I saw the film on Tuesday and still trying to make a decision. The best so far was that visually is that it is superb, but...There is something wrong. Yes, the tweak at the end is OK. The Martian scenes were great and yet.
Two things stood out today as one of my friends said, 'Why do a film, when the graphic novel is so good - Does it add anything to the story'. Answer is no. I remembered that there was a re-make of Hitchcock's Psycho frame by frame and this is what I think happened to the film. It was shot almost like for like, but why? It is a different medium and therefore, it must add some that it unique to the story that either text in a novel or in this case, comic art could not do.
One of the innovations that the graphic novel showed to great effect was the use of colour in the storytelling. Yet I can not remember anything in this film that suggested that. Peter Greenaway's film, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, the colour did show the difference from the various places in the film.
I thought the cinema cost was not worth the wait and the DVD might have more on it from the various articles I have read. So you might be worth waiting for the DVD.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Tertal - Bare Bones Part 3
This is the last stage of the first piece. In a way, it looks like a typical piece of my work and this is perhaps what disappoints me the most. The leaf of the book has been lost in the overall tangle of the trees' branches. Yet, you can not see the textural qualities of the as I drew and drew on the picture, the paper broke down. I had to glue a second piece of paper to the back of the first to give it some support.This allowed me to continue working on the picture. Again the medium ground of the red soil has been taken back by working on the areas. Firstly in pencil, then with water to merge the soluble pencils into a 'solid' background. Again using an eraser to cut into this area, using the water to scourge back the colour and give it the harsh feeling of soil cut open.
As I look on it, I feel it should go on, but then not. I think, I would prefer to put it away and start again. Sky looks OK, but not brilliant, could do with some further work here, but what of the lost leaf, that I was trying to emphasise in this series.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Little Gems
I love going to the art galleries in the towns as you never know what you will find. Normally, there are a lot of Victorian paintings, sub PRB, but then tucked away. Some thing sparks your interest. When I visited Brighton recently, the gallery there had an exhibition called Paintings Unwrapped, which was a compare and contrast of paintings from the collection. It used paintings that could be described as minor pieces and used then to co-ordinate the audience's eye to uncover new ideas. Points that might be lost.
This was a wonderful way to use these paintings that are likely to be hidden in the vaults somewhere waiting to come out for display. Some times the pictures were war time realsim compared to classical Victorian melodrama. Yet just going into their is some thing waiting to be discovered, it might not necessarily spark interest in you, but it might be some one else who is inspireed.
This was a wonderful way to use these paintings that are likely to be hidden in the vaults somewhere waiting to come out for display. Some times the pictures were war time realsim compared to classical Victorian melodrama. Yet just going into their is some thing waiting to be discovered, it might not necessarily spark interest in you, but it might be some one else who is inspireed.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Fever
Yesterday, when I was in the library. I took out a copy of a book about the North Downs Way, that runs from Farnham to Canterbury, so see what I might find in the way of research. Richard Long has using walking as part of his sculptural performance (?) and I have my father's interest in the green roads that criss-cross the UK. So it occurred to me to go and walk following this route.
Then reading the introduction, there is a mention of Graham Sutherland, who I usually associate with west Wales. Again, half bits of memory stream out and I know he produced some Palmeresque images in the early 30's before he moved towards semi-abstraction. Some one else who I am reading about is Iain Sinclair and his walk around the M25 in his book called London Orbital. This kind of walk with the layers of history and mythology, obviously, appeals to me. So a walk along the North Downs Way again, is gaining ground. Realising that I can not do the whole thing in one go, so I can use the book to take little steps on this journey.
Thinking of it as a walk from left to right, I could see that a landscape book would be a good way to record the images and ideas that I saw. Taking small steps, I could split the book up in sections of the various walks that I could follow. The landscape format follows the route, but should I start at Farnham or Canterbury. Should I start inland to work my way towards the sea or go from the inside out, beginning in Canterbury to Farnham?
Each walk becomes an episode, do I need to structure it literally? One of the book I read using a splinter layered/fractured technique was Fugue for a Darkening Isle, which has a lot of flashbacks and is disjointed in the narrative. Maddeningly confusing, until you reach the end as you as the reader start to weave all the pieces together. Again, it does not really matter for my record. The journey can start anywhere, even the mid point and it might only need me to start where I start collecting my walks from.
