Up There

I saw this amazing little film posted over on the Analogue Books blog earlier today and I thought I'd post it up here to share it around some more.

Up There by Malcolm Murray documents the dying art of hand-painted advertising in New York. Half balls-out burly labour, half skilled craft - these guys do some job.

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Headless

This was a little thing for Illustration Friday that never really went anywhere. The topic was 'ahead'. I didn't have the time to finish any of my ideas so I'm sitting it out this week. Ah well.

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New Camcorder

I've recently gotten hold of a new HD camcorder thanks to my friend Emma. I've been kicking around some ideas for a long time that would require one and, after much deliberation, I finally took the plunge.

Before I get to producing anything y'know, good with it, I've got to get the hang of actually using the damn thing, hence the above video. Rather than being all precious and secretive, I've decided to just keep filming and uploading any old stuff as practice. What did I film first? Well, just whatever bits & bobs were lying around the room. The shots that don't wobble look hella like photos, which is pretty awesome. The footage is maybe a little dark / dull though. I expect I'll be able to get way nicer stuff when I work out what the hell I'm doing.

I chucked in some music from The Clangers and, in combination with the constant zooming, it's made the video look like a cheesy screensaver. Hmm. Baby steps.

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What I Wore Today 8

Another drawing for the What I Wore Today (in drawings) Flickr group. It's slightly different to the other ones, not much mind you, but a little. I think that since I seem to be on a weekly jag with these things, I should try to experiment with different styles and techniques every time I do one. Hell, I practically wear the same bloody clothes every day so I gotta find something new to do.

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Girl Skateboards

Hello! Sorry to hit you with a blank page, but this blog post has moved to my new website. You can view it over here: Girl Skateboards: Modern Chair Series.

It features a lovely graphic recreation of the first pro skateboard I ever owned.

Old Camera

This old camera belonged to my gran. It sits on my shelf in a little leather case. I can't remember ever seeing it in her house and I can't remember it being given to me. It just arrived there. I imagine it took a lot of the photos I've seen of my mum, my aunt and my uncle. I don't know if it still works. If it does, I don't know how.

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Garage Door

Sometimes you just draw a garage door.

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What I Wore Today 7

Today, for What I Wore Today (in drawings) I decided to try out something a little different than my previous silly entries - tracing!

Ever since being taught at school that tracing was a very bad way of learning how to draw, I've left well alone. I always viewed it as a bit of a cop-out. Not quite cheating, just kinda being a bit lazy. Recently, however, I've been really loving a lot of work that uses tracing. It has this great mixture of reality and wonkiness that can be really odd and interesting.

So, I had a little go. It's not quite what I was after, but I kinda like it. As with anything (like magic or dynamite), it can be used for good or evil and it's something I intend to explore more thoroughly. I guess tracing it a bit more of a slippery slope than some other techniques in that, should you rely on it too much, you're gonna screw up your brain. It is the cocaine of the drawing world.

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Umbrella Head

I'm always meaning to post more about work by other people. And, as with lots of things I'm meaning to do, I hardly ever get round to actually doing it. Well today I've gotten round to it. I've gotten right bloody round.

This work is by Sam Caldwell, a young artist from Bolton who goes by the name of Umbrella Head. I actually discovered Sam's (Head's?) art through the comments section of my blog and after I had a dig about his site, I was totally hyped on his work. Look at it!

Man he can conjure up atmosphere in spades. A real sense of life plodding along through some impending doom. That's what I get from it anyway. Maybe it's the weather - even in some of Sam's lighter pieces there's a heavy British sky pressing down on procedings or a cold and choppy sea crashing away in the background.

Vic Reeves' artwork comes to mind (in a good way) as does Lizzy Stewart's (also in a good way). Sam is only 19 or something ridiculous like that so you can tell he's really gonna be killing it in a couple of years. Check out his website. Oh, I just noticed he has a band too, I'll have a listen.

As a wee aside - I've been playing about with the image sizes for this post. If they're not displaying properly can someone let me know? Also, I love discovering new stuff - I always check out the work of people who comment here, so feel free to go crazy. Not that I can guarantee amazing levels of traffic or anything but someone might see it.

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Spring Cleaning

You may or may not have noticed that my blog is looking a little different. I took some time to simplify the design today.

The old layout was getting pretty busy and, well, ugly. There were columns and links everywhere that, over time, had become more distracting than useful. It looked like a freakin' newspaper! So, with the recent launch of my website (still in it's early days), I decided this old blog could stand to lose a few things.

So, here we go. Very white, very simple. Very boring perhaps? Ah, who knows. I still need to play around with it some more. Maybe a little colour or a banner. What's important is that the focus is much more squarely on the pictures and the writing and not on all the information about following me on Twitter.

