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When I visited the AOI Illustration Awards at Somerset House, last October, I saw some lovely atmospheric work from Jun Cen. As well as 'non-moving' images, he created an animation based on his work. Yes, I know it's taken a handful of months to blog about this, but it's worth the wait. I'd love to create something like this. One day!
mutual tunnels from Jun Cen on Vimeo.
Mutual Tunnels is a hand-drawn animated short film directed by Jun Cen. The original music is composed by Jason Charney.
archive image of the London Underground
This little 12 minute documentary all about the construction of London's underground tube network is great. I became aware of it on Ian Visits' blog and it's definitely worth making a cuppa and giving it a watch. The bits that caught my attention the most were the '3D-ified' archive stills of tunnel construction. Lens flares, blurry bits and a small sense of camera movement. Surprisingly magical (and a wee bit moving, dare I say it). Commissioned by the Institute of Civil Engineers, I understand.
St. Bartholomew Gatehouse
In preparation for a project about the Great Fire of London I visited a clutch of London buildings that are claimed to have survived the flames. (The piece of work now isn't happening, but I may do something with it in the future). I imagine that there has been a bit of restoration to the facades here and there, but they all seem to have kept their charm.
It's quite hard to imagine the city of London as it was in the past, full of creaking, jumbled and overhanging wooden buildings. A recent CGI project by students at Leicester de Montfort University tried to recreate it, which is quite successful but not smelly enough:
Also, whilst doing some picture research into Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, I found some old photos of Coventry before it was bombed during the Second World War. Architecture that's also been lost to fire and destruction, but up until the 1940s I imagine it still had a flavour of what some of London was like before the clumsy baker set fire to his buns.
Advertisement in SE1
I popped along to Borough Market, SE1 last week to see if I could get some ideas for some new art work. I'm very keen to develop my monoprinting further. I think the marks you can make with ink are really interesting. The trip was fruitful - I'm currently producing five pieces based on what I saw down in The Borough: coloured monoprints with black ink details drawn over the top. Hopefully they will evoke something of the hustle and smells you can get down there - seemingly every day of the week, but I know that's not 100% true. Borough Market is closed sometimes. Here are some photos that I took along the way, but the work itself will be much more produce/stall focussed. Coming soon.
Ideas in Rotherhithe
On a rare but recent sunny day, I headed over to Rotherhithe for some space. I'm working on something for a music/art/inspiration website Forage Press (more details to come in due course) and needed to generate some ideas.
A walk and a think by the river Thames is something free, that is available to all Londoners. The portion of river down from Tower Bridge is just where it starts to feel a bit more windswept. On a cold day, with misty views, it might feel bleak, but the day I was there it felt sleepy and definitely promised a slow, sunny summer to come (fingers crossed).
Ideas gathered, I headed back along Tooley Street. I've just got to create the things, now.