Post 23

...I've been feeling like I've come to a bit of a full stop in my poster design for the NYC trilogy. Why is this? It could perhaps be down to the lack of devoted studio time over the last couple of months.

The image to the left was also produced when I went to Barcelona back in March. I sometimes feel that my more 'successful' work tends to be produced on the spot and without a brief in mind. I feel that my latest work lacks a certain degree of spontaneity...welcome to the world of illustration Mr Renshaw?

I've been collecting illustrations from the Guardian as a suggestion in a recent tutorial...to see what kind of work is being commissioned. I've kind of given up on The Independent...probably not such a bad thing anyway as there doesn't seen to be much illustration on the pages. I'm nearly at the end of the 2 week collection and have found our recycling stack has increased rapidly as a result.

Process: I began to cut out skyscraper shapes out of the newspaper. I read the text...'itten an apparentl...y letter to Abraham...he arrangement be...to distance other...om the crisis, Mend...d no one in the part use Watt had assun...was awful....'

The other side of the paper 'skyscraper' is a picture of 'Ghost moisturiser.' I had originally thought that cutting up some of the text from my Guardian collection was a bit random, thinking that the potential buyer of a book wouldn't see a connection with the text in the book. Perhaps I could photocopy some pages from the actual dialogue in chapter 9, or anywhere else in the trilogy for that matter? I must remind myself to 'post the ghost.'

I was stood at the bus stop in my village the other morning reading The Humpty Dumpty extract of Finnegans Wake before the joyous trip to my place of work. I'm thinking of it now...the verse, although I can't remember the words, gave the sense of being pushed backwards and forwards, to and fro,' almost a feeling of seasickness. The great landlord...the egg of the village.

Post 22

I've just received my own copy of The New YorkTrilogy by post. Upon completion of the novel, I'll produce a 4th poster which I hope will give a sense of the 3 stories that it contains.

I've also been buying the Guardian and Independent every day for what I hope will be 2 weeks as suggested during a recent tutorial. I'm now starting to doubt whether I've been buying the right paper in the Independent as I can't find too many illustrations in its pages, was it the Telegraph...? I should make more notes....

The illustration to the left was inspired by a visit to Barcelona back in March. I remember Ellie and I trying to find the summit of the 'hill' that overlooks the city but we kept walking around in circles with that 'lost' feeling.

The drawing wasn't inspired by the trip at all come to think of it. Perhaps I was thinking of the 3rd passage in chapter 9 where Stillman and Quinn have their 3rd meeting on Mount Tom? Perhaps it references my time in Lincoln walking from the library to Chad in an eternal state of flux?

I hope to create one of the posters as a screen print. Photoshop certainly has its uses, but I would really like to get my teeth into making some good work whilst learning a new skill.

Right, back to Humpty Dumpty....

Post 21

Studio practice today. The Ropewalk had a Christmas craft fayre today which meant that the good and great public had access beyond the gallery and could stroll down the the artist studio corridor offering pearls of wisdom. I'm actually torn about these events, part of me likes to hide but the other loves the snapshots and bits of feedback given.



A chap came into my space and commented upon a piece of text on one of my large scale cityscape's, picking up on the word 'wot.' He made reference to the image of 'Kilroy woz ere,' perhaps I could make some sort of Humpty Dumpty link with this? The image came to represent American presence throughout the world, wherever the American military went this piece of graffiti seemed to follow during the 2nd world war.

Post 20

The set of images are taken directly from my sketchbook drawings which refer to the 3 passages between Stillman ans Quinn. I've left them as they are in the hope that it gives a better sense of my thought processes without the intervention of manipulation via computer, ink, print etc.

It could be useful to continue working through the process and discover a way to find a way of allowing my illustration to exist alongside the text. I could start off with one of my many images and write my own peice of flash fiction, which will no doubt make reference to the trilogy and depict it through a selection of textless narratives.

Books and artists that I need to look at in more detail are:

> Frans Masereel.

> Las Arrhenius.

> Andrzeq Klimowski.

> The screenplay ( can't find in library) Shortcuts - Robert Altman.

Max Ernst...on of a list of artsts to do textless narratives.

interesting artists from Kramers Ergot,...Souther Salazar and Marc Bell.








I feel that it makes 'sense' for me to use drawing as a starting point, and then attempt to be 'less literal' or find ways to give an impression/illuminate the text. Am I thinking too 'literally' when seeing the text as construct/deconstruct/reconstruct?

The brief is to design 3 posters- one from each conversation in chapter 9 of The City Of Glass between Stillman and Quinn. I've been thinking more about Mr Humpty Dumpty: the fractured scribble. The larger Humpty image below, has perhaps found some loose connection with that of the 'Pop Surrealist' movement. Is it too literal...too close to the written word?

I feel that it reads like some kind of iceberg facade to a world that is broken, disconnected from itself, with multiple meaning and then perhaps without a centre. The story is essentially about nothing much really, perhaps hidden truth/layers, gives the impression of leading nowhere...Russian dolls? I might need to read the next 2 stories....

