What is... September

September's calendar image is an Australian sunset over the sea...

It was part of my experimental "Around The World In 6 Clicks" series (where I basically picked a random location off Google Maps, then recreated the resulting Streetview or photo onto paper).

This was one of my favourite images from the series (more for the colours than anything else), and there's not much else to say about it, so I'll leave it at that.

Creative work for "Kinross Curling"

I've been busy producing a range of material for Kinross Curling Trust, who are taking-over the running of Kinross Curling Rink this summer, and who will be operating under the trading name of "Kinross Curling".

The work I've done so far includes:
- consulting on their new logo (above),
- helping to renovate Kinross Curling Trust's old website,
- building a brand new Kinross Curling website,
- managing their social media,
- designing a tri-fold leaflet for distribution at the Kinross Show,
- designing a poster for the Opening Bonspiel,
- designing a poster for the Inaugural Dinner,
- creating artist's impressions of some renovation work (yet to be unveiled),
- and more.

In relation to all of this, there will be exciting news for me to share in a few weeks.

What is... August

August's calendar image is this...

...Watercolour painting of a church in Majorca, painted after I visited the island in 2009. If I could remember the exact location, I would reveal that too, but I can't.

Not much else to say really, apart from - hopefully the weather stays as sunny as in the picture, haha!

What is... July

Far later than planned (let's just say that Wimbledon was a huge distraction), here's the calendar image for July...

This calendar image was created eight months ago, yet features Novak Djokovic & Andy Murray, who contested the 2013 Wimbledon men's singles final just three days ago... So if you want some tips for who to put your money on next year, you know who to ask, haha.

I first created a series of tennis caricatures in June 2011, and of those, Novak's (above, left) was my favourite. Andy Murray's (above, right) was created in July 2012 after he lost last year's Wimbledon final to Roger Federer.
And no, it's not a complete coincidence that this calendar image was a reflection of the recent Wimbledon final: All my calendar images were planned to somewhat reflect their particular month (some a lot more so than others), and what better time of the year for tennis than July?

While I'm here [spoiler alert, haha], congratulations to Andy Murray for his latest triumph!

What is... June

June's calendar image is this old painting from my 12fp(s) Film-inspired Painting Series.

It depicts a scene from Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 film, Le Mepris, starring Brigitte Bardot.

I included it here because the Mediterranean setting portrays the kind of warm, sunny weather that I was hoping to see in Scotland at this time of year... I don't mean to speak to soon, but after 2 days, it's so far so good! And even if the weather turned out to be rubbish, at least this would [hopefully] brighten your day!

Three Colours: Bleurgh (new acrylic paintings)

Earlier this week I dusted-off my old acrylic paints and had a play around. First up was the following Impressionist-inspired landscape of the local countryside:

I'd estimate it to have been an hour or two, of vibrantly splashing paint around until some kind of form began to appear through the mess... Yes it was based upon a photo, but I wasn't trying to be too precise about the representation - I was just trying to get a feel for the acrylic paints again.
I used a palette of three colours (red, yellow, blue, plus white) in a desperate bid to avoid greens straight from the tube.
It's created an interesting result: Yet 3 days later, I still have no idea whether I completely love or hate it!

Following that, I found myself to have a bit too much leftover paint on my palette, so rather than completely waste it, I decided to paint this very random self-portrait:

This was 10 minutes of throwing the colours anywhere they fitted, and again, a case of just waiting for the final image to make some kind of appearance...
...And here was you thinking that there's some kind of logic to painting!? Haha, sorry, not in this case!

Musical Quotations

I've been neglecting this blog again, so to any regulars that may be disappointed, sorry about that!

Rewinding to March, I devised a theme for my next series of paintings. Progress so far has been quite slow, but with any luck, more paintings should gradually start appearing on here.

The series will be called Musical Quotations, and portrays scenes from some of my favourite music videos... The term "favourite" in this instance will be pretty loose: It could be well-known masterpieces, interesting independent videos, aesthetically-pleasing sequences, a performer/song that I like, or simply a random video with one particular shot that I appreciate: We'll see what happens.

I've already made 2 paintings, and I'll post them up over the coming days. But in the meantime, for more regular updates, you should 'like' my facebook page Art of Andy R Macpherson.

What is... May

This year has been fair flying-by... And here already is May's calendar image:

It is a computer screenshot from when TV personality, Cat Cubie, tweeted one of my cartoons around the world to her near 4000 twitter followers. It was unexpected and really made my day!

