Sunday, October 21, 2012

Latest Transmissions

Seeing as the weather was so utterly dismal this week-end, I spent the better part of it sketching and coloring up a visual interpretation of those weird forms I posted last week. I'd do all the Lemurian alphabet in this style if I had enough patience but I don't so 3 or 4 are probably enough for now. Here's one..




I'm quite happy with this particular illustration because of various reasons - 
1) it actually looks and feels like an illustration. I always thought that my stuff was more fine art-y, graphic design-y or graffiti-y rather than illustration (which actually is what I studied after graphic design).
2) it's personally a gathering of loose ends of sorts - visually, topically, methodically..
3) I graduated from BA (Hons) Illustration feeling as if I had a significant amount of unfinished business to attend to stylistically. My final project was a stylistic hodge-podge and looked a mess as I'd used three different printing processes to create a concertina when I could and should have used just one. As crazy as it sounds, I could not for the life of me find a line, a technique, a method or something that felt mine. That left me in a bit of a panic and feeling as if I had just wasted a precious three years which seemed especially true upon comparing my work with the very accomplished work of some of my classmates'. It's taken me an additional one and a half years of additional visual exploration to start feeling as if I'm getting somewhere.

Anyway, onwards and forwards..

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Lemurian

This last week was spent digitising/creating a new font or whatever you might want to call it based on what I call the Lemurian script. Here's a sneaky-peek..



Wednesday, September 26, 2012

New Prints




I had a while ago done some prints related to my Birth of Culture book. I haven't really shown them around much yet apart from putting them on sale at the Graphic Arts Stall during Malta's Patches Market last July. The prints are basically reworks or edits of visual material related to the Birth of Culture and were printed out using the riso process by Elliott at Victory Press, who I would happily return to work with. 

The prints come in 4 varieties, are all 3-colour and A3 in size. They can be purchased for £20 each by getting in touch here. Discounts available for purchases of 3 or more prints!









Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Nieuw Werk / Wolken

Holy flying mackerel, that took a while! Settling in was far from speedy, but I've started doing some new work during these past few days now that the dust's settled a bit. The first few bits of drawing seem to be concerned mostly with clouds and wishy washy fluffy stuff. That might be due to the sky being a bit more visible out here in London's Zone 3 (as opposed to Zone 1)? I don't know. I like them though and I might do a little something with them this week. And while we're at it, I've thrown in a track by Shlohmo that reminds me of the white stuff. 






Friday, August 10, 2012

Time Out



Migration within London in progess. 
ALOT of catching up on projects to be done once I get the paints out! 
...if I find them, that is.

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Work for sale at Patches Market, Malta

Next Sunday the 8th of July will see yet another installment of the now firmly established Patches - Malta's handmade product market (which is, by the way, run by my camera hugging/brush wielding sister Denise Scicluna). This will be I believe the 11th edition yet, and as much as I've always wanted to take part I've never really had much of anything to sell really. Up until now that is. 

So, this time round I'll be having a stall at the market. I will be selling some prints and books of mine but the exciting bit for me is that I will also be selling works by other Maltese (or related) graphic artists. These include - Ken Borg, Thomas Cuschieri, Adrian Gauci and Sara de la Mora. We'll be selling a variety of graphic goodies ranging from prints (riso and screen), artist and comic books, postcards, accessories etc, most of which I believe is going to have been available in Malta for the first time.

For my part, I will be having 3 or 4 new risoprints, a selection of postcards and copies of my book The Birth of Culture up for sale (see pics below). If you're not in Malta at the time then of course do please get in touch if interested in copies of the prints or the book, but for you graphic and illustration enthusiasts who will be in Malta at the time - we expect to see you there!





Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Update

I've been busy and it's been a while, but here's a little update - I'll be taking part in Malta's Patches market on the 8th of July where I'll be selling copies of my book The Birth of Culture, prints and other visual goodies. More info about this later..

