binary

An awesomely geeky tattoo by Steve Losh.

The birds represent 1’s. The spaces represent 0’s. The arrangement of birds on the wires (with the flying bird) is:

01001101 01001111
01010110 01000101

Which means MOVE in binary (note for nerds: actually it translates to four numbers which represent those letters in the two most common text encodings [ASCII and UTF-8]). If the flying bird flies away, it changes to:

01001100 01001111
01010110 01000101

Which translates to LOVE.

i was born and not very much was said about it

'A Hind's Daughter' Sir James Guthrie

we're all mad here

Alice in Wonderland Trailer - Tim Burton from kevin powers on Vimeo.

Goosebumps. Actual goosebumps.
Mr Burton, please don't fail me!

saw death on a sunny snow

Gustave Caillebotte 'The Floor Strippers'
John Singer Sargent 'The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit'
Andrew Wyeth 'Christina's World'

And one of my all-time favourites:
Albrecht Altdorfer 'The Battle of Issus'

florence and the machine - girl with one eye

parasitic

'Why can't we have a bad news channel and a good news one.'

I lifted this from Dylan Moran's Twitter.
I'm not a big fan of Twitter, i think it's really quite inane and pointless but i've no problem with people using it to tell you what they had for breakfast, if they feel the need!
Anyhow, i was googling Mr Moran as i was watching 'How Do You Want Me?' last night and was curious to know just how old he was when he made it (27), he looked just a baby!
I came across his Twitter on the way and in one of his posts he had stated the above quote. I couldn't agree more.
It's a known fact in my house that i hate the news. Loathe it in fact. I hate the way it's spun and how exploitative it is. I hate newsreaders and that little gleam of excitement they get when something tragic happens. They went full blown giddy when 9/11 happened and i find it all fairly sickening.
But in relation to Mr Moran, it's the fact that all we ever get is doom and gloom. Yes, crappy things happen but good things too. Why can't we hear about those?
The happiest thing i've seen in the news lately were the ducks in America, being caught as they jumped from the lower part of a building!
That was pretty neat though.

I need to find a decent paper to read.

no dawn, no day

Very scruffy silverpoint.
I was fully intending to draw the larger portrait precisely and shade it to an inch of its life but i put too thin a layer of gesso in my sketchbook. Stupid me.
I really do need a generous amount of gesso to get the darkest of darks, otherwise my drawings take on a monotone effect and i dislike it intensely. Tonal variation is the key!
Oh well, i've a few pre-gessoed pieces of A2 card that i can work on and hopefully get the results i'm used to.
Although if someone could inform me of how to get the gesso smooth, without those sometimes useful but mostly annoying grooves, i'd be ever so appreciative.

This was lovely:

florence and the machine - cosmic love

howl

My anthem
I feel i should have this imprinted somewhere

florence and the machine - drumming song

quintessence

I long for front porches and dusky fields.
I wish to live like an american hermit, it would seem.

blue notebooks

Some of the crap i fill my sketchbooks with:
Sometimes, when my brain collapses, i draw tiny flocks of birds. I drew them on a voting ballot once.
'Do not buy either the moon or the news, for in the end they will both come out.'
An Arabic proverb in Russian. Bad Russian. Don't ask.
A seriously quick portrait from a Jordi Gual photograph. Eyes so dark they lack the pupil are difficult. But it's growing on me.

watching: the secret life of us