Caricature

Done in Photoshop. Check out me updated website toooo: www.tomgameson.co.uk

 Here's two work in progress's. TBH I think I prefer the black n white one.

Also update on current project coming sooon... stay tuned.

on the road

just finished watching On The Road. it was a film I was pretty worried about, worried they'd mess it up, but more importantly  worried they'd make it something its not. when I saw Kirsten dunst and the  twighlight girl on the cast list I really just expected to see this years next big fad.. was getting ready to see the 16 year olds out in force with their on the road hoodies and happy meals. watching it though, you quickly realise that its a more mature film than to fall to that.
once I realised 'okay this isn't just some blockbuster', I found it interesting to watch. interesting because you know this is someone's, or a group of peoples (the director, DOP, actors, tea lady's) 100% vision of how they saw the book in their head. that was a really cool thing to feel, like someone else telling you what they thought was so great about the book. watching it feels real strange.. actually seeing the characters there on screen is kinda like looking at a cariature. not the acting, I just literally mean seeing these people in the flesh.

I guess ultimately the fault of the film wasn't its own fault at all but that of the medium of film. I think actually seeing Dean Moriarty in the flesh, going from scene to scene restricts that character to what you see of them. the great thing with reading something is it fitting your own mental interpretation, own built up series of feelings and the way you see things. books are objective rather than subjective. having it as concrete on film stiffens it, no longer loose fit. also, much like animation, jk caricatured Dean with his writing, having him shoot from key pose to key pose, what falls between, the reader fills in themselves. this is, by default, lost somewhat in a film. also, is harder to agree with a film.. a book, you head it, they tell you what they felt, but you hear it in your own voice, so eg, the bit when the three of them are in bed together.. you don't read it in disgust, you read it with beauty in mind because that's what keruoac says,  he says beauty so you think of beauty. film, were naturally more likely to object. Same with Old Bull Lee.. seeing him lying in a chair with a child in his arms and heroin tracks up his arm isn't nice, but hearing Kerouac's description in the book of children running free in the garden you understand. I guess you look at it less two dimensionally when reading it.

There was more sex in it than I remember in the book too.. oh and my final niggle.. this is just a silly thing.. the guy playing Dean I think was too good looking for the role. I always picture Dean as ugly but beuatiful, like beautiful behind the eyes you know? I think this would have been a good thing to portray on screen.. we often see the reverse (beautiful people who are ugly inside).

anywho, I guess the truth we've all known all along is that the book isn't film material, and its true. I think someone who hasn't read the book wouldnt enjoy the film, although i can't comment as I probably enjoyed it mainly for its iterations of things I have imagined. I think it went someway to capturing the book, how it was montaged, a lot of beauty in the shots. my verdict would be, if you love the book, don't be worried about watching it, to me, its just like hearing your mate tell you about the book and moments in it. im very glad its not a blockbuster. I'm interested to know what people who haven't read the book think of it.

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sorry for any typos written hastily on a touchscreen

Paintings

Have been doing some painting/pastels recently. Am really enjoying doing them, I've a lot to learn, every new painting is another lesson learnt.

Another good thing about it is that every new picture is better than the last.. its good to feel that upward climb again, I felt this way about sketching a while ago.. probably a year or two ago.

I'm enjoying using gouache most of all, that's what the George Harrison picture was done using. I've been using acrylics too, but I find the finish look is much too much like a poster paint picture you'd do in school.. the final line looks a little amatuer,. At least, that's my impression. No doubt with further practice I'd improve the line. The one of Leonard Cohen(bottom) is done in acrylic.

The other one is of Neil Cassady & Jack Kerouac. I actually did this s one back in July. I've not got a very good eye for colour, and both the Harrison one & the Kerouac/Cassady one are examples  of me averting the issue.. that one uses really varied eclectic colours thrown on as I see fit, the Harrison one is just blue & brown. 

The one of the girl is me pal Katy. Close but no cigar as they say. Getting there though.

Animation test

So here's a style i've had in mind exploring for a while. I guess the idea originated back when me & Rozi did the Royal Wedding animation last year. I really liked the look of that piece, although wanted to take it away from rotoscoping. I think what I liked was the looseness & how fickle it appeared, especially for subject matter like the Royal wedding - the imagery sorta floated around like feint memories.

Virginia Woolf is also a big inspiration on this thought. In her writing she connects present moments with passed recollections.. all strung together through time as if on a dainty string.. things linger in and out of thought.

 ...from Orlando -

“Nature, [...], has further complicated her task and added to our confusion by providing not only a perfect ragbag of odds and ends within us—a piece of a policeman’s trousers lying cheek by jowl with Queen Alexandra’s wedding veil—but has contrived that the whole assortment shall be lightly stitched together by a single thread. Memory is the seamstress, and a capricious one at that. Memory runs her needle in and out, up and down, hither and thither. We know not what comes next, or what follows after. Thus, the most ordinary movement in the world, such as sitting down at a table and pulling the inkstand towards one, may agitate a thousand odd, disconnected fragments, now bright, now dim, hanging and bobbing and dipping and flaunting, like the underlinen of a family of fourteen on a line in a gale of wind. Instead of being a single, downright, bluff piece of work of which no man need feel ashamed, our commonest deeds are set about with a fluttering and flickering of wings, a rising and falling of lights.”  - Virginia Woolf

I want to explore the whole stream of conciousness method with animation. Not by sitting down and animating and going 'straight ahead', but instead by taking my sketchbook out with me and picking up on scenes around town, then elaborating on them later at the lightbox.


