Category: drawing (Page 3 of 4)

James Elkins: Artists with PhDs (2nd Ed.) commission.

June 16, 2013 / shaun belcher / 0 Comments

A very busy week last week didn’t make it into actual studio but I can officially announce that James Elkins has asked me to illustrate all the chapters for his second edition of ‘Artists with PhDs’. I have drawn two test images and feedback from Jim was he’d like more detailed and weird which fits with my love of Alisdair Gray‘s artwork for Lanark and Tony Fitzpatrick’s work. I also been compared to Adelheid Mers work which I had never seen until today and which fascinating in terms of vizualizing research. There seems to be a very strong Chicago School of Art connection here. Which figures as I first made contact with Mark Staff Brandl through the Chicago art-blog Sharkforum which sadly now offline although Mark’s Swiss Sharkforum still active). This came about through my Americana Reviewing and love of music. It all somehow connects 🙂

Here the first two test images for chapters from the book – not telling which ones 🙂

Studio Diary: June 4th: Mutt in Space

June 5, 2013 / shaun belcher / 0 Comments

No drawing this week so far due to other matters. I did get to studio briefly but mostly I have been laying the groundwork for a busy summer. I have an extended commission. A paper on early cinema and the rest of M.A. to complete by October. To manage all this I am on a tight schedule and I already called in help with animating the DRN paper from my excellent animating colleague Andy Love. His initial experiments with R.Mutt in Space below 🙂 For the rest of his super work go to his blog here: http://recursiveworlds.com

R Mutt Experiment 2… from Andy Love on Vimeo.

Studio Diary: May 23rd – Cartoon Droodles?

May 23, 2013 / shaun belcher / 0 Comments

My biggest inspiration 🙂 A book called Droodles which I got from a jumble sale when a kid ….most famous droodle is the cover of Zappa’s Ship arriving too late to save a drowning witch (below)..so now you know is not pop art, minimalism or a profound theory is DROODLES 🙂 These drawings are profound meditations on the hinterland and liminal spaces between inbetween-ness in a multi disciplinary meditation on landscape, time and sequentiality specifically ‘the first and second sequential ‘moments’ (my theoretical tagging of the invention of ‘cinema’ or was it animation? (1888 LePrince) and the second moment ‘youtube’ 1995….)..so now you know..then again it could be a droodle…

Studio Reading: Practice related- Klee and Kandinsky

May 20, 2013 / shaun belcher / 2 Comments

Studio library and most recent reading related to drawing practice.

Studio Photos May 2013

May 20, 2013 / shaun belcher / 0 Comments

M.A. assessment and DRN New York

May 17, 2013 / shaun belcher / 0 Comments

I finally had assessment for M.A. stages one and two ‘Research Proposal’ and ‘Development’.
Was a lengthy session which explored where the work might lead in terms of developing as both practice and research.
I also proved the age old maxim that any power-point created on a PC will not work on a MAC..it still true 🙁

I also had good news about my submission for the Drawing Research network Conference 2013 in New York. My paper was accepted which means I have a lot of work to do between now and M.A. show in October!

More info on DRN Conference here: http://www.drawing-research-network.org.uk/call-for-submissions-drn-conference-2013/

Studio Diary 13th May: Sequential Drawings?

May 17, 2013 / shaun belcher / 0 Comments

A rapid set of drawings playing with idea of cartoon abstraction, shop comic strip and film…sequential narratives on a fixed canvas?

Studio Diary: 7th May – Burolandschaft?

May 7, 2013 / shaun belcher / 0 Comments

A very hot day and studio a little cooler than expected which good. Still managed to create three drawings despite also reading photo related items specifically about early photography ( Lady Elizabeth Eastlake’s Review from London Quarterly Review).

Had a fascinating message from an architect doing a PhD at the University of Tasmania who picked up on the recent drawings. He said they reminded him of the German ‘Burolandschaft’ workplace drawings of the Quickborner Team of 1960’s.

I did some hasty research (Googled it) and came up with drawings he referring to which were fascinating (see below). The connection is not entirely strange as I have been regarding these drawings a s cumulative ‘memory’ maps of my hometown/landscape. I am coming at it from a fine art viewpoint which more influenced by artists like Simon Lewty (http://www.artfirst.co.uk/simon_lewty/) and Aboriginal Bark Painting (signifiers of place) as much as maps and graphic diagrams. The idea of linking this further to architectural diagrams/theory fascinating. I shall be delving deeper. Especially as the drawings above show Caruso St John plans for the new Arts Council offices…ironically 🙂

http://www.carusostjohn.com/media/artscouncil/new_national_office/introduction/index.html

For one of the drawings I sectioned the page into ‘staves’ or ‘cartoon strips’ to try out some sequential abstract narrative notions I have. This could lead to some large painted/drawn canvases for final show.

Studio Diary: 30 April. Home.

April 30, 2013 / shaun belcher / 0 Comments

Strange couple of days painting…anything but canvas though. Front of house, bathroom , shed you name it if it didn’t move I painted it with white gloss. After that i finally sat down in home studio to do some ‘graphic’ work. The resulting three drawings above. First one I consciously trying to stay small in mark-making. Middle one I did ‘blind’ to see if it loosened things up and finally a very fast drawing to try and preclude conscious acts. Finally I drew the ‘country alphabet’ above which comes from a slightly different angle and refers way back to a ‘alphabet’ of symbols I built up in late eighties. I will scan some examples from sketchbook next time I in ‘proper’ studio to compare with image above which actually more aligned with Mariscal than abstract expressionism or Paul Klee.