Secret Sketches

We had an exciting technical breakthrough this week on the TV show, with help from the people who make the software. It hopefully means we can get it to do what we want, when we want. I get more and more convinced that we can get the show to work, which makes the prospect of funding falling through as likely as it's always been, but more worrying than before...

Am going away tomorrow afternoon for a weekend of camping and music and dancing with friends and family. Looking forward to it. But not looking forward to saying goodbye to Crista, who leaves the house on sunday.

No time for anything other than secret sketches, sorry!

Distractions

Interesting footage and useful (if pre-rehearsed) maxims from Brad Holland, who was kind enough to invite me to his Soho studio in 1999 when I was in New York with college (I mostly recall the small Rembrandt etching he had on his wall, a painting of a cash register, and a large tabby cat).
He was a huge influence on me through college, and can't really be held responsible for the boiling down of certain innovations he made years ago by leagues of those he influenced (hopefully not me). His work is still much more than that residue!
I also think, despite replacing some of the joy with even more wryness, he's always been influenced by Hockney, and that is sort of what led me to look up what he was doing now.
Oh yeah, he gave me a copy of that poster which is on the wall next to the drawing board! I still have it somewhere.

Brad Holland from Richard Solomon on Vimeo.

Originally created by request for the conceptart.org scheduled podcast with Brad Holland and the Art on a Grand Scale artists (www.artonagrandscale.com).

There is also a long and interesting podcast available here.

This post is a result of a me avoiding making changes to a book jacket, and growing tired of painting and cutting out tiny little pieces of animation set...

"I bin doin' me peanin's"

Look, if you can, at this BBC documentary about wonderful, curmudgeonly, wonderful David Hockney's recent work. The narrator is astoundingly insensitive, Damian Hurst is non-commital and a bit irritating, Hockney is a wonder!

http://bbc.co.uk/i/lk119/

Dedication's what you need...*

Matthew Robins and me, just two cogs in an 851 spoked, world record breaking wheel. It was 851 voices that got me, more than all the strumming...



*Oh come on... that had to be the title.

Smeary

Here is a scrawl of yesterday's big stormcloud before it hit London, as viewed from the train through Warwickshire. I take that train pretty much once a week currently, to the tv studio, and it's a really beautiful journey, complete with horizons (which a person can be starved of in darkest Dalston) and Red Kites flying.
I wonder if part of what makes Turner's watercolours so effective is that the sky (which is what they're mostly about), when smeared with clouds and vapour, is essentially a giant watercolour itself... but that would imply that other people's watercolours would also be that effective, and they don't tend to be.

Sorry to anyone I owe e-mails etc to, it's been a bit of a mad few weeks.

Notes from Zagreb

Because my face betrayed a smile

News news.

My old friend Tim Spooner's gallery show and performance was a work of, I'm going to say it, genius (spelled it wrong for a moment there which might've punctured the gravitas...). There were lots of old friends attending, including Tim's also genius of a dad Paul Spooner, and it was overwhelming. Here's a few pics I hope Tim won't mind me posting.





On monday I played violin for Matthew Robins in front of the Tate Modern (not the national theatre as stated in the last post...) with Tim operating the shadows for the shadow show. The tent we were using was the Plato tent, since it was shadow themed...
Afterwards we stumbled on John Hegley playing Mandolin and doing poems and songs.

Tonight I'll see Alasdair Roberts at Bush Hall. Click here for some lyrics from his new record. They're good ones...

And then next week I'm suddenly going to an animation festival in Croatia with Matilda and Steve, who are the co-writers of my tv-show.
Here is a really funny comic that Matilda made. The three of us have all serendipitously purchased large eyewear (not unlike those sported by Paul Spooner in the above link) and are a sight to behold whilst beholding sights. We'll behold some sights in Zagreb, I'll be bound.






(They're choosing sandwiches).








(I'm working in homemade sketchbooks at the moment, so I can choose different papers. Hence, no yellow moleskin colour...)