1st Lancashire Zine, Artist's Books & MUltiples Fair 2010

Yee Ting Kuit — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:18:23 -0600

It's at UCLAN in Preston. I'll be manning a stall there on Friday from 10am til 5pm so drop by and say hello if you're in the area. I'll also be offering free advice & mini pearls of my wisdom - if you want it! :)

Some New Year advice

Dave Bain — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 05:29:55 -0600

I was recently asked to write a few words about my work for a local zine and ended it with a few bits of advice:

- Stick to deadlines and keep in constant communication with the client.

- Always consider every opportunity, as you never know what it could lead to.

- Don't undersell yourself, as you've got a unique gift and people should respect that.

- Try and have fun, even if your working on a brief which isn't tremendously exciting!

- Make time for yourself and for your friends... sometimes going to a gig or reading a book can refocus your head before getting stuck back into a project.

In other news, I recently did this little drawing for a friend's new zine called COLLARBONE, which is out this Spring.

Drawing Live

Dave Bain — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:06:30 -0600

DRAWN RECORDINGS is an exciting night that happens in Bristol and Simon Mills and I have been doing some live drawing at a few of these nights. There is a time lapse video here (or click onto my Facebook page), which is quite fun to watch. On the most recent night the very amiable and talented Ben Steers joined in too. Working on all parts of the paper together we created a mountain of doodles and characters topped off by a conquering flag adorned with the DRAWN logo. Fun!

Shop News!!!

Yee Ting Kuit — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:31:32 -0600

From now until Christmas, you can get FREE SHIPPING on everything in my online shop! You can find it here! I've got lots more to add to the shop so keep checking back for updates! Cheers now :)

Haiku book

Barnaby Richards — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 08:59:52 -0500

I am illustrating a collection of haiku by friend and poet Hamish Ironside. At present I am uncertain as to whether the work I am generating is preparatory or finished. It feels like a distraction to worry either way, though. I’m pleased with the freshness of the drawing. I had begun working on this project a few months ago and stupidly didn’t finish it in one deliberate swoop. So now I find myself ambling around pictures which already seem consigned to history, tracing new thoughts over old ones. In all honesty, this is not such bad practice. It feels good working in tandem with a younger self, realising where he went wrong and where I could learn…

Here’s one new drawing and I’ll leave it at that.

Osmi

Barnaby Richards — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:29:13 -0500

Osmi thumbnails

I was flattered to be asked by John Stanbury to draw an A3 sized piece of advice in the form of a comic, for this year’s batch of posters. You can see the finished design here.

One of the things that concerned me was to produce something which was an interesting picture as well as something to be read. I imagined an altarpiece with a large central panel, and a kind of predella on the bottom to contain a short dialogue. I don’t know when the idea of the hand struck me exactly, but no doubt I was looking for an interesting shape which could be invested with an appropriate meaning. Thinking of altarpieces definitely led to the shape of that central panel. Why such a wintry scene when I was drawing Osmi in August? The jury on that one is out, although Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes both released pretty wintry music which I was listening to at this time.

A mixture of these aesthetic and symbolic concerns inspired me to create the story, such as it is, although perhaps ‘moment’ or ‘fragment’ would be a better description. I suppose what interests me most in comics is the picturing of another world, interesting characters and witnessing significant and/or unusual events. Plotting in its own right has never been a big concern of mine, except that a sequence of events MUST reveal themselves in an interesting and revealing way. I like mystery and am more interested in the poetry of a scene and its implied narrative, rather than things which are too fixed and too literal.

On reflection, there are things about Osmi which I’m not totally happy with. As a comic it works well enough, but I think that the altarpiece idea has not been fully developed. Consequently, it doesn’t entirely hold-up as a single picture. No worries. I want to develop this altarpiece idea, and develop a visual story telling method totally separate from the ‘graphic novel’ formula. A kind of comic poetry, liberated from the book, floating over tables and placed on walls. Hmmm.

As for my comic’s message, well… I hope very little needs to be said. I suppose I’ve always felt a strong sense of creative isolation. The snowy landscape kind of reflects that. Often a picture feels like an open letter: “Hello! This is me. What do you think? What are YOU up to?” Referring particularly to Osmi’s hand I suppose it would be a trifle pessimistic to quote from Stevie Smith’s ‘Not Waving but Drowning’ poem but heck! if I was going to do that I guess that a lot of you would know what I mean?

Many thanks to John for giving me the opportunity to create Osmi and the journey it has set me on… and HAPPY BIRTHDAY today too