Fishink in The Imperial War Museum London
One of the places I headed for in London was the Imperial War Museum mainly because they
had an exhibition called ” Breakthrough ” featuring some of my favourite artists such as
John Piper, Eric Ravilious, Paul Nash etc. The place turned out to be quite a surprise.
Even I was impressed with the planes, tanks, one-man submarines and other military machines there.
Some great pieces from a mix of artists, this one from Eric Ravilious called
Room 29 Home Security Control Painted in 1941.
The Battle of Britain by Paul Nash also from 1941.
Also an entire exhibition dedicated to Women War Artists. Some amazing people I’d not heard of before.
There’s also an exhibition celebrating classic war stories for children such as Carrie’s War
and The Silver Sword, that is on until the end of October, find out more here.
Erwin Madrid. Illustrator of Animations
Erwin Madrid was born in the Philippines in 1978 and grew up in San Jose, California.
In 2003, Erwin earned his BFA in Illustration from the Academy of Art College in San Francisco CA.
During his last semester of college, he was hired by PDI/DreamWorks Animation where he contributed
production illustrations for the animated feature film, Shrek 2. He later became a visual development
artist for the ongoing Shrek franchise and the Madagascar sequel.
He has also done conceptual art for the video game industry for titles like Uncharted Drake’s Fortune.
In his spare time, Erwin travels and paints whenever he has a chance. He currently lives in the Bay Area
where he continues to provide concept art for the entertainment industry.
He has an amazing way of capturing scale and light in order to make his scenes dramatic.
Even in his personal painting from holiday trips abroad, he finds time to create stunning visual pieces
depicting scenes with beautiful colour, texture and depth.
It’s almost possible to feel the early evening sunlight. More amazing work on his blog and site here.
It’s not everyday that we look twice or question what we are being shown in order to work out exactly
what is happening before our eyes. I’ve gathered 5 artists that you may have seen already but whos work
non the less, provides us visually, with good old fashioned ‘ value for money ‘.
Li Wei (born in 1970, Hubei, China) is a contemporary artist from Beijing, China. His work often
depicts him in apparently gravity-defying situations. Wei started off his performance series, Mirroring,
and later on took off attention with his Falls series which shows the artist with his head and chest
embedded into the ground.
His work is a mixture of performance art and photography that creates illusions of a sometimes
dangerous reality. Li Wei states that these images are not computer montages and works with the help
of props such as mirror, metal wires, scaffolding and acrobatics.
The work of former supermodel ” Veruschka” Vera Lehndorff and Holger Trülzsch back in the 1970’s
was probably an early influence on some of the other body painters in this blog. I remember seeing these
images in the eighties and being stunned by the idea and the quality of the painterly disguises.
More recently Liu Bolin (born 1973 in Shandong, China) is a Chinese artist known for taking
photographs of himself, painted in order to blend in with the background. He graduated from the
Sculpture Department of Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing.
Since his first solo shows in Beijing in 1998, Liu Bolin’s work has received international recognition.
It took me a few seconds to find him in the tractor scene above. Another contemporary artist
Emma Hack describes herself as a skin illustrator and has taken the themes of conceal and reveal
to new extremes. I love this textile and wallpaper series she has done with people and animals.
And Finally we have the work of Guido Daniele who is another self painter who initially concentrated
on ‘hands’ being his theme.
He has also managed to get a whole advertising campaign out of this concept, very clever.
More recently his work involves painting the nude form but I still feel the hands are the most impressive.
Fishink Smoking Lions
I’ve been continuing to work on some new ideas and sketches for either the stationery, ceramics
or possibly illustrations for a book etc. Here are my Smoking Lions, whispy yet smouldering, pondering
and aloof. Where do you see them being used ? All feedback most welcome.
All F I S H I N K artwork is copyrighted.
More Lazy Lions available here on cards, notebooks and stamps on my site, please have a look.
Fishink In London
I’m still in London, cat and house sitting for my cousin. He has a wonderful place and enchanting cats
who have been keeping me company, playing games by day and purring by night.
Here’s a few snippets from my days here.
Lovely kitchen and garden where the light dances in and warms the place so well.
