It was my partner-in-crime’s birthday recently, and since it was her Big Lockdown Birthday I decided to try my hand at something different – a great big portrait. But what pose should I use? Is there some way I can do this without her finding out? So I went trawling up in the loft and, I’m going to date myself here, I found our ancient actual-film-in-the-camera photos of ridiculous drunken nights and holidays and lazy Sundays from the early 2000’s, including the very first picture of us together, added in with our more recent landmarks, and assembled the best of them into a loosely cubist collage.
Category: Painting
Bucket Trail
I was invited to take part in the Oor Wullie Big Bucket Trail for Glasgow Children’s Hospital this year, with my Adventure Islands design. This will be on show at Glasgow Airport till September 13th, so stop by and have a look if you’re passing through. Ace!
Duncan of Jordanstone Degree Show 2019
It’s Local Degree Show time again! I spent a good Saturday afternoon looking around, with the one bad point being that the Illustration kids were too hungover to open their shop table. Anyways, my favourite dozen, in no particular order, were:
Cecile Bec combined illustration and sculpture, such that her whole show formed one giant composition.
Joanna Migut used a tightly restricted colour palette to great effect.
Eleanor Begg used enormously energetic lines in her paintings, with vibrant colour splashes
Catherine Paterson was my favourite in sculpture – an interactive show encouraging people to make rubbings of her brass and laser-carved wood wildlife images. It looked like it had been enormously popular on opening night as well.
Courtney Szabo had one of my favourite shows – intense, spontaneous movement, massive energy and great colour contrasts all over the place.
Hannah Benassi was another stand-out show, with subdued tones layering into some remarkable compositions.
Sam Renson left me utterly confounded and entranced – giant painted seascapes that look like distorted aerial photographs on crumpled paper.
Kirstie Behrens had some beautifully crafted near-abstract landscape prints on show.
Maia Aitken had some wonderfully expressively alien compositions, with careful colour work.
Lucia Pearla was another highlight, with highly detailed abstracts giving the impression of cityscapes, dominated by almost-legible letter forms shouting into the illuminated dark.
Maike Herrmann was one of several shows in Textile Design that caught my eye. Amazing multi-layered prints, with great depth and complexity.
Katie Scott, likewise, had enormous vitality and playfulness in her work, with a great interactive board for kids to add to her designs.
Molly Marshaley completes the set of vibrant, joyous textiles, with geometric shapes abraded and worn into textures.
Aimee Coulshed finishes my list, with sublime landscapes created in fabric.
That’s fourteen, but don’t make me choose.