Post 19

'life is a bowl of cherries...'

Tutorial feedback on (6th Nov) from my work so far ...



Involvement in the process of illustration...Your journey.

Content
Extracting image from text
Using text to generate imagery
Responding to the text

form
Looking at ways to make images
Looking for 'things' that reflect the content (the subject).

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Awareness of how language reflects your own experience.

You are the detective, also your observation 'am I just an idea.'

How much of an individual construct that can be changed- at will- by circumstance.

What do you discard/retain and why?


What is the work are you producing?

Detritus...the left over after you have undergone a process

A theatrical re-enactment of an idea or discovery

A precious artifact

A decorative object

A magical thing

A lecture

Something which illuminates the text

Something which describes the content



Are you aware of an audience? How would you like an audience to engage with your work? For instance...accompanied by sections of text?If sowould the layout of the text- the font- the size- the colour- be important to you, would it be better to have hand drawn letter forms?

This could happen....

Take an A3 sheet and using words and images produce a stand alone 'poster' (using any combinations of methods and materials) (so it only needs to be broadly reproducible) that could be used as a point of sale entertainment at Borders flagship bookstore in Oxford. (You could do 3, one for each conversation).





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To design 3 posters...1 for each conversation in chapter 9 of the 'City Of Glass.'



1.Who am I aiming the poster at? What age group? etc.



. Having read the book it seems to me that 'The New York Trilogy is aimed at an audience in the age range of 21 +?



. Could be read by undergraduates/postgraduates...an academic audience?



. He's an American writer, possibly better known in NYC?


. Point of sale at Oxfords flagship bookstore 'Bookers.'

- location suggests that I would be aiming at Oxford students...possibly...
educated types.


2. What do I want to say about the novel...illuminate, lecture, describe the content, hint towards, use metaphor, a magical thing etc?

I would like to pick up on the detritus, the discarded for conversation 1.

Say something about the content for conversation 2...Humpty Dumpty...'the purest embodiment of the human condition.' Question literal meaning of words. Somehow, find way of representing this passage/conversation...

Conversation 3 : I'll use imagery 3 directly from the text and include some actual dialogue between Stillman and Quinn...so it goes...







.

Post 18

there is something about Cleethorpes...carpets, bits of rubble, trash, faded people, I catch myself in mirrors...no longer the small boy with candy floss reflecting back in the Isle Of Man with 'The Reflex' by Duran Duran and 'Paint It Black' by The Rolling Stones. I wander like the early Quinn. Plastic horses canee drive me away...I walk up to another Elvis machine.

'George Washington chopped down the tree, and then he threw away the money.'

Post 17

I am Peter Stillman...I'm the other Peter Stillman.

'Lowbrow or lowbrow art describes an underground visual art movement that arose in the Los Angeles, California, area in the late 1970's. Lowbrow ia a widespread populist art movement with origins in the underground comix world, punk music, hot-rod street culture, and other California subcultures. It is often known by the name pop surrealism.' (from wikipedia).

So I take a stroll to Cleethorpes, North east Lincs to begin my quest to find the Lowbrow of this glorious seaside resort on a bright but chilly Friday afternoon...the end of October and the last day of holiday for the schoolkids.

I'm going to try and portray the 3rd and final conversation between Quinn and Stillman using Pop Surrealism as the influence. I've found the work of Tim Biskup to be very interesting and intend to research this artist further....

Post 16

Post 15

Conversation 2. The 2nd scene takes place between Quinn and Stillman in Mayflower Cafe on a Sunday morning. Stillman doen't recognise Quinn from the day before. Stillman talks this time about 'Humpty Dumpty' as ...'the purest embodiment of the human condition.' '...man is a fallen creature- we know that from Genesis. humpty Dumpty is also a fallen creature. He falls from his wall, and no one can put him bachk together again- neither the kings, or his horses or his men. But that is what we must all strive to do. It is our duty as human beings: to put the egg back together again. For each of us, sir, is Humpty Dumpty. And to help him is to help ourselves.'

Post 14

Working with the first conversation in mind...a drawing produced in the condensation of a glass panel. I felt that this had been the most natural feeling piece of work that I'd produced in the 'style' of Basquiat.

I was on the train on the way to Lincoln. The carriage was packed like sardines, I was standing inches from the people in the foyer to the first carriage. where does one look? I felt most comfortable trying to glimpse out of the window, my eye catching abstract hints of the countryside. I started watching the drops of water racing down the window pane like the paint on a Basquiat.

The first conversation finds the characters of Quinn and Stillman on a bench in Riverside Park. Sitllman talks about the 'world being in fragments,' and it is his intention to put it back together...' He believes that 'words no longer correspond to the world.' It is his intention to create a new language and spends time wandering the city collecting bits of crushed, discarded junk in which to put the world back together again.