Goldsmiths W.I. Zine

A stitched up collage illustration for the first Goldsmiths W.I zine. The zine is full of weird and interesting things including a sushi recipe with banana and how to save the bees. www.goldsmithswi.blogspot.com

Smiths Illustrations

Illustrations for Smiths Magazine, October/November issue.

A leaflet I designed for my friend and her sister's exciting new drumming school.

The Museum of Everything: Exhibition #4

I figured i ought to have more art supplies considering i'm always making things so i bought a  pack of superior quality pastels the other day from the Cass sale, I've never actually been into Cass when there isn't a sale and i'm not sure whether that's just down to good timing or whether they're like those shops that are permanently having a closing down sale but are still open two years later. Anyway I've decided that this urge to branch out and employ new materials is most likely due to the fact that I've been invigilating at The Museum of Everything. 

Exhibition #4 is the latest installation of visionary James Brett's project to unleash the talents of untrained or 'outsider' artists unto the world. Unlike the previous three exhibitions this newest one focusses particularly on the work of artists with developmental disabilities working in studios mainly across Europe and the US. While workshops and art therapy sessions are common in mental hospitals and care homes for physically disabled the art work produced from them are rarely taken seriously as art, and people who create them are rarely considered artists. The establishment of permanent studios for talented self taught artists with developmental disabilities has been a radical move towards nurturing the creativity of people whose talents would most likely otherwise lay dormant. 

The studios provide equipment and some support from technicians but other than that the work created in them is completely original and often developed over time. While the artists probably have little concern for the history of art or critical approaches blah blah, some of the artworks I've seen there have been the most interesting, funny, imaginative and bizarre I've have seen in a long time, and maybe i'm saying that because i don't know much about art theory either but if this is the kind of work that is produced from an artistic naivety then that might not be such a bad thing!

  

Taking photos of the exhibition was punishable by £1000 fine...the perfect opportunity to try out my new pastels and do these drawings of two of the artworks. You can see the originals plus lots lots more over at The Museum of Everything which is on till late October. http://www.museumofeverything.com/

Finding Colour Exhibtion

Some of my batik paintings are hanging in Sprout Gallery until Saturday 3 September along with this crazy origami board Sabba made. The gallery is a bit hidden and you may even have to go through the woods to get there. It’s in a residential area so for anyone intending to go, take a map. Sprout Arts, 74 Moyser Road, SW16 6SQ. www.sproutarts.com. Open 10.30-4 

Social Notworking Consultations

Ellen Linder kindly offered Walrus a cell at The Old Police Station as part of her New Cross Turn Left garden party on Sunday. We took the opportunity to host our first round of Social Network Syndrome consultations, offering members of the public free appointments in which they would be tested and potentially diagnosed with SNS.

We decided that the old cell would be the ideal place to host the consultations as it would emphasize the prison of the mind that some network users are finding themselves trapped in.

Each consultation was about 10-15 minuets long and involved several practical and written tests and finished with a short information video detailing the pioneering work of Dr. Gustav Von Schneider. The day ran surprisingly smoothly with our receptionist Anmeet's appointment sheet fully booked, so much so that there are even plans for a mini tour, so watch out for an SNS consultation session near you!

Social Notworking Investigation

Women's Library Zine Fest

Pics from the Zine Fest at the Women's Library today where there was a zine fair, exhibitions and a panel discussion, heard a particularly interesting talk by Humaira Saeed the founder of Race Revolt.  

Alternative Press Fest 2011- Stall and Tings

Sadly the first International Alternative Press Festival came to an unofficial* close yesterday. The zine fair, which was over the bank holiday weekend, was amazing and the biggest since APF records began, which isn't actually that long ago. Here's a picture Simone took which seems to adequately capture the excitement of the two days. 

Despite the presence of so much cool work and many new zines, between doing workshops and telling people the life story of each zine on our stall, I didn't get much time to have a proper look around. I did however pick up a funny book by Sam Rees, who was a few stalls down, called Mouths. Its a simple concept but I think its really effective and well executed. 

I tried to show it to other people but they just looked at me like I had mental problems or something. My dentistry mate Sana also picked up a 'brush your teeth' badge which should make a subtle addition to her clinical uniform.  

And last but not least here's a little taste of my mad sewing skills. I made this headband in Rosie Martin's 'make a headband workshop' which I had no intention of attending but I'm glad I did because it was really cool and my sewing lady mum was really impressed with my headband. Thanks to all the APF organisers and helpers for all their hard work, hopefully next years festival will be even bigger and better!


*Officially there are still a few ongoing exhibitions happening at Orbital up until the 13th but the juicy bits are gone!

Holy Posters

Make a Wish

Acrylic on canvas

I like the holy posters they have on the noticeboards outside the church, I think it would be cool to have more holy posters, maybe in the underground and on buses and billboards and even in people's windows. Yeah, I think its time to roll up those giant pouting babe posters. If the men miss them then they can just get a life or get a wife and also women can chill out and stop worrying about achieving maximum hotness all the time. Just need someone to sponsor holy posters...  

Alternative Press Festival 2011

The Alternative Press Fair is going international this year so its set to be bigger than ever! The fair will be part of the International Alternative Press Festival which runs from 27th May- 13th June and will include a programme of workshops, exhibitions and other happenings. Walrus will be at the zine fair on the 28th and 29th May in Conway Hall, Holborn. Above is a poster I did for it, www.alternativepress.org.uk for more details. 

