Altered Books and paper workshop with Rowan Arts Post *62

Here's some images from last weeks altered books workshop at The Old Fire Station Holloway!

Despite the low numbers I am very happy with the results so far, I am sure the more of people I can get having a go at these workshops the more collaged jems we can add to Holloways first altered book library.

I have been informed John Lahr, who wrote Prick Up Your Ears: the Biography of Joe Orton is going to be at a Rowan Arts-related event soon so may even be able to get a book collages by him!

More workshop images and new book editions for the library to follow soon.

The Peoples Tote. Post 61*

Another new Graphic Linoleum Print! Post 60*

Lino Prints Post 59*

Here are a couple of little lino prints I put together recently... ironic I suppose putting up a print about how dull white is on such a clinical looking blog. Enjoy them anyway!

CocaCola OOO. Post 58*

OOO.

Acrylic on Plywood

2010

OOO is a piece of work I have only just got around to documenting. I am suprised how it still feels quite fresh for me, despite being painted last year.

I think this removal of any structured message is interesting, instead of promoting or advertising itself, it is cut down to a lonely vowel. I am definately going to bring this idea of my regurgitation and iconography to my next The Community is a Collage workshop in Holloway on the 4th!

Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell Post 57*

  

I began editing the interview recordings made on the 7th last night, so to keep things fresh and exciting I thought I would post about my plans for the second micro-project!

For Saturday 4th June I am planning to have a day of book collage and editing, all inspired by the legendary Islington inhabitants Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell.

Orton and Halliwells guerrilla book altering project targeted middle class library goers. Their collaboration led them to deface book sleeves and pages, and to subvert and satirise the content of the publications they stole and returned to library shelves.

Throughout the 4th June I want to take this spirit of Orton and Halliwell and build Holloway a catalogue of alternative, and reinvented publications, to be shown throughout June at the Old Fire station. 

The project will aim to develop a slightly tongue-in-cheek intervention into the literature I collect from gumtree joblots and cheap little charity shops.

The Community is a Collage Post 56*

Islington Exhibits

Artist in Residence

Throughout the next three months I am developing three community engaged micro projects in collaboration with you the residents and visitors of Holloway.

The first instalment of these projects will begin on Saturday 7th May at the Old Fire Station Holloway. Throughout the day I will be finding interested parties who have a story to tell to participate in this exciting spoken word art project to have an informal interview.

The interviews that take place will be taped, as a record of the conversations we have. The resulting recordings will be edited together to construct a communal commentary on Holloway.

The work will be exhibited within The Old Fire Station during July this year.

Further details for the private view party will be posted here: http://www.therowanartsproject.com/

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So I began my residency last Saturday, starting with the first part of 3 public projects. The day went really great as I didn't really know the kind of turnout I would get before Saturday 7th. 

From just this one day I met and (very casually) interviewed a real plethora of interesting and very diverse people; from artists, whole families and friends to musicians and writers.

I am really getting a sense of how I can place these recordings together, and I am finding the more input I get back form the public encounters the more momentum my ideas develop.

From meeting one uke playing lady Kim, I am now looking into supporting sounds and textures to collage into the sound work, which hope will heighten the listeners envelopment into the work. I have already been asked for a couple of copies of the finished sound article, so am thinking of making up maybe 50 one off printed jackets for some CD-R's.

Artist Residency post 55*

Exciting news!

From May onwards I will be artist in residence with Rowan Arts. The residency is going to be very open, with me meeting local Islingtonians and creating new work in response to these meetings and conversations.

I am still working out where I will go with my ideas, but I am thinking along the lines of collage, and construction (as in a lot of my work)

I think in a way a community itself already is a collage, built from a plethora of people and cultures, all working together to create unique arrangements.

Click here to go to the Islinton Exhibits and Rowan Arts site, featuring more info about me and the upcoming residencies happening around Islington.

Daniel Baker & Contemporary Romani Art. Post 54*

I have been researching my heritage recently, and was aware my great grandmother was a Romani. I started researching the history on the trian back to London, and found out so many interesting parts of Romani history.

Due to their constant travelling there seems to be lots of different theories on the origins of these people. Egypt, India and Persia all recorded Romani people travelling through to europe. I like the way Romani people would still widely be passed off as common gypsies, but in fact their culture, art and design has become engrained and internalised as somehthing English.

one example of Romani design being appropriated by English artisans is evident in narrow boating culture.

