guilty pleasure guro

Guro, which may be considered somewhat tasteless and grotesque to others, is depicted in colourful and delightfully quirky illustrations by the guro pioneer himself, Shintaro Kago;

 On the cover of Vice magazine!

I think I did a good job in not using his more graphic pieces! I'm not sure why I entitled this post as a "guilty pleasure" because I really dig his work. His concepts are really creative and it just proves that guro can be an art form and not just the kind of stuff you see plastered on 4chan.

You can purchase pieces and I think even commision from him here!

My friend had the opportunity to commision Kago to do an album cover for his band, and he said he'd do it, but the other band members didn't like his style. Fools. :)

rhys cooper!

I regret that I haven't discovered this guy's work earlier as I think I'm in love with his posters;

Oh my goodness! His concepts for music posters, movie posters and the like are just luscious. The highly detailed illustrative works with in your face colours are definitely something you'd want to showcase on your walls. The compositions and themes he chooses for each band are always on the money!

I also paticulary enjoy his "Of Fur and Felt" series, quite feral interpretations of beloved muppets and sesame street characters;

teehee.

I can't seem to find an offical portfolio or web page to link to you (if you have one do holla!), but for now you can browse a selection of prints to purchase here.

intuition exhibition

On Sunday I checked out the Whitworth gallery on Oxford road (manchester!), as I heard about this outsider art exhibition called "intuition". It sounded like the type of art I'd be interested in. Don't ask me why but for some reason I managed to get me and my friend lost trying to find oxford road which is incredibly easy to find, didn't realize it was actually near Manchester and MMU uni and that we could have hopped on a bus to make our lives easier. Also, to add insult to injury, I realized I had been to this gallery a while ago! But yeah, we got there in the end...

 I was quite fond of the work of Madge Hill and her attention to detail and lovely feminine figurative faces. My friend  didn't quite "get her" but then again, she's not an arty type! I personally found Hill's illustrative style lovely.

It was great to see Chris Hipkiss' work in this exhibition, I actually researched him for my latest college project! The piece displayed was one of those with so many details that draw your eye and attract you to different parts of the composition.

Here's a few more photos from these artists and others for your liking!

 

I really wanted to steal this gorgeous guest book! teehee.

landscape piece

just a little somethin' somethin' for college;

 Okay, not my best piece of work, seems as if I felt it didn't even deserve a name! But I'm my own worst critic. For our indtroductory brief this year at college, we're working with the theme of landscape and for this part of the brief we had to produce a final painting. I'm not big on backgrounds, I actully felt a little out of my comfort zone with this, but seeing as though I'm interested in illustration and graphic novels it would make sense to dabble in this and practice with it, giving myself a challenge in a way. I looked at artists like Chris Hipkiss (who's work I saw at the whitworth today, will post about that later!) who creates large, obscure compositions with lots of details and strange perspectives. I also worked on this with my old foe, ink and water which I always find hard to control! But at this stage where I'm applying for uni soon and stuff, it's best to broaden your horizons to build up a portfolio, so I feel I've fufilled this part of the brief. Right now I'm focusing more on the printmaking part and suprisingly feel more creative in that area! I'll get some pictures of what I've been doing with that soon. c:

mmu open day

Wellity wellity. Of recent times college have been mad for pushing us to focus on uni applications and get them in ASAP, I myself am pretty much game to go but I couldn't really apply for my first choice without visiting it now could I? So, as the title suggests, I went on down to the MMU open day today!

After an early start and busy bus ride, we eventually went on a few talks and tours of courses and whatnot. I definitely know I want to do Illustration with Animation so the tour for that was a main focus for me. Got shown around a few of the rooms and studios and such. There's still a lot of traditional means on this course, they use a lot of print techniques (think they have a room for that) and the first year is mainly concentrating on drawing, so it's not all cging and photoshop (I do want to use that, mind!). I was told you get quite a diverse bunch of students doing their own thing and specializing in their own areas, there's not a "manchester style". I think there's also a book binding room so that would be an interesting way of looking at presenting a final product! We were shown a slideshow of a few graduates' work and it's all quite varied and everyone had their own ideas to convey, lots of illustrations of books, cover designs, even a bit of lino and wood print thrown into the mix! So I still very much want to do this course, and feel it will be varied and offer a lot of oppurtunities.

We also had a gander at the student accomodation before we left, some nice Chinese students showed us their room! The rooms weren't ridiculously small and it looks quite nice. Then again they seemed rather tidy, we obviously weren't going to be shown any horror stories haha.

I'm not sure if I'm going to go to any other open days, I'm pretty keen on MMU and have this thing about moving too far away from Manchester. But my boyfriend made a point that if I want to have the proper uni experience and, heaven frobid, don't get into MMU, I may have to. I guess places like Bolton and Liverpool are only an hour's drive. We'll see, we'll see!

Sorry about the slightly mundane blog post about my day, but having a blog is also being emphasised!