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.

More curling photography

Last month there were a couple of big events at work, with the 21st annual Kinross Junior Curling Classic taking place from 7th-9th October, and the Kinross Wheelchair Curling International Invitational from 18th-20th October.



On top of my usual Ice Tech duties, I was also the official photographer & webmaster for the Junior Classic. This involved creating, maintaining, and editing a blog/website for relevant news, scores/results, and photos throughout the weekend; as well as perching myself rink-side for between 30 & 60 minutes per session to photograph the sporting action (with 13 sessions & about 48 games - if I remember correctly - over 3 days)!


You can visit the Junior Classic website at: www.kinrossjuniorclassic.blogspot.com

And you can see all my photos from both the Junior Classic & Wheelchair International on the Kinross Curling Rink facebook page.

Commission: Chatelherault

Here is a large painting commission that I completed a couple weeks ago.



It is an acrylic on card portrayal of Chatelherault near Hamilton (Scotland); and measures roughly 80 x 40cms - making it by far the largest painting I've done in several years.

Work in progress teaser

I'm making slow progress on the largest painting I've done in about 5 years. It's an acrylic on card commission, and measures roughly 80cms x 40cms (32" x 16").

The photo below is a wee teaser, showcasing the painting and my re-arranged work space (which is temporarily set-up to accommodate work on this painting).

Eve Muirhead portrait

Last week I was asked to do a painting of top Scottish curler, Eve Muirhead, for a fundraising campaign.
The painting, as seen below, is watercolour-on-card and measures roughly 205mm x 190mm (unframed).


Exciting news about the fundraising campaign and the painting itself will be coming soon, but I won't reveal these until full details have been confirmed: So stay tuned!

Thanks go to the commissioner (to be revealed at a later date), and to Bob Cowan at the excellent Skip Cottage Curling blog [http://skipcottagecurling.blogspot.com] for providing the reference imagery.

Commission: Machrihanish Beach

Here is a painting commission of Machrihanish Beach (near Campbeltown) that I completed earlier this week:

Not only is this my first painting since July, but surprisingly it is my first acrylic painting in 12 months (according to the blog history)!

I can understand why I've not done any major paintings in the past 3 months, and I'm aware that I've not painted on a regular basis since my Film-inspired Painting Series exhibition last December, but I still find it hard to believe that I've not touched my acrylic paints in 12 months.

Commission: Andy Murray caricature

A couple of months ago I was commissioned to create a little caricature of Scottish tennis star Andy Murray for someone's birthday gift.


The image above was my second attempt at caricaturing Andy Murray because I felt that my first attempt [below] had a questionable likeness to the international tennis player, and I wanted to improve it...


...The first attempt was a nice enough image, but in my opinion the resemblance to Andy Murray was just a little too vague: At least the second attempt [top] is wilder and more like his on-court personality (complete with trademark reaction).

Commission: Rumbling Bridge

This is my most recent painting commission, completed last month. I'm pleasantly surprised with how well it turned out considering that it's the first 'normal' painting I've done in several months!


The painting portrays a local landscape, called Rumbling Bridge, that I've enjoyed visiting since childhood. Located about 7 miles west of Kinross, it is a two-tier stone bridge dating from the 1700s, which spans above an impressive 120ft gorge.

Due to the surroundings of Rumbling Bridge, trying to get a good vantage point from where to take photos of it is awkward at best. For example, through a camera viewfinder the bridge often looks either way too close (it doesn't fit enough of the structure into the picture to convey its size), or too distant (it seems lost within a mass of leaves, branches, and trees, making it look insignificant).
I'm including a photo and video as examples:

Commission: West Coast Seascape

Here's another commission I did a number of months ago: somewhere along the West Coast of Scotland.

Commission: Gem the dog

Here's a commission that I did many months ago: Don't know how it has taken so long for me to upload it to the blog...

Macbeth theatre/animation project

For the past month or so, I've been busy producing a 50-second animation sequence along with some stills and miniature portraits for John Hales' modern-dress theatre production of William Shakespeare's Macbeth, starring Abi Titmuss, taking place at the Seagull Theatre in Lowestoft, England.


That project is all complete now, and the debut performance commenced at 19:30 on Wednesday, 18 November 2009. There will be a few more performances at the Seagull before the show begins touring other theater's in the Norwich region from 24 November until 4 December - check the Seagull Theatre events calender for details.

If like me, you're an 8-hour/£170 train trip away from Lowestoft [I thought the government wanted to encourage public transport?!], you probably won't get to see the whole performance; but thanks to the Internet, you can watch two (of the four) short animation sequences that were commissioned to portray the Visions of Act 4, Scene 1...

Below is my sequence for the last Vision:


It has quite a minimalist/sketchy aesthetic, and uses an almost storyboard-animatic animation technique, which looks a bit unfinished compared to commercial animation; but I decided that this loose aesthetic would look more exciting than if I were to clean it all up with perfect lines and full colour (which I think would paradoxically become really empty and stale)... But regardless, I am actually rather fond of this unusual style, and found it all surprisingly fun to work on!


As well as making my piece of animation, I volunteered to create some still images of portraits and mock newspapers that would appear on stage during the theatre performance. Below are a few of them:









As I stated in an earlier blog post, I was originally commissioned to produce all four Visions, and although I accepted the work, I knew that the theatre would get better results if I shared the workload with other animators so that each Vision got equal focus and dedication. Thankfully Grace Chan and Calum MacAskill stepped up to my challenge, while the director found a fourth animator to create Vision 2.
To view Vision 1, created by Grace, please visit: http://vimeo.com/7598347


Relevant Press coverage (found online so far):
OneSuffolk.co.uk
Lowestoft Journal

Portrait painting 3

I've done this painting by special request for Topher Holland of Zool Films, after he saw my previous painting in this style.

As well as making films, Topher is a musician, and he is planning to tour the UK with his band in the near future. Nothing has been announced yet, but stay tuned to their website for the latest news...

Professional Finger painting!

I'm including some more painting commissions that I've done recently, but unusually for me, they were made using my fingertips instead of paintbrushes.
This might seem like a silly method of painting (kinda like a 3 year old!) but it helps me to achieve a stronger Impressionist style (which I greatly admire just now), and working with my fingertips also feels much more expressive and engaging than my paintbrushes.

It is a painting technique that I first developed while doing my Paint on Glass animation experiments in 2008, which were inspired by the brilliant Paint on Glass animator Aleksandr Petrov [the video below].


Now that the little history lesson is out the way, below is my other recent finger painting.
(Inspecting this image on the computer right now, I can see several things that I don't like about it: as well as the obvious lack of depth, the colours and paint strokes are looking really bold on screen, which I think is distracting from the overall image... If anyone has any opinions then I'd love to hear them).

Although neither of these 2 paintings are particularly great, I think the style has enough potential to develop into something much more exciting as I develop my technique.
Using my fingertips is certainly a more engaging and stimulating work process than that offered by brushes, so this excitement will certainly help to maintain my enthusiasm for improving and developing the style further.