KOH-I-NOOR HARDTMUTH 1500 3B

What a name eh! I have no idea where this pencil originates, I found it in Loughborough, and was instantly drawn to it not only because of its name but its design. It feels like it has been sitting in someones cupboard since the 1980's.

As a drawing pencils it's alright, it's crisp and sharpens well and has a relatively good tonal range but I quite like black pencils and this is definitely a grey pencil. I would though like to try out the complete range. My pencil of choice tends to be a 3B so I was a little disappointed that I didn't like it as much as I should of.

But nevertheless this pencil is going to stay in my collection based on looks alone. Never judge a book by its cover, pah.

found pencils

I thought I would share with you my slightly weird obsession with found pencils. Now I am not expecting to reach the levels of blogging about pencils as such luminaries as pencil revolution but nevertheless I do like pencils, and that being so I often pick up discarded pencils whenever I see one, and quite often they are good pencils. So I am going to start with a recent favorite, the Boldmere Sketching Pencil 6B.

First off obviously this is a drawing pencil being a 6B and most of the stuff I am going to talk about is drawing related. The Boldmere has a round body and I must admit I prefer round pencils (as appossed to the hexagon shaped body) as I find them easier to hold for longer drawings.

for a 6B it's pretty versatile in that the leads consistency is firm not crumbly like a Derwent 6B so an ideal pencil for outdoor location drawing as its range is good, it generally feels like a 3B but with a bit of added pressure you can get some lovely deep tone.

So there you go a pencilcoholic. more to follow. 

old

When you move to a new place do you research the history of it? I have been digging and delving in to the history of my new little town, searching for something - I am not sure what yet but there is defiantly more to be explored from what I have found so far. This is a photo of my new home, date unknown, not that much has changed to be fair. It is a sort of psycho-geography exercise locating myself in the area - drawings and maps have already appeared.

Mono a go go

Trying to teach my self the fine art of Mono printing but choosing to do it in my baking hot studio on a baking hot day was bad planning - any ideas on how to slow down the drying of printing ink gratefully appreciated.

The God of Dreams

nocturne

n o c t u r n e . The un-enchanted world of sleeplessness

I am currently engaged in a study of sleep... tbc

Big Dog

Illustrative 09 {Berlin}

I have been selected to show a number of drawings as part of ILLUSTRATIVE 09 in Berlin.

www.illustrative.de/

Several drawings from 'A Book Made of Tears' will be showing. So if you happen to be in Berlin this week, check it out.

FERRY

My Cup Runneth Over

King Harry Ferry exhibition up for the whole of August. A series of 10 paintings documenting the theme 'Vessel'. Made for the 2009 Embark: Ferry Art commission.

All hope and dreams kept within.

King Harry Ferry Exhibitions

The 2009 Embark ferry art exhibitions. In August this year I will have a month long show on the ferry. For more info on the project go to www.fotonow.org

serendipity

things you find on the studio floor.

something has to give

Our china skin can only hold so much

under

just keeping my head above water

Many of us are aware that some people are method actors, having to encompass all the emotion difficulties when playing at part. It seems that without noticing I have been making work about drowning and in the process, been drowning my self, financially, emotionally etc. So it is with this image that I currently am just about keeping my head above water. I cannot struggle like this forever - lets hope my story has a happy ending.

Tangents, Mallards and peoples heads

A ha! for the avid I'm periodical reader(s) there is some news, I have another blog. Peoples heads is a blog I am dedicating to drawings of peoples heads, faces and other bodily parts, above is Boris Johnston with what can only be described as a Mallard, I have no idea what that could mean.

small books

Ah well if I am going to post about that book I should really post about all the rest as well. This is a book made in one eight hour stint in truro cathedral, a panoramic drawing from one seat, on one piece of paper. (scaled down obviously) original 2m.

Excuse me while I digress

Coasters - an illustrated anthology, has just been released for general sale by Atlantic Press ltd. I have contributed to it with the above image and also I designed it. So if your interested to see more of it you can buy it from me at £8.50 or alternatively from Atlantic Press.

this is the sales blurb:

"it is unusual to come across an illustrated anthology which is so coherent and well choreographed. if as the artist joseph Beuys suggests, thinking is form, then this is a very thoughtful book, expressed through vibrantly drawn and written lines.
Here, poetry aligns both image and text far beyond the poems"

Valeria Melchioretto

nice.

Organs of Sense

In the way we talk about crying, it is often said that we are ‘moved to tears’ like it’s a small town outside Dorset; some strange emotion reassignment or at the very least to a greater place or space that we are not normally present in, so completely immersed are we, that it is impossible to think that it is within us, a part of us, a sensation that we truly inhabit, no – that’s just not British.

But maybe this is the answer, that tears are a physical manifestation of sensation, something that we all too often believe we posses, or are put on us ‘that film made me cry’ and so on, the truth is nobody really knows why we cry emotional tears, and maybe that is because we are so lost and distanced to the ‘now’, to the world, that we miss the obvious. Maybe its something that cannot be explained through science, of course we can dissect tears, induce tears and factualize about tears until we are blue in the face but so far we haven’t found anything concrete, because perhaps like religious / spiritual belief or art, science cannot pin it down, there is no answer. Nobody really knows why we believe in god. So strung up are we in trying to explain everything through this over used language, naming things, explaining things using limited culturally specific grunts known as words, that we could miss that alongside art, music and poetry, tears are a highly expressive form of communication as the English poet Abraham Cowley once wrote ‘Words that weep, and tears that speak.’

image by H.V Carter MD from Gray's Anatomy