Starman

Starman all fitted out

Recently I was given an exciting opportunity to collaborate with Marlow Art Guitars & West London Art Factory on a guitar. Not just any guitar but what would be a beautiful custom hand built rocking instrument made by Steve Marlow who is passionate in what he does.

I decided to go with a David Bowie inspired theme from his 70's alien invader persona Ziggy Stardust. There are a few references to his movie debut as 'The Man Who Fell To Earth' and his iconic album 'Alladin Sane' originally titled 'A Lad Insane' or 'A lad In Vein'.

"There's a Starman waiting in the sky, he'd like to come and meet us but he thinks he'd blow our minds"

 I used tea for base tone and texture and a bit of acrylic paint to add spots of additional colour that I hoped would be accentuated when varnished. The end result pimped out with gold hardware really brought everything together on this.

Here's how it all went...

The sketches...

Mapping out basic compositional lines

Tea applied to build up tone & textures

100% black & fruit tea: front

100% black & fruit tea: back

Adding colour details & highlights, acrylics

Tea staining on the Headstock

Finished artwork unvarnished: back

Finished artwork unvarnished: front

Complete after Steve Marlow did his magic

Blue Feathers Series

Blue Feather

As some of you know already, I recently completed a small series of work with a bird/winged narrative running throughout, exploring parallels of nurture, growth and development between ourselves and the natural world. A certain surreal parody runs along these works also. 

This series is called Blue Feathers. A story that starts with a single blue feather. These tea pieces are larger in scale than my previous tea pieces; 76cm x 56cm on 535gm watercolour paper.

The Becoming - Our journey begins with the initial formative stages of a life, its potential seen by the growths on its back as to what it is to be or could become. It takes shape within an oval encasing, referencing a womb or maybe even an egg. A blue feather gives us a clue and takes our story forward...

The Becoming

The Two Surrogates - Here I make reference to the nurture a life needs to grow and develop, in this case two blue feathered birds (blue tits) are taking care of this child as their own. Attentive and Caring for it by nourishing it with allsorts. Feeding it with worms (protein), sweets (sugar), a pill (medication) and even iron (vitamins/minerals) in the shape of a paperclip.

The Two Surrogates

Fallen Fledgeling - As this creature grows and develops in the proverbial nest, it still must learn to fly. Here we see inexperience, attempts at making decisions and taking that jump to leave. But not all her siblings as well as herself are ready, and some don't make it. We see her wings have not fully formed yet.

Fallen Fledgeling

Wings of Promise - Our protagonist has now fully matured and has her wings fully prepped and ready to make it on her own. Her wings now represent all the possibilities and potential that she may reach. Taking her cue from another bird that has spread its wings and has now taken flight, it is now her turn...

Wings of Promise

The blue feathers are the key to this series, the only spot of additional colour to these tea pieces. Linking each piece to each other.

Fallen Fledgeling

Fallen Fledgeling - Tea on paper

"To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest."
- Pema Chodron -

"Fallen Fledgeling" is the title of this new tea stained piece. A birds nest falls and with it its occupants made up of eggs and baby birds and a rather large blue winged fledgeling. None of them ready to fly and completely inexperienced.

A bit of a challenge as it is a lot larger than any of my previous tea artworks, 76cm x 56cm on 535gm watercolour paper. With this piece I added some additional colour other than just tea, with blue watercolour only on the wings and feathers. I loved the contrast between the warm tones of the tea and thought it a beautiful way of guiding the eyes attention across the composition.

This is the first in a small series but large in scale, playing with certain themes of nature.

International Postcard Show 2013

'Branded' - tea, pencil, bic biro & white ink on card

I'm thrilled to announce two of my new postcard sized art works will be showing at The International Postcard show at Surface Gallery in Nottingham over the next two weeks.

"This long-running annual exhibition is an integral and highly popular feature of the exhibitions calendar at Surface Gallery, and will feature hundreds of original artworks by established artists, students and newcomers from all over the world. The works will celebrate the sheer diversity of practice to be found in international contemporary art." - Surface Gallery

The exhibition is on  from January 16th - 2nd February.
Tuesday to Friday 12am - 6pm
Saturday 11am - 5pm during exhibition periods.

Surface Gallery
16 Southwell Road,
Nottingham
NG1 1DL

'La Jinete' - tea, pencil, bic biro & white ink on card

Tea at the New Artist Fair

Beauty Fades - 13x20cm (2012)

I know, it's been a while but sometimes time is not ones friend which it most certainly hasn't been in my case. However I have been busy further developing my tea stained art and preparing new pieces to be unveiled at the New Artist Fair which returns this September in London's Brick Lane with over 40 artists of all genres, styles and mediums. The Old Truman Brewery in Brick Lane will be hosting this exciting event.

I have prepared smaller more affordable works lately measuring just 13cm X 20cm as well as slightly larger works too. These have all been made using Tetley tea bags and Twinings rasberry & strawberry tea. No paint has been used, only the teas staining hues and properties. The only additional materials used are pencil, ballpoint pen or white ink.

