The End of the Beginning

As courses end, careers start.

A showcase of over five hundred
young creatives at this pivotal point,
the end of the beginning.

From fabric to photos, art and
arm chairs, this is a chance to
see the new generation of talent,
at one of the few thriving independent
art Colleges in the country.

Image © Leeds College of Art and Design

This degree show at Leeds College of Art and Design was the best by far, so much so infact that we spent almost a whole day walking around all of the degree shows from all of the creative courses at both the Vernon Street and Blenheim Walk sites.

As we ran round all the exhibits we picked up lots of post-cards, business cards and flyers and took a TON of photos documenting all the best bits to see. Here are some extra spicy photos and links to cool portfolio sites that'll get your creative tastebuds tingling:

Image © Sammy Dowgill BA (Hons) Visual Communication

'From Little Acorns, Big Oaks Grow...' © Laura Jordan BA (Hons) Visual Communication

Johnny and I both attached 'acorns' to this tree with a small message on each about what our dreams and aspirations are. The responses will be used as inspiration for illustrations in the zine 'Raise Your Hand, Raise Your Voice.' The zine has a blog too, check it out.

'Class of 2008 - 2009 (Rogues Gallery)' © Peter Kesteven BA (Hons) Fine Art

Costume © Jessica Bull BA (Hons) Costume with Textiles

Image © Claire Pullan ND Graphic Design

Image © Claire Pullan ND Graphic Design

http://www.clairepullan.co.uk/
http://clairepullan.blogspot.com/

We both recognised Claire's art from last year's degree show and were really blown away by this piece of work. It's 3 metres by 1 metre and looks amazing! Be sure to check out her portfolio website and blog for lots more illustrative masterpieces.

Image © Ken McFarlane

http://kenneh.deviantart.com/

It was a nice suprise to come across Ken's work as it was one of so few examples of sequential art (or comic book art) appearing in exhibitions. We'd like to see much more of this kind of work on display at these events so cheers Ken and nice artwork!

'Kevin Bacon is the Centre of The Universe' Image © Vicky Smith

http://www.vickysmithisnice.co.uk/

Image © Aric Arthur

http://www.aricdesign.co.uk/
http://aricdesignpractice.blogspot.com/

Image © Steph Baxter

http://www.stephsayshello.co.uk/
http://stephsayshello.blogspot.com/

Steph is an Illustrator and Graphic Designer and also part of the Collective Custard Cream Creative. Yummy! We loved her work and will definitely keep checking back on her websites for updates. Take a look at her images on Flickr too!

Image © Joe Kelly

http://www.flickr.com/photos/joekelly


Related Blog Posts:

Leeds College of Art and Design End of Year Show 2008: Blood, Sweat & Tears
http://koojicreative.blogspot.com/2008/06/blood-sweat-tears.html

Portfolio Websites: A collection of links found on business cards from the show

http://www.nataliapasquino.com/
http://www.mitashpatel.com/
http://delightfullybritish.blogspot.com/
http://www.leedsviscom2009.co.uk/
http://www.kylebibby.co.uk/
http://kylebibby.blogspot.com/
http://www.will-campbell.com/
http://thingswhatihaveconsumed.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dogsndoodles/

Bradford Zine Fayre

Johnny and I have been getting into the Zine Scene of late, so we decided to head on over to the Treehouse Cafe in Bradford to check out the first ever 'Bradford Zine Fayre.' When we arrived we were treated to table after table (well 3 in total) filled to the brim with lovely self-published zines from all over the UK. We even spotted some itsy bitsy single-sheet zines too, just like this Free Doodles Zine on Super Duper which you can print out and make yourself. Neato!

Site (1) Arts Festival 2009

The Leeds School of Contemporary Art and Graphic Design hold an annual end of year show celebrating their graduating student's achievements and we always make sure to get a look in on the artwork on display.


This year's degree show, Site (1), is part of the Leeds Met University's Arts Festival and is across 3 'Sites' from The Faculty of Arts & Society including the Leeds School of Architecture, Landscape & Design and the School of Film, Television & Performing Arts. There was plenty to see and lots of inspiring exhibits to get our creative juices flowing. Here is a selection of what we saw as we wandered around:

© Carine Brosse
© Carine Brosse
© Alex Monaghan, Untitled, Print Outs on Board, 15' x 11'

© Alex Monaghan, Untitled, Print Outs on Board, 15' x 11'

© Nicholas Pierce, Centaur, Graphite on prepared board

© Laura Havenhand
© Laura Havenhand

LDS09 Fine Art Degree Show

Being greeted by a handshake, a "Thanks for coming" and then a very European 'Kiss Kiss' on either cheek was a surprise, but also quite a refreshing change at this year's Leeds University Fine Art Degree Show. We're not usually welcomed in this way to an exhibition, but we're not going to knock it either - it was very arty!

What was even artier was the 'Art of Queuing' installation. We headed up a staircase, found ourselves in a queue, someone whispered "they're letting two in at a time," so we patiently waited and made chit chat. When we were allowed in we were met by a long, dark corridor with a TV at the end. On the display screen was a live recording of all the other mugs patiently waiting in the queue - the small plaque read: 'The Art of Queuing (and Conversation).' Clever :D


© Emma Melton
'Fig. 8', Hysteric Beauty series, 2009
Oil, acrylic, make up, sweets and glass paint on canvas.