Walrus at the Zine Symposium 2011

The Rag Factory was packed out with zinesters and supporters of the self publishing world today as the venue played host to the annual London Zine Symposium. It was really crowded for most of the day but after a few rounds of shuffling around we discovered some exciting new zines/zine makers. There were some cool zines made by the ladies at the Nest Gallery and also some fun books made by Girls who Draw, our table neighbour. Our most exciting find of the day were a bunch of publications from a group called Other Asias, they work with artists internationally to make radical zines/art/productions about Asian political and social issues, a current project of theirs is Redo Pakistan, their website describes what they do much better www.otherasias.webnode.com. Looking forward to the International Alternative Press Festival now!

Artistic Jihad Exhibition

Yesterday was the launch of the Artistic Jihad exhibition in which the work of 20 young Muslim artists is being displayed. The exhibition is the result of a FOSIS art competition and includes paintings, photography and sculpture. Two of my painting were amongst the works selected, above is a picture of some people hanging out near them. The show is in a small gallery space in St. Martins School of Art and Design (near the SU) and is on until April 15th, after that I think the exhibition is going to a few other cities around England.

Artistic Jihad for more info

Egaku: Draw for Japan

Peter Willis and friends have organised an arty event to help raise money for the Japan disaster. It's this Sunday 12am-8pm at Jaguar Shoes in Shoreditch.

EGAKU: a one day event to raise money for the Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund. Onsale will be zines, prints, ceramics, original drawings, books and much more, from some of the most renowned illustrators and designers of today - Rob Ryan, Nobrow, Okido, Anorak Magazine, Jean Jullien, Laura Carlin, Frinton Press, Peepshow, Hato Press, Lazy Oaf, Winged Chariot and many many more.

EGAKU means "draw" and "imagine " in Japanese. We hope that we can support Japanese people EGAKU (imagine) a peaceful future by EGAKU (drawing). 100% of all money made will be donated to the relief effort, for more information and a full list of contributors please visit our website: www.egaku.org.uk

Shop Now Open!

I opened a shop in the internet realm. If i had a shop in the real world I'd probably make it like a museum, and in a tunnel, and the shop would get gradually smaller towards the end so that only small people could fit and I'd train animals to maintain the shop. But for now I have this shop in the internet realm. It has a few excellent value zines, and I even redrew the 'Underachieving?' book and gave it a sugar paper cover, the other version had too many spelling mistakes, even by my standards, and towards the end the frogs started looking like piglets. You can purchase 'Underachieving?' and other zines/short stories from only 60p from

------------------------>here

London Zine Symposium!

Walrus Zines will be heading East for the London Zine Symposium next month. It takes place at the Rag Factory on April the 17th and will probably be wicked. Accompanying us will be the large group of printed men shown above. Click below for more details of the event.

www.londonzinesymposium.org.uk/stalls

Houses on Hills

The last two are prints with some drawings and cut outs from the Argos catalogue, and the first one is an etching with aquatint. I still can't believe they sell that lamp at Argos.

Acid and Feathers

Printing is becoming increasingly hard work. I started making an old school etching on a metal plate last week and it's taking forever. There are about 3 chemicals involved, one being acid, a hot plate, a wooden holding and burning contraption which doesn't have a formal name, a degreasing formulae, wax, varnish, and last but not least a feather. The below print is what It's produced so far. Above is a multi coloured print of a previous dry point etching. I don't really know what I was going for when I smudged the ink on but it's turned out quite dreamy looking.

I feel like these printing techniques are really ingenious, I can understand why they were so revolutionary back in the day when there were no photocopiers. Having said that I now have a massive new appreciation for photocopiers and photocopying, they're totally taken for granted.

Brighton Stall and Walrus Zines

We had fun fun fun down at Brighton zine fair yesterday. It was our first time down there and we met lots of nice people and shifted loads of zines. Here's a mysterious and hazy picture of our stall. Amongst some of our swaps were an origami kit, Playground Magazine, a mental health zine, a cross stitched badge, a small black lyric book by Sarah Clark, and a book of Great Anarchists by Peter Willis.

It was also our first zine fair outing as Walrus Zines, we thought we should have an official group name for our longstanding unofficial zine collective. We don't really have a good reason for naming it Walrus Zines except that i saw a picture of a walrus in a suit and thought it looked really cool, and the others were fine with it so that's the reason. There is a Walrus Zines blog on which we hope to do zine reviews and other interesting things and perhaps even make collective zines, but time will tell.

www.walruszines.blogspot.com

Brighton Zinefest

Brighton Zinefest is coming up and we've got a small stall at the zine fair where we (me, Sabba, Amneet and friends) will be selling and swapping our handmade illustrated goods, www.brightonzinefest.co.uk for more details.

A Tree. A World. Some Men.

A Tree
Drypoint Etching

A World

Drypoint Etching

Some Men

Linocut Print

I'm doing this wicked printing course with printmaker Simon Burder, so far we've made prints using collagraph, drypoint etching and linocut techiniques. Linocut is my favorite because it makes nice, bold prints.

Social Notworking- Dr. Von Schneider

Dr. Von Schnieder's earlier pioneering studies on Bebo and other reunion websites have been the subject of fierce debate, winning him much acclaim in social science circles. In his newest study 'Social Notworking' Dr. Von Schneider ventures bravely into new territory taking a serious look, for the first time, into the root causes and effects of the emerging Social Network Syndrome (SNS). Availiable in Bookartbookshop and Orbital Comics from Monday 17th (iA).

Description : A6, black and white inside with a blue cover, 26 pages (yes that's right 26!) half writing half drawings, very scientific.