Taking A Line Round Up - March 2015

It has been a good week 

for our creatives.

Simon Newbury has 

completed a sketch of a dog's head

for a friend and client

Simon Newbury

Tim Seelig has
recently collaborated with
Antony Vergettte-Lynn,
also known as
The Ink Captain,
to make a tee shirt to celebrate
the opening of a new studio
as wel as the craft itself.

Tim Seelig

T-shirts can be bought directly from
the studio, 
Ink Captain, for £12.
(Postage and packing is extra, so please enquire beforehand)

Kerry Bennett
has flown to New Zealand
but has had time to
capture a bird
in watercolour

Kerry Bennett

The New Zealand Fan Tail

Add caption

Patryk Hardziej
is holding an
Exhibition/Exhibition
"Illustrations" Patricia Podkościelny & Patryk Hardziej
15.04.2015 h. 19.00
Gallery in Hall of CKiS, Kalisz

Patricia and Patrick/Patryoja and Patryk

Renee Willoughby 
is curious about recreating her inward space
into an immersive performance and seeing how
that presence transfers through screens.

Renee Willoughby

It is an investigation into disembodiment
and public versus private spaces.Her performance can be seen here.

Books, Bookshops and Creatives - edited and updated

Today (the 5th of March 2015), although you may be reading this on another day, 

is World Book Day.

So a quick question to our collection of creatives

and other creatives, 

"What book(s) has(have)

helped you as a creative?"

Simon Newbury's choice of two books

50 Portraits by Gregory Heisler

Norman Rockwell's America

Grant Morrison & Dave McKean's Arkham Asylum

Daniel Newbury chooses

The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus

Daniel states that this is "more of a philosophical treatise (and not so much an inspiration for my artwork as such) but nonetheless an inspiration in other ventures; the absurd nature and the futility of human existence.

Bartosz Jekiel looks to the work of
Eldridgevicius, Giger, McKean, Muth, Pratt, Starowieyski, Williams
but it's more of the actual experience that helps.

Eduardo Alvarado shares Bartosz's thoughts on using books for creativity, the actual experience helps. But if pushed, Eduardo chooses
The Catalogue of the Complete Drawings of Gustav Klimt in three volumes by Alice Strobe

Egon Schiele-Dallo schizzo by Christian M. Nebehay

The Marat/Sade Journals by Barron Storey

Peter Elliott chooses the Giles Annuals from the 40's to the 90's, 

each picture was a panorama of cartoon elegance with great caricatures

of people, politics and society

and Dave McKean's Cages

the go-to book in case you get artist's block.

A few friends are easing books into the wild, be they electronic

or stores where books sleep:

Igor Goldkind has created and given form to a collection of art, music and poetry 

entitled Is She Available? The ebook becomes available on March the 17th.

In the meantime, have a listen to My Heart Is...and...I Am The Darkness

Wendy Farrow uses her collection of images of the Parisian architecture 

to create Par Ici

Another friend is working on opening

a Book Shop in Battle, 

if you can help him out, it would be great. 

More shall come as the answers come forward...
enjoy a book...
read a book...

Simon Newbury saves the day - Debonnaire Charleston Dance

As you may know Simon Newbury has been creating a photograph a day for publishing, you may have seen some of his work on this blog. If not, why not look at this collection of photographs and this. 

But sometimes, he is there to save someone else's day, here is his story:

Last Thursday Simon had a call out of the blue from a friend who had been let down by their photographer.  

He was required to go along that Friday to cover the launch of Bexhill's 2015 "Roaring 20's" event where Roger Crouch and the Debonnaire Entertainment Dancers will attempt to break the World Record for The Largest Charleston Dance. 

The record is currently held by the Blue Mountains, Lithgow and Oberon region of New South Wales, Australia, when 356 people performed a simple five minute prepared routine.

Simon has already been booked to cover the actual event on July 18th 2015

For more information please see http://bexhillroaring20s.org.uk/performers/ 

and http://www.debonnaireentertainment.com/home.html 

and, of course, Simon's own website 

http://www.simonsart.co.uk 

Exquisite Corpse Panel 6 (edited and updated)

Daniel Newbury, brother of Simon, has taken the Exquisite Corpse a step further following on from Tim Seelig's panel (see below).

Tim Seelig's Exquisite Corpse panel

Daniel Newbury's Exquisite Corpse panel

Daniel says of his panel, "I went with various inspirations from the previous panels (i.e. the 'hole' from 2,3 & 4. The ornate bust of panel #4 sowed the seed for the stone work/intricacy of the grand conservatory/sanctuary and of course ‪#‎Blackwing‬. Unfortunately 'Blackwing' seems to have turned rather demonic in this particular manifestation). I then just went where my imagination took me and opted for a bit more of a narrative."

Daniel does intricate drawings of other architectural scenes, have a look at his "strokes" of London at his website and where he can also be contacted.

Simon Newbury - examples of his work

Simon Newbury has been developing his painting and photographic skills all his life, have a look at some of his examples from his recent work.

As part of his photo a day challenge, Simon will

often pick on his children. Child Noir.

Simon has helped local actors and dancers 

with head shots for their portfolio. 

This is of Naomi Wareham.

Naomi dancing with the De La Warr Pavilion, 

Bexhill-on-Sea in the background 

What was a bit of a wet day, 

see the evidence on the floor, 

Simon has created a miracle.

Money Angel

Simon's wife, Abi.

Honey, I may have shrunk the kids

(with apologies to Disney)

It has been a bad day.

One of other creatives, 

Daniel Newbury, 

with his family.

