Pete Mckee.

Pete McKee was born in 1966. A cartoonist and illustrator from Sheffield his work holds emotion that can have you on the floor or reaching for the tissues. He ownes a small gallary in where he showcases his work in his hometown of Sheffield.
Recently he was commisioned by Warp Films, another well to do company from Sheffield, to re-create post- ers from some of their most famous films, for their 10th anniversary. Films included This is England, Dead Man's Shoes and Four Lions.

Pete’s work is heavily based on things relating to Sheffield, especially the arcutecture, the ‘hot spots’ and the music scene. His art is done in such a simple, one lined style yet he still manages to capture so much emotion in the works he produces. His work feels deadly serious, hitting home and relating to real lfe people, but also like something you might see on a childs t.v program. In Sheffield he has become a little bit of a local legend with his work being on sigt in many places including the side of buildings, but also he is becoming more and more recognised internationaly as his name is being wider spread.

This video was made by John Smith. I could tell you about it but I think part of the fun is working it out for yourself. I first watched it in the Liverpool Tate, and I think it could be enjoyed by anyone. 

Liverpool Tate.

I recently had to get an emergency passport after a washing machine disaster 2 weeks before my holiday. I had to take the day off college to go to Liverpool for my appointment so to make me feel like I hadn't completely sacked off a day of learning, I decided it would be a great opportunity to visit the Liverpool Tate and have a look around. It has been years since my last visit and I was interested to see what new things they had on show. 

This strangely painted 'banana dog' that I found outside the gallery defiantly wasn't there last time I visited. I couldn't find any information about what it was or who it had been made by but when I got home I did a little bit of research and found out that the original piece called "Superlambanana" was made by a Japanese artist called Taro Chiezo and was put up in Liverpool to signify the re-opening of the 'Liverpool Tate'. The original is much bigger than this one and still stands tall in Tithebarn Street, outside the Liverpool John Moores University. 

Here is a photo of the original thing. 

One entering the Liverpool Tate the first thing you are greeted by is this massive glass chandelier. Its slightly gaudy. But "if you've got it, flaunt it" and a chandelier is a chandelier at the end of the day, there's no point in pretending to be simplistic and minimal if your a chandelier as you wont be fooling anyone!

The piece is called Astrophotography…The Traditional Measure of Photographic Speed in Astronomy…by Siegfried Marx(1987) and was made by Cerith Wyn Evans in 2006 and it flashes under the control of a morse code, although I dont know morse code so I dont have any idea what it was saying. 

On the first floor they had a collection of sculptures or 3D objects by a variety of different artists. I couldn't get any pictures but one that really sticks in my head is three basketballs suspended in a glass case made to look like they were floating. I have found a picture on the internet to show you what I mean. The three balls are all signed by different famous basketball players and the tank has been completely filled with distilled water and a bit of sodium chloride reagent to give the balls the suspended effect. The piece is by an artist called Jeff Koons. I often find it hard to decide what I think art means, and this is another one that I am not sure about, so I looked it up and this is what I found. 

Quoted from the Tate's 'art and artists' section. 

"This is one of a series of tanks Koons made in 1985 for his first solo exhibition, entitledEquilibrium, at the New York gallery, International With Monuments. The tanks, glass vitrines supported on black steel stands, were made in three sizes, holding one, two or three professional basketballs. The Total Equilibrium Tanks are completely filled with distilled water and a small amount of sodium chloride reagent, to assist the hollow balls in remaining suspended in the centre of the liquid. In a second version, the 50/50 Tanks, only half the tank is filled with distilled water, with the result that the balls float half in and half out of the water. A group of objects cast in bronze, including a lifeboat and an aqualung, were exhibited at the same time. To complement the tanks, Koons framed a series of advertising posters created by the sportswear company Nike and hung them on the walls. These depict American basketball heroes wearing Nike trainers and other sportswear, holding and surrounded by basketballs. For Koons, the tanks were an ultimate state of being ... The Nike posters were the Sirens – the great deceivers, saying Go for it! I have achieved it. You can achieve it too! And the bronzes were the tools for Equilibrium that would kill you if you used them. So the underlying theme, really, was that death is the ultimate state of being. What was paralleling this message was that white middle-class kids have been using art the same way that other ethnic groups have been using basketball – for social mobility."

I am not really sure what I make of this description, and I dont know if I fully understand it, but I thought it would be best to share it so other people can try and understand it. 

On the second floor was something even more interesting. The floor was completely covered in sand and stones, and in the middle were wooden frames covered in rural looking printed material, it reminded me of something you might find in a little village in spain. Inside the wooden frames was an old black and white t.v playing 80's cookery programs. To the side of this construct was a cage with two tropical parrots in them, they were absolutely beautiful creatures to look at. The woman in the room with them spoke a lot about the birds and where they had come from but she didn't talk about what the room was for or if there was any meaning behind the weird t.v, but it made me laugh, and it made me feel happy, and that is a good enough thing for me. I did some research to try and find out more about the mystery room but I couldnt find much on the internet other than a parrot lovers forum talking about how the parrots were being kept unfairly so I cant give you any more information, but here are some pictures of the parrots that I got.

The third and final floor hosted a range of sculptures and painting again by a variety of different artists. I have photographed my favourite ones.