The cartoon depicts HRH Charles Prince of Wales hijacking the BBC's Reporting Scotland weather studio, around about this time last year. I'm just disappointed that he still hasn't been made a regular weather presenter!

If interested, you can read more about the special weather report & this cartoon by visiting my original blog post about it at:
http://armacpherson.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/charles-prince-of-weather.html

Some self-portraits

For lack of a better subject, I've been creating some self-portraits recently.

April 2013. Pen on paper.

April 2013. Digital painting.

December 2012. Digital painting.

There's a load of other projects that I'll be able to share soon, but not quite yet I'm afraid. Stay tuned!

What is... April

April's calendar image is of Chatelherault near Hamilton, Scotland.

It was a very large acrylic-on-card commission, completed in July 2011.

Not my best painting (particularly the vivid green foreground), but I hadn't painted with acrylics for a long time and found the process quite tricky to be honest.

I tried to take a little inspiration from Edward Hopper, who has for the longest time been one of my favourite painters.

I should really do more landscape painting, but finding inspiration seems to have been the hard part for the past few years! Got any ideas? If so, I'd love to hear them.

What is... March

A bit later than planned, but here at last is my calendar image for March.

It is a 2009 painting from my 12fp(s) Film-inspired Painting Series, portraying Grace Kelly & Jimmy Stewart in Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window [1954].

That series of paintings began during the summer of 2009 - just after I had graduated with a BA (Hons) Animation degree from Edinburgh College of Art - and portrays some of the films that I found influential during my student days. The series was originally going to consist of only 12 paintings, but by the end of the year, as a result of an exhibition at the Filmhouse cinema (Edinburgh) throughout December 2009 & January 2010, it had grown to over 20 paintings.
This was one of the later paintings, and as it missed out on a place in my previous wall calendar (exclusively of the film painting series), I've included it this time around.

Randolph's Leap: "News"

My latest music video for Randolph's Leap was officially launched by Fence Records on Wednesday morning.



It is for their new single, News, which is available to download from here.

The 85-second animated video is based upon the concept of synesthesia, and inspired by the experimental film work of Len Lye, Oskar Fischinger, & Norman McLaren, amongst others (including Walt Disney's Fantasia).
Created over the past 6 weeks, it is all animated by hand with a range of materials including: Pencils, watercolours, ink, charcoal, the odd digital painting, paper, card, newspaper,and even denim!
Each hand-made frame of animation was produced at a size of either 50mms wide (mainly just for coloured backgrounds), or a tiny 18mms to help give the movements a lively organic energy.

I'll try posting some behind-the-scenes stuff about the making-of later this month.

What is... February

My 2013 calendar image for February is a seascape from the west coast of Scotland.

I was commissioned to paint this watercolour, of somewhere near Campbeltown (I think?), very nearly 2 years ago, and to this day it proudly hangs mounted & framed in the owner's home.

For lack of anything else to say, I'll add a shameless plug: Painting commissions start from £50 for an A4-sized watercolour on card, but there are plenty other options available, including different sizes, materials, mounting & framing. Please e-mail me with any enquires at: andyrmacpherson@gmail.com

New music video: Influences

A selection of visual influences for my new music video (more details below).

An Optical Poem (1938). Oskar Fischinger.
http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/1b6wAr7knYw/

Swinging The Lambeth Walk (1939). Len Lye.
http://youtu.be/Q57lUSz0Oyw

Fantasia (1940). Walt Disney Studios.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOtFR5WG9K8

Carmen Torero (1996). Aleksandra Korejwo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZJSNOtEE_Y

Russian architecture & design.

Loudmouth golf designs.

New music video in development

I'm busy producing a new animated music video for Glasgow-based genre-defying band, Randolph's Leap.

Having previously produced their music video for Counting Sheep (2011), I was recently contacted about making another video for them.
But this time, instead of utilising a mix of live-action & pixelation, this new video will be animated entirely with a hand-made abstract style similar to one of my old audio/visual experiments, Synesthesia (2008).

The production deadline is the end of January, ahead of a launch gig in Edinburgh next month: This is a little tight for my liking (particularly with my real job & a few other projects competing for my time) but it should be an interesting - and hopefully fun - project.

I'll try to post some of the influences & behind-the-scenes stuff over the coming days/weeks, so stayed tuned.