Animation Project

The Death of Winston Pickle from Griff on Vimeo.

Ha ha.... did it get you?! It's very rough at the moment, I've literally given Griff a picture, just drawn with a mouse and lasso tool.... and he's created this! It's a dark art, animation. I've had a loose idea kicking around for years now, but last year I found a focus and it became a lot clearer to me. Anyway last week i dangled the carrot in front of Griff... and he's off and chomping. Griff is fantastic animator, illustrator, film maker and blogger, he used to share our studio space before deciding to go the solitary route. A great guy... and a big guy too! (but i beat him for hair) We've been planning on making something together for a couple of years and were starting out with the idea of animating my 'Wish List' project... but then he decided to make his masterpiece instead!.. it's still being finished, but when he gets over the line it will be great! Griff's even touting it as a possible opener for his own film, which would be fantastic. Anyway, I'll keep you updated as we progress. As per usual it will be a little bit funny and quite a lot tragic. Welcome to my World!

Letterpress-Old School

Upside Down, Left To Right: A Letterpress Film from Danny Cooke on Vimeo.

Tools Of The Trade

God, i find January a tough month. Always have. Getting work done, combined with the usual blue moods, add a mind full of ideas and projects, formed over a Christmas break, plus the opportunity to review my work in general... how i make it, what i make it with etc etc... throw in bouts of family sickness ... boy, now i know why i feel all over the place, spinning wildly. Plus I've just started a possible animation ball rolling. I was hoping Feb would settle me down, but that's already looking fairly chaotic... and I'm moving studio during it. More of that later! Well, that explains my lack of blog activity!!
Here are just a couple of shots i snapped today, my tools of the trade. A pencil, eraser, pen and paper is all i really need. The top half are vital tools, the bottom batch are extras that come in handy. The other is my preferred notebook.. NOT sketchbook, those are separate. I'll cover them next week. These just have mutterings, shopping lists, day's chores, meter readings etc. I'll get some inside shots next week as well.
Have a good weekend!

Out On The Weekend?

Well, this tune will be playing plenty over my weekend. It's a great album, go out and buy it. Yes, it wears it's influences heavily on it's sleeve, but who doesn't want a mix up of CSN, Young, Floyd etc. Perfect! Love Jonathan Wilson, great stuff.

Family Paper Cut

Meet the family... well, kind of. I wouldn't say they are exact portraits!.. but there's something of all of us in there. It was a quick burst from my memory bank to create the paper shapes. Oh, and our eyes do actually open! it was just me being lazy. Sometimes with these things i lay them all out and get it 'right', but in the process of removing and sticking, bits drift and it's amazing how a slight tilt or angle can change everything. This was another of my gifts for Jakki.... lucky girl!! she was happy though.

Salvation Mountains

As i already posted, I made a couple of prints for Jakki of the Salton Sea and Salvation Mountain for Christmas. While i was finishing them we found out that the mountain's creator, Leonard Knight, had been taken into a care home and the future of the Mountain is now at risk. "There's a coincidence" i thought. Anyway then i open my presents Christmas morning and get this from jakki. She thought "that's a coincidence" too! funny. The Mountain must have been on both our minds in the run up to Christmas. It's great and i know the stress she went through trying to make it, bless her. It never got totally completed in time, but it doesn't matter to me... made by loving hands is always going to be good. They have all now been added to our kitchen walls.

Jakki's lovely paper mountain

my version

other kitchen bits

Salton Sea Map

I posted a while back about wanting to create an illustrated map and speculated that i might do the Salton Sea. Well I did and ended up personalising it to cover our trip we made around the 'Sea' and in doing so added a present to Jakki's Christmas haul. I enjoyed the process, even if it did take longer than it looks!
I then decided i liked the little Salvation Mountain, so made that into a separate print. There's more to this whole story and hopefully I'll get around to posting it soon... need to take a photo first. For now though i thought I'd share my art.

Country Pots

I found this beauty just before Christmas, so i treated myself to it, a present for myself. Yep, treated myself and spent all £12 of my own money! I know, i couldn't believe it either. I even had the cheek to knock it down from £15, well it did have a crack! I love this pot, the shape is just beautiful.

The one thing i don't know is where it's from. I'd love to be able to figure it out... if anyone can help, please let me know. The bottom picture shows the roulette around the pot where the glaze ends, there are also two bands of the same roulette just below the rim. It's about 42cm tall and 30cm wide. It's a proper pot. Love it. It's the first real, country working pot that i have. I never see many around down here, it just tends to be pancheons that folk want way too much money for, or old little flower pots.

Oh... and Happy New Year to you all! I've been off the radar for Christmas, but i have been following all your blogs, i shall have to get back into the swing of it and post some comments. I also need to make some pots soon. My inlaid slip experiment didn't quite work out, I'll get some pictures up soon. I had 'issues' with trapped air bubbles, as i scratched back they revealed themselves, leaving empty indents.

It surely is a learning curve! going to put in some time on the wheel too, that really needs some focus this year.