Also a few bits from my days wandering around London, I’ve so many memories of this place from my
student days in the early eighties.
The bottom two images (above) were from Paul Smiths’ window display in Covent Garden.
I like the way that they’re suggesting that the jacket has been coloured in by hand, clever stuff.
Peter Forsyth. Brockwell Park Lido Illustrated.
I’m spending sometime in the Old Smoke looking after my cousin’s place and cats whilst he’s away.
I wandered down to Herne Hill earlier and came across these lovely images in a gallery window.
It’s funny how you can share some time with a total strangers life, albeit online, from just a walk
and a browse on the internet ! Here’s what I discovered to share with you today….
Peter Forsyth is a designer and illustrator who has lived in Brixton for twenty years since moving
to London from Cornwall and Falmouth School of Art, for him the secret to life in the metropolis
has always been the Lido and Brockwell Park. He shares some thoughts with us ……
” Indeed as a country boy at heart, I doubt I would have survived here this long with out the sense
of peace it gives. I love this space! A wonderful distraction from all that is the everyday,
I step into the building and life seems to slow down, making time, or the apparent lack of it
more managable. Sometimes we are so busy looking forward, we forget the past that makes us,
it’s only on reflection that we realise what has been done for us “.
” It is for myself that I come here, but also and very importantly for my family…
When I am done with the physical I am a better calmer man, shamefully more willing to share my time
A friend once said, with regards to keeping relations with my children as they grow.
“Build a common interest, something which doesn’t need words when they don’t want to talk to you!”.
So all you can be is yourself and hope they will see the good…
… And quite wonderfully they love the Lido too. ” More ideas on Peters’ blog site here
All this talk about bathing pools and Lido’s reminds me of the pool we used as kids when I
lived on the Wirral. It was a great place, opened in 1939 and quite a modern building for it’s day.
I remember that my grandpaents knew the people who ran it and when it came to Bonfire night,
we would be invited to go there and stand on the viewing gallery of their home,watching the
fireworks from a ringside vantage point. How these small things stay with us.
I love the bathing beauty posters too.
Do you have any memories of special buildings that were around when you were growing up ?
Fishink Doors in Dordogne.
I was looking back to a visit to the Dordogne area in France I’d made and noticed some images of
doors and streets that I’d not seen for a while and decided to share them with you. The light and
textures were quite something at the time. We need more summertime please.
I was amused by the little keyhole shape of the man.
I do like it when an artist or illustrator puts sketches of their work on their blog.
Those unfinished doodles with colour references or notes to themselves are fascinating to see.
They give an insight into how the person thinks and constructs their ideas, a process some people
feel is too private or embarrassing to reveal to the public eye.
Alan Stewart hails from Ottawa and his work looks like this…
It’s either a confident artist who feels happy to expose themselves in this way or perhaps someone
who is more open and willing to learn from the comments of those who might scrutinise and give
praise, or not, with their remarks and feedback.
Aaron D Spurgeon is based in Pasadena and his work is like this..
It’s fascinating to see how Aaron builds up this piece, first with paint and then on the computer.
A bravery award goes to both artists for their fearlessness and desire to grow.
Aaron’s blog has a wealth of links to other talented artists, check them out here.
Fishink in Tarporley.
Some of those good friends of mine I was talking about the other day, had me over to their place recently
in the sunny village of Tarporley in Cheshire. They have a lovely house and a large garden overlooking
some meadows, where you can sit on their decking, looking out over the fields and listen and watch
the swallows endlessly swooping across the fences and buttercups. They also have a lot of flowers.
The Village is pretty too, with some lovely features and public houses.
These I took at a local garden centre. Does there seem like a visual link between fish and leaf ?
And finally, one shot of how wonderful the light was in the early mornings there.. sigh.
Dan Bob Thompson graduated from Cal Arts with a BFA in Animation. This was followed by a nine
year stint at Disney. For the past three and a half years he has been working at Cartoon Network,
whilst writing his blog and occasionally selling prints on Etsy.
He has written children’s books and also has time to create his own artwork, samples on his site.
A great variety of styles and good colour sense make Dan a very versatile artist.
fishinkblog.com 