The comparison of a traditional vardo, and a narrow boat shows how much this decoration has been used by english artisans.

I am really looking forward to making some new work in response to this traditional art form, and taking influence from this to create a more contemporary twist on the artform. (see above another artist Daniel Baker who is a Romani artist working alongside traditional folk art in a contemporary context)

Art & collage post 53*

52*

Today is one of those days where I don't feel like summer is all too far away.
Being up at six and it being dingy outside is horrible for anyone in the rat race,so the light morning today prompted me to check when summer begins.
On March 27th the British summer begins, and with the the nationwide hobby of talking about weather and seasonal change, I thought this could be a fun date to commemorate.
I am unsure of what the weather will be like at this time of year,but I want to throw a very British summer party. I have also been thinking of items and ideas I can have at the party.
So far I am thinking along the lines of printed tea cups,and a set of one off printed paper or embroided cotton napkins. Ideas and images to follow!

Georges-Pierre Seurat's "Sunday on La Grande Jatte".

51*

Continuing my handmade stamps project I made this Happy Birfday stamp. This particular one will be used on to make up some bespoke wrapping paper, and for a birthday card for my Dads  birthday tomorrow.

I'm sure he will be correcting me on my lazy spelling used in the print!

The material I'm using for the stamps facade is a soft-carve lino picked up from a local graphic centre. I am looking into more print friendly materials, but love the way this linoleum responds to the cutting tools I'm using.

50*

I was just having a flick through my blog roll, and realised I have left out the images of my recent publication FASTERSWIFTERHIGHERSTRONGERBRAVER.

Appropriating its title from the original Olympic motto publication was made as a response and reinterpretation of a selection of archive Olympic imagery, ideas and quotes. This piece was made in association with the NICOLA festival to commemorate the 2012 Olympics, and was shown on the 5th February 2011.

49*



This image is a selection of four logos submitted to an independant record label housed in The Fishmarket Gallery Northampton. The brief was very open, with few specifics apart from it being a record label, and the logo needing to be placed onto packaging. 

I decided upon three simple two-colour logos, with the fourth logo more illustrative. The logos were all created using Inkscape, and were put together as scalable vectors. Using vectors means these images can be adapetd and enlarged while staying very high quality regardless of their application.



48*

Putting together my own low cost custom stamps is a new mini craft project I have been trying out. Above is my most recent creation, the MOUSTACHE STAMP! I will be continuing to make these fun little stamps, and then putting together some A1 sheets of hand printed wrapping paper. The papers' pattern will be a repeated stamped pattern (as seen above)

I have also been thinking of other applications of the stamps made, maybe for some slightly more infantile add-ons to the newspaper...

 If you want to purchase any wrapping paper just follow this link to buy by the metre:

Prices Per Metre

1 Metre £3.003 Metres £8.005 Metres £12.0010 Metres £18.00

47*

I have been thinking about this arts and crafts venture quite a lot this week. so to start myself off making some housewares and personalised items to make and sell I have been looking into glass etching, and want to hand print and bind some limited edition notebooks and sketchbooks.

I had a look into the process, and am going to get myself some glass etching acid, and for some one off hand drawn illustrations I have ordered a dremel multi tool to sketch onto bottles and glass items. I did a little bit of searching for etched glass bottles, and came across the image above. The image is from the amazing site http://www.theyok.com/.

I'm a big fan of the bottle on the right especially, and although these are laser etched I think I will be able to achieve something similar by hand, I am also going to try and set up a pay pal link on here, so items can be ordered, and personalised commissions suggested by clients.  

When I have put a few of these items finished, I also want to approach some micro-breweries, and home brewers to see if we could collaborate with a home brewed beer teamed up with my home etched bottles!

46*

This salt and pepper pot set is from a pottery evening me and some friends went to in hampstead. I enjoyed doing it so much me and Jodie Gardner are thinking of selling other hand painted and printed items at local craft markets in London to see how they sell. Watch this space...

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45*

 Next Tuesday is the exhibition for UP IN THE AIR from this is something. My work was selected to be shown for the event, so I thought I would have a trip down to Bournemouth to see the finshed printed and framed article, and also meet the rest of the Collaborative.

I think I will print up some cheap business cards, as I never seem to have any on me at these kinds of events!

Enlarge the above image for more info on the exhibition happening at sixtymillionpostcards in Dorset on Tuesday 25th Jan.

