Saturday 31 December 2016

butterfingers



channeling those old grunge vibes

Friday 30 December 2016

Thursday 29 December 2016

jeon soo-min


landscape? look no further than jeon soo-min. there isn't supermuch about her online but here's this

Wednesday 28 December 2016

marigold akufo addo


every so often you come across an artist who makes you question your own practice. when i saw the image above i knew my work in pencil was going to be going in a whole new direction. even better looking at marigold akufo addo's other images they did exactly the same. excited!

Tuesday 27 December 2016

bunkface



bunkface - happy fellows

Monday 26 December 2016

fenella elms


your task for the day - get yourself across to fenella elms website and be dazzled

Sunday 25 December 2016

Saturday 24 December 2016

Friday 23 December 2016

lee ufan


friday - has to be the day for the sort of deep tranquillity i feel looking at lee ufan

mainly japan



all being well this should be all the japanese tracks from last month

Thursday 22 December 2016

johan johansson



this is a really fascinating wee podcast about how johan johansson did the score for arrival. there's lots of interest that could inform field recording and structuring practice

Wednesday 21 December 2016

joan kocak


 joan kocak's photographs are just breathtaking. i feel like they should be soundtracked by the cocteau twins or such like

Tuesday 20 December 2016

Monday 19 December 2016

chun kwang young


we actually saw this guy's work last year(?) - some of the most dazzling and original art i've seen in recent years

Sunday 18 December 2016

Saturday 17 December 2016

kiha and the faces



i can't get enough of these guys today so not one but two vids!!!


Friday 16 December 2016

shurik'n



seeing as i was getting hippity hoppity yesterday here's this

Thursday 15 December 2016

keith ape



orca ninjas!!

Wednesday 14 December 2016

e o dartey


more figurative work? hark at me! loving thr use of pattern in this

Tuesday 13 December 2016

heart shake



turtles swim surprisingly fast. they do. made me smile

Monday 12 December 2016

ablade glover


i could post ten pictures of ablade glover's work and i honestly couldn't tell you which i preferred. trees, colour, abstract - i can't fail to like these. i'd love to see them close up to see how he puts the colour down

Sunday 11 December 2016

Saturday 10 December 2016

Friday 9 December 2016

sungsoo kim


i love the measured feeling in the colour palette of these. worth starting up the google machine to look at more of his work - he also does some lovely flower pictures

Thursday 8 December 2016

Wednesday 7 December 2016

sandy dooley


 dots and colours and just a bit of nature. what's not to like!? check more out here

Tuesday 6 December 2016

misty blue



what're they on about? who knows. but catchy and rather lovely. korean indoe pop mopers

Monday 5 December 2016

serge attukwei clottey


check out his blog here but worth looking further for this guy - he is interesting!

Sunday 4 December 2016

Saturday 3 December 2016

crying nut



crying nut - unlikely to be sober

Friday 2 December 2016

Thursday 1 December 2016

minjae lee


 if minjae lee doesn't just want to make you get your pens out and start drawing i don;t know what will

Wednesday 30 November 2016

abdoulaye konate


aboulate konate produces some genuinely transcendent textile work. hear more about him here

Monday 28 November 2016

meredith woolnough


meredith woolnough's textile structures are amazing and i particularly like, as here, she uses images from the microscopic world. not only that she does it better than me which is great for inspiration to up my game! here's a vid showing how she does what she does

Sunday 27 November 2016

Saturday 26 November 2016

Friday 25 November 2016

Thursday 24 November 2016

Wednesday 23 November 2016

Tuesday 22 November 2016

Monday 21 November 2016

Sunday 20 November 2016

Saturday 19 November 2016

Friday 18 November 2016

Thursday 17 November 2016

Monday 14 November 2016

Monday 3 October 2016

bill baird


came across this the other day - bill baird creates unique once only sounds. can't argue with that!

Thursday 29 September 2016

Katsushika Ōi


the work of hokusai finds its way from bookshelf to many a student's wall but that of his daughter katsushika oei isn't anything like as well known. there's not a ginat amount of info available online but it's worth the googling just to get a look at her sumptuous images.

Wednesday 28 September 2016

Monday 26 September 2016

hurdy gurdy



la libellule et la baobob. because there should always be room in your life for a bit of hurdy gurdy!

Friday 23 September 2016

hospital sound



part of my schedule for this week involves editing some hospital noise so i'm loving this wee film. imagine a non-dissonant sound palette!!