The title of this blog is amalgam of Surrey, England and the Dreamtime from Australia, too opposite points. I have wondered if I could use classical Greek and Roman mythology similarly, yet we have the 18th century gardens that where created as an idea classical landscape. As a student, it was suggested to me that I should look at Claude's landscapes whom I was told, Turner greatly admired. Again, the BBC2 series' Chronicle, a TV history first popularised Rennes-Le-Chateau and its mysterious as well as introducing me to the painter Poussin. Secret codes hidden in pictures and sacred geometry, fascinating to a child.
In a lot of children's saying and games, we have the survival of some of the pagan past. When a cousin mentioned Jenny Greenteeth, an old cannibal that lived in some water lodges near home, I felt it was a surviving spirit transformed from a lost goddess to a weak demon on the fringes of the world kept alive by the thoughts and fear you have as child. So when I got the North Down Way book, I found another about children's games. As I have written about the link to Cricket, often minefield of rules and laws that have to be follow. It was another piece in the research that was firing me up.
So I bought a A3 (approx. 11 x 16" for those in imperial) landscape cased sketchbook, as this can give me a long thin piece of paper. It represents the journey across the country and giving me the room to add images in two across one page. Now I am itching to begin.....
Then reading the introduction, there is a mention of Graham Sutherland, who I usually associate with west Wales. Again, half bits of memory stream out and I know he produced some Palmeresque images in the early 30's before he moved towards semi-abstraction. Some one else who I am reading about is Iain Sinclair and his walk around the M25 in his book called London Orbital. This kind of walk with the layers of history and mythology, obviously, appeals to me. So a walk along the North Downs Way again, is gaining ground. Realising that I can not do the whole thing in one go, so I can use the book to take little steps on this journey.
Thinking of it as a walk from left to right, I could see that a landscape book would be a good way to record the images and ideas that I saw. Taking small steps, I could split the book up in sections of the various walks that I could follow. The landscape format follows the route, but should I start at Farnham or Canterbury. Should I start inland to work my way towards the sea or go from the inside out, beginning in Canterbury to Farnham?
Each walk becomes an episode, do I need to structure it literally? One of the book I read using a splinter layered/fractured technique was Fugue for a Darkening Isle, which has a lot of flashbacks and is disjointed in the narrative. Maddeningly confusing, until you reach the end as you as the reader start to weave all the pieces together. Again, it does not really matter for my record. The journey can start anywhere, even the mid point and it might only need me to start where I start collecting my walks from.
The title of this blog is amalgam of Surrey, England and the Dreamtime from Australia, too opposite points. I have wondered if I could use classical Greek and Roman mythology similarly, yet we have the 18th century gardens that where created as an idea classical landscape. As a student, it was suggested to me that I should look at Claude's landscapes whom I was told, Turner greatly admired. Again, the BBC2 series' Chronicle, a TV history first popularised Rennes-Le-Chateau and its mysterious as well as introducing me to the painter Poussin. Secret codes hidden in pictures and sacred geometry, fascinating to a child.
In a lot of children's saying and games, we have the survival of some of the pagan past. When a cousin mentioned Jenny Greenteeth, an old cannibal that lived in some water lodges near home, I felt it was a surviving spirit transformed from a lost goddess to a weak demon on the fringes of the world kept alive by the thoughts and fear you have as child. So when I got the North Down Way book, I found another about children's games. As I have written about the link to Cricket, often minefield of rules and laws that have to be follow. It was another piece in the research that was firing me up.
So I bought a A3 (approx. 11 x 16" for those in imperial) landscape cased sketchbook, as this can give me a long thin piece of paper. It represents the journey across the country and giving me the room to add images in two across one page. Now I am itching to begin.....
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Sowing the Seeds
Where do ideas come from. This note is about some ideas that have swirled around, but never come out in a coherent way, but with some planning might.
One of my favourite Peter Greenaway's films is Drowning by Numbers. The idea of a count through the pictures reminds me of turning the pages in the book as you read through the story, yet you don't see them until you look at where you are in the book to stop or want to say where you are in the story without spoiling it for someone else. It must have been the first film of Greenaway's I saw, having missed the earlier ones of A Draughtsman's Contract and Zed and Two Noughts.
