The Christmas Robot gave me Samsung Note Pro 12.2

It’s beautiful. I love it. I’m getting to grips with the S Pen and Art Flow at the moment. Here's an unfinished thing of some kind.

Many scribblings to follow.

Mushrooms

Oh man, I love mushrooms. I'm so sad that the weather has finally turned - I've had so many awesome walks recently. Look at these!

I convinced some friends to come mushrooming with me recently. Only one person dropped out after she realised I wasn't talking about hunting for Magic Mushrooms. Although coincidentally we did stumble upon these amazing Fly Agarics, which can be detoxified and used as a psychedelic (although that's not why I photographed them - look at them! They're beautiful).

We found some puffballs too, which I haven't had since I was little. They're huge, round balls of tasty. Super tasty. We also found Shaggy Ink Caps but if you eat them three days either side of ingesting alcohol, it forms a poison in your system .Yikes.

True story: before I discovered Pokémon, I collected Mushrooms. They are so fucking weird, with all their different colours and environments and smells and stories.

Awkward First Post

I think I want to write my dissertation on the history of Psychedelic Art, so I've collected a nice little stash of literature to keep me going over the next few weeks. I've been meaning to read Aldous Huxley for a while now, so I've acquired a copy of Heaven and Hell and The Doors of Perception. I've also got my hands on Principia Discordia  and Robert Anton Wilson's Cosmic Trigger: Final Secret Of The Illuminati. Psychedelic art and music are two things that really resonate with me, so hopefully by the time I've finished these I'll have a clearer idea of what area I want to explore.

I've also decided what I want to do for my "summer project" (quotes because (a) summer? Hah! And (b) because it's nearly October... maybe I can backdate this post... hmmm).

Anyway, I'd really like to create a set of cards or prints in the style of Zozoville/Nathan Stapley. Each illustration should tell a standalone story - at the moment I'm tempted by the idea of depicting baby animals at night, being afraid of what they perceive to be a monster (for instance a baby mouse imagining a distorted shadow to be a big scary cat). Everyone loves baby animals, so in that sense they'll be immediately appealing to all but the worst kinds of people. Using mixed media to create unusual textures and shadows and 3D effects could be really interesting too, perhaps I could even create shadow monsters out of real, cast shadows and photograph the finished pieces in good lighting to create the prints. If all goes to plan, they'll also be humorous, and everyone likes laughing. So by my calculations, baby animals + funny = paid commissions.

I really admire the ability of Johan Potma and Stapley to create single illustrations that tell an entire story. I'll be researching a lot of work similar to this, and also be doodling lots of pictures of my old cats because you know. Cats.

Thank god that first post is over. That was awkward.