Thursday 11 November 2010

will you sail away with me?

"Will You Sail Away With Me?" - Wood, Graphite

I drew this today as I had a little free time and I felt the urge to draw something to relax me from the current stress I've been under. I have had an on going story with a certain other that we both made up together and I have been intending to illustrate it for a long time now. Its' a pair of tapirs in a gondola, sailing away at sea. I am going to crop it down and possibly sand the edges rounded if I'm brave enough to do it myself this time. I guess its' almost like a visual diary into how I've been feeling about someone at the moment. Not all stories have happy endings.

Where Do My Bluebirds Fly?

"Where Do My Bluebirds Fly?" - Graphite, Japanese Plywood, Conte
ECA So Far Exhibition Project

In this brief I wanted to express my experience of being at Art School as being almost like a permanent imaginary state. I feel like I've been living in a bit of a fantasy over these last few weeks and immersed in my own thoughts and feelings.

I was inspired by a variety of sources from contemporary fashion illustrators, art nouveau artists such as Egon Schiele & Gustav Klimt, and a documentary on BBC4 about the History of British Birds: Garden Birds which looks at how birds have acclimatised to urban surroundings from the last hundred and fifty years to the modern day.

The birds in this image are meant to be metaphorical and analogous in how myself have gone through a lot of changes in my way of thinking and emotions and how I am adapting to my present circumstances. The birds have various symbolic meanings, but in a general term birds represent independence and freedom which I feel conveys my view about being a creative individual and being able to express yourself freely.





Photographs by Rosie Ellis



Sunday 7 November 2010

fuck knows... i'm a budgie.

if she has a cage to contain me, i am a songless bird.

"An Ode to Melancholy" - Graphite on Wood

After a long absence, I have returned to try and keep up some kind of regular update in my journal. I have now begun at Edinburgh College of Art and I have slowly realised it is now pretty essential to document every thought I have, no matter how small. And if I can get it down visually, well that's amazing. I've met some incredibly talented people so far and I am slowly adjusting to being a real art student and enjoying the yuppie cultured lifestyle. Yes, it is all I imagined and more. In fact talking of So Far, our latest project at ECA is organising our first public exhibition which I designed a rather mediocre poster for. But please feel free to come if you can make it! I also have some of my animals made into collaged badges for sale at the Spider & Fly gallery at 65 Bread Street in Edinburgh, which I felt very flattered that someone was interested in selling my work, now it's just finding the time...