thantophobia

It's not quite right but i'm getting there. The problem with such dark eyes as these is they lose all detail, the eye becomes a midnight black void and that verges on cartoony. Not good and usually i can avoid it but my skills are still fairly rusty. Excuses excuses. I just suck right now and the pupil/iris is far too big!

The reason for the baby eyes (which i never finish it would seem), is that i am in the midst of researching children's feelings towards shuffling off this mortal coil. Not easy to find out, may i add. It's all to do with my project on the moment of death using deconstructive portraiture to somehow portray it - an almost impossible feat, but one i continue to pursue.
What i'm trying to do is create the details of somebody, the features that make up a history and make them precise but then fade them away/block them from view. Sometimes aggressively, sometimes gently. Who knows, but i wanted to use children to begin with because there's a potential history there, a clean slate which makes them look almost serene. Y'know babies, when they're happy they're really happy. They've got no conscious constraint on their feelings. They're honest. Yes, honest, that's what it took me a paragraph to say. I suck.
Thus why i am trying desperately to get my pernickety attention to detail back as soon as possible. Otherwise, my tutor may scowl at me and i don't want her to, she's such a lovely American lady.

I'd forgotten how much i like being on buses, with tunes and a good book. Alone time. I forgot to buy The Edukators though. Idiot.

arthur russell - this is how we walk on the moon

jedes herz ist eine revolutionäre zelle

"Every heart is a revolutionary cell"

Have you ever felt better for having seen a film?
Every now and then i get to.
I've been trying to see The Edukators for at least 3 years now and i really wasn't let down last night when i finally did. Bless film 4 and its rare showings of fantastic films. I was absolutely knackered and really considered missing out on it but after five minutes i was pretty much done for. It has reaffirmed my love of German cinema (FOPP, how i miss your collection!), now to buy it and more filmic wonders featuring Daniel Bruhl. Goodbye Lenin! was the origin of my adoration and already sits in my shelves along with The Bourne Ultimatum.

On October 9th, his latest film Krabat will be released in Germany and it fills me with geeky glee to know it'll be out there. If you have a love of world cinema and fantasy, i recommend you seek this out.

You can see the trailer for it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNaZICIRw04
But a better quality version can be found here, however without subtitles: http://www.krabat-blog.de/blog/trailer/

Now i'm itching to buy more foreign films, dammit.

I should have some new work for here soon, just trying to remember how to draw people in the mean time. Someone kick my arse next Summer and make me work please?

ben e. king - stand by me

insect lab

Mike Libby's creations.

Beautiful or cruel?

Guillermo Del Toro would absolutely adore them, i'm sure.

watching: the book group

homemovies

Works by Gottfried Helnwein. Quite possibly my new hero.
Most of my day was full of this wonderful man and his photo-real, thoughtful and intellectual images. Just the combination i have been searching for and until now, ceased to discover. If i can get my work to be even a millimetre close to Helnwein's, then this year of university will take me just that bit closer to my current goal, which is almost exactly the same as the man's in question.
I don't think i've enjoyed research this much since Francis Bacon or Max Beckmann. Last year's sketchbook work was way too morbid to 'enjoy', i learnt a hell of a lot about the deceased though...
I like this part of studying. Filling my sketchbooks with anecdotes, theories, facts, images, quotes, poetry, lyrics, sketches and random crap that has nothing to do with my project. It's great to look back on and use again.

One of my favourite things occurred today. When two things combine and become influential on my memory and enjoyment by complete coincidence. It happened with DBC Pierre's Vernon God Little and Sufjan Steven's Illinoise, i refuse to read Vernon without Sufjan. And now it has happened with Gottfried Helnwein and Kings of Leon's Only By The Night - which i have played so much today it has risen from 8th place in my most listened to bands on last.fm, to 2nd place =]
I used to love this band but now, now i love this band. People who are whinging about how they've lost their raw edge...wheesht. Just wheesht. Shut up and enjoy the fucking beauty.

kings of leon - notion

i've been roaming around

Studio K, Marcos Rey aka piel de papal, Denis Peterson, Mircea Suciu, Sarah Ferrick's illustration for Josh Tierney's story, The Light in Glass Flowers

These are just a few of the artworks that have been giving me envy pangs lately.
I'm all for hyperrealism being just a skill thing but what a mindblowing skill. Denis Peterson and Marcos Rey put me to shame. Do, however, have a look at Marcos Rey's website in particular, it's one of the nicest i've seen in a long time.

Third year is looking to be not too shabby, even though i had a near fit at some of the stupid things they're asking us to partake in but altogether not too shabby, indeed.
And finally, a tutor that gets what i'm talking about and isn't obsessed with painting! Ace.

kings of leon - use somebody

rattling bones

"Remember the light and believe the light, an instant of clarity before eternal night."