Thursday 22 September 2016

amy genser


i am loving the paper work of amy genser. it's true that as the years go by i feel more and more connected to paper and i'm never going to be uninterested in works based on water but these genuinely raise the bar. totally worth a bit of time browsing her portfolio

Tuesday 20 September 2016

aqua sonic

FuturePerfect Productions: Between Music / AquaSonic "Breaking The Surface" from FuturePerfect on Vimeo.

maybe it's too easy for these musicians who are obviously so much better than me. so better invent some new instruments. and play them underwater!

Monday 19 September 2016

blue monday



if you only listen to one version of blue monday featuring ukelele, dulcimer and theremin you may as well make it this one

Thursday 15 September 2016

joni sternbach


there is not, it has to be said, a whole lot of figurative photography on here. not because i don't like it but, mainly, there's just the same old thing over and over again. so i was really taken by joni sternbach's surfer pictures. not just because of the process but because these look like real people in an environment i'm familiar with. their boards are scuzzy with wax, their faces have been out in the sun too long (okay this last i can only imagine - in scotland it's windburn and cold!) and i can practically smell the feeling of salt in their hair. real people. all ages. love this!

Tuesday 13 September 2016

cities and memory


i was up for being involved in this project from cities and memory but didn't have enough time and had some concerns about the legality of using sound samples from the underground (they had a set of sounds for using - recording on the underground is a murky legal area). but i'm loving this. in sharp contrast to photography these days i'm finding i much prefer a sound file to an image for capturing a place. and discuss.....!!

Monday 12 September 2016

il lee


il lee started out making these images with a ball point pen. a pen!! makes me wish i'd stuck at it when i was young. i use the likes of him when i start talking about drawing to people who say they 'can't' draw. beautiful and sublime

Friday 9 September 2016

the conference of the birds


I'd rather die deceived by dreams than give
My heart to home and trade and never live

the conference of the birds is one of those works it seems easy to pass by, esp if you're not reading translated or 'historical' poetry. which is a shame as it's great. you could go for the full fat version or maybe start off with peter sis's beautifully illustrated version. definitely one for the bird lovers


Wednesday 7 September 2016

marjorie schick


i'm not unfamiliar with wearable art at the moment and marjorie schick isn't a bad place to start if you're wanting to see the body placed at the centre of work that's got more in common with sculpture/installation than what i'd imagine most people think of as traditional jewellery making. what i like is her sense of daring, of making what'[s possible. a bit of time googling will be rewarding!!

Monday 5 September 2016

valerie wartelle



got myself introduced to the landscape work of valerie wartelle the other day. i'm used to seing a fair amount of felt work but she takes the medium and really steps it up. i'd love to see these in the flesh

Friday 2 September 2016

yulianus yaps


who is yulianus yaps? i have no idea. and the internet is giving away precious little detail. but whatever his bio i'm loving these images. the only detail i've got is mixed media, silicone rubber, oil on cotton, which is equally intriguing.

Wednesday 31 August 2016

matt mcdermott



matt mcdermott's lovely treatment of rilke's gravity's law

Tuesday 30 August 2016

maximo laura



get some colour in your life this morning and check out the tapestries of maximo laura. i'm not a stranger to a bit of tapestry but these are genuinely dazzling.

Monday 29 August 2016

graham dunning



make magazine comes up with the goods yet again with graham dunning's manual techno. i love things i just couldn't do if i had all the resources and time i could wish for and this is one of those. proper sound art!!

Friday 26 August 2016

Thursday 25 August 2016

lee albert hill


back to paint and canvas. i'm not quite sure how lee albert hill arrives at his images but it's a geometric abstraction that i like

Tuesday 23 August 2016

susan hotchkiss


i like an abstract painting. of that's there's no doubt. always have, always will. not that i've got anything against representative painting tho it took me a long while to get into and appreciate it. just that  abstract imagery caught me young and i've been looking at it and making it ever since.

and susan hotchkiss captures everything that i like. colour, composition, stretching the form. i can't believe i haven't come across her before or that this work isn't a familiar name. so i'll nail my colours to the mast on this one. it's about material. it's about craft, it's about gender.

if these were made of paint rather than fibre; if these were fine art rather than technique associated with craft; if these had been done by a man i can't help but feel they'd be higher profile.

and i'm loving the skills i'm seeing in these

Monday 22 August 2016

sarah gillespie


came across sarah gillespie by random the other day. these rpints and drawings are just dazzling. if you do one thing this week take some time out and browse thru these images if, in any way, they're up your street.

Friday 19 August 2016

peter davis


i've painted a couple of pictures trying to capture what it's like living or growing up on an island but not even come close to peter davis. these are sublime images. he;s currently exhibiting in the bonhoga gallery in shetland.

Thursday 18 August 2016

kafka



i have fond memories of watching this away back in the day. haven't watched it since and entirely forgot steven soderberg directed it. i must watch it gain. so here it is.