Tetley & Twinings Tea

 You're all welcome so please pop on down and support this great event and the artists exhibiting including my good friends Darren MacPherson and Marina Jijina with whom I've exhibited a few times before. Check out the full list of artists at the fair here: LINK


New Artist Fair
14-16 September 2012
The Old Truman Brewery, F Block T2
91 Brick Lane
London E1 6QL
FREE ENTRY
Opening Reception: Friday 14th September 6-9pm
Saturday & Sunday 11am-7pm

Lady Snowblood (修羅雪姫)

'Shura-Yuki-Hime' - (tea, pencil, biro & white ink on card)

My latest tea stained piece brings you the beautiful 1970's Japanese actress, Meiko Kaji from the cult classic movie 'Lady Snowblood' (original Japanese title 修羅雪姫, Shurayukihime). A 1973 Japanese film directed by Toshiya Fujita. It is based on a manga comic called Shurayukihime.

The title of this piece is 'Shira-Yuki-Hime' which is the name of the main protagonist. This has to be one of my favourite movies in my collection, fantastic story of tragedy, great imagery and swordtastic action.

Shurayukihime (修羅雪姫) – meaning “carnage snow princess” – is a pun on Shirayukihime “white snow princess”, usually referring to Snow White, and is translated for this classic film as “Princess Snowblood”.

It was also a major inspiration for Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill, which borrows plot, characters, visual motifs and settings. In particular the character O-Ren Ishii is based on Lady Snowblood. The scene in which The Bride fights O-Ren Ishii uses a snowy landscape that echoes scenes in Lady Snowblood. The theme song, "Shura No Hana", sung by Meiko Kaji (translated by Tarantino as "The Flower of Carnage") is also used in Kill Bill, Vol. 1.

A Spot of Tea?

Over the last few months I've created a series of drawings, painted, stained and splattered with tea bags. These were first seen and displayed as part of a project I was involved in by an arts collective called The Fabelist, at their IMPRINT exhibition. (Read more about the project here and in my blog post)

I use not only the tea as pigment but also the tea bag to create playful and spontaneous splatters and drops that try and complement the clean line work of the drawing in pencil and pen.

I enjoy the hues the tea produces and mainly its staining properties giving a used and vintage feel to the work. I build layers of splats and drops, fusing the natural pigment of the tea further into the paper as if time has ravaged the work and the hues change and the stains take a life of their own as the results can never be certain but always unexpected.

A cultural ritual of sorts also as tea for us british is a much sought after pause from our daily lives, a moment to reflect, to breath, to talk over, to energize or unwind. These drawings hold ideas and emotions to ponder and reflect upon, based on the world around us and how it stains and permeates over time, just like thoughts and ideas which have an impact on our minds and hearts.

(Facebook photo album)

Neko, a photo by Carlos Martyn Burgos on Flickr.

Building Blocks, a photo by Carlos Martyn Burgos on Flickr.

It's Cold Outside, a photo by Carlos Martyn Burgos on Flickr.

IMPRINT - A Fabelist Exhibition

'Simple Man' detail of my tea stained drawing

The Fabelist's exhibition IMPRINT opened on Friday 27th at The Serpentine Centre For possible Studies, London. For the last few months I have been part of an artist's collective called The Fabelist, working on our individual responses to the 'Imprint' theme. I created a set of new work and together with 29 other artists creations we unleashed them on to the public.

The visionary and talented young woman behind the exhibition and director of The Fabelist is Francesca Goodwin who also curated the works.

"I have a firm belief that art should be in conversation with the surroundings that it is exhibited in. I have seen with the Fabelist group how artistic practice is a really strong adhesive to building communities and I want to share that message with a wider public audience- to give people the opportunity to access contemporary art at whatever level they can identify with".

 You can read an interview with Francesca Goodwin about the project, her goals and inspirations at Run-riot.com

Read more about Fridays festival of curiosities in this great write up by Nicola Anthony on her blog HERE.

The exhibition runs until the Friday 3rd February. 21 Gloucester Place, London W1U 8HR. 1pm - 6pm.

Exhibitors:
Chantal Powell, Hormazd Narielwalla, Abigail Box, Cassandra Batterby, Carlos M Burgos, Zoe Catherine Kendall, Dean Melbourne, EC, Raj Kaur, Nicola Anthony, Emilie Pugh, Anthony Boswell, Ryan Seslow, Nikki Schiro, Tamsin Relly Twinkle Troughton, Katie Ann Edwards, Matthew Lewis, Carrie May, Tahnee Lonsdale, Polly Bagnall, Darren MacPherson, Luke Thompson, Joshua Raffell, Francesca Goodwin, Laura Evelyn, Sarah Stewart, Tinsel Edwards, Sarah Perry.

Find out more about the works here: LINK

Photo by Frederick W T Thiede

Banquet by The Edible Art Movement

Festival Musicians 

Poppy's Paper Doll Parlour