....

Christmas. Mine was crap, but at least I didn't spend it with my family. Next year I'll spend it with friends, the only reason I didn't is because we never organised anything and the Christmas mood didn't arrive. Knowing my luck i'll probably feel christmassy in March and by then it's very well pointless. Ah well, New Year soon, the resolutions are as follows stop drinking, stop smoking, get a job and have sex. I might as well make a resolution to go to the moon, after all that'll be more likely.
It's occured to me that this blog is filled with more text than visuals, okay, I resolve to put more pictures up, there I've said it. I also need to write something longer and more engaging on this thing, it probably feels neglected, poor thing.

-2°C

Two of my prints have been accepted for exhibition, pretty exciting. Hopefully it'll warrant an orgasm, Lord knows it's been a while. This snow is doing my chuffing head in, although i seem to be creating some good work and a couple of interesting books. Apparently according to my tutors I need to write more and produce more work, but after my tutorial I've been given some direrction and once I can get into the print room I intend to have my way with the silk screens ;) white on white seems like an interesting avenue to approach, so onwards and upwards.

summer project: book of me

Haven't wrote on here in a while, neither have i posted any work on this thing. Finally taken pictures of my summer project, to be honest sooner or later this book was going to be written. Chuffing glad I've got it written, kept putting it off for ages. The pictures i illustrated seemed to turn out really well too, i enjoyed this excursion down Memory Lane makes me realise how much I've grown up in the past three years, I have even if I don't act like it at times :)

Front Cover

The majority of things i read over the six weeks seemed to focus a lot on God, i.e. William Blake, Douglas Coupland, Life of Pi, Carl Jung etc. so this idea was born from that. Kind of based on William Blake's The Ancient of Days, but with the Goddess Durga as the central character.

Why I Wrote This Book

My Mum

My Dad

Wayne Hunter

Steve Hunter

Johnny McDermott

Alex Clayton

Mel

Aimee Green

Tom Howarth

Laura Parker

Me

Work is just a four letter word

I scrapped the idea for the children's storybook and settled for wallpaper design/wall murals. This seems like a more interesting and open project to work on. Using my sense of humour I hope to create a piece of work that reflects my personality.


I love ice-cream and to be honest, I think the idea of having a room filled with ice-cream wallpaper would be pretty cool indeed.



I cannot stand dirty toilets, so the idea of having this as wallpaper in a toilet strikes me as funny and daft. Who says wallpaper has to be dull, lifeless and boring.

Father and Son

I painted a picture of my Dad for The Book of Me, he hasn't read it yet, but he's the only person from my family who ever will see it. It's strange how something so personal can be shared with people I have just met, but not with relatives.



My first ever self-portrait. It turned out well to say I only used HB Pencil, I'm picky about having my photograph taken, and even more so about drawing one. I prefer been able to have a say in whether I keep or delete an image.

29/9/10

When I started this blog the idea was to update it regularly, didn't really happen did it? Heres my second attempt at keeping to this blogging thing. Started Art School about two weeks ago, everybody gets on really well and the course is better than i expected it to be. I wonder how many people dropped out of Universities because the course is absolutley dire? After panicing unnecessarily I came up with some really interesting ideas for my first module so it's full steam ahead ;)

I should really put more artwork and visuals on here it's looking pretty bleak with all this text. Show and tell went well, i finished the 'Book Of Me' summer project so i'll put up the snaps inabit. Oh and I secured one and a half days employement (go me!) at the solicitor's manning the phones and typing letters, should be fun, having a meltdown could well be likley but at the end of the day it's more money for materials and i get to sit in a sexy swivvel chair and drink cup after cup of coffee.

Perhaps i should start brainstorming ideas for that children's story, if it comes to me as easily as my graphic novel did i should be laughing. If it doesn't, well then I won't be.

Hello

Finished college for the now, basically my life is going to be a repetative blend of watching The Wright Stuff, Bargain Hunt, reading books and cups of coffee (or cwoffee if your American). It feels nice just to be able to draw when I feel like it - been quite inspired at the moment, came up with a really good pump design which I'll implement once I have the tools ;) and came up with an idea for the packaging for the book I've been set to create for my first Uni brief (oooh, exciting!).

Not forgetting writing little stories which I'll probably do something with in the future. All in all I'm pretty chuffed with my triple distinction grade, just can't wait to move out now. This page hasn't been graced with my artwork for a while, so have some life drawing done by own fair hand.

6

For my FMP I've decieded to do 2 A2 paintings (Mexico and China) and 2 A1 paintings (America and Japan), basically the ones that cause the least offence (I have been warned by tutors not to exhibit the most offensive peices even though they fulfil the message I'm trying to portray, and since it's my first exhibition I don't want to jeff things up). I feel better now i know what I'm doing rather than just been in a constant muddle :)

Rather than stressing now I can spend most of my time painting when I feel like it and actually catch up on reading - just finished Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote and am 3/4 through Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev. I'm like a month away from the exhibition so all there is to do is print my graphic novel and handwrite each page and attach my book covers to books - it would help if i can track down two cheap copies of HG Wells' Time Machine.