The trouble with children, 

is you never know where they are hiding.

Simon's work can be viewed here.

And he can be contacted here.

Exquisite Corpse Panels on a theme of Blackwing - updated

The surreal exercise of the Exquisite Corpse seen here at around 0:25 - 0:30 seconds of the Luna Trailer by the artist and film director Dave McKean - some other images are interspersed throughout the trailer (DVD and Blu Ray coming out at the end of February 2015, available here).

(C) Dave McKean and Barron Storey

Peter Elliott

Simon Newbury

Bartosz Jekiel

Giuseppe Lama

Detail - Tim Seelig

Tim Seelig

Daniel Newbury

Kerry Bennett

What is Creativity? (edited and updated)

The question, "What is creativity?" or "How do you define creativity" could be answered in so many ways as the answers from our creative collective show below:

The creation of something that is deemed to be significant and valuable in some way and rouses some form of human emotion...Daniel

The ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc. originality, progressiveness, or imagination; the need for creativity in modern industry; creativity in the performing arts (get the irony?)...Daniel 

Very personal, but I'll try to answer...Creativity is a personal gift (or perhaps both a blessing and a curse) that allows some people to express themselves in a variety of artistic outputs which, in some way, can reach out to and be appreciated by the observer at a conscious and subliminal level... Giuseppe

For me, creativity is very simple. It is the creation of a work, be it a drawing, Lego, a logo, writing, even a house, without the following of instruction or rather, someone else's instruction...Children are unbelievably creative, doesn't make them any good at it...Simon

Creativity, the infinite freedom of creation...Kerry

The manifestation of a thought into a process of conscious descriptive action that can then be interpreted either consciously or unconsciously by any living being even if the only living being to be effected is the originator of the thought!...Gregory (one of our latest creatives, a profile will be published soon)

Sting, or George Matthew Thomas Sumner CBE, in an NPR TED Radio hour interview, answered it like this, "It is the ability to take a risk. Um, to actually put yourself on the line, to risk ridicule, being pilloried and criticised or whatever."

All our creatives are faced everyday with a blank page, canvas or screen. And yet to make that jump from something blank to something more definite or, to quote Daniel, to make something significant that rouses some form of emotion, they have to take a risk, as Stings says. They have to make that initial mark on the paper or screen. 

It is that initial movement, that first step, the first mark on the paper. That is part of the risk. I guess that the second part of the risk is that we share our creation of creativity to an audience, a partner or the world and then we await the reviews?

How do you define creativity?

Exquisite Corpse Panel 5

In our first regular art project, the collected creatives who use the Blackwing pencil, we bring you the fourth panel by the digital artist, Tim Seelig. Tim exhibits his work on his website. Tim very kindly showed us the detail from his Exquisite Corpse panel in a few days before he revealed the full piece. 

Detail of Tim Seelig's Exquisite Corpse Panel

In both Greek and Roman Mythology, the Harpy was a winged monster, more avian like than Pegasus,  with a human face and it was thought that name meant "snatchers".

The Full Image of Tim Seelig's Exquisite Corpse

When asked for his inspirations and his working on the piece, Tim very kindly wrote the following:

"In term of ideas for my take on the exquisite corpse, I was thrilled to hear from Giuseppe the direction he was going in was taking elements of the previous entries, but he hadn't come up with a Harpy. 

I told him this is what i planned to do (and in fact it's something I'd had in my head from the moment Simon posted his picture). 

Unlike the previous pieces mine started as a small sketch on an A3 pad (drawn with the Blackwing), just to give me an idea of what I was doing in order to compose the Harpy. I then started going through various classical renditions of Harpies via Google and (the) few books I have on Mythology. Most were shown as half women and half bird. But for me, whenever I thought Harpy, I automatically thought of Ray Harryhausen's miniatures from Jason and the Argonauts (bat wings and rough, possibly scaly skin).  I wanted to go down the more traditional route of a bird with a woman's torso and head.  

There were a lot of layers in this before I started merging them in Photoshop. At one point, it was taking up a couple of Gig of RAM. The head, shoulder, and arms used belong to a friend of mine and the latter appendage were used as the feet of the Harpy. The wings took 3-4 hours alone and are a mishmash of ceramic wings from my Mum's garden, crow's wings, raven's wings and painted textures I'd done with acrylics. 

I used a mixture of mouse and Wacom tablet and pen in the composition. The beak and the feathers around the face are taken from a Harpy Eagle, I thought given the name, it was suitably fitting. At some point I may return to this and do a more detailed setting for the backdrop."

Our Chosen Instrument - #7 - Daniel Newbury

Please welcome our latest recipient of the Blackwing and the Blackwing 602, Daniel Newbury, brother to Simon. "Art, in various guises, has always been a part of my life as both myself and my brother (Simon Newbury) come from a very creative family and were encouraged from a young age". After school, Daniel enrolled into Art College and then moved on to study Film at Southampton University and wrote a 250,000 word dissertation. 

Post graduation, Daniel worked for a while at Granada Television before ultimately concluding it wasn't the life for him; however whether it be in the form of music, art or the written word, creativity has always been an enduring and necessary part of his life. 

Daniel is currently running www.strokesoflondon.com along his day job, which has seen him return to a more traditional style using whether graphite or pen & ink/watercolour. Daniel sells prints of his work through the website and through various online galleries and have had a steady stream of commissions since the beginning of it just over a year ago. Daniel's work can also be found on Facebook. 

He is also very much looking forward to being involved in the ongoing fun that 'Taking A Line' I'm sure has to offer!