Saturday 14 March 2009

Works-in-progress-interrupted

I have a proper job starting this week so I'm gonna lose a lot of my time and, I suspect, creativity.

But there are lots of really cool things to contribute to that are coming up so, message to self, don't forget to draw!

1. 'Robots ... and that', it's all explained on the Paper Jam Collective blog about what size and stuff to do it of, and the deadline is ... 30TH APRIL!

If you haven't contributed anything yet to this lovely compendium of Newcastle scribblers, this time you have no excuse, anyone can draw a robot. I intend to pull out one of the little robots I used to draw as a boy in the eighties (up in the exhibition) and formulate some kind of plot around it.

2. London Zine Symposium, it was SO busy and exciting last year, but I can't go cos I've gotta be in Wales the day after and the trains are off. If you can go, I'll give you some free zines to give out! 3RD MAY! Trust me it's life-affirming and fantastic and my all-time favourite day of 2008. I was going to do a zine reviewing Newcastle zine and small-press culture for it, but now...

3. DIY Aye! Star and Shadow Cinema, Newcastle, 15th - 16th May.
There'll be loads going on but the thing I'm doing is a collective, participatory, manual zine (no photocopying allowed!) suitable for adults and kids alike. A chance to experiment with all the different ways it is possible to make repeated images (stencils, stamps, fill-in-the-blank strips) and I'm gonna get all the nicest materials and tools I can find, from lovely paper to crinkly scissors to, ooh I don't know, babies' feet and ink-sneezes.

I'm then going to use this group experiment to draw a 'How to make a manual zine' spread, which I'll submit to the following anthology.

I'll also do a similar session at the Newcastle Community Green Festival (7-8th June) - in fact I'm coordinating the kids area so get in touch if you could offer a workshop or like painting childrens' faces (actually, if anyone thinks painting faces is fun I can tell you NO! NO! it's the most tedious and draining activity in the world, never do it).
GREEN FESTIVAL CANCELLED!

(oo, I'm also doing a 'drawing-in-the-woodland' session for the Ruperts Wood Big Picnic in Redesdale, on 26th May, and way into the future I'll be doing something for the Big Draw in October).

5. This Will Explain Everything

An open call to comic artists and illustrators.

The Edinburgh-based Forest Publishing is putting together a graphic novel anthology and we are looking for work from artists who combine words and images in various ways.

This anthology is an imaginary encyclopedia: a compendium of knowledge that is true, half-true, false, absurd or very confusing. A reader will come away from this book intrigued, amazed, mystified, puzzled, perplexed, bewildered, bemused and befuddled but not necessarily informed.

Your entry should explain something. It can be a piece of disinformation, speculation or thorough nonsense. It could be about how a tractor works, what heart burn really is, an explanation of long-distance running or zen. Facts are fine but, for this project, they are not the ultimate point. We're looking for unique points of view on a wide-range of objects and ideas.

Technical specs:

You can submit multipage strips, spreads or single-page images in colour or black and white. The format of the book will be 245mm x 168mm (portrait) with a bleed of 3mm past the edge of the page on all sides. If your image needs to reach the edge of the page, don't put anything important in the bleed zone where it will get chopped off. If you intend to do a spread, please keep important things away from the centre of the image as there will be a deep gutter. (These specs aside, if you already have finished work in a different format, we might be able to fit it in anyway.)

Submissions should be emailed as low resolution jpegs (make sure that any text is readable, though) to thiswillexplain@gmail.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . Write 'Submission' in the subject line. Alternatively, you can send us a good quality photocopy by regular mail. The address is: Magda Boreysza at
Forest Publishing, 3 Bristo Place, Edinburgh EH1 1EY, United Kingdom. If your piece is selected we will ask you to send a high quality image file.

Deadline: 30 AUGUST!

Sunday 1 March 2009

Exhibition and Battleships launch event!

I have an exhibition starting at the Star & Shadow Cinema this Saturday.

It consists of pencil drawings done as a young and seemingly violent-minded boy. They take up 78 metres of paper-roll and I like to think they are a kind of pre-digital animation (you turn the page to see what happens next).

Well it's not really an arty-farty exhibition so we're launching it not with wine and quaffing but with battenburg cake and fizzy pop (If only I still had a soda-stream!)

The launch event is:

BATTLESHIPS AT TWO O'CLOCK

Starting prompt at 2pm on Saturday 7th March, we'll have a group game of battleships where everyone takes a turn to blow up a square on the grid. Last fleet floating wins.

http://www.starandshadow.org.uk/on/event/79