In a sequence of panels, you see numbers linking the frames one to another, but in a film. You should watch a film as a straight story, but when I saw this if taught me some thing. That you could add elements to the image and suggest more, by developing layers. You look at the story, which is simple, but yet gets more complex has you review it or watch it again, but why watch it again. Greenaway's talks about how the photography on the film was devised to match 18th century painters such as Constable and Gainsborough.
Both of whom, I could say, at the time was not impressed with and the flatness of East Anglia counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. Constable's Haywain was from the area of Flatford mill, where I can remember a rowing bow trip down the river and an argumentative trip later to Aldeburgh on the coast. The film opened my eyes to their work and understanding of the paintings. When I read the book, Fear of Drowning that linked a lot of the story as a set of 100 pieces, this idea of overlaying a series of images strongly influenced. My series, the Dreams of Deucalion was based on the idea of walking through an alphabet.
I rather like the idea of including games and Drowning by Numbers have a series of games, which can be used to described the action that is happening in the film. Hangman's Cricket played on the beach with a multitude of players has always fascinated me. Cricket is the archetypal English game and has a long history throughout the ages. It laws had to be written early to allow everyone to agree on how to play and give results to the amount of betting that took place. George the third's father is supposed to have died, when a cricket ball hit his face and caused an abscess in his jaw.
So I was rather intrigued when I saw this article about how Cricket was imported by weavers from Flanders. What also stuck me was the comment about cricket near Guildford. How it links into the north downs and the Pilgrim's Way. This one runs from Winchester to Canterbury, and yet, there is another path that runs to Stonehenge and called the Harrow way. Again we have Chaucer's pilgrims leaving from London, so there are layers waiting to be explored.
Having been recently to St Martha's church near Albury. A small church that has probably existed since Saxon times on a hill dominating the countryside. Being a Saxon church, it might have been possibly a pagan place of worship and it is unusal for a church to be sighted on a hill. St Michael's on Glstonbury Tor is another chapel, only a tower reamins. This Church at Albury is on one of the stages of the North Downs way, a route that seeks to follow the old pilgrims way. If games can be called a metaphor for life, either you are a player, a winner or a loser or just some one to leave the table. There is a game which surrounds or affects you in some ways.
Again the article mention is made of the idea of using shepherd's crooks as bats to defend the wicket. The idea of the sheepfold reminds me of the Andy Goldsworthy, Sheepfold project, which if I will endeavour to visit on a journey up north. So I will start to look at walking the route to see what I can find and what might develop further.
All these ideas are swirling around inside of me, waiting to make the links and join in creating work. I wonder where I will go.........
One of my favourite Peter Greenaway's films is Drowning by Numbers. The idea of a count through the pictures reminds me of turning the pages in the book as you read through the story, yet you don't see them until you look at where you are in the book to stop or want to say where you are in the story without spoiling it for someone else. It must have been the first film of Greenaway's I saw, having missed the earlier ones of A Draughtsman's Contract and Zed and Two Noughts.
In a sequence of panels, you see numbers linking the frames one to another, but in a film. You should watch a film as a straight story, but when I saw this if taught me some thing. That you could add elements to the image and suggest more, by developing layers. You look at the story, which is simple, but yet gets more complex has you review it or watch it again, but why watch it again. Greenaway's talks about how the photography on the film was devised to match 18th century painters such as Constable and Gainsborough.
Both of whom, I could say, at the time was not impressed with and the flatness of East Anglia counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. Constable's Haywain was from the area of Flatford mill, where I can remember a rowing bow trip down the river and an argumentative trip later to Aldeburgh on the coast. The film opened my eyes to their work and understanding of the paintings. When I read the book, Fear of Drowning that linked a lot of the story as a set of 100 pieces, this idea of overlaying a series of images strongly influenced. My series, the Dreams of Deucalion was based on the idea of walking through an alphabet.
I rather like the idea of including games and Drowning by Numbers have a series of games, which can be used to described the action that is happening in the film. Hangman's Cricket played on the beach with a multitude of players has always fascinated me. Cricket is the archetypal English game and has a long history throughout the ages. It laws had to be written early to allow everyone to agree on how to play and give results to the amount of betting that took place. George the third's father is supposed to have died, when a cricket ball hit his face and caused an abscess in his jaw.