Incidentally, follow me on Twitter.

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Self-Portrait With Double-Chin

For the third day in a row, the sun is shining. It's beautiful outside. Birds are singing, bees are buzzing.

Having missed out on 99% of the sunshine over the weekend because of work, I've decided that today, I'm going outside. I'm going to play on my skateboard like a child. I might even buy a nice ice-cream (a nice-cream). To alleviate some of my guilt about taking an afternoon off to fanny about, I set myself a couple of simple tasks. The first was rather dull and email based (completed in record time!), the second was to draw a little picture for my blog.

So, there we go. A self-portrait with a double-chin.

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Virgin Mary

This photo was just posted on a messageboard I read. A dude heard about someone in his town building a hella-intense statue of the Virgin Mary in his garden, so he hunted it out and took a picture. That's all the information I have (or want, to be honest). Look at that thing!

People are awesome. Amen.

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A Narrative of Montage

This is a little late notice but it's worth a mention anyway. Over the past couple of days, I've been helping out at the Changing Room preparing the new exhibition A Narrative of Montage by The Fruitbasket Collective and Mike Chavez-Dawson.

The gallery is looking really good. It's a bit of a departure for the Changing Room, much more crazy and colourful than some previous shows. I knew very little about The Fruitbasket Collective before helping out, they've got a pretty neat surrealist / outsider art thing going on. I managed to find a snap of one of the pieces from A Narritive of Montage, check it:
That's a massive oil painting by Fruitbasket's main man, Jean-Pierre Lapeyre, titled Self Portrait as the Imprisioned. He's got a bunch of similar stuff alongside comics, sculptures and prints. His wife, Caroline Mackenzie Lapeyre exhibits some beautiful drawings and Mike Chavez-Dawson has some really cool laser-etched pieces.

The best thing is, Lapeyre also has a whole performance-art thing going on as his alter ego 'Jack The Hard Worker'. You can't beat a guy who'll paint himself blue and do some ironing in front of a crowd:
I'm reliably informed that he's gonna be psyching himself up for an appearance as 'Jack' tonight at the opening. Man, that's what you want from an art show - a dude jumping about in facepaint with a jumper on! I can't wait.

If you can make it to Stirling tonight, drop by, have a little drink and check out the show. Say hello. If not, it'll be up over the next month or so. As far as I know, JP plans to perform nearer the start of the night than the end, so move your bum. Here are the full details:

A Narrative of Montage
The Fruitbasket Collective and Mike Chavez-Dawson
-
Show runs: 10th April - 22nd May
Private view: Friday 9th April, 7-9pm. All welcome
-
The Changing Room
Tolbooth
Stirling
FK8 1DE
01786 274005

ps. if any of that sounded a bit sarcastic, I don't mean to be. I'm all for people going full-on. The wildest I get is perhaps doing a drawing with a little hat on.

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Dip

I've been slacking a little bit in my posting recently. Thankfully this is because I've been really busy working on a few exciting things rather than playing computer games. Hopefully next week I'll have a little more time to pay more attention to this old blog.

The above image is for Illustration Friday, the topic being 'dip'. It's a pretty literal interpretation but I'm pretty happy with it. I'd doodled the idea at the start of the week and began to worry I wouldn't have time to draw it properly. I found a little hour this morning to put it together.

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7 Cornflakes

Another little snap from How Children Learn, my show with RueFive at the Changing Room in Stirling. Click for big. Seven painted stone cornflakes from various driveways around town. Along with my bowl sculpture, people kept picking these up to have a closer look. While one one hand that's pretty flattering, on the other - what the hell? When did that become ok? Scoundrels! Better invest in some please-do-not-touch signs next time.

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A New Website

I've just done something I've been meaning to do for a while now. I've went and built myself a real website! Now, it's still very much in it's infancy and, like a stupid little kid, it's a bit simple. But hopefully over the next wee while I'll work away at it, give it a bit more personality and fill it up with new pictures.

I made the decision while re-jigging the artwork page on this blog. There's just too much stuff going on here. For someone new to my work, it's probably a little off-putting if the first thing they see is muggins photoshopping himself fat or posting extracts from a dumb book. Things needed changing - a little website for artwork and a blog for day-to-day stuff. This doesn't mean there'll be much difference here, content-wise, I'll still post all my new drawings and things, but maybe having the site will let me de-clutter good old bloggins a bit.

So, please visit davidgalletly.com - stick it in your bookmarks and check it out from time to time. It was built using the fantastic indexhibit. Any new stuff, announcements and updates will be posted here so if you'd like to keep track in your feed-reader of choice, subscribe away. I love you.

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