This piece was four cubes, all about waist height. Each face of each cube was covered in a mirror meaning when you stood in the middle of them you could see yourself about a million times. I like art like this because its interactive and that helps gain my interest and make me look at it and think about it more. I think the same can be said for graphic design. I have always been very interested in packaging. Packaging is one of the main methods of advertisement and interest in some products such as food packaging especially. From the research I have done and the projects I have done around this area, things being interactive really catches the buyers attention and its a good method of selling. Now, I dont know if the artist who produced this was thinking about that when he created this piece as art, in some cases, is different and isnt about selling yourself as much as the meaning behind it. The reason why you did it. But that isn't true of all artists and in the more recent years art has become much more a commodity, or something to sell, rather than something for meaning.

I don't know that much about this piece at all as I couldn't find the placard with the infomation, but I thought it looked cool, and I like the use of colours, so I thought I would include it anyway. 

Pictured here is a man lying on a bed of rubble and dust, in what looks like a middle eastern country, wearing a suit and a pair of high heels. I cant remember the name of the picture or who it was done by but I think its a good example of the rule of thirds in photography and I thought it was impressive.

This is a good example of vector art. This is a computer made image. Well actually it is a photograph of a computer made image with two suitcases in front of it, but the large canvas picture in the back of this photograph is a computer made image, using vectors. I have recently started doing illustrator tutorials that you can find on the internet and I really like this form of illustration. It is something that I can see myself wanting to put work into and get better at in the future and if I would ever like to specialise in a certain area of graphic design. 

The last one of the images I thought worth sharing is quite a disturbing one. Again, I didn't note down the name of the artist/photographer and I have scoured the Liverpool Tate's website and there collection of pieces displayed in the gallery. But this one doesn't seem to be listed, which is a shame as I am interested to know when the photograph was taken as that might give me some clue about why this was written, but I cant. However I still think it is a powerful thing to look at and I thought it should be shared.

Overall I thought the collection that they had on display was very interesting and I advise that people go !

What is Vector Art?

Vector art is something very easy to visualise, and very hard to understand. I have read many different definitions of what vector art is and I am still finding it hard to understand myself so I am going to try and put it in the most simple way I can (and hope that I am right).

A vector is something that can only be produced by a computer. It is the space between two points, or three or four, or however many you have. For example, if you drew a square in illustrator, you would have four points. A vector is the information of where these points are in comparison to each other, so you could increase the size of the square and it would not become pixelated. If you had a picture of a square on photoshop, it would be made up of lots of small squares, and however small, eventually you could increase it to a size where you could see these individual squares (or pixels as they are called in computer world) a vector does not have pixels, it is just the space between points. The reason it has become so useful to us is so that we can create small images on computers that can be blown up to fit on huge scale things such as billboards without it looking pixelated.

After writing this I now realise why all the definitions I have read are so complicated, it is not an easy thing to describe!

David Shrigley

My personal tutor introduced me to an artist, and animator, called David Shrigley by showing us a video made by him called 'Who I am and What I Want'. I'm not really sure what my first reaction was to the film. Its very weird thats for sure! The film contains a lot of gory scenes, which i would have thought hard to achieve when drawing in such a chile like style, but that could also be why its so disconcerting to watch, but it also is very funny, and you cant help yourself laugh at some of the scenes. I love the style of child-like black outlined drawings and it is something I would like to experiment with at some point, although it is not my usual style. I am still not too sure of the meaning of the film, or even if it has one, but it makes you think. And that is always a good thing.

Here is the Video. 

Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Jean-Michel Basquiat was born in Brooklyn, New York. He started out as a graffiti artist in the late 1970's and 1980's. Many poor black people in Brooklyn were starting to try and make themselfs heard and voice there opinions through the form of art, often graffiti or rap music. Basquiat started out working with friends under the nickname SAMO. "Plush safe he think.. SAMO" and "SAMO as an escape clause.", these are some of the messages that can be seen on walls and building around Manhattan. In the late 1970's "SAMO IS DEAD" was seen sprayed on walls around soho and this was the end of the project. 

In late 1979 he became friends with Glenn O'Brian through a TV show he appered on and then was introduced to Andy Warhol who he later collaborated with. In late 1981 he joined Annina Nosei gallery and by 82' his work was being showed regularly alongside big artists. He based a great amount of his work on his views of racism. One of his most famous paintings was entitled 'Irony of a Nigro Policeman'.

He was known for many different things, such as a short romance with singer 'Madonna', some work with singer and artist David Bowie and his obvious stance against materialism. He would paint in Armani suits and would ofter be seen in public wearing the expensive suits splattered with paint.
In 1986 he appered on the cover of 'The New York Times Magazine'  and it was around this time that he was at the hight of his career.
When Andy Warhol died in early 1987 his heroin addiction and depression bacame more sevier and despite a few attempts at soberarity he died of a heroin overdose at his studio on 12th August 1988. He was a great inspiration to many and will always be an artist remembered.

Jean-Michel Basquiat pictured here with Andy Warhol.

People Are Trying To Help

I came across a lovely little animation while 'surfing the web' the other day all about saving water.
After doing a little bit more research into the makers of the animation I came across a group called 'Nice and Serious'. They aim to teach people about issues such as environmental, health, social, economical and other area's surrounding these things. They are a full service production company dedicating there time to trying to open people's eyes to the problems in the world around them and I personally think they deserve a lot of credit for what they are doing.
The animation is interactive which helps to maintain interest and grab the attention of its viewers. Give it a watch and see what you could learn. everylastdrop

For more information or to watch other videos visit www.niceandserious.com