110. It scares me when

THIS POST, is dedicated to the Falmouth uni Illustration BA hons graduates of 2012.
As in, the folks who are taking over my potential jobs, ha!

Having gone along to the opening night for their graduate show (that was a few nights ago now...) I was actually relatively terrified as it all looked so good! Perhaps this is because it was / is, or then again maybe it was because I didn't know any of the people (with the exception of two) and so I had no previous emotions attached to pieces.
But yes, quite scary.

Anyhow, I've since looked through all the portfolios on the Falmouth agency website and have since become less scared, noticing that some of the things aren't actually as good as I remembered I've gone through it all and found that really, the following folks are the ones who inspire me the most:

William Grill. I've shown his work before, and although his Agency portfolio doesn't 100% impress me (a little all over the place, but most fresh grads are!!) he's still SUPER.

Elena Boils. What funny little creatures... definately appeals to the ye olde wolde style in me.



Harry Tennant. Vintage, printed, blocky but textured... ayeeee.



Josh Hurley. Once again, his portfolio is all over the place but this piece definately caught my eye... I hope it's not just due to the giant craze for woodland creatures at the moment!


Sam Kerwin. The stuff on this portfolio page is an interesting mix of experimental styles... mostly all bold and bright, appeals!



Simon W Boult. More experimental looking stuff, this piece (for something on Freud) tickled my fancy the most, I'd like to do more "butterfly printed" stuff. Yes.

109. One envelope at a time.

Hello… I feel tired, which tends to mean that I should sleep, but instead I fancy writing this.
26^th May 2012, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAN! Hopefully our field picnic or whatever we do tomorrow won’t be spoiled by rain… not that I should be complaining about rain, since the past few days have been gawwwjus! But now, right this second, it is raining (I can hear it on the van roof, I like it now that I’ve learnt to sleep through it!).

Today was a very very windy day, along with the sunshine. Arnold & I decided that we probably SHOULD do something in my hours in the middle of the day off, and although the initial plan was to head even more northerly to Treyarnon Bay to say a quick hello to Nick we decided instead to go south (still remaining on the north coast mind!) and off to Chapel Porth.

I’ve always liked that area, the St Agnes – Chapel Porth sort of area… it’s still definitely north coast, rugged and all, but it has the greenness and  small beachness of the south coast (plus lots of things of interest on the cliffs such as mines). First stop being the little café (they have amazing dark chocolate icecream there) we meandered down the beach to find a rock out of the wind to perch on – the combination of wind, melty ice-cream, and long flicky hair is not a good one. Nom nom nom, ice-cream ice-cream and then just watching the world, mostly one of little kids in tiny wetsuits and their parents, as well as some amazingly talented young boys on surfboards! If I EVER have a small beast I’m going to make sure it learns something like surfing or banjo from a young age, it’s certainly impressive.

The main discussion on the rock was that Will needs a wetsuit, however it has to be as plain black as possible and he won’t wear it unless I sew tweed elbow patches on. We’ll see!
Eventually tiring of the rock I found some more sensible shoes (any shoes these past few days is quite a big thing, much to Arnold’s seeming disgust I have been going round shoe-less! I reckon he thinks I’ll become too much of a dirty smelly rock hugging hippy for him… I did read the other day that going round with bare feet is good for you as the earth holds a large amount of electrons, and if these go directly into your body (via feet) then you feel super duper!) (HIPPY SHIT YAAAY!) haha). Up the cliff to the left of the beach we climbed, it was certainly worth it as the view from the top was laaavly… you could see how clear the sea was (not that you couldn’t before), almost Mediterranean looking. We had a quick pootle about, being constantly buffeted by the wind (I got my scarf out and pretended it was a sail, pretty satisfying really) and we found a SLOWWORM!! Will tried to pick it up (carefully) but it slipped away. Exciting though… can’t remember the last time I saw one. We also saw a large bird of pray jumping about on a patch of ground, but couldn’t work out exactly what it was. Quite big but not so as a buzzard, red-brown in colour across it’s back.

When we decided to leave, it was back home here to Perranporth to make smoky bacon, sweet chilli sausage, rocket salad, and plum tomato fresh white poppy seeded bread with a moistening of brown sauce & mayo (not mixed!). NOM. Yes yes. I’m loving my “luxury” sandwiches lately.

