THE INFLUENCE OF OUTSIDER ART

For my recent project the cover for the book One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest I decided to look at Outsider Art, an art movement that has strong alliances with psychiatric disorders.  Outsider Art is defined by its strong attention to detail and intricate and repetitive nature, this perhaps evolving through the time on the hands of sometimes obsessive people, who spend painstaking hours achieving their quirky artwork.  What I found when trying to make my own piece of quirky artwork was, although I selected the subject matter syringes, an odious symbol of the book and the medium (pencil and crayon) on newsprint with care, looking for materials that might be available to some one in an institution, what I did not have, and a crucial ingredient for success, was time enough to get the right feel and soul into my piece of work, I think you almost have to feel that time is endless to even approach the right feel. As a consequence of this I rightly or wrongly did not develop this idea. Here is my effort. In a way I would like to revisit this, but we will see. I think the spaces in between the syringes maybe need to be filled with intricate little drawings of quite a different nature perhaps flowers to juxtapose with each other.

Outsider Art Martin Ramirez

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUKOO,S NEST

This a start of my experimentation for the book cover for One Flew Over The Cukoo's Nest. The building in the background is infact a Victorian asylum, and I found this crazy picture of a man in a jet pack, so I thought I would put them together so that  he might  fly over the cukoo's Nest.  I think the implication of the cukoo's nest may have been that the main character (McMurphy) in the lunatic asylum (the nest) did not belong there!

MATHEW RICHARDSON LECTURE

Lecture Notes 1 click on to read!

Lecture Notes 2

Tutorial Notes

Mathew Richardson Collage

My Bloody Chamber collage inspired by Mathew Richardson

Puss In Boots

Company Of Wolves

We recently had a lecture at HCA given

by Mathew Richardson Folio Award winning illustrator.  As I have been drawing a lot of inspiration from his work, for my most recent projects for the Folio society illustration competition The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter, it was most helpful to me, especially when we had individual tutorials with him in the afternoon.

SOME PICTURES FOR THE MURAL

 These chickens were inspired by Illustrator Alvin Lustig

OUR WATERSTONES MURAL, HURRAH!

Our mural is now on the wall going upstairs in Waterstones Hereford please come and look.
Sorry Rachael I inadvertantly cropped your fish, I am going to go and take some more pictures of the other boards soon.

MY MAPPA MUNDI INSPIRED MURAL CONTRIBUTION

My picture is now upstairs in Waterstones Hereford.

HEREFORD CATHEDRAL CEILING

This is one of the pictures, that I took in the cathedral after buying my permit.  It is  a beautiful ceiling, it is a pity the lights were on as it slightly spoils the photo.

MAPPA MUNDI

 These are the two photos of the replica of the Mappa Mundi, from the gift shop door, notice the quirky way that the houses are placed, on the edge of the river.  I borrowed this look, and the bird for our mural project, which will be on display in Waterstones book shop, Hereford, from tomorrow.

CHAINED LIBRARY HEREFORD CATHEDRAL

 I had quite an amusing time researching the Mappa mundi and the chained library, for our mural project. Initially I went in with a view to photographing them both, but was not allowed, before finding this out I was taking a few pics of a copy of the Mappa Mundi hanging on the souvenir shop door and I got accosted by a furious lady who lectured me on copyright and told me I could buy a permit if I wanted to take some photographs of the cathedral, so she sold me one, and I took some. I then decided that my real purpose had been to see and record the Mappa Mundi and the chained library, so I would pay some more money to see them, and I would draw them in situ. So money payed I went in to see the map, the only problem being , electric doors let you into a very small incredlbly dimly lit room, with the map quite high on the wall no seats or anything, so totally impossible to even do a quick sketch.  So onwards to the chained library, from the corridor outside I could hear two old ladies happily chatting and looked forward to looking at the books and doing a few sketches, so in I walked and they immediatly stopped talking and stood up on duty, nothing wrong with that, they seemed very pleased to see me, being their first visitor for some time it seemed, and they were extremly keen to answer any questions I might have about the library, I dredged up a couple of feeble ones they had no problem with and then proceeded to look at the books, trying to get in the spirit of doing a bit of drawing, so I stood looking at the little display at the front first, but the old ladies did not sit down and resume chatting, one went and stood the other side of the room and one stood right behind me, so close I could hear her breathing, at this stage i'm afraid I panicked I shot around that library at about 90 miles an hour giving the books a cursory nod and got out of there, not a sketch in sight. I came away from the cathedral having spent the whole afternoon there by this time, with not a lot to show for my trouble but an empty purse, BUT amongst the  photographs I took was the one of the Mappa Mundi hanging on the shop door , so I drew the bird below from it,the woman in the shop would have been beside herself. So all was not lost!

