Planning artwork in the dark months
: “February’s nearly over, and slowly we’re closing in on Spring (even if it doesn’t feel like it at the moment). These dark grey months at the beginning of the year have never been great for me…”
The Artist’s Notebook - page 7
Blogroll:
Because it’s not all about me, but rather about building communities.
Download the entire blogroll as an OPML file (also includes this blog) for importing into your feed reader.
- Flamed Fury - fLaMEd
- Bix Dot Blog - Bix Frankonis
- The Homebound Symphony - Dr Alan Jacobs
- Cold Albion - VI
- { feuilleton } - John Coulthart
- blissblog - Simon Reynolds
- Retromania - Simon Reynolds
- Criticismism II - Mark Sheerin
- De-Scribed - Scribe
- Enfolding.org - Phil Hine
- Escaping Flatland - Henrik Karlsson
- Going Medieval - Dr Eleanor Janega
- Orbific - James Burt
- Pluralistic - Cory Doctorow
- Room 207 Press - Howard David Ingram
- step one of a plan - Miranda Reinert
- Strange Flowers - James J. Conway
- The Daily Grail - The Daily Grail
- The M John Harrison blog - M. John Harrison
- The Old Weird Albion - Justin Hopper
- Velcro City Tourist Board - Paul Graham Raven
- visual/method/culture - Prof. Gillian Rose
- Gnosis Blog - Ellen Jane Rogers
- Recently - Kening Zhu
- Studio Diary - Dr Isabella Streffen
- Folk Horror Revival & Urban Wyrd Project - Folk Horror Revival
- Gothic Nature Journal - Gothic Nature Journal
- Open Graves, Open Minds - Dr Sam George
- Romancing the Gothic - Dr Sam Hirst
- The Wasted World - Dr Gregory Marks
- The Haunted Generation - Bob Fischer
- Modern Mythology - J. Curcio
- The Urban Prehistorian - Dr Kenny Brophy
- … an uncertain surface … - Stuart Mugridge
- A Year In The Country - Stephen Prince
- Sylvia Warren Writes - Sylvia Warren
- The Hours God Sends - Natasha Kindred
- Ailish Sinclair - Ailish Sinclair
- Blackthorn & Stone - Romany Reagan
- Celluloid Wicker Man - Dr Adam Scovell
- ForestPunk - J. Simpson
- Revenant Journal - Revenant Journal
- Liminal Worlds - Rebecca Lambert
- Nearly Knowledgeable - Amy
- Psychogeographic Review - Bobby Seal
- Unofficial Britain - Gareth E. Rees
- Unquiet Things - S. Elizabeth
- Wyrd Britain ( Holloway) - Ian Holloway
- Richly Evocative - Matt Gilbert
- Wyrd Daze - Leigh Wright
- Xenogothic - Matt Colquhoun
- Tracy Durnell - Tracy Durnell
- Strange Attractor - Strange Attractor Press
- Temporal Boundary Press - Temporal Boundary Press
- Uneasy Writer - Andrea Harris
- Pays Fantôme - Pays Fantôme
- Roy Tang - Roy Tang
- An und für sich - Adam Kotsko
- Anarchist Writers - Anarchist Writers
- Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff (podcast) - Margaret
- Rowan Tree Editing blog - Rowan Fortune
- catvincent.com returns - Cat Vincent
- Joan Westenberg - Joan Westenberg
- LUCID FRENZY JUNIOR - Gavin Burrows
- disassociated - John Lampard
- myelectriceye - Philip A. Suggars
Pages from the 2023 Almanac - February
Cover of the 1828 volume of the British Almanac, used under license of the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication
: “Wednesday 1st February 2023 Being the start of LGBT+ HISTORY MONTH in the United Kingdom, and the Neo-Pagan/Wiccan observance of IMBOLC. Thursday 2nd February 2023 On this day is the Christian observance…”
Capitalist Realism and British Rail flying saucers
Plans for nuclear fusion powered flying saucer by British Rail - Patent No. GB1310990A
: “In 1973 British Rail, Britain’s then nationalised railway service (which for the youngsters was, despite the contemporary 1970s jokes about British Rail sandwiches, far better than the privatised shitshow…”
Read the rest of “Capitalist Realism and British Rail flying saucers”…
More Studies from the Court of Queen Mab
Study of a Figure in the Court of Queen Mab (4) and (5)
: “The first three studies from the Court of Queen Mab were large-scale pastel drawings on black paper - there’s also an as-yet-unposted fourth large-scale pastel drawing depicting Queen Mab herself that…”
Read the rest of “More Studies from the Court of Queen Mab”…
The Snake Mask
: “I started working on the Snake Mask in January 2022, and it has sat partially made for a full year now. I think it’s time to finish it. I don’t know why it’s been such a blind spot for me over the…”