So I was rather intrigued when I saw this article about how Cricket was imported by weavers from Flanders. What also stuck me was the comment about cricket near Guildford. How it links into the north downs and the Pilgrim's Way. This one runs from Winchester to Canterbury, and yet, there is another path that runs to Stonehenge and called the Harrow way. Again we have Chaucer's pilgrims leaving from London, so there are layers waiting to be explored.
Having been recently to St Martha's church near Albury. A small church that has probably existed since Saxon times on a hill dominating the countryside. Being a Saxon church, it might have been possibly a pagan place of worship and it is unusal for a church to be sighted on a hill. St Michael's on Glstonbury Tor is another chapel, only a tower reamins. This Church at Albury is on one of the stages of the North Downs way, a route that seeks to follow the old pilgrims way. If games can be called a metaphor for life, either you are a player, a winner or a loser or just some one to leave the table. There is a game which surrounds or affects you in some ways.
Again the article mention is made of the idea of using shepherd's crooks as bats to defend the wicket. The idea of the sheepfold reminds me of the Andy Goldsworthy, Sheepfold project, which if I will endeavour to visit on a journey up north. So I will start to look at walking the route to see what I can find and what might develop further.
All these ideas are swirling around inside of me, waiting to make the links and join in creating work. I wonder where I will go.........
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Who is Watching?
The day is nearly upon us as the Watchmen film arrives in the cinema. I feel a lot of trepidation in waiting to see this film as we doubtless about to be swamped with a lot hype. There is a tendency to forget how despised comics were before the break through of the Watchmen, Dark Knight, Hernandez Brothers' Love & Rockets and Maus. We have had Batman done twice from Miller's Dark Knight, but all the Alan Moore projects have proved 'too comprised' to the graphic format.
League of Extradordinary Gentlemen was hideous. From Hell didn't have the time to do justice to layers of the story. One of the best bits was when Gull rode round the London explaining the psychogeography to his accomplice. V for Vendetta was a terrible ending and the fight scene, why oh why.
The Watchmen is part of my history as I was there at the British Comic con, where Messrs Moore and Gibbons talked about the beginnings of the Watchmen and some of the up & coming story lines. One of the issues to look out was the Rorschach origin, which has identical panels from the centre pages (like a rorschach card) or the fantastic colouring, where a lamp's strobe effect lights and then darkens the next panel, before lighting up in the next. These little touches with great design and layout, alongside Alan's writing and dense plotting, made it truly great at the time as still does.
There are points in history that seem so strange looking back and although they can be described as epic changing, you sometimes wonder what all the fuss was about or why should that personage be so special. I find it difficult to describe the waiting for the next issue or the twists and turns of the story. It was like the serialisations of Dicken's work and the ships bringing the news of Little Nell (from the Old Curiosity Shop) to the States as readers waited to find out the next part of the story.
At the time, the comics audience (in the UK/USA, I should say) were waiting the great leap forward, but I think we have seen incremental increases over the period (of 20 years) and most shops have a graphic novel section. My libraries have a section as well and I can remember the thrill of finding it there for the first time. Although, I still have arguments with my family over the validity of comics and how it is 'not real art or childish'. One of the few things that will press the red button and stand well back.
Can the Watchmen be unwound from its comics beginnings and be re-imagined for a different auidence without unsettling the original fans? I think we will have just to wait and see.
League of Extradordinary Gentlemen was hideous. From Hell didn't have the time to do justice to layers of the story. One of the best bits was when Gull rode round the London explaining the psychogeography to his accomplice. V for Vendetta was a terrible ending and the fight scene, why oh why.
The Watchmen is part of my history as I was there at the British Comic con, where Messrs Moore and Gibbons talked about the beginnings of the Watchmen and some of the up & coming story lines. One of the issues to look out was the Rorschach origin, which has identical panels from the centre pages (like a rorschach card) or the fantastic colouring, where a lamp's strobe effect lights and then darkens the next panel, before lighting up in the next. These little touches with great design and layout, alongside Alan's writing and dense plotting, made it truly great at the time as still does.