Tuesday 16 August 2016

sarah gillespie


some really beautiful prints of invertebrates from sarah gillespie. landscapes are equally well executed. get a cup of tea and have a proper browse....

Monday 15 August 2016

nigel bird


loving this from nigel bird. you just can't go wrong with paper and ink!

Friday 12 August 2016

amelia langford


and then you come across someone you have to think would be compulsively drawing no matter what. am loving the work of amelia langford, esp the way she transitions from black and white to colour use

Thursday 11 August 2016

julia gukova


back in the day there used to be a polish movie poster shop i liked to visit, it's gone now but what i remember about it was that the images were so different from what i was used to. so, looking at what's on here and seeing as i'm rereading cathrynne valente's excellent deathless, here i am dipping a toe into russian illustration via julia gukova. what's interesting is how themes are developed - this one's from the wizard of oz. definitely check out her take on alice in wonderland

Wednesday 10 August 2016

thomas muller


it's always unwise to assume what you're doing isn't being done by someone else. i'm a big fan of line drawing and loving thomas muller's work (be awae if you're looking for it - there is a german footballer of the same name).  it's great to see what someone else does with a similar technique.

Monday 8 August 2016

linoryjki - inks



not all inks are the same. here's a handy wee intro to inks - i'm really taken with linoryjki so check out the others in the series if you like this one. good chance to practice polish!

Friday 5 August 2016

the antipodes project



things i'm almost bound to like. collaborative work - check. nutty drawing project - absolutely! chwck out detail of these via juxtapoz

Wednesday 3 August 2016

mona robles


there's always going to be a place for a godzilla interpretation in my house so here's mona robles with godzilla vs king ghidorah. she does all manner of stuff and i'm particularly taken, in these days of pokemon go, of her take on those - if only there was a conversion option in the game!

Monday 1 August 2016

plaster of paris printing



in the not too distant future the nights'll be drawing in and it'll be time to get the printing tools out. i've got some pop lying about after a tiling project and came across this - an unusual printing project i think i'll have a go at

Friday 29 July 2016

sound art

enter the world of chladni figures via the work of louviere and vanessa . interesting wee article here

Wednesday 27 July 2016

mexrissey



mexican morrissey cover. in a bus stop. glorious.

Tuesday 26 July 2016

the battle of brunanburh



when i read old english it comes out all swedish inflected. in my head it sounds something like this.

Monday 25 July 2016

john coplans


seeing as i mentioned john coplans in that last post here he is. a breath of fresh air even after all these years in which nude photography seems to have become almost entirely the domain of glaikit looking  young white girls getting photographed by men.

coplans subverts all of that at a stroke. in his self portraiture there is only his body, a aman's body, an ageing body. if you get the chance go and see some of these in the flesh (sic). i don;t remember when we first saw him but both of us were struck by the epic, landscape quality of the images but also a certain fragility.

Friday 22 July 2016

tibor somodi


it's been a long, long time since i read any william burroughs but when i saw tibor somodi's homage a burroughs it brought it all flooding back. not only that burroughsian sense of the body but the textures and the ways these are lit put me in mind of john coplans

Wednesday 20 July 2016

phil greenwood


let's keep on the botanical theme with an etching by phil greenwood. he seems to do an impressive combo of botanical and landscapes images. i don;t even like to think how much work goes into making these images!

Tuesday 19 July 2016

irene mackenzie


following on from yesterday's post here's irene mackenzie's frankly beautiful, amaryllis, a hand coloured linocut. this combines my love of botanical illustration, linocut and hand colouring and, should i ever learn how to properly sharpen my tools i'll be practising some of the techniques on show here.

again, precious little detail on her online but, if you like what you see, copies of her prints may be on sale at the highland print studio. or google....

Monday 18 July 2016

blue shed studio


maybe you fancy a picture for your wall. maybe you're at that ikea or somewhere similar and you've seen something you fancy. stop right there. it may be that certain mainstream stores can provide a barely functional frame but when it comes to what's in them you can do better.

some work dodging browsing resulted in finding this frankly sumptuous botanical drawing (detail) from blue shed studio. in a frankly unusual etsy usp they give little detail about who they are or what they're about. i did find marie burke in the fine print so here she is.

marie burke, blow your own trumpet a bit. i love a flower picture and some of these are just dazzling. and very well priced. so don;t buy an off the shelf print. support an artists. if you like a botanical artwork support marie burke