We found this on the way out. A pile of letters, part of which formed the word 'White ³.' I wonder what it means...

http://www.lds09.co.uk/

Drawing Day 2009

We only heard about this by chance today as it was being advertised through redbubble (the site where Dom Palmer, fellow artiste extraordinaire and recent addition to the Kooji Gang, sells his art wares). What a find! We need more events like this and it's always a joy when we come across them. Plus, any excuse to draw for the purpose of uniting with our fellow humans world-wide is as good an excuse as any! The aim is to create 1 million drawings, so we got cracking and here's the result:




As you can see Johnny and I had a My Little Pony theme running throughout, but I can only chalk that down to the small toy sat next to my Mac and our need for inspiration.

Check out the Drawing Day website, Flickr Group, YouTube Channel and FaceBook Group for more details and to see how you can join in with the frivolity :D Drawing Day is an annual event (hurray!) and it lasts all weekend too, so quick! Go get ya pens, pencils, paper, sketch-books and draw! Don't forget to share your drawings online too :)

News Flash!

News Flash! Crazy Octopus Terrorizes Toy Town. Our resident fly on the scene has this to say: "BbbbbbZzzzzzz." These groovy promotional post-cards were given to us by Nathan Peacock at this week's Comic Evening @ Travelling Man. Nathan is a fantastic illustrator whose work is delicately drawn by hand. At first glance we thought he'd used a program like Adobe Illustrator to put his designs together but Nathan prefers to use liquid pens and the tools he was born with. Good on ya Nathan!

Image © Nathan Peacock

Image © Nathan Peacock

An Evening with Wayne Hemingway

As part of this year's Northern Design Competition, run by Leeds Met University (where we both studied, yay team!) the Rose Bowl played host to a lecture from designer, Wayne Hemingway. The talk, entitled 'Be Inspired by Creativity and Design,' covered the success of Wayne's entrepreneurial endeavours and his social/ political views and impact on the country.

From the early years fixing and selling Doc Martins along with his partner Geraldine, the two went on to lead the fashion industry with controversial label, 'Red or Dead' which would make the headlines for it's support for Greenpeace and other social causes. The fashion label was sold and the two have worked on many creative projects since, always with a view to improve the standard of living with his current venture, Hemingway Design.


As usual, Katherine ensured that she was heard and piped up during the talk. The new building, Broadcasting Place was mentioned and we just couldn't resist voicing our reservations for the eye-sore. Wayne thought it was an old building that had been updated and we had to point out that it was brand new. Well we can't agree on everything now can we! :D

570 Media Launch Party

Bukkie from the Collective celebrated the launch of 570 Media's new website in style, with a party held in Leeds, Old Broadcasting House. As well as presenting some of the artist's work featured on the site, guests were entertained with funky tunes by DJ Silvao with the Element dance troupe, a catwalk of models strutting their stuff with some up and coming fashion and who could forget the jelly beans! Yes there were many sweets consumed that evening :)


We also managed to squeeze in some mingling amongst the guests (between scoffing jelly beans and crisps) and met a great couple: Dominic Palmer and Melissa March, who run the social enterprise University of the Fourth Age together. Dominic is a creative who like ourselves mixes his Traditional Fine Art style with his Digital Art work through his Masters degree in Graphic Design. It's just great to meet another creative who crosses both disciplines like this. Be sure to check out his portfolio here.

Free Comic Book Day 2009

It's gotta be one of the best days of the year! Yes! It's 'Free Comic Book Day.' A day when everything is right with the world and we all join hands with our fellow human beings in a joyous celebration of free comics throughout the land. Me, Johnny and Ste got ourselves on over to Travelling Man again this week (after a great night out earlier in the week at the fortnightly Travelling Man Comic Evening) and grabbed ourselves some great free comics. We'll definitely be going again next year! Woot! :D


http://www.freecomicbookday.com

Leeds Art Fair 2009

Leeds Art Fair is an annual event and we made certain we were there again this year to sample the tasty treats on display. This year we came armed with snazzy camera enabled mobile phones so we could take piccies to document the occasion. Check em out:

Image © Kathryn Edwards

I have to just say that I'm being quite biased with this artist (because I'm really into the hand-drawn style at the moment) but I thought this display by Kathryn Edwards was beautiful.

Image © Kathryn Edwards

Image © Kathryn Edwards


Image © Helen Parsley

Here's Johnny checking out Helen Parsley's work. Incredible art and beautifully framed too.

Image © Paula Dunn

Image © Nick Tankard

Image © Nick Tankard

Image © Richard Taylor

We finished off our daily dose of creative inspiration by popping into the Leeds College of Art & Design for their Damien Hirst exhibition: "In a Spin, The Action of the World on Things."

The entry below was written on Wikipedia for Damien Hirst: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Hirst

What Hirst has insightfully observed of his spin-paintings in Life and Death and Damien Hirst is the only comment that needs to be made of his entire oeuvre:

"They're bright and they're zany - but there's fuck all there at the end of the day."

We have to agree with Damien really...