Ongoing CALL OUT to Authors and Poets – Textual Illustration for The Image.

art, Design, drawing, metamorphosis, Painting, poetry, press, Prints, Quotes, short story, text and image

In reverse of the usual order…illustrating drawings with text… to be combined into a book, and exhibition.

I’m still looking for contributors/collaborators for this project.

There are over 40 artworks to be illustrated and I’ll be publishing them gradually here and on my social media @BlancheEllisArt as the project progresses… so keep an eye out here. I may also be putting up snippets of the writing I’ve received… with permission of the authors.

Changing shape…

Even since I posted about this last week the idea has developed, mostly because of the amazing responses I’ve had already from friends, strangers, other artists, an art-book maker and poets and authors from different backgrounds, and languages. And have found many secret authors in my acquaintances.

I’m so happy to be receiving this fount of creativity!

Words lead words…

It’s even leading me to write myself, in an attempt to track what I am looking for. Other people draw out my words with their own wonderful phrases and I feel the pitch, the roll and magnetism of the word collaboration, a force all of it’s own… changing the shape of my intension as it unfolds. Perhaps a preface…

“Word-turns apt in riddle and rhythm to trip and roll the mind causing backtrack, retrace, and circled in so turning, the sentence sense embraced. The way a picture leads the eye, not forward to finality but, with concentric in-conclusions, as a dance that makes sense-of-a-step does so by leading you both too-and-fro and leaving you, not locked, but poised by punctuation.”

Drink Me –

The Story-World…

The initial idea was that each piece of text be another ‘moment’ from the images story-world, a suggestion or clue that opens up the narrative to further interpretation rather than attempting to complete, or explain the picture itself. Instead of finished stories I’m looking for writing that echoes or extends the sense of mystery and magical-realism, and may do so without obvious reference to the image itself. It could be specific, detailed, atmospheric or impressionistic. All and any ideas appreciated!

As the project opens up I think the writing could be in anthropological, an impossible recipe, a critique of a non-existant novel (think J. L. Borges), a short letter, a completely brazen critique of a character, or of the picture itself .

Ideas abound

Please share any ideas here or by email at blancheellis@gmail.com

See more of the images on Instagram and in the previous post and call out…

Thank you for stopping by!

CALL OUT to Authors and Poets – Textual Illustration for The Image.

art, Design, drawing, Exhibition, exhibiton, folktale, Illustration, metamorphosis, Painting, portrait, press, Prints, short story

‘Cubs’ – Another from the series – Mythologies.

CALL OUT: I have plans for a book and am looking for a writer.

This series has over 40 pieces and most of them emerge as if from some old myth, folk tale or strange internal narrative. This is why I call them ‘Mythologies’.

But… the tales they tell have never been written.

In the reverse to the usual relationship of text and image I am looking to collaborate with someone (or several people) to write text to accompany each picture, to illustrate the images, if you will. The idea is to combine these into a book. This writing, be it a paragraph of prose or a few lines of poetry, will sit opposite the artwork on each page and make a pair to be ‘read’ together.

The Story-World…

The idea is that each piece of text be another ‘moment’ from the images story-world, a suggestion or clue that opens up the narrative to further interpretation rather than attempting to complete, or explain the picture itself. Instead of finished stories I’m looking for writing that echoes or extends the sense of mystery and magical-realism, and may do so without obvious reference to the image itself. It could be specific, detailed, atmospheric or impressionistic.

I’m very excited to see what emerges from the birth of this project…..

If you are interested….

I’d love to see any snatches of writing inspired by this as starting points and inspiration for the project which is just beginning and is a brand new idea, so do share this with anyone who might be interested, and email blancheellis@gmail.com for more images if you’d like to try writing something, or to discuss ideas for the project.

More images from the work can be seen on my Instagram @BlancheEllisArt

I also plan to have an exhibition of these artworks with the text in the future.

Thanks for stopping by!

Blanche

Miscelanea Art Club – Exhibition

art, Design, drawing, exhibiton, Illustration, Painting, philosophy, poetry, portrait, Prints, Quotes, sketchbook

Really looking forward to being part of this exhibition in Vauxhall at VGCC on September 19th – it’s going to be a real mix of artists and mediums and raising money to keep the community centre open.

My contribution will be a little cast of characters that have been emerging from my desk of late, combining the strange bodies of my imagination with equally strange advice that has jigsawed into place from cut-up text, books, newspapers and other once innocently printed and now mis-used words.

more info here :

https://www.facebook.com/events/1675668462652087/

Published! Drawings from Van Harskamp exhibition at Kunstraum Gallery, September ’14

art, drawing, Exhibition, Illustration, location drawing, press, Quotes, reportage

In September I had the chance to work an a very interesting project created by Nicoline Van Harskamp. A reading of Pygmalion. It was live-translated back from over 14 different languages back into English and recorded. My drawings capture the reading in progress.

My drawings were then published along with the script in a limited edition book by Onomatopee.

Some of my reportage drawings from Nicoline Van Harskamp’s exhibition are showcased by the publishers Onomatopee. A fuller set of my drawings from the days events have been published by Onomatopee in the book which resulted from the reading Nicoline set up at Kunstraum Gallery in Hoxton, London.

I really enjoy reportage drawing and capturing the mood of the participants and how the marks of the drawings echoed the varied marks of the many written languages in the open books.

There was a great humour in some of the phrases as they were re-translated, the process also showed up some fascinating cultural assumptions and differences.

I hope to have the chance to work with this project further as I find the links between text and images and the cultural crossover and divergence fascinating.

Exhibition this Saturday in Canning Town

architecture, art, drawing, Exhibition, location drawing, location painting, Painting

This Project 21 exhibition on Saturday 30th November is part of the Night Light Canning Town event.

Project 21

Project 21 – Collaboration between 21 different artists and disciplines at the caravanserai space in Canning Town.

My part in the exhibition will be based on large-scale drawings inspired the local architecture, urban environment and population. For me this is quite a new way of working. I am used to making small fast drawings. Research has been done in this way, by cycling around and drawing the local area, and the work itself will be started the day before and completed on the day of the exhibition. In scale and rapid completion of an entire composition this is experimental for me but I think this approach will lend itself to the work.

The idea:

Title: Structure, Shift, Lift and Lay.

Medium: Ink, Acrylic & Paper

Size: The inside of big box. Three walls and a ceiling roughly 8 ft square.

Structure, Shift, Lift and Lay is a landscape piece drawn from the developing urban area of Canning Town. The piece allows the viewer to stand back and get an overview of the area’s many layers, structures and environments existing side by side; the residential, the docks, industry, modern monoliths, old buildings, fast trains and roads, the hovering cable cars and the river. The changes taking place are vast and structural and in their wake is the cultural shift of the area with all its social and commercial potential for both creation and destruction. These changes can be seen in both negative and positive ways by different people; residents, investors, contractors, and local businesses. This piece offers for contemplation a compacted glimpse of the vast structural systems within which, and through which, all these people relate.