Friday 15 July 2016

lola ridge


i've been reading a lot of lola ridge lately not least because, after a little biographical detail, she seems to have disappeared so completely. i'd need to hit the books but i don't think she appears in any of my larger anthologies of the time and i'd be lying if i said i could recall her from any poetic biography. i think i maybe just saw her picture and thought - she's a one.

and reading her poetry, not wrong! the ghetto and sun up are handily available for nothing on kindle and while yes, there's a certain whitmanesque quality about them i'm hardly going to complain about that. what does come across very clearly is her writing on childhood in sun up and her representation of the working class existence. comparisons to whitman and sandburg drift up easily but she seems much more in touch with the lived experience somehow.

check her out. maybe you'll like her, maybe not - either way she's interesting. and it's always a timely reminder to look behind the canonical names and see what else was going on

Wednesday 13 July 2016

chris cole


as a long term fan of bagpuss there was no way i was looking past this professor yaffle like sculpture by chris cole. these look beautifully made but, while i can see what he's doing, for me their weakest part is the movement. being a bit picky there tho!

Tuesday 12 July 2016

jakob haq



if, like me, you're fancying a shot at making a sound box and have no clue here's a handy wee guide to setting up with some basics from jakob haq. jakob's site has all manner of interestingness on it so worth a look.

Monday 11 July 2016

koka nikoladze

Koka's Soundtrack Box No. 1 from nikoladze on Vimeo.

came across koka nikoladze's sound boxes entirely at random not so long ago and they just made me want to laugh out loud with joy. and to make one, badly, despite no electronics skill whatsoever, but yet more inspiration on how to do just that here

Friday 8 July 2016

ronit bigal


you'll search looking for information about ronit bigal and while there's precious little about her there are loads of her beautiful images. it's rare these days to find anything that you can pin the tag of religious art onto without a certain self consciousness but these, where bigal inscribes religious texts on the bodies of her models seem to really fit the ticket. i have no idea how she manages this which makes me like her work all the more!

Wednesday 6 July 2016

louis machai michel


how much would i like the end of our house to look like this! plus we like a bee so anything that raises awareness around ths issues facing bees these days is going to go down well with us, here's a video of louis machai michel and others at work (bees and a whole lot else).


Monday 4 July 2016

drypoint on plexiglass



i was really taken by this video of belinda del pasco using plexiglass to do some drypoint. i'm intrigued by the material which i imagine would be a bit easier to work than metal and possibly a little less intimidating. a la poupee was a new one for me but anything felt related is of interesting our house

Friday 1 July 2016

kalliope amorphous


experimental self portraiture is a new one for me but i was really engaged by the work of kalliope amorphous

Thursday 30 June 2016

baking bread



off the back of these last posts it's worth remebering there's all manner of ways you can look at history, culture and making. here's a great wee video of giorgio locatelli trying to recreate a pompeiian bread for the british museum. all the things i love about this sort of thing are here. it may be that you might not want to get through some of the stuff by apicius but there's loads of fun to be had looking through old herbals or botanicals and having a go, or at least an approximation.

and sourdough is for everyone!

Wednesday 29 June 2016

creative silk

Jen Bervin Mixes Poetry with Cutting-Edge Silk Technology from Creative Capital on Vimeo.

after the last two films here's this. so much to like about how she goes about her work! btu this approach is possible for anyone

Tuesday 28 June 2016

collaboration



loving this wee video about collaboration. it's amazing how fruitful it can be, into just in terms of technique or approach, but also to take you down creative pathways you might neverhjave accessed

Monday 27 June 2016

making a book



i was loving this article via the creators project. on the one hand because so few people these days ahve any idea of what goes into making something but also because it's just great fun to look at a thing or a process and then try and do it yourself, albeit that the tools we have these days make life a whole lot easier!

Friday 24 June 2016

lucy hardie


lucy hardie - dazzling illustration skills!

Wednesday 22 June 2016

eliot fisk and paco pena



more from the npr tiny desk series. if you can't find something on here that you like you need to do some serious thinking! this fills me full of joy and makes me want to give away all my stringed instruments at the same time!

Tuesday 21 June 2016

william tyler



here's a bit of william tyler courtesy of yesterday's link. i think i could practice forever and still not be able to do this!

Monday 20 June 2016

marisa anderson



i was reading a review of marisa anderson's new album on the rather excellent caught by the river and came across this. she makes it looks so simple!

Friday 17 June 2016

dain l tasker


given my love of flower pictures there's no way i;d be bypassing this. it;s the 1930's and you've got an x ray machine going begging. what're you going to do? these are what dain l tasker did. unusual too to see images that haven't been stepped all over.

Thursday 16 June 2016

flowers of the sky


liking those beatus illustrations from yesterday? then you'll be loving these. comets of all sorts. why? just because....