How's the serenity?

A mini-hike in Solstice Canyon, Malibu today...we don't know this area well yet, so just had a quick stroll to check out the trails. We'll be back to do a more strenuous walk, but just getting 40 minutes of peace and space was therapeutic. Plus we saw a woodpecker pecking, a hawk hovering magnificently while searching for a tidbit, and heard frogs in the canyon creek.

Some parts of the trails look out to the Pacific Ocean, and meander through land that has been used by Chumash people and by ranchers for grazing, and inhabited in previous decades before continuous fires destroyed the man made structures. The canyon land was eventually handed over to the public in 1988 and is currently managed by the National Park Service. It's not far at all from the bustle of Malibu and the PCH, so it's not the most immersive natural experience, but if you go far enough into the park it is quiet enough to stop and hear nothing but the scratchings of the little forest birds in the under-brush. And that will do for me!

My next task is to learn more about the native plants and birds I should look for. I have a habit of brushing my hand on a shrub to smell the oils of the leaves - if I do THAT on poison oak, I'll be in trouble.

The holes in this tree's limb are left by the woodpecker.

Leaving the park, here's the view of the ocean across the Pacific Coast Highway.

"Wham Blam Blamo" @ TAG, Hollywood, 7th January 2012.

We have the best work neighbours on Melrose Avenue. Last year Toy Art Gallery moved their showroom to come join us next door for some fun and to expose the Hollywood rock crowd to the world of contemporary toy collecting. They regularly have shows promoting artists from this world - some of them have been packed to the rafters!! It's all very new to me - I had no idea this scene was so big, and I am enjoying being exposed to a whole new aesthetic and art form. Plus the team of gentlemen who work there are all awesome.

The current show at TAG is actually not entirely unknown to us...we have known the Blamo kids for some time now as we stock some of their jewellery and have a couple of their handmade toys. But it was really exciting to see the new collection launched in one unified space, and even though it is produced by different artists singularly or as a team, there is an obviously strong cohesive drive to produce work from natural materials of such a strong quality. Whether it's wood carving, printing, painting, leather and brass work, the Blamo collective produce objects of such soul that they go beyond just "toys". As creatives they are all actually highly skilled artisans, and their otherworldly creatures invite us into a loving adventureland.

Blamo Wood Mask.

Swampy, Nimbus and Wood Robot.

Hand carved Hip Hop Billy, complete with visor, bandana and movable ghetto blaster.

One of a kind pair of lovers, Duncan and Matilda, my favourites.

My other favourite, Dr Who, incredibly carved and finished with a painted wall body. His head measures 32"x18".

One of the pair of Totem Paintings on display, with Big Ludovico in the foreground.

One of the centerpieces, Whooly, carved by Aleph Geddis and Spencer Hansen. A timelapse film was shown on the night of the entire carving process for Whooly. Much like Dr Who, and Frog Dog there is an influence from North-West American Indian art in this piece, particularly in Whooly's face.

Detail from Whooly's face.

Totem Painting in blue, with Big Hug Denim in the background, with a Frog Dog and Knuckles in the foreground.

The smaller Blamo toys, including Hug, Billy, and Micha Bear, and the TAG show exclusive, Panda Fuzzie Bear.

Blamo leader "Solo", watching over Whooly and greeting friends...Solo has been on this blog before. He's so cute I have to put up another photo of him....

....and my little Blamo acquisition, a mini white hug to add to my white collection, looking so loving on my mantlepiece next to the bulldog, calling out for hugs. I named him "Henry" after Henry Rollins...it's a long story.

There are also t-shirts and their famous monkey and bunny jumpsuits available at the show, along with some rad underpants, bandanas and jewellery featuring some of the Blamo characters. All are on display until the 28th of January - some items have already sold, so get to 7571 Melrose Ave in Hollywood to take a look, or jump on the TAG website to see the show and purchase items.

Blamo are really good people, so check out more of what they do at their website, and join the "hug revolution."

Welcome to 2012...