Monday, May 7, 2012

Exercises in Style

Here's a couple of details taken from a digital illustration that I've done in the last couple of days. I don't have much of a history with digital illos as I've always preferred getting my hands dirty on a collage rather than changing the hue of a bunch of pixels, so more than anything this is abit of a test to see how my work would look when processed through Photoshop. I'm not unhappy!




Monday, April 23, 2012

Propmaking





Me and Sara recently did some props for a video by London-based songstress Carrie Haber. Unfortunately the project will probably never see the light of day, but those on top are how it would have looked like. Photos by Denise.




Monday, April 16, 2012

B-Cards

Last year while at uni I did a series of screenprinted business cards for my fledgling little freelance business. I thought I wouldn't have another chance to screenprint some business cards for free for some time, so with that in mind and blind drunk on dreams of instant freelance illustration success I printed ALOT of them. 

Unfortunately I still have most of them. 

Of course I blame these economically hard times but hey, have a look. You might like them and call me up for a job?



 



 


Monday, March 19, 2012

The Birth of Culture - a handmade book




This weekend I finally got round to producing and finishing the first few copies of a tiny book I'm calling The Birth of Culture. This book is really the first step in an attempt to inject anthropology with illustration - two disparate fields which I think have much to offer yet rarely cross each other's paths (I'll be posting more on 'anthropological illustration' sometime in the next couple of weeks).




The Birth of Culture then is a book about culture in its most generic definition - a mold of some sort that shapes the lives of a group of people through a series of habits, norms and beliefs. The theme here is not just 'birth' but also this constant motion that over time can be seen as a pattern or a cycle through which cultures pass. The various stages of this cycle are represented as different chapters starting from the conception of a culture (as influenced by its geographical environment), evolution over time, cross-cultural exchange etc. I found that the easiest way of representing all this was by using symbols, or visual languages (scripts). Language (verbal and written) can often give a good idea of what a culture is all about, and I've used different invented scripts to demonstrate the myriad different ways which cultures can find themselves evolving into. It is this precisely these impossibly different ways in which human culture manifests itself and learning about what causes them to become this way which I find so compelling in anthropology.




The idea for the book's subject came over time from reading old historians and travellers like Ibn Battutah and Herodotus. As I had remarked in another blog post, it had kind of dawned on me that cultures are in constant motion and that a culture may disappear but it never really dies. As anthropologists around the world are more than aware of, the globalized nature of today's world means that cultures (especially minority ones) have never had existing so hard. On the other hand, international human migration is probably at one of its highest levels ever and while this might be endlessly fascinating to witness from an anthropological point of view, it is also - and i say this cautiously - understandably creating tension which comes along with cultural mixing within integrating societies. Therefore, creating this book is a way for me to humbly console the modern panicked anthropologist and a quiet reminder that the use of culture can often be a double edged sword - a ticket for discrimination or an opportunity to celebrate diversity in all its human forms. Lastly, it is also my first attempt in making anthropology abit more visual and accessible for the curious public.



The book is almost a 100% handmade (only the printing was not done by hand, but even that was done at home) and involves a mixture of linocut, letterpress and rubber stamp printing processes. All artwork and design was also done by myself. It consists of 48 saddle-stitched pages, measures 14x9cm and is being printed in an edition of 350 copies. Copies can be bought for £10 each (not including postage). Please email me at info@leftylemur.com if interested.

Friday, March 9, 2012

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, otherwise known as arguably the most famous poem ever (I don't really get most poetry, so this was new to me), is an epic Persian poem written by Khayyam himself around 800 years ago. Historical details aside, I recently came upon this poem in the form of a precious little old book in a market nearby. Even though a quick picture google will come up with some amazing looking published versions of this poem, I love this little book - the orient-inspired lettering is special, the size and format of the publication is perfect and the layouts are neat. It was printed sometime before 1921 in Edinburgh and was purchased for or given to someone as a Christmas gift.