block.

This post is late because i secretly thought to myself that issue nine would come back from the printers. Sadly its still not ready. Instead here is a big block of concrete i painted in the woods.

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phlegm studios.

I was hoping the new comic would be ready from the printers today but no, its still not ready.
I've got myself a new studio in a grotty part of town where i can get a bit more of my messy ideas done. I've been collecting large advertising posters from clubs, cinemas and shops over the past few weeks. I've been doing some quick sketchy hand sprayed paintings over them, cutting them out and then pasting them up. It's a nice alternative to a photocopy i think.
Here's a bad photo of one i pasted inside a hole in the tiles of a subway tunnel.

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phlegm stokes croft

Here's some photos of a wall i painted in Bristol this week.

Issue nine of phlegm is at the printers now and I've screen printed all the covers. I've also screen printed some jazzy limited edition covers too which I'll hold back for people who request them. If all goes well i should get a proof to look at today and then it's all go. Fingers crossed next weeks post should mark the landing of issue nine.

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underground art (art for bats and rats)

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I was stuck to find anything to post this week so i settled for a blurry shot i took of this character i painted in a near pitch black tunnel. I need to go back and do some more, so I'll get some better photos of them too. It's a pity its a bad photo, the wall had a lovely dirty red hue like a giant depressing rothko painting. It's part of the photo comic I'm working on. This particular panel fits in with the large painting i did on the back of rare and racy bookshop.
At the moment I'm just getting ready for lots of things. I've got a new studio to move into so i can start some secret projects. I've been revamping my screen printing studio to get it ready for the epic ten colour print for the front of cluster. Issue nine of phlegm should be back from the printers in about a week too, so I've been preparing some space for that.
I've printed the last batch of cuthhulu shirts too. Orange, brown, sand, and baby blue shirts with black ink, and some pink shirts with purple print! Only for sale at the old sweetshop (link in the side bar)

coming soon to a shop near you.

I've been away in the isle of man having a rest by the sea the past week. Issue nine is away at the printer at last...all i have to do now is collect the covers next week and then screen print the writing on the front. The image below is the part i'll be printing. Neon pink on grey. Hopefully it should all be ready and in the shops in about two weeks.

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Other than that all I'm really doing at the moment is working on cluster. I'm about half way through it now. I've also took a few days out to draw some of issue ten...but I'll do a post about that next week.


x phlegm x

पेन एंड इंक एम्बलेम.

I've been studying the green man or foliate head motif a lot lately. A lot of the work in cluster is inspired by medieval bestiary books, some native American Indian creation myths, and the green man so I'm trying to read as much as possible before i get to key parts of the book.
Here is the emblem that will be on the inside first page. It's a full figure green man that I've abstracted over and over again until it's almost lost the human figure that started it.

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I've spent this week working on my book, cluster. I've also managed to get the cover for the sketchbook issue ready for print, so that should be ready in a week or so. It's been odd looking through the past four and a half years worth of phlegm sketchbooks. The thing that strikes me the most is how fucking bad it all is. The only work I've put in this sketchbook issue is from the past three sketchbooks, beyond that nothing is print worthy. Phlegm had a working title of 'mediocre' for a while which i later changed to 'moon' as i got more and more interested in the houmors and early treatments for insanity and illness. Here's a scan of the sketchbooks I've gone through in the past four or five years!

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External combustion

Pretty much doing no work other than my comics still, and i think it's going to stay that way through most of the summer at this rate. I'm still squeezing in the the occasional commission...here's one of them.
This week i painted a Austin K-9 truck to add to my bizarre collection of painted vehicles. I painted this one so it can be used for outside fireworks, music and visuals. Pop along to the website external combustion see more about the life it's going to lead.
I'm going to go back to skulking around missing my muse who's gone away for a few weeks. I'm going to try and concentrate on some drawing and maybe cut of my ear and post it to her.
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idiot lantern

I've spent this week doing bits of everything to the point where i feel I've got nothing done. I've been doing a lot of research on the green man and digesting a lot of information about creation myths, namely the north American Iroquois. There are a few points in cluster where i wanted to point towards some of these things very slightly, or i felt it already did so i wanted to make the most of it.
I've also worked on part of the emblem that will make up part of the screen printed cover. The rest of the cover will be a sea scene coloured in a Victorian style, hopefully making the screen print appear like a hand water coloured litho print. This is only a very rough version , the final one will be neat and a little more art Nouveau.

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x phlegm x

how very urban

Just working hard on cluster this week. I'm getting to a part in the comic where i don't have to just draw expanses of sea over and over again which is good.
I've really got obsessed with watching documentaries while i draw lately, and seem to have developed a keen interest in anything about ancient Britain, Vikings, and creation myths. Its all had a bit of an effect on the writing of cluster and I'm a little bothered the whole thing may get out of hand. I'm going to have to sit down and do a page count next week and edit the rough copy down if needs be. I want it between forty and sixty pages long to keep it simple and concise. I don't think there's a complex enough plot to carry a hundred page book.
I've also been working on the comic on walls book, which thankfully is starting to make some sense to me now. I think getting some of the frames/walls edited into shape helped me get a better feeling for it all. Here are a few I've painted over the past week.
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street fart.

Here's another couple of sketchbook pages from the next issue of phlegm. This issue is all put together now, i just need to find a spare few days to design and print a cover before the contents is carted off to the printers.
Other than this I've been working quite hard on the walls book painting about three or four walls/frames a week. It's exhausting all my money and I'm beginning to wonder if this project is merely an elaborate form of self destruction.
Cluster has been on hold for about three weeks now and that's starting to annoy me. I'd say it's about the most important of all the things I'm trying to get done, so I'm a bit frustrated that it's had to slow down for a while.

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rare and racy sheffield

At last I've managed to get rid of that darn stat counter that hung at the bottom of this page making me feel like a wanker. I got a bit trigger happy and got rid of everything else too. I'll slowly replace links with new one's

The last week or so I've been painting the back of Sue Callaghan's bookbinding shop and my favourite shop in Sheffield rare and racy bookshop.

click to enlarge photos...x









Even though the event has passed i thought i'd add this because of it's connection to the above painting and the fact that it was nice of them to ask me to do it. It's a t-shirt i drew on with a fabric pen to help raise funds for Sheffield's third year fine art degree show.

phlegmanimation

Here's the reigns music video i did. Turned out pretty good. It's captured the atmosphere of the song quite well. It's left me itching to work on an animation project that i can work on for longer though.

reigns music video by phlegm (link youtube

I've stopped drawing the comics for most of last week because I've been trying to move my studio around and clean it out. I've been making some space in it so i can start painting some large paintings in there. I think it's the first time I've had a day of not drawing anything in years.
I've also been painting some buildings but thanks to paint never turning up and having far too many things to do every day most of them are left half painted at the moment.

peace out. x

Black and white walls and red shoes

The nice weather has completely seduced me into going out painting every single day now. I'm going to go with it for another week and then I'm going to have to tell myself off and get on with some of my comics again.
The sketchbook issue of phlegm (issue nine) is coming along really well. I've collected twenty pages from sketchbooks I've had over the past six months. The last ten pages i'm going to take out of my current sketchbooks.
Here is a little character that's actually a study for a painting I'm doing on the back of rare and racy in Sheffield.


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I'm also quite into doing big but fast paintings at the moment. Instead of gruelling over a small image it feels brilliant to just take over big spaces. I'm going to try and do some really monolithic paintings this year. I did an interview with red shoes last week and gave them the pictures of my latest wall...have a look, i actually sound like i have a plan and I'm not just free falling into an inescapable rut of madness... red shoes

bye then, i'm off painting.

prog-graff street cartoonist

Here is a character i painted last week when i was trying to get the whole black and white thing working for me. The character on the right was done by rocket 01 and the lovely birds by fauna.


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This is where i should start explaining my master plan for this summer. Basically almost every wall I paint this year will be a frame in an a4 colour book later this year. I'm weaving a load of simple organic story's and myths around the characters and then photoshopping the frames into place. It's going to be fun. I just want to add more narrative to the wall work and stop it getting stale. I'm also weaving about ten or so collaborations in there, but i'll go into that when it's a little more organised. The wall below was done with rocket01 and it's about how drastically out of control an organic tash can get.