- The Tibetan Book of the Dead

Zane: Sex On Fire, it's a bold title!?
Caleb: Yeah, bold title. You know, we're getting so old we try to make people think we still have the sex drives that we did from years passed.
Zane: You're just trying to make up for all the unbridled honesty on the second record man, you're just like, you know, after a song like Soft you've gotta come out with Sex On Fire, you've gotta redeem yourselves man!
Caleb: Yeah, you know, I mean I think a lot of people expect a certain element of sex to our music and just kinda wanted to wrap it all up in the one song. There's appearances of sex throughout the record but this is the most blatant I would say...It just came from a melody I kinda wrote when I was at home kinda recovering from surgery and I knew the melody but I didn't know what I was gonna say and so we were in rehearsal one day, and i said "Your sex is on fire" and I thought it was absolutely ridiculous but the other guys thought it was a hook and I was like "Come on, man, I'm gonna have to be singing about someone's fiery sex for years man, thanks!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lELj_dO7OPs&NR=1
They get more love from me than most of my treasured bands
Loveable hick music magicians

Here now

anberlin - a day late

wake the earth

I actually cannot wait! =]

A few things that made me happy today:

One. Jools Holland is back!
Two. Colin Murray's last.fm
Three. The Black Keys covering Captain Beefheart

scott matthews - passing stranger

delivery

I do believe i have found a new favourite thing and that is the delivery of books. Books i want and need to further my fictitious knowledge.
These are the lovely three that the postie who thinks i have an online ordering problem delivered this morning. It caused a happy feeling, a happier feeling than when i get the usual cds/dvds/clothes - i really do have an online ordering problem. Bless the 21st birthday present receiving.
Anyway, book receiving. I like. I like book stores more but those old dark and dusty ones that are so lacking in Scotland.

Speaking of deliveries, i got The Company of Wolves in the post also. It's just as camp and pretty as i remember. If i was allowed loose on a film set, that's the kind i would do. All dark and tangled. Second to Labyrinth, oh and Pan's Labyrinth. Anything that involves fantasy and trees really.

kings of leon - sex on fire

digitalis purpurea

A 'Thank you' card i made for the relatives who were nice enough to send me presents for my 21st.
It took me a stupid amount of time because i'm obsessive compulsive when it comes to detail, especially when using fineliners. Plus, i kept on getting distracted =] I suck.
But it's done and i don't completely hate foxgloves now. I'd call that successful.
I would have drawn them all but there was a significant chance it would take me until my 22nd birthday aka my third 20th. I liked being 20.

"I believe in loyalty. When a woman reaches an age she likes, she should stick to it."

- Eva Gabor

Uni starts on Monday. My reading has already started waning. Unfair.

elbow - one day like this

the fleet

I would like to introduce you to the March of the Many Coloured Birds. They crippled my fingers and were almost squished by Godzilla, also known as Dizzy, my extremely rain-soaked cat.
My sister and I (the rest of the Boyd clan joined in later) spent half the day making these little fluttery creatures for the window of my Dad's Practice. I think we made over a hundred and the origami joy will continue into tomorrow.
So, being the family that we are, whilst making them we concocted a fairly ridiculous story that involved the Cranes and Chinguins at war over the Golden Crane. We don't know why, they just had to have it. There was pecking and wing slapping and for some reason a crane orgy right in the middle. Birds do the strangest things. And all through the mayhem, the Neon Swans lit up the scene so no mutant Crane/Chinguins were conceived. Terrible stuff, who knows what'll happen tomorrow. Perhaps a new bird, a fortress, a frog!
Fun fun fun =]
The Chinguin pattern has burnt itself into my brain, i mean to make swans and out of nowhere appears a Chinguin! Evil little crossbreeds.

Elbow got the Mercury Music Prize! Ace =]

rogue wave - eyes

red sky at night

It smells like Halloween outside =]

people press play - these days (Dntel Instrumental remix)

happy hunting

My birthday gift. Amazing. Truly amazing
My rentals looked at me funny when i proclaimed that i love the sound they produce. Infamously known for crackling and buzzing, turntables aren't the most clear sounding machines...but i love 'em.
Nostalgia junkie. That's what i am.
So i've spent the last week, listening and trying desperately not to scratch/fingerprint/break the small number of LPs i nabbed from my parent's collection in the loft, plus a few extras. Biffy Clyro Mountains on vinyl...oh so nice. The Blue Nile on vinyl...OH SO NICE!
I will be raiding Grouchos as soon as i get back to uni, which is becoming ever closer.
Bleurgh, 7am starts. An ungodly hour. Truly.

Few books read since the last entry:
A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov - i don't know if i was missing something but it was the most tedious and unrewarding 157 pages i have ever read. Yuck
The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky - Lovely. A twist i wasn't expecting and that's always welcome. More people should write letters.
The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks - It goes down as one of my favourite reads, even if it deeply unsettles me. Awesome turn of events at the end. Read this one please.
And just now i am in the midst of Paul Auster's Mr Vertigo. I couldn't tell you how i feel about it yet, i'm only 60 pages in.

Other news. I have no other news. Just something that made me laugh:

nalband - always assuming