The end of December came in a huge flurry this season. And now we are already looking at the first weekend of January! The blog needs some attention, and while I haven't done anything amazingly spectacular to report from the last 3 weeks, it still has had some drama. Let's see....gas leaking from the oven in the days leading up to Solstice/Christmas, Dimebash and Camp Freddy up on Sunset Strip, the (noisy) removal of 14 years of detritus from the hoarder in the apartment below us, and a little bit of arson. All that inbetween a couple of catch-ups with friends (par for the course at this time of year). 

One of my favourite moments from December though was finally seeing Mr Peter Murphy, singer of Bauhaus but also an accomplished solo artist of many years. He was spectacular to see - in amazingly full voice, dandyish stage movements and good humour. We were treated to some old Bauhaus gems and a good sized set, and we all left smiling.

Pete Murphy, Club Nokia, December 7th 2010.

Amazing tiramisu at Terroni - a dessert I usually hate but this has converted me.

Our pagan/athiest/black metal decorations....winter green man from our friends at Pan Pipes in Hollywood, black tinsel (AWESOME!!!) from, of all places, Target, and purple fairy lights.

These took me back...found them at one of the design stores on 3rd St here in LA. I distinctly remember one of these Japanese ladies being in my family in the 1970's, and I think she was at my grandparents house. I will have to find out...funny how things come around again and are "cool".

Presents for the tattoo studio library.

Emergency Tim Tams and the Boxing Day Test streaming on the internet...you can take the lady out of Australia, but you can't quite take Australia out of the lady.

Sketching...

Young Jose got the California tattoo a couple of months ago (his concept and I dig it), and came back for a bigger project on his ribs. Some shading is still to come. I feel like I've been doing a lot of type tattoos lately....

Speaking of which, love these screen printed maps from Best Made Company. They utilize old geographical survey maps, are handmade and numbered, and are available via their website, along with a lot of other beautiful handmade goods, all designed to inspire our connection to the outside. The company is based in New York and was founded in 2009 by Peter Buchanan-Smith, and their motto is "tools to empower and inspire." They emblazon the handles of the axes they produce with the words "courage", "compassion, "grace", and "fortitude" as an expression of the virtues they hold dear, in the hope of influencing their customer's relationship to the world around them. Pretty noble, I think, and the "Everything Here Is Wonderful" slogan on this map is a sentiment I am carrying into 2012.

 

Let's live in beauty.

Laying out dots - stippling until it hurts.

I think just about every kid that goes through art at school has to do at least one stipple or "dot render" exercise - oy vey! So, silly me just spent the last two days revisiting those days - I undertook a new illustration to maybe use on a shirt to print, or new tattoo business cards. While a lot of illustrators use this technique to create a whole composition, laying all shades and contours in dot form of varying densities, I instead still used a strong contour line to maintain the "tattoo" style paired with stippling as a form of shading.

I used a heavyweight opaque fineliner paper and just one Artline fineliner (0.3) to do the stippling. Some people use technical pens of different sizes to vary the tone and detail. I wasn't necessarily looking to create as much realism as you see in this type of work - for this illustration it was more about adding "body" to the forms by still using a pen but without resorting to hatching. One of the most successful contemporary illustrators using this technique is Kevin Sprouls. Hired by The Wall Street Journal in 1979, Sprouls helped introduce the "hedcut" form of image reproduction to print media - even at a small size, stipple rendered portraits as seen in the Journal are generally more legible than photographs of the same size. A number of illustrators now make a good living off the artform which has a very classical feel, often emulating engraving or woodcut newspaper printing.

Kevin Sprouls, "Frank Lloyd Wright"

The Queen portrait and little chick just above were drawn by Noli Novak. Her work is amazing too - check out her website which shows more of her portraits of humans and animals.

