Leaning Stones

This week I came across this photo of the Rolling Stones. On top of being a gorgeous photo with great quality colours and clothes that should be worn today, it sums up how I wanted the people to look in the "Foreigners" installation of my "leaning things of Pisa" series.

One Year Left

Today the third-years got their final results. It steels me to to knuckle down and work as hard as I can next year... but sometimes my high ambitions don't let me loosen up, and I keep trying to rival all of art history (and achieving nothing).

Should I be calculating and try to please as many as possible of the tutors who will assess my work? Should I make the most of the facilities while I have them? Should I try to make myself a professional?

I've seen other students end up bitter about the tutors - perhaps because, after three years, they feel that they now know who they are as artists.

It will be a heavy year; I wish everyone on the course the best of winds.

The Leaning X Of Pisa

Here are four concertina-books that I've made in the past few days.
It all started when I doodled the Leaning Tower Of Pisa as a döner kebab, and then as a pea pod (because it's where the peas are) and then as corn-on-the-cob.

Naturally, food was the theme of the first booklet. You can see the semi-archaic blurb on the front cover - and there's more inside, advertising the rest of the series and tying me down to the following list:

• Foodstuffs
• Musical Instruments
• Modes Of Transport
• Foreigners

The frame of each page is a linocut, hand-printed without a press; the text is all stencils cut from acetate.

All this effort has gained me one of each, but it was fun to throw myself into it and I spent a lot of time researching some of the pages. Here are four out of each set of fourteen.

More Sleeve-Rolling

Here's some further progress on my sleeve-rolling.
I finished cutting paper versions of those positions.
I can take it in a number of directions. Here is the full array for now...

and the pleasing sheets of painted and patterned paper that I cut the shapes out of.

And here is an animation!

Rob and Louise

These pages of flipchart illustrated my speech as best man at Rob & Louise's wedding reception on Saturday. I did them in a great hurry but they livened things up.

Louise and Rob

Today is the big day for Rob and Louise. Here is there invitation card, made by me!
It's a scorcher here in Exeter and I wish them all the best.
I have the rings.

My Grandfather Nero

Your forebears knew how to dress up for parties. This is the best photo of the grandfather I never knew.


And again, with my grandmother, some time in the 1940s: