


As anyone who follows me on RSS (haha!) will have noticed I have started making more microblog style posts on this feed on a daily basis. I have decided to do this so that some things I post on social media have a home here too. Somewhere between a backup and me having control of my own content. So you can get separate RSS feeds for this site, one to include the long read posts, ones categorised “macro”, and one for short posts titled “micro”. Frequency will on the macro will therefore be, at the very most, 2 or 3 times weekly.
Here they are:
From this site:
Microblog – miniposts, daybook, scrapbook.
Macroblog – News and longer posts,
Both – of the Above
Also:
LinkFeed – Everything I bookmark
Tumblr – (Proto-Scrapbook)
Just been informed by Eldest that there are over 150 wookie words for “wood” but none for “artist”.
“We need to re-train audiences who’ve grown used to the free YouTube model that shorts are worth paying for. I keep telling my animator friends, “Please sell your work. Even if you put it online and just charge 50 cents, sell it.” “Everything is free” has been doing genuine damage to young artists.” (animation)
Background: Like many I often find myself spooling through web content, looking for I know not what. Now this has in the past actually added much to my life, new friends, unexpected ideas and new ways of doing things coming into my life because I discovered them in such a way.
However there is a balance and I would rather use more of the limited time I have on this good planet to make my own creative progress, still enjoying the benefits of the web, but to do that in a focused, limited and directed way once my affairs are in order.
This means, to me, spending and posting more here, on my internet home. I use and enjoy Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and love posting what I do in those places, but they are other peoples places not mine, and would rather I have those status updates, images, quotes and links posted here as well as there, so I have a record of them should any of those accounts become compromised and also so I have a searchable record of these things.
The Proposal: To create a secondary microblog within this website, but also with the capability of separating it in the rss subscription so friends who also follow me on social media won’t get the duplication and only receive macro/longread type posts they may not have already seen elsewhere.
Method: A greater organisation an delineation in posting. I have created two main categories. Firstly MACRO, which encompasses my news blog, and any update pertaining to what I have been up to, art I have made and things happening at BDH. There are 9 subcategories for this and they are:
The second one is called MICRO, this will be a scrapbook of sorts, a research project, a gathering of links and artifact, juxtaposition of non sequiturs for future consideration, as much for my benefit as anyone elses. Within it there are 7 sub-categories as follows:
In addition to these will be the category of Daybook which is a home for longer form posts involving min and other peoples work, otherwise defying categorisation.
It is clear to me at this stage that many of the things I have posted here so far fall into these categories so I will be retrospectively allocating posts to the above for the help of navigating the archive.
Two things coming up recently regarding powerful rich “artists” making kudos and money from the hard work of whom they can only consider to be lesser mortals.
First you should know that Richard Prince has been “re-photographing” since the 1970s. He takes pictures of photos in magazines, advertisements, books or actors’ headshots, then alters them to varying degrees. Often, they look nearly identical to the originals. This has of course, led to legal trouble. In 2008, French photographer Patrick Cariou sued Prince aft..er he re-photographed Cariou’s images of Jamaica’s Rastafarian community. Although Cariou won at first, on appeal, the court ruled that Prince had not committed copyright infringement because his works were “transformative.”
– A reminder that your Instagram photos aren’t really yours: Someone else can sell them for $90,000
..and then Dan Clowes on that Shia Lebeouf thing:
“Speaking of grudges: Have you forgiven Shia LaBeouf?”
“I don’t know. No, not really. I mean, I don’t hold a grudge. I don’t think about it that much. But I don’t think what he did was really forgivable. I don’t know that it matters that much if he’s apologizing or whatever. I just hate the idea of anybody doing that to some young artist who couldn’t hire legal representation. I’m sort of the one guy who could deal with something like that, and it would be really possible for somebody with his amount of money and power to just crush some poor young artist if that happened to them, and I would hate to see that. So I don’t think it’s something that needs to be forgiven; I think it’s something that always needs to be thought of as just a horrible thing to do.”
– Comics Legend Daniel Clowes on Hate Mail, Jim Belushi, and Not Forgiving Shia LaBeouf
Difficult for me to comment on this without falling into ranting, which is how I am supposed to react.
Let’s cleanse ourselves by reading about the true artists who Lichenstein “homaged”, in Deconstructing Lichtenstein.
Finally an article addressing a parallel issue of the popular misconceptions around the creation of CGI for big budget features:
As the debate surrounding what visual effects are worth rages on, it is clear that the studios themselves have an interest in perpetuating the myth that VFX are the product of clinical assembly lines and the results are equally lifeless and mechanical. Blaming computers for the dumbing down of movies has become a journalistic trope that is bandied about to squeeze the one part of the Hollywood machine that has no union or organizational skill to push back.
There’s good few months between the first and the last on this post. I have mentioned the events over the winter which have compromised my progress somewhat.
A 365 daily drawing project begun in good faith, but thwarted by life, death, progress and other forces. I have since scaled it back to “regular” but I still aim to fulfil the 365 target.
The process has thrown up so many unexpected things, ideas, personal development, a noticing of what I notice, discovery of stories, and connection with other people, none of which would have happened otherwise. So I would recommend trying it, as long as time keeping is your strong point and don’t value your sanity much.
Now dust had settled I recommence with added perspective and purpose.
All images should link back to the Instagram post whence they came.
If you’re interested in seeing the rest, most are in gallery form here, and you can see all the previous posts about the project here. If you would like more instant updates on this you can follow me on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook, if you like those sorts of things.









This week we received the official nomination certificates for the BAFTA for Digital Creativity.

This was for the War of Words VR app that was made by the team at BDH from the some of the animations we made for the War Of Words: Soldier Poets of the Somme documentary I have talked about extensively here.
As far as I know the App is still available on iTunes and the Play store.
This also reminds me that we picked up two West of England RTS awards recently (during my “blog break”). One for Best Graphics for War of Words and the other for Best Short Animation for The Somme In Seven Poems. It was quite an evening as I wasn’t really sure we’d win anything, let alone two, and beating such greats as Arthur Cox and Aardman Animations.
So I had to do two speeches, which was interesting for everyone I think. Hopefully I kept it short and mumbly, because I actually remember nothing about being on stage except a sea of expectant faces and the overwhelming urge to run.
Here’s some pictures of us collecting and yes that’s me at the mic:
Quite an evening. Felt very lucky and blessed that what we worked so hard on was recognised in such a way.

That’s the end of the trumpets.
In other news I have fired up the old Facebook page to stream sketches and the like, because, even though I am a grown up I still have a problem zapping art in front of people who have friended me there, so it’s a separate place for that. Please follow along if you like Facebook.
I’m also trying to restart the daily sketching project, now the dust has settled, but it’s less “daily” more “regular”, I’m still keeping the 365 count as I would like to have some closure on that. They go on Instagram then get sent everywhere else. So probably best not follow me in more than one place because you’ll get repeats and no-one deserves that.
Until next time.