July 2010

Look into my eyes, look into my eyes. •waves fingers• It is still July, it is still July.

Ok some much needed holidays were taken and a shuffle did happen at some point. July's song of choice ended up being More Than A Feeling by Boston.

Slice of all time classic fm rock there. The illustration inspired by it shall appear at some time this month - ok it is August after all.

One By One All Day – Gallusness

Quickie this month. Lyrics didn't inspire me all that much but the song title itself did. Thought it'd be nice to get back to some really clean minimal illustration this moth as well. Quite happy with the result considered about adding the lyrics or a song credit but then thought naaaaa less is more.

NEXT…

June 2010

The shuffle has just taken place and the song is…

One By One All Day by The Shins

Ok I'm not familiar with this one, off to listen to it and to check out the lyrics. Catch you at the months end, hopefully.

Twilight Of The Innocents – Gallusness

It's the month start(ish) and it's time to unveil this months solution(s) to the shuffle.

Last weekend I went to my regular Dr Sketchy's Glasgow anti-art school drawing class. It was a steampunk special this month and the models were (largely) resplendent in Victorian/futuristic costume – Well at least until the burlesque element of the afternoon kicked in. This setting and the models (two of which are a couple in real life) made me think that it seemed like a fitting way to answer this months title. Twilight of the Innocents is a suitably apocalyptic track and their own War of the Worlds routine seemed in a similar vibe. I chose to use white conte on black sugar paper to tie in with the twilight idea.

I've uploaded a few of my sketches from the day, nothing too finished or styled. At Dr. Sketchy's you draw to the length of a song, or series of songs. Shown are a mix of 2 songs and 3 songs sketches.

May 2010

Must remember when I commit to an IST shuffle it's handy to actually have your proper I-Tunes handy and available. Only fair to through it open to the world of chance and this months result has turned out to be…

Twilight Of The Innocents by Northern Irish Punk Poppers Ash.

Hmmm, ok. Off to check the lyrics. See you at the months end(ish).

Army Of Me - Gallusness

May the fourth be with you.

Topical puns aside we belatedly have an April entry. It's not big, it's not clever but it's a better effort than my first punt at the title. The lyrics didn't inspire me so much and then there was a distinct lack of other soldiers to make up more of an army. I'm thus a one man army, taking on the world or some unknown foe. Metaphor for life… who knows.

If there are positives to take it's nice to be back into the swing of IST. Hopefully a bit more drawing and possibly something a bit more meaningful will appear at the end of the month. Guess that will all depend on what the song title is though.

Shuffle to follow tomorrow.

April 2010

I-Tunes has been shuffled and the track for this month is…

Army Of Me by Björk

To aid creativity and possibly time all limitations are off. Time to go and check the lyrics. Catch you at the months end.

It's been a while

Yip been a distinct lack of action on the IST front. Sorry about that.

From the emails flying back and forth between us all it would seem the last two months have been respectively mental on both the work and life fronts. Hoping I can speak on everyone's behalf and say largely it's all good, but spare time in which to IST has been a rare commodity. A very very rare one.

We've ended up collectively having a wee two month break but I'm hoping to do a shuffle shortly so I can try and keep my hand in. If the guys can join in they will but this having to work for a living malarkey - sheeeeeeeesh, roll on the lottery wins.

I'm off for a shuffle (easy now, yes the I-Tunes kind), back in five.

Living Backwards - Gallusness

This month I ended up going with more of a concept than a full on illustration. I thought it'd be interesting to see how the lyrics of the song worked when read backwards. Technically it was the lines of the song in reverse order as opposed to every word. That would have been weirder and even less likely to work. What I found when I did this though was arguably a more haunting story desolate was revealed. There is the odd line that doesn't make sense but all things considered think it was quite an interesting result.

Sticking to my own limitations (the darker areas are just the green multiplied over more green) I then set the lyrics out in quite a generic font to help with making the type bland and lifeless. The original opening line that now became the finale struck me as quite dark and Reginald Perrin alike. This inspired me to add the abandoned shoes as a wee nod to that thought.

Living Backwards - Jones

Ok, new job is going well thanks. But working on an IST entry in work time is now a DEFINITE NO NO. So having to stay late tonight and watch an important document print out has given chance to knock up my entry quickly.

The inspiration for this was a godsend. Harry Pearce, partner in design heavyweights Pentagram, came to Plymouth to give a lecture last week, which I attended. One of the famous pieces in his impressive folio is a book called 'Conundrums' - in my opinion, a glorified game of Dingbats (I hope he wouldn't mind me saying!), but a witty and simple idea. Google it if you haven't heard of it.

Anyway, the premise being - make the words into a picture, tell a story using just the words, make them literally say what they say. And here, on IST, Scott has kindly chosen a perfect example for me to pay homage with. Obviously, I had to take inspiration from the Aerogramme album cover too, hence the colours. But thank you Harry, and thank you Scott for the gift!

January 2010

New year, new month, new title.

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 •shuffle•

Lady and gents it's - Living Backwards by the now defunct but very sadly missed Scots alternative, post rockers Aereogramme.

And for this months limitation I'd like to take a lead from the artwork from the album that track appeared on (My Heart Has A Wish That You Would Not Go). Can this months illustrations be done as a two colour solution (well three if you count white (paper colour)). The colours to use are Pantone 417. Which is 1 | 0 | 25 | 65 in CMYK breakdown terms. And Pantone 1795 whose breakdown is 0 | 94 | 100 | 0.

Everything else is fair game.

Fairytale Of New York - Gallusness

Happy New Year.

Belated posting from Gallusness. One of 2010 resolutions is to learn to utilise the auto posting thing.

Anyways…



Once again this year I decided to keep it light on the time allowed front. Last years 12 minutes of Xmas became the 25 minutes of Xmas. Does that mean it's twice as good? Naaaa not really.

When I saw the title and original celeb limitation in my head I started thinking of how how fairytales start. Once upon a time… So I was thinking Once upon a time in New York. Which made me think of Once Upon A Time In America, which is kind of the same thing. It starred Robert De Niro, so I tried to quickly sketch him. I feel like the time made my drawing style to regress back to secondary school standard, oh well.

A fresh year awaits. I think looking back it's my limitation. Back in five.

Xmas 2009 Reeko

So, time caught up with me. Again. At the time of writing today is the 18th December and I'm am packing up for the holidays. The image above is something I put together for a Sci Fi art annual and I've posted it here because... Well, I haven't got anything else and it looks a bit wintery!

Hope everyone had a great xmas and new year and roll on 2010!