PATTERN FOR MURAL ?

PATTERN'S FOR WATERSTONE'S MURAL ?

Before some work in photoshop

After some work in photoshop

Before

After

Before

After

Leaves for Trees!

Today I started experimenting with pattern for our mural at Waterstone's, we are going to have little touches of pattern here and there to give a lively feel, ie on the tops of mountains etc.  I don't think any of these will necessarily be suitable, but I will have to make Lot's to find the right ones!


I have now added some before and after pictures above, where I just got rid of some unnecessary spaces in some cases it made quite a big difference. I apologose for how these pictures are laid out on the page, they just would not stay where I put them! Any clues as to how to make them would be appreciated.

Penguin Design Awards. One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest.

A page from my notebook, showing research for a book cover for the book One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest by Ken Kesey.

Kim's Poster for The Venue 1

Kim's Poster in progress ' DODO ON A TIGHTROPE ' anything is possible at The Venue

"DODGED, BURNED AND SPONGED" this is photoshop speak for I don't really know what  i'm doing!

I actually quite like this image, but I will take a lesson from this , as I can't tidy it up now without a huge amount of work, as certain information is not saved and I did not take enough note of what I was doing as I went along, to get back to here without the mistakes, but maybe it works this way. as the shoes and tightrope are so naive, that if there weren't alot of coloured patches and missing bits of the clown, they might stand out.

My personal live 'external' brief

Kim's Poster in progress

As you can see I am starting work on my poster, just a few teething problems here with my new medium photo shop, but I will persevere. I will post my new brief above.  I am designing a promotional poster for an events venue, called 'The Venue' perhaps it will say something like "Anything is possible at the Venue!". TAKE NOTE! ANYTHING THAT IS MY WORK,FROM NOW ON I AM GOING TO SAY KIM'S SUCH AND SUCH IN THE TITLE, TO AVOID CONFUSING WITH MY INSPIRATIONAL ENTRIES.

Roman Cieslewicz, Poland 1961

I absolutely love this poster, it ticks all my boxes, but I am not sure why.   I like the way it is just so seemingly casual, paper cut roughly with a scalpal giving a jagged effect placed on top of some soft black, the composition is pleasing.

Bors Ferenc 1963 Hungary

This poster is so simple but so effective!

Ohchi, Hiroshi (Japan) 1954 silkscreen

I am looking at posters, to get inspiration for my personal live 'external' brief where I am creating a poster for an events venue. This is a lovely silk screen print, printed out on really nice paper which makes a big difference to the effect.

The Company of Wolves final image

'The moon rising over the vegetable garden'

This image has been incredibly difficult to get right, I have tried every concievable combination and more. I am exhausted now, so it will have to stay like this, perhaps more of a field of cabbages than a vegetable garden but never mind for now.

Puss in Boots final image

"his fine, high, shining leather boots," thrown at him by a cavalry officer at full moon.

The Bloody Chamber final image

"... only the communicating door kept me from my husband and it stood open."

This image seems like a massive leap from all the work below, and it is.  Having spent weeks working in many different ways.  I have taken advice, and inspiration from the work of Mathew Richardson, and at last I feel excited by the way forward.

New sketches for the Bloody Chamber stories with a view to collage.

The Bloody Chamber

Still experimenting with simple line drawings!

Company of wolves

"... his hat laden with birds..."

Puss in Boots experimentation