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This isn't one of the frames, i just wanted to get fully up to speed painting this way. It's great just slapping up a character in white emulsion with a roller and then going at it with cans of black. Simple, cheap and should keep the look of the comic uniform.


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Here's one of the frames. Although i may do a few other versions without spears...i don't really like that. I'm painting the back of a bookshop (rare and racy) in the next few weeks that will be a part of this same story.





Thats that cleared up then...now i just have to paint twice as much every time i go out painting. I've put a few other angles on the website too.


x phlegm x

art fart

Right then, lets get this train rolling. I was going to post some pictures of a few new paintings I've done on walls this week but fate has it that on both excursions I've managed to only bring my camera tripod and not the actual camera. I'm painting a lot of walls over the next few weeks... I'll try and get some photos and then post a bumper crop of new pictures for the next post.
This week I've seen the end of the reigns animation for monontreme records, i think it was all so much work I've been left with one of those project hangovers i often get just after finishing a big project or a new comic. Its an odd feeling ploughing all your efforts into one thing only to feel a huge sense of loss afterwards. Or maybe I'm just knackered and should stop whining.
Its funny being an artist, you do it because you adore it and then everyone treats you like you automatically think your really good at it. Personally (and I'm not fishing for comments here)i honestly don't think my work is that good.
On a more positive note, here is another page from cluster which is slowly cross hatching itself towards the middle of the book now, although i seem to add as many pages as i draw at the moment so who knows how long it's going to be.


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The next phlegm

Lets get on with business, issue nine. The next issue of phlegm is going to be a sketch book issue, about forty or so pages long, two colour screen printed cover, and embossed phlegm on the cover. Simple.
I looked at my sketchooks the other day and realised i have ten just for 2008. The majority of pages are just bollocks, full of technical notes, reminders, research and very rough sketches. This week i've started scouring the 2008 notebooks for things that i've drawn good enough to print. I think it should end up being a nice little zine showing some of the working out i do for charicters and walls, some of the absent minded doodles i draw, and the occasional interesting observation.
So far i've collected thirty pages worth using. I'm going to set a date for a month from now and then i'll look at going to print with it. I don't want to rush and print something i'm going to hate in a few weeks.

Here are a few examples.


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x phlegm x

reigns

Below are some stills from the reigns video i'm doing. It's starting to look really good and coming together fast. It should be done by the end of the month.

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In my spare time I've also been trying to draw a flier for the house skatepark which has taken almost a thousand years now. Here it is.

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Here is another painting I've done lately...still not happy with the new way of working but i guess it's going to take a few months to get things right. At least I'm getting faster at painting pictures i don't like.

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A lovely group of skaters from derby who run a site/skate team called hooked tagged along for the night when i painted the above painting, follow this link for their blog which has photos, and interview and a time lapse video of that painting.

painting

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Hectic few weeks at the moment so i haven't really thought about what to post. Here's a new painting I've done. I'm not too happy with them yet but i do like the idea of trying to do all my shading using patterns, stencils and cross-hatching. My aim this year is to use a limited palette of colours, avoid too much shading and try to make them more like my illustrations and comics, and to paint more challenging ideas and sequential pictures blah blah blah.

phlegm comic 'cluster'

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Most of my time seems to be taken up by the reigns animation at the moment, but in my spare time I've managed to slowly work on some of the new comic. I'm up to page nine now (only another 25 to go!)This comics pretty exiting because it's the first story I've committed to inking up. It's also going to be the first real book I've produced outside of phlegm comic, a4 litho printed in blue and with a six colour screen printed cover...may even have a box spine if i can afford it.

Phlegm is also proud to be stocked by the lovely sister gallery to the here gallery in Bristol...The here and now gallery in Falmouth. There is the website for here.

x phlegm x

street tarts

Below are a mixture of things I've painted in Bristol and Manchester over the past month or two.

I've not been painting quite as much latley, partly because of the weather but mainly because i'm working on a new body of work in private...Something that mirrors my drawing style and hopefully kicks every painting i've ever done firmly in the arse.

click on any of the pictures to enlarge them.