Materialising Hills

This morning I woke up to on-and-off heavy snow showers and spent a good while running around with my camera taking little videos. I noticed that the hills in the distance (the Campsie Fells) would vanish and reappear really quickly whenever the clouds rolled by. The next time I spotted a hint of blue sky, I pointed the camera in their direction and hoped they'd materialise from the gloom.

I got lucky! If I'd started maybe 30 seconds earlier then the hills would have been completely invisible at the beginning of this clip. Ah well, nevermind. I took my first foray into the mysterious world of After-Effects to speed this clip up to double time - the original just took a little too long to expect anyone to sit through it. I like clicking back and forward to see how much the view changes in such a short space of time.

Music is 'King Creosote's Wineglass Symphony' from the album 'Concubine Rice' by Lone Pigeon.

Here comes December..

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Carolyn Alexander

Carolyn Alexander is one of my very favourite contemporaries*. A Scottish illustrator living up a big mountain in France who draws brilliantly sweary figures and self-portraits. Carolyn's work always makes me laugh - there's an effortless wit to her style and use of language that really stands out amongst the other stuff out there in illustratorland. Her drawings are funny without resorting to cutesyness or geeky pop-culture nods & winks, personal without getting sentimental or twee and proudly Scottish without ramming 'hilarious' slang down your neck. Makes me sick.

Amongst many things worth mentioning, there's: Carolyn Alexander Is Giving Up Smoking (a blog full of drawings made as cigarette substitutes), Haughty Bitches (a book of girls telling you to piss off), frequent attempts to learn French and Carolyn's amazing contributions to the what-I-wore-today 'thing' (best face captions going).


If that's not enough, she's recently set up a Facebook page, her website has just been overhauled and her blog is very good. If you're on twitter, follow @ocarolina too. Jesus, this is why I don't write about people more often - posting all these links makes you feel like a right creeper. It's a bit like discovering someone you occasionally nod 'hello' to has a tattoo of your face on their back.

Carolyn is also currently hosting a giveaway - if you enter before December the 1st you can win an original drawing - check out the details here.
The plan is to do a few more posts about other people this week. So, if you've not subscribed already, please do and I'll try my very best to point you towards some stuff I think is good. As always, any links, retweets, mentions or comments are very much appreciated.

* bit wary of that word. Apart from sounding wank - it, dunno, implies a lot doesn't it?

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Kid Canaveral's Christmas Baubles

Here's a quick poster I've made for the fantastic Kid Canaveral and their Christmas party / gig / event type thing, Kid Canaveral's Christmas Baubles. Really chuffed to have been asked to do this - I've seen KC (and a bunch of the other bands on the lineup) a good few times over the years at various Fence things and I'm a big fan. I'd thoroughly recommend getting a copy of their recent Shouting at Wildlife record, it's top of the pops.

As far as the poster is concerned, I had a wee false start with this one and completely changed direction at the last minute. The mashed-up Radio Times Christmas listings is my, very British, nod to Art Chantry, who I'm a great fan of. I'm gathering quite a collection of really weird vintage clip-art these days.

Anyway, the gig will kick off at 2pm at The Lot in Edinburgh on Saturday 18th December. If you can make it, you definitely should. Great music, great food, great fun. Great! Thanks to Kate from Kid Canaveral for getting me on board. Here are the full details for easy reading and for the old search engines:

Kid Canaveral's Christmas Baubles
What?: A festive party with live music
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Where?: The Lot, Grassmarket, Edinburgh, EH1 2JU
When?: Saturday, 18th December from 2pm
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Who?: Ballboy, King Creosote (solo), Kid Canaveral, Come On Gang! Cancel the Astronauts, The Last Battle and Gummi Bako + Song, By Toad & Straight to Video DJs
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How?: For tickets, visit kidcanaveral.co.uk or nip in to Avalanche Records in Edinburgh.

If this sounds like it's up your street (or up the street of people you know), give it a mention wherever you can. That would be magic. Christmas is really creeping up, eh? Jesus Christ.

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Recoat Bonus Aisle

Wait, what? It's that time of year again? Get outta here! Damn. Once again, as Christmas approaches, it's time for Recoat in Glasgow to launch its brilliant little discount art show. Bonus Aisle is your chance to get hold of some work on the cheap and it opens this week.

I'm really happy to have been asked again to submit work. I've got about 6 drawings in the show, all at a wildly reduced price. The way Recoat work their Christmas shows is by assigning each wall (there are 4) a price (there are 4) and everything on said walls goes for said price. This means for either £25, £50, £75 or £100, you're gonna get something good. I've tried to keep my prices way down so if you're interested in owning something, I've two drawings going for £25, two for £50 and two for £75. Visit the gallery or their online shop once the show opens to get your mitts on them.

Not keen on my work? I don't blame you. Have no fear, there will be original work, prints and other goodies from the names on the flyer (and more). Amy and Ali at Recoat always completely PACK the walls with stuff so you're sure to find something good. It does sell fast though, so don't hesitate or you might miss out on a real bargain.

Bonus Aisle
Recoat's end-of-year special
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Show runs: November 13th - December 22nd, 2010
Opening party: Friday, 12th November, 7-10pm all welcome
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Recoat
323 North Woodside Road,
Glasgow
G20 6RY

So aye, come along to the opening party this Friday from 7pm. Say hello, drink some free drink and have a look at some work by artists local and not-so-local. I'll be there for a bit and then I'll go to my bed. Please tweet / blog about this if you can, thanks. See you later.

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The List: Glasgow

Click the above image (or click here) for the full image of Glasgow I put together for The List's Student Guide magazine a few months back. This, along with the drawing of Edinburgh I posted previously, accompanied some nice words about what it's like living in Scotland's two big scary places.

Hopefully I'll get a chance to revisit some of this stuff in proper full-on detail, perhaps in a zine or some prints or something. I was really happy to be asked to contribute to the magazine. Students in Scotland - keep your eyes out for a copy if they're still around on campus.

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Hallowe'en Head

I guess I was a space-cowboy on Hallowe'en. The Fence party we were at had a sci-fi / wild west theme that made dressing up slightly less daunting. Forgot my camera like a chump, so here's a quickie to give you the idea. A complete TON of green facepaint does not wash off easily at 3am.

The party was good fun. We mucked around playing dolly-dress-up for so long that we missed a few acts I really wanted to see. Some folk went all-out with the costumes which, quite frankly, should be the norm. I want to see glitter and glue at Hallowe'en, not pre-made superman suits.

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