Since I've been absent for so long I might as well post a poem, it's the first one in the book that lives inside the box I designed.


Sunday Morning

Sunday mornings have become a rainy place to be
I fell in love with the sun
She now shines brightly within my head.

Sleeping blissfully on the pillow next to me
I fell in love with the sun
Her sweet, subtle breathe warming my bed.

Take a closer look it’s not that hard to see
I fell in love with the sun
I’m ready to go again, my pencil full of lead.

Mmm... Mexico

Mexico

5ive

I'm currently scanning my graphic novel, it seems to be a gargantuan effort. Hopefully it will look good enough to sell/publish/distribute, it makes me proud to know I've written, drawn and designed every single thing that has gone into it. Recently I've been thinking about what will happen when I leave Art School (true, I haven't even started, but it's good to think ahead), well what I want to happen - either work as a childrens book illustrator or do a residency somewhere like Beijing, Canada or somewhere nice to look at.
Anyway, since I haven't wrote in this blog for a while I thought I might as well write a bit for a change, sex up my day a bit.

cultural stereotypes so far...

France

America

China

In this series I'm going to produce 10 hand painted images, I will then use Adobe Illustrator in order to create vector based images.

Handmade Book

Front and back cover

Page 1

Life is full of self confidence

issues and body hang-ups.

To think of one as art

& an individual is to truly

think outside of the box.

Page 2

Page 3

Adam Byrne

enjoys using

the bare essentials.

Made using an old sketchbook and cardboard for the spine, i like how every page responds with each other and links to make an interesting and unpredictable piece. The last page is done using a typewriter and a dynomarker.

Self Project

Top of the box

Bottom of the box

Front of the box

Back of the box

Left of the box

Right of the box

This is the second attempt of the box idea. The first one was intended to be made with old sketchbooks, but because it was harder to draw on I used parcel paper and pen to draw images of myself on all of the box's faces.

Blu Tack Advertisement

These are the stills for a stop-frame animation I did for the company Bostik, they make Blu Tack.

IIII

With student finance well on it's way and getting a place in the dream factory (I mean art school, not Noel's excuse of a gameshow), it's all a matter of finding somewhere to live. Having scrapped the idea of living with friends, simply due to going to different universities and the fiascos of washing-up I've decieded to look for a nice studio appartment. Mulling it over it seems like an amicable decision, and much catered for me as a person, meaning I can do what I want when I want and eat basically whatever crap I choose to introduce to my body.

There was something I heard recently about that it is a human right that we have access to the internet, what utter bullshit to be honest. Personally I feel it has it's uses as far as blogging is concerned, but to rely on it soley for relationships, comfort, communication and research makes us lazy and unconnected with each other as individuals. I don't see what is so wrong with finding someone to be with the 'natural' way, using human interaction, writing letters, or reading books. What I have just written relates to how I feel about art, it is a personal process that should be composed by the artist themselves without the reliance on photoshop, digital cameras or state of the art special effects.

Three

Quite frankly I'm gutted, the plan to boycott McDonalds is still in the pipeline since I have to buy something to use as material for my Final Major Project. I'm creating a series of 10 illustrations which reflect cultural stereotypes so I'll be needing that large milkshake after all.

I much prefer those quirky one-off shops, not the massive retail chains like Starbucks (yes, I'm going off them), you could go to the Moon and there'd be a Starbucks, it's guarantee. Like in Whitby theres places like The Owl and the Pussycat and The Shepherd's purse - apart from those dodgy liquorice sticks I bought which resembled twigs (I think they were actually twigs) - that you'd never see anywhere else, thats whats so good about them. Plus some also still sell the odd controversial Gollywog now aptly renamed Gollytoy, cheers political correctness, you once again save the day.

Dewsbury seems to be going up in the world, what with Question Time last night it's only a matter of time until we get the Olympics. Bring it on!

02

Viva art school! I'm not going to put what they said about my portfolio, but it's all positive and the chances are that i got. All set for uni now, just student finance to sort out (probably be gone in the first week knowing my money management skills).

Book Cover design

Version 1

By using a wallpaper design and photoshop, i created the impression of the time traveller materialising, i like how the colours all work together and create a vintage feel.

Version 2

This was acheived using Adobe Illustrator. Originally i took a newspaper image and using an eraser, I erased half of the image and went over in black ink to give the 'new' look and scanned it into Illustrator and used the Live Trace function.

Bearing in mind I prefer to hand draw and not rely on computers and technology I am pleased with the outcome of the designs.

Day One

I've never written a blog before. Anyway, here is where I'll post - art, photography, poetry, diary enteries etc. and other such things.

I have my final interview for university today, my portfolio is sitting by the radiator keeping nice and toastie while i'm perched under the window wearing a christmas t-shirt. I really hope i get into this art school, theres much more soul here and artistic freedom to persue whatever medium you want to use. I've been successful in two interviews so far so this one should be quite straightforward.

Rather than rant on, i'll just end this first blog here for now.