Virgil Finlay was an American fantasy artist whose work was heavily published in the pulp-fiction magazines of the 1930's to the 1960's. He worked in mainly pen and ink AND scratchboard, often in the same image, using hatching and stippling to shade. These are some of the most labour intensive drawings going around! He's work is worth studying due to his wonderful rendering of the human form, dramatic composition and lighting effects, and fanciful imagination. There are some published volumes of his work out there (now very collectible.) I think I will have to track one down, as digital scans don't quite do his work justice, especially at screen resolution. I found that the scan I took of my own drawing failed to transfer the delicacy of my dots - what looks tiny and round on paper looks a bit rough in pixel form, and I need to experiment with this.

But back to now....I did just pick up the 2007 publication on Usugrow's work - "Love Hate From JP" - featuring a fair whack of his pen and ink works. The Japanese-born artist mixes Asian imagery with that of the Mexican "cholo" graffiti you see in LA, using the heavy calligraphic line work that a lot of us tattooists identify with, while shading in stipple style. Not surprisingly, it's bold and perfect for printing, and he has supplied a lot of work for skate brands. He uses Rotring drafting pens on large sized paper, and you can see his stipple is finer for it, each piece taking a few weeks to execute. If you see this book on your travels, it's worth picking up if you love this type of black and white work. He also has a blog to follow what he is up to.

I'm not sure I'll be hurrying onto to the next stipple illustration - it really is exhausting work and my eyes felt like they were hanging out of my head after it! But it's a technique I've always been drawn to and I'm sure it will lure me back in....

Steven Patrick Morrissey

Morrissey came to LA this past week, playing a last minute show at the small Music Box, plus a sold-out Shrine, and Fox Theatre in Pomona. Luckily I got to see two shows - nine years after seeing him play my hometown in Australia. I know in the meantime things have been a bit "off" with Morrissey's performances - cancellations, collapses and the like. But 2011 sees a fit, rejuvenated 50-something-year-old idol, hitting the stage with the aplomb and swagger we love him for. Morrissey's voice is in fine form today, and treats the fans on this tour to a few Smiths' songs - "I Want The One I Can't Have", "Meat Is Murder", "Still Ill", and sometimes "I Know It's Over". He played the latter at The Shrine on Saturday night, and with the crowd singing along to one of the most beautifully sad songs ever written, it was one of those gig moments you cherish forever.

The encore of "Still Ill" brought a mini-flood of devotees scrambling up on stage to hug Morrissey - just like nearly 30 years ago. Aaaaah, pretty hard to wipe the smile of the face after that.

His visit also sadly coincided with last week's passing of Shelagh Delaney, writer and major inspiration on Morrissey's work and on others who came from difficult lives in Manchester, England. An image of Shelagh acted as a backdrop for these shows, and the pre-show clips of footage included a brief snippet of an interview with the playwright (filmed by the great Ken Russell, also now recently departed). In it she talks of her reluctance to leave her home, Salford, despite it's problems and constant shroud of industrial gloom. She died of cancer at the age of 71, and was best known for her 1958 play "A Taste of Honey" which she penned as a teenager.

 It's so easy to laugh
It's so easy to hate
It takes strength to be gentle and kind
Over, over, over, over
It's so easy to laugh
It's so easy to hate
It takes guts to be gentle and kind
Over, over
Love is Natural and Real
But not for you, my love
Not tonight, my love
Love is Natural and Real
But not for such as you and I, my love

More Ron English

Saturday November 19th saw the opening of another Ron English show in LA, this time of 18 new paintings, at the Corey Helford Gallery. "Seasons in Supurbia" continues to draw on his fascination with the notion of the "superhero", beings of his own creation, painted in his characteristically hyper realist style. In this show they mingle with Camo Deer in the diorama-like compositions he builds, as well as more natural landscapes. These paintings are just technically stunning, rendering the surreal as corporeal.

It was a busy opening, so I could only get details of some of the works. But that's where you get lost in English's work anyway. The show is on view until December 10th, and a good excuse to head to Culver City's gallery row.

"The Fourth Wall", detail.

"The Artist's House", detail.

"Werewool"

"Comic House Block Party", detail.

"Mousemask Graveyard"

"Mousemask Graveyard", detail.

"Blend in the River"

"Blend in the River", detail.

Visit the gallery website to view more images of the show.