gradually blitzing my studio in preparation for changing and moving. i have ploughed the depths of drawers and boxes and cupboards. i have recycled, given away and ebayed masses of stuff that has been hidden away for years 'just in case'.

but alas it was not to be.

it does feel good though to have had this massive purge. i hold my 'keep it simple' mantra in my mind and look forward to working in a considerably pared back space.

through the window

so far this week i've mainly been clearing out even more stuff from the house. where does it all come from? on the creative front i've been working on some window decals for a forthcoming show and i must say i'm pretty pleased with the results. the bad news is that this little thing (about 6") took several hours to put up and i need to make a bigger one in situ so i need to get quicker at putting them up. every window in my house is about to get covered...

7th may: an absolute ending

gouache on book page

may 4th: adrift

gouache and burning on book page

clips

there hasn't been a shot of my work space here for a while so i thought i'd better dig one out! recently, i put just a few tiny bulldog clips on the wall so i can clip up any works i'm thinking about. this is quite a departure for me as drawings are either in progress on the desk or finished and filed away in the plan chest. i can safely say i've enjoyed sitting in the sun looking at my work though.

circle circle circles

3rd may: distant voices

gouache and burning on book page

it became good

2nd may: the call and its response

gouache on book page

(click on the image to get a better view)

notes: sometimes it takes me a while to 'come around' to a drawing and this is one of those. i spent a couple of days working on this last week only to be utterly disappointed by it when it was finished. a day later there was something intriguing about it so i pegged it up above my desk. the next day there was a little bit of love blossoming for it and by this weekend i was decided that it was good and declared it finished and ready to add to the mix of drawings.

another piece about sound, layers and reverberations.

new beginning

1st may: prelude to a new beginning

gouache and burning on an old book page

notes: after i spent some time playing around with cutting up old drawings and making them into to new collages over the weekend i finally felt loosened up enough to sit and make some new drawings. this is my fave from saturdays session.

repeat repeat

a recent addition to the studio has been some cordless headphones - these protect both the neighbors and the mister from incessant playing of the same song for hours on end and have been a really great tool in blocking out other distractions and helping me focus when i'm working. i finally got the latest kurt vile album and this track has been solidly on repeat, it sounds just amazing with the addition of the headphones.

its a rocker - enjoy!

a break from the norm

a saturday in the studio is rare for me and I decided to give myself a bit of a break today and do something completely different. i have an ever growing pile of bad drawings and scraps of paper which sits on my desk so I decided to pull it all out, cut it up and make some small collage pieces to loosen myself up this morning.

there are 8 pieces in total which I have just added to the shop at very reasonable prices and if you're interested in owning one of them (or anything else from the shop for that matter) for this weekend only you can enter the code 'collage 01' in the message to seller box and I'll refund your shipping costs back to you :)