Heres attempt one, this is from a drawing I did in Annecy -


It's perhaps a little too delicate in the line, I think what I may try doing is adding a watercolour background to it.

Anywho, i'll be doing a few more of these tests over the next couple of weeks so stay tuned.

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Oh also while on the subject, here's a painting I did of the woman herself for me pal Sion:

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And finally - Oh Cleggy weggy... you poor old sod of a dog.. Whatever have you done?

Wanted to repost this after watching the Lib Dem's get ripped to shreds on Wednesday's Newsnight.. I was photoshopping together a picture of Cameron then just happened to catch Cleggy's face in all the shots... speaks for itself really. Someone drown him quick.

Quincies poster

See you all (within reason) there!

Update & on artists

Here's a brief update on me life right now. It's been a while since I last posted but that's cus I don't have the internet where i'm livin. Since then, I got a job (harrassing people down the phone line) lost it (in rediculous circumstances) and am now back to where I want to be. This Charles Bukowski quote sums it up for me : 

"Baby, that's grammar school. Any damn fool can beg up some kind of job; It takes a wise man to make it without working. Out here we call it hustlin'. I'd like to be a good hustler"

Anywho so like I say i'm back to where I want to be. Spend most days going down town, using the library, drawing people coming in and out of shops. My plan is to compile them all into a moving sketch animation. Had the idea for a while and soon i'll start.

Have just been on a brief tour of the country which was really good fun. Went up to Cardiff to watch the Speedway, then over to Brum for a few days to visit family & also got to see the villa, then up to York where met up with everyone's old pal Rosie, then we drove up to Glasgow to crash at me mates for a few days. After that headed back to Brum for a family party. Best thing is the whole trip cost me about £40... not a bad bit of hustlin' ey? Am looking to go to America in the next month & end up in Vancouver, where the animation career will (hopefully) spark to life!


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Like I say i've been reading a bit over the summer, currently got my noes in Cloughie (Brian Clough's autobiography). It's nice to read, good to hear the man talk about his life. He swings from these very humble statements to being mr.Big head.

Have been reading some art books too, and it's made me realise little niggles I find with art. I really like Jamie Hewlett's work, really like it. But I don't like this whole attitude..:


It's just all a ego trip. Howard Becker describes art critic's & texts as mystifying... mystification being 'explaining away the truth'. This is the whole tone & make up of this video... the black and white.. the wandering cameras... the reminscent ho ho ho's about drawing chewbakka. Artists aren't these mystical creatures. Another book Kathy recommended (Drawing from the Right) is a good one to bring you back down to earth. Artist's need to see themselves as yes, gifted, but gifted in the same way a good bricky is or manager at Tesco's. Don't believe the hype.

"Thou shalt not use poetry, art or music to get into girls' pants. Use it to get into their heads." - Dan le Sac

"An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way." - Charles Bukowski 

My life right now

"Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for." - Socrates

Gunna do lots of reading. Got some good stuff to get through.. next on the agenda.. Orlando by Virginia Woolf, Ways of Seeing by Howard Becker, Chronicles by Bobby D. Also got the complete works of Plato, altho i'm not going to pretend to even make it through the whole thing. That can be my toilet book.

Have moved into me dads, and coincidentally, Virgin are putting a new episode of original Star Trek on his telly each day... so... beggars cant be choosers.. I've never watched it before but I think its a good decision to employ an hour of each day, for the forseeable future, consuming Star Trek. Yes, definetly a good idea.

Gunna do lots of drawing too. Maybe draw a different story from every day, saw a thing the other day about a lady who has been drawing her kid every day of his life (he's about 2 now) and sounds like fun. Maybe a different story from Torquay every day.

..."Cant start a fire without a spark..."


Anywho, that about sums it up. I'm gunna keep active and the animation ideas will come flooding in.


Huzzah!

France Sketchbook

Here's some drawings from France.

(on occasion) tried to focus on relationships between people (eg the very last one), tried to draw people's heads at more interesting angles than side on (altho this is hard as the preferred drawing angle is side on - if there atall facing you - they usually will clock you, and there's only so many times you can draw the back of a head) & tried to focus on French features a bit too. Enjoey. PS look out for a cameo appearance...

This one was hard because the guy was about 2 foot away from me wooing a girl, and he was very aware I was drawing him ha. Unfortunatley didn't get to finish it, he'd pulled by then!

From a photo (the Lumiere brothers - great museum in Lyon)

These next few were up the top of Lyon.

This one has a funny story. I did this of a woman opposite on the underground in Lyon. She kept waking up every time we got to a stop, and then would fall asleep again. I had Fran sat to my left, so was asking her when she was asleep and i'd keep on drawing her. The whole time the women sat to my right was looking at what I was drawing and laughing to herself. Turned out - The girl sat next to me was her pal, and the girl I was drawing was concious the whole time I was drawing her. Her mate had told her - so she just pretended to be asleep. She had a quick look and laughed before jumping off the tube.

Really liked France, seemed like a good place. Didn't come across any 'sterotypes' either that us English love to put on em - TBH - get the feeling we're just a bunch of hypocrit's. I can't imagine too many people in London would be helpful to a Frenchy asking for directions. The French seemed much like us, the food seemed much like ours (sorry Frenchies, its true), & they were simillar people to us - except less 'cuddled' and more liberal. Cool place, will be back at Annecy next year.