There are points in history that seem so strange looking back and although they can be described as epic changing, you sometimes wonder what all the fuss was about or why should that personage be so special. I find it difficult to describe the waiting for the next issue or the twists and turns of the story. It was like the serialisations of Dicken's work and the ships bringing the news of Little Nell (from the Old Curiosity Shop) to the States as readers waited to find out the next part of the story.
At the time, the comics audience (in the UK/USA, I should say) were waiting the great leap forward, but I think we have seen incremental increases over the period (of 20 years) and most shops have a graphic novel section. My libraries have a section as well and I can remember the thrill of finding it there for the first time. Although, I still have arguments with my family over the validity of comics and how it is 'not real art or childish'. One of the few things that will press the red button and stand well back.
Can the Watchmen be unwound from its comics beginnings and be re-imagined for a different auidence without unsettling the original fans? I think we will have just to wait and see.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
All in the Round
Recently, I have been to Wimbledon Art College's gallery. On display was work of a theatre designer, Richard Negri, who was active between 1952 to 1996. Although, I have worked in the theatre, when I was at Bolton art college and performed in the Kingsdown 250th celebratory community play in Bristol, The Nine Trees' Shade. This application for creativity and the arts, is something that I have never looked at closely. It is a specialised subject and in someways, I would see the play rather than the world it was set in.
The exhibition was pictures of the characters in the play and layout for set design. The style of how the characters would fit within an overall production was laid out across these portraits. Depending on the production it was 7 or 8, but on the larger production 20 or so characters. There were some small figurines that would be used for modelling on a miniature stage, allowing for the practical details to be worked out first.
One of the things, I found out was Mr Negri had designed the Royal Exchange theatre in Manchester. One of the most impressive and unusual theatres in the country. The theatre building was placed into an old Victorian building,
There were several marquette's showing the various ideas and designs of how the theatre should be laid out. What is unique in this professional theatre is that the stage is surrounded by the audience. There is no back drop, all the props and stage setting has to be brought in and laid out.
Richard Negri was shown on an audio-visual display talking about how he wanted to put actors
in the centre of the stage. This creates a seamless space between the audience and the actors, you feel as those you are part of the action. Even if you are looking down from the gallery seats, the audience is seeing a spot light on a scene and looking like gods down on the play.
Negri used the phrase, picture frame theatres having only been a 'recent' invention during the 18th century, whereas Greek, Medieval and Tudor-Stuart staging was usually in the round. The Globe theatre on the Thames, which every one should go too, if they get the chance to visit London. Standing in the 'pit' you are drawn into the action on to the stage jutting out into the audience.
The comment about a picture frame has started me thinking about the flat plane of an image and how by being included in the frame, your perception can change. The differences between pictures and sculpture, maybe a obvious comment and one that I should see, but sometimes as an artist you become wrapped up in your own views and need just the odd reminder to 'jump the tracks' now and again.
The exhibition was pictures of the characters in the play and layout for set design. The style of how the characters would fit within an overall production was laid out across these portraits. Depending on the production it was 7 or 8, but on the larger production 20 or so characters. There were some small figurines that would be used for modelling on a miniature stage, allowing for the practical details to be worked out first.
One of the things, I found out was Mr Negri had designed the Royal Exchange theatre in Manchester. One of the most impressive and unusual theatres in the country. The theatre building was placed into an old Victorian building,
There were several marquette's showing the various ideas and designs of how the theatre should be laid out. What is unique in this professional theatre is that the stage is surrounded by the audience. There is no back drop, all the props and stage setting has to be brought in and laid out.
Richard Negri was shown on an audio-visual display talking about how he wanted to put actors
in the centre of the stage. This creates a seamless space between the audience and the actors, you feel as those you are part of the action. Even if you are looking down from the gallery seats, the audience is seeing a spot light on a scene and looking like gods down on the play.
Negri used the phrase, picture frame theatres having only been a 'recent' invention during the 18th century, whereas Greek, Medieval and Tudor-Stuart staging was usually in the round. The Globe theatre on the Thames, which every one should go too, if they get the chance to visit London. Standing in the 'pit' you are drawn into the action on to the stage jutting out into the audience.
The comment about a picture frame has started me thinking about the flat plane of an image and how by being included in the frame, your perception can change. The differences between pictures and sculpture, maybe a obvious comment and one that I should see, but sometimes as an artist you become wrapped up in your own views and need just the odd reminder to 'jump the tracks' now and again.
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