Yesterday was good and sunny too, after doing the normal cleaning of the hostel routine I squished myself back into the winter wetsuit (pretty sure it’s almost time for summer suit!), borrowed Phil’s flippers (big black snorkelling ones) and skipped off down the cliff, this time managing not to fall on my arse. After the struggle of doing up the top of the zip (no lace to help, again… another reason to go summer suiting) I finally plopped in to the beautiful clear cold water. Annoyingly there was a bit of a current so I swam off towards the beach to an area of less currentyness (and lifeguards… and irritating amounts of other people). Got some good rides in on my belly, amusingly beating everyone on body boards (except for an older woman who seemed pretty well board trained), and got some funny looks as when I wasn’t lying face down in the water zooming forwards, I was walking backwards deeper and deeper. Backwards? Flippers!
When not in the sea the rest of the day was taken up with sitting on the cliff base rocks and watching surfers, sunbathing on a hostel bench, eating chicken korma made from scratch, and watching the sun go down with the majority of the hostel guests. Right at the end of the day I lay in bed with my side door open, watching the red sky with it’s crescent moon, and listening to the silence of the warm calm night. It’s good. Better than good! A lot better.

Anyhoo, time to sleep now…

Today is 14^th June… really doesn’t feel like June though! I’m back to wearing a jumper and hiding in Phil’s room against the current howling gale outside… it seems that summer is always going to be like this now, so perhaps folks (myself included!) should stop being surprised at it. Harrumpf! Maybe I’d be a little less huffy if the one sunny day this week I hadn’t just sat inside painting all day…

Shit me, it’s almost been a month since the last update… well, sort of almost… not really I suppose… but time has flown nonetheless.

This time in a month I’ll be on a train off to Reigate, then tomorrow on a plane to Morocco! Exciting stuff, at least it won’t be crazy windy & rainy THERE! (Touch wood!).
Have also booked a little week long holiday for Imy and I to Amsterdam in November, current thoughts are “what do we do for a week? I wonder if THAT law has come in yet… it had better not rain too much, I want to draw lovely architecture!”.

Royal Cornwall Show happened last Saturday, it was good although wasn’t the same as the previous two years… sadly the crazy winds had pretty much blown away the MASSIVE sheep tent, so all the sheep had been evacuated… this saddened me as sheep tend to be one of my favourite parts of the show. But it’s ok, Arnold & I “snuck” in with tickets supplied by the blacksmiths, met up with my cousin Liz & her bloke, and stroked lots of bulls (well, I did… still trying to get over my slight fear of LARGE ANIMALS) (they all have big jaws! And strong legs!).

Hoping to hear from agents soon… I sent out some nice pretty little packages to a few, have e-mailed SHEDLOADS of magazines in search for freelance work, and no replies yet… sadface. I’ll have to bombard even more agents by e-mail, I’m guessing. BOMBARD BOMBARD BOMBARD.

Here, have some pretty pictures wot I've done... not all of them, but some. Check my Society6 account for a more up to date update.

Birthday card for Phil (the manager). It's fun drawing the same sort of thing over & over again...

Mr William Arnold... Theres something not right about it though. Harrumpf.

Little Squidget... I was just playing around, experimentin' and such!

Old tractors from the Royal Cornwall Show. Hurrah!

Birthday card for Dan O'Shea (he has a new album out, sadly not available to buy on the interwebs!)
"There was once a young girl from Norway, she hung upsdie down from the doorway, this turned out quite well, coz when you rung her bell, it actually turned out to be foreplay!"



And HERE! Have some images from other people which I super duper like! Wahoo!

Andy Kehoe, nice and spooky (but cute) fairytale style.

Benjamin Evans. Just liked it, mostly. Patchwork style photographs... yes yes.

Cody Cobb. Block colour photograph stylee. Yum.

David Lupton. The rest of his stuff is relatively creepy. This is good.

Elisa Carareto. Simply and spotty, seriously lairy.

Ghostpatrol studio. Lots of little people... super characters.

Ghostpatrol studio (again). Folky. Love it.

Gracia Lam. Ohh, a different look on things!

Liam Stevens. Whether it's a sketch of a real thing I don't card, I just like the nice empty space at the top (plus I've been doing a couple of skies & suns/moons like this recently on posters... hurr hurr).

Naomi Wilkinson. Mermaids. Boobs. No, I like it (she's got good hench arms).

Rebekka Seale. I've enjoyed her work before, but having found her blog & website I'm enjoying it even more!

Steve Antony. Reminds me of decorating Silje's parents Christmas tree & putting little Nisse EVERYWHERE.

Brooks Shane Salzwedel. Funny name, good image (using tracing paper? I cannae tell!).

Cody Cobb again. It almost looks slightly computer animated... but it's wonderful...

Hope Gangloff. This indulges my love for Egon Schiele's work.

Landland. LOOK AT THOSE COLOURS AND PATTERNS. So much of their work is super good.

Found this on Mexican Firework's Tumblr... I couldn't work out if they created it or someone else... nice negative space, nice trees. Yes.

Found via Forestheartblog's Tumblr. Again... failed to find original link. I'd love to do tapestry.

Found via Forestheartblog's Tumblr also... salt air in my hair... can't go far wrong.

For more things which I enjoy of other peoples, things which I've decided not to save, visit my occasionally updates Tumblr.

Bye now... might go for a van nap.