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!

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/

Group Exhibition at Primrose Hill Community Centre – Faces On The Hill

art, drawing, Exhibition, Illustration, portrait, press

The exhibition at Primrose Hill Community centre is coming up on Sunday 31st of May.

There will be lots of drawings by locals of locals and an auction of the works for which donations will go to keeping the local library open.

Do come down and have a look – it’s been a great experience meeting all sorts of local people and getting to know them while drawing them. Running over to people’s houses and workplaces in my lunch hour to make sketches and sitting over tea and pencil shavings in pubs and cafes.

Here’s a few of the drawings that will be in the auction in Sunday……

Sadly I can’t make the exhibition but i’m looking forward to the book which may be published of all the drawings in many artists different styles…..

Portraits for ‘Faces on The Hill’

art, Camden, drawing, Exhibition, Illustration, Painting, portrait, press

I’ve just become part of a lovely little project in Primrose Hill where people in the community are drawing and photographing each other. There will be an exhibition at the community centre and a book of images and interviews published and called…

‘Faces on The Hill’.

It’s such a lovely idea and I’ve just finished my first portrait which is of the lovely Rachel Poulton who took my photograph.

The exhibition is on May 31st I have on my list to draw, a local lawyer, an art curator and a retired ballet dancer amongst others so I think this is going to be a really fun project !

more to come……

Artist in Residence

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

I am happy to say I have asked to be an artist in residence at the Caravanserai project in Canning Town following the 21Artists exhibition in late November for which I created and showed artwork based around the local area. The piece itself can be seen in progress below and further images and details on the project found here.

http://caravanserai.org.uk/artists-in-residence/

I look forward to working on future projects with Caravanserai.

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.