I built this city from, er, stuff and paint

Over the last few weeks, I've been working on a new painting/mixed media piece entitled 'City'. It was one of the more technically challenging pieces I've attempted, encompassing painting, ink-drawing, collage and some unfamiliar techniques/materials so here's an insight into the stages it went through.

The initial collage layout - plastics, polystyrene, card and wood on laminated hardboard.

Everything was spray-painted white. It makes a good photo, but in reality looked like what it was - a blank-but-heavily-textured canvas.

Sections of text from a lecture on NGOs and environmental law, and graphs from scientific papers on ecology were photocopied onto acetate sheets, then cut and attached to the discs already present.

The background was painted in black oils.

The black background highlights key features such as the organic structures made by applying solvent-based (but non-toxic!) products to polystyrene.

'Stars' and 'galaxies' are added in white spray, oil and acrylic paints. It is now a city in space!

Details at this stage include a fox and an angel... to my eye, anyway - to yours?

The final stage - 'circuitry' details in black ink.

The finished piece - 'City' (80 x 60cm). Texture is a huge part of it, and a photo doesn't really convey this, but I hope you like it. Once framed it'll be up for sale...

Synapse by stages

I've just finished 'Synapse', my latest science-inspired mixed-media piece - so, here's a brief insight into how it was created. Enjoy!

Stage 1: The baseboard is in the background - here some components from dead mobile phones...

Stage 2: Adding components to the baseboard - it could be a space-station, but it's not...

Stage 3: Adding more components.

Stage 4: Now the right way up - adding detail in gold ink - but the pen ran out and it's 10pm!

Stage 5: New gold pens bought, final details and white oil-paint highlights finish the piece, so here it is - 'Synapse' (40x50cm approx), £POA

Some artists don't 'alf pen-and-ink

Some months back, I saw exhibitions of Tom Joyce's ink drawings at The Art House and City Gallery in Southampton. I loved the cartoon style and mosaic/space-filling approach of many of them - to the extent that I was compelled to buy a couple of prints ('The Beetles' and 'Viking Village' which are still available here). More recently, I got round to sketching/doodling in ink following on from a taking-a-line-for-a-walk exrecise in one of Jani Franck's online workshop sessions. A bit of TomJoyceishness must have been floating around in my pen-hand (and maybe just the merest whiff of H.R.Giger) as the following started to take shape... more on the way!

Biomechanical I

Biomechanical spaceport

Introducing the Quantum Triptych

OK, here goes - the first proper 'look what I did' post on HubArtHub. To start, there's a few themes and about-me things that you need to know. The main one that's relevant here is that I am an unashamed nerd - in my non-artistic life (though that's being rapidly absorbed by the artistic one), I am a professional academic/ecologist with a penchant for physicsy/mathsy/sci-fi stuff. This informs at least some of my art. I also like to use recycled/repurposed materials (as in my jewellery), and this sometimes drives what I make my art from. So, what's the Quantum Triptych?

Well, I wanted to explore the aesthetic of very-big-and-very-small physics - you know, the interesting stuff that Brian Cox talks about on TV - fundamental particles, quantum-weirdness, cosmology and so on. I also wanted to look at this like a story with a beginning, middle and end. Actually, not the end - I chose 'now' as the end point, but the idea stays the same. Anyhow, I could babble on, but won't - here's the triptych, all 'mixed media on board' - I hope you like it.

Triptych part 1: '1.616 x 10^-35m'- this is the Planck length, measurement used in quantum physics, and the smallest unit of distance that has any real-world meaning - it is the realm of 'quantum foam', particles popping in and out of existence and so on.

Triptych part 2: 'The first three minutes' - after the Big Bang, the period when the Universe rapidly expanded and created matter as we know it. A lot happened in this short period of time, which also approximates to the length of many a song. This is a time of major transition, hence the loss of structure seen in parts 1 & 3.

Triptych part 3: 'Virgo Supercluster' - our corner of the Universe as it is now - a cluster of clusters of galaxies, and a structure that's actually large enough to be significant in what is a very grand scheme of things.

As yet unframed, but here's the triptych as it is intended to be displayed.