Also here is a link to go and buy a print of the poster I created for the event :   

www.shop.thisissomething.co.uk/upintheair/thomasmitchell.html

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44*

This is a QR code, which is a relatively well known technology now,yet I still thought I would post one I generated for this blog. I saw in the metro today a photograph of someone scanning a QR code on a wall,which linked to a musicians site,and to purchasable products.

After seeing this today I download a QR creator,and made the above code, I think this is something I will start to include more in self promotion, and will add it into my upcoming YMCA publication.

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43*

For the YMCA exhibition I recently posted about constructing a piece of work using flowers.  After doing some research, and through being forwarded some really interesting information by Alice Flight, who is the other lead artist showing.  The information related to under-represented nations whithin the Olympic Games, and that they do infact compete.


I have continued with this project, and developed a new direction for the work I will be exhibiting.  Throughout all the Olympic Games posters have been submitted and subsequently awarded gold, silver and bronze for their artwork, with the gold medalists work being adopted as the official olympic poster.


I intend on showing an 8 page publication, featuring edited posters, hacked olympic imagery, and re-adaptations of famous olympic texts and quotes.


A limited run of 100 copies of the publication will be available to take away on the opening night at the Chelsea Old Town Hall on February 5th 2011.

42*

I have recently been putting together some work in response to the theme 'up in the air' thought up by the design and illustration collective This is Something, I began working on a piece titled 'my face blasted into space', I almost completed the hand rendered work,but didn't feel it was strong enough to stand out. Instead I rethought my approach,and decided upon this image, entitled drop/bounce/airtime!

I made the work using the program inkscape,with this work being my first attempt at using a scalable vector programme. Upon using this I will definitely be swapping PhotoShop for this from now on! Printed A2 editions of this work are available to buy on This is somthings's online shop, also more info on This is something and the forthcoming exhibition on the 17th Jan in Dorset can be seen at www.thisissomething.co.uk

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41*

Last week I had a meeting with the art director for the YMCA in Earls Court, and had a brief chat about a project happening next year. The show is open for one evening only for the art exhibition,which is a collective response to the Olympics. My contribution is a piece of work to relate to India,which should be interesting as they are not competing.
I am thinking along the lines of constructing something with Indian flowers,which are used in celebrations,weddings,funerals,so it will be a very culturally charged material,so I want to do it justice. I will be posting more on the piece closer to the time,but for the time being here's an image of the space in chelsea,and below is a link to the projects homepage.

http://nicolaforyouth.org/

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40*

This photograph is of a sculpture I am currently putting together entitled Shoot.

The work is abstract,but features images cut from a handful of duplicate fieldsports magazines.

The idea of the work is to relate to some kind of fur and skin,with the paper being the fur and the crimson satin representing a skin.

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39.5*

This is a closeup shot of my progress on a new piece of work called shoot. This specific image was requested by Andor Merks,who is an interactive VJ that's showing some work at the same exhibition as me on the 23rd at the Queen of Hoxton. more details on the exhibition can be seen here. Andor is also using this image in a piece of work being shown at a gallery space near brick lane.

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39*

Above is my proposal for a wall based piece at Hammerson, they were looking to replace an existing piece of work in their London office, so I approached them with this idea,which would be a large printed vector graphic on paper or vinyl. I took inspiration from artwork featuring on numerous kitsune maison music compilations. I think the work fits their brief of showing their employees as as a community,but it delivers the idea with a contemporary twist.

38*

Zebragraph - jpeg / collage

37*

Alongside my abstract body of work I am in the middle of developing, I am also building on a more commercialy directed series of image based collages and digital constructions. The work featured is intended for adaptation into promo-material, fly posters and original prints and for later use in association music,art and design events.

36*

Scatter pattern

This piece of collage is a shattering of paper based adverts, and was done using a tesselating shape to build up what I see as a sprawling organic mass. The work felt very intuitive to construct as I amassed lots of paper based advertising and built up blocks of form and colour as I cut and applied the work to the board.

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35*

Pink Thumb Circle - This piece was done in collaboration with my brother James Mitchell, his work deals with identity and mark making, and this sickly pink is a colour that I seem to keep returning to. using pigment inks we applied hundreds of fingerprints to a wall to create this piece,it was really interesting applying such a personal thing to a found object.

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34*

Saw this Wallpaper* feature the other day, really nice technique called Ombro Cinema, and could be something to experiment with in some of my cut and paste images I put together.

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