Pages from the 2023 Almanac - January
Cover of the 1828 volume of the British Almanac, used under license of the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication
: “Sunday 1st January 2023 Being the NEW YEAR’S DAY of this year. Monday 2nd January 2023 Declared a secular holiday for the COMMON PEOPLE to celebrate the beginning of this NEW YEAR, given that it started…”
Burning the Clocks 2022
: “Last night brought the welcome return of Brighton’s annual Burning the Clocks procession/event, after a break over the last two years due to Covid. It was loud and joyful, as the short video above hopefully…”
Artwork plans for 2023
A twilight view of a snowy landscape near the village of Shingay-cum-Wendy in Cambridgeshire, taken by the author
: “It’s been a difficult year and I didn’t get much artwork done in 2022. I managed only 3 finished photographic pieces - two Untitled “Moss” pieces (here and here) and Spirit of the Orchard in…”
Anarchism in Speculative Fiction
: “One of my first Mastodon posts was a request: Looking for recommendations about speculative fiction (SF/F, pref. short stories, but novels are fine) set in anarchist communities or dealing with anarchist…”
Decentralised Networks
: “The recent change of ownership of Twitter is making a small but growing number of people think about their future on social media, and on the internet in general. You’ve all seen multiple web platforms…”
Life-Drawing October 2022
Life-drawing, 30 minute pose
: “I have been inconsistent with my choice of medium in recent life-drawing practice - alternating between pencils and pastels. I don’t see this as inherently negative, but it does suggest to me that I’m…”
Some thoughts on AI art tools
First three results from Craiyon using the prompt a haunting of roses
: “Publicly-accessible AI art tools — Craiyon (formerly DALL-E mini), Midjourney, and the growing number of others — allow non-skilled users to produce an image that otherwise they would not have been…”
Life-Drawing September 2022
Life-drawing, 1 hour pose (pencil)
: “My plan to re-introduce regular life-drawing into my artistic practice is still going ahead, even though it’s not as frequent as I’d hoped yet. Some of that is the logistics of finding and booking…”
Children of Mab opening night
Some of my photographs in the Children of Mab exhibition
: “I’m delighted to say that the Opening Party for my Children of Mab exhibition at Treadwell’s Bookshop went very well, and seemed to be enjoyed by all - thank you to everyone who managed to get there. I’d…”
Interviewed by Callum Sutherland
Dr Callum Sutherland (left) and myself (right)
: “Back on 19th November 2021 I was interviewed over Zoom by Dr Callum Sutherland (pictured above, on the left) as part of his research. Callum is a Research Associate at Glasgow University’s School of…”
A Study for The Goblin Market
A pencil study for The Goblin Market by the author
: “For a couple of years I’ve had an idea at the back of my mind to do a drawing based on Christina Rossetti’s 1859 poem Goblin Market as part of my Acid Renaissance series. It’s a poem that has…”
Stargazy on Zummerdown
: “Update: August 2024 - There is now a copy of Stargazy on Zummerdown on the Internet Archive which is now embedded above. Update: October 2023 - the YouTube copy of Stargazy on Zummerdown has disappeared.…”
Crafting Utopias with Ursula
: “Yesterday was St Swithin’s Day and it hasn’t rained for days. The Met Office has issued its first ever Red Warning for extreme heat, predicting that “exceptional, perhaps record-breaking, temperatures…”
Children of Mab: an Exhibition
: “As you may have heard if you follow my Twitter or Instagram accounts, I will be showing some of my artwork at Children of Mab, an exhibition in the basement room at Treadwell’s bookshop in London…”
Imagining a more Utopian future
Bacchanalia Beneath the Wind Turbines, by the author
: “I’ve written about imagining progressive alternative futures here before, mainly as ways of breaking out of the chains of capitalist realism (most are tagged as Mark Fisher and/or Acid Communism if you…”