The Dry Brush Teleports Us To The 1950s Or Possibly The 1960s Like Magically Kerpow!

Ink, bristles and paper in imperfect harmony. This says 1958-1962 to me.

Standard Designs Black Friday Sale

This Friday you can save 10% on all purchases of my prints in the Standard Designs Etsy shop. Just enter the coupon code BLACKFRIDAY at the Etsy checkout to receive your discount. Your Christmas shopping could be sorted in a matter of minutes!

Come and browse my series of albums-as-books prints for The Smiths, Morrissey, The Stone Roses, Radiohead, Joy Division, Kate Bush, New Order, Kraftwerk, Bjork, Pulp, Blur, Oasis, The Cure, Suede and many many more. And don’t forget my portraits of all the greats from literature, philosophy, art and… you know… other stuff.

So much to choose from, so little time. The sale ends when Friday ends. Get to it!

The Smiths' 'Hatful Of Hollow' As A Set Of Books

Here’s my final new print of 2014 (I’m busy preparing lots of new things for 2015). One of my favourite albums ever - The Smiths’ ‘Hatful of Hollow’, depicted as if Morrissey and Johnny Marr had written it as a collection of books instead of songs. It’s available now in the Standard Designs Etsy Shop.

As much as the songs, I’ve always loved this album’s artwork - the photo of the band in the gatefold, and especially the front cover with its gorgeously flat blue, and the black & white typography. Very 1950s (maybe a bit early 1960s too).

So it was pretty clear this would work well translated into a set of Penguin and especially Pelican Books. And so here we are.

You can see more at the Standard Designs Etsy Shop.

Anselm Kiefer at the Royal Academy

The Royal Academy is currently showing a medium-sized retrospective of Anselm Kiefer’s work. You’re greeted in the courtyard by two huge vitrines containing rusting models of U-boats. But the fun doesn’t stop there.

The show begins with some of his frankly awful 1960s/early 1970s work, but then quickly gets going with his mid-1970s ‘up in the attic’ paintings.

…and then into his early 1980s work - still my favourite period.

This last one in particular - part of a humongous multi-part folding screen thing - made me want to dust off my lino-printing skills.

As time goes on, and Kiefer moves into bigger and bigger studios with better and better facilities, the works become increasingly process-tastic. You could stand for hours working out how he achieved this surface or that effect. And the great thing is that much of the slightly mystical alchemical nature of what he does is mirrored in his subject matter - or the other way round, I forget which.

Things go a bit askew in the last couple of rooms. The above photo doesn’t really do justice to the amount of gold and purple there is in some of these more recent pieces. They’re - dare I say it - pretty tacky. A gift shop idea of a Kiefer. Talking of which, the gift shop at the RA has been curated to include a number of Kiefer-esque items, including distressed-looking metal keepsake boxes. Funny in a slightly desperate kind of way. And if they don’t sell, they could always hang onto them if they ever stage a Christian Boltanski retrospective.

So in summary, if you’ve not see a large Kiefer show before, it’s worth seeing. If like me you’ve been following his work since the year dot, it’s maybe less essential (the show at White Cube in 2011 was a bit more cohesive). In either case, if you’re passing the RA, go into the courtyard and have a look at those subs. They’re fun!

This Is The Author #2

Here we see ‘smouldering’, 1940s-style.

Was The Clash's album 'London Calling' Sold Like A Car?

This is the third and final print in my series of 1960s style car ads advertising 1970s punk albums. This time it’s 'London Calling' by The Clash.

The idea was to create something that looked like something your eye might glance at and go ‘huh, it’s an old ad’, but then when you looked closer you saw that something a bit strange and original was going on. So this print started out as an actual 1960s car ad, but then it received a dose of punk anarchy (which was itself a close cousin of late-60s Situationism and all the May ‘68 hijinks in Paris).

Have a look at how the text got changed on the road to becoming an ad for one of the greatest ever punk albums:

It’s lots of different things at once. So if simple, mainstream band merchandise is your thing, this print isn’t for you. But if you like something that’s good to look at and sets the mind going in different directions… the print is available from the Standard Designs Etsy shop.

This Is The Author

And by the looks of things, he’s not going to let you forget it.

For Your Wall: 'The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan' In Book Form

If you’re a book-lover, and you love Bob Dylan too - now there’s an art print just for you.

It shows Bob Dylan’s album ‘The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan’ as it might have been if Dylan had decided to write novels full time instead of songs. And it’s available for you to buy now at the Standard Designs Etsy shop.

It was painstakingly created using vintage Penguin and Pelican books, selected and grouped together to echo the colours of the original album cover art. The books were photographed and then carefully changed so that they now show the titles of the songs on ‘Freewheelin’, all arranged in the original track order.

It’s a super-classy and unique way for you to show your appreciation of Bob Dylan’s music and your love of literature. It would look great on your wall. Take a look in the Standard Designs Etsy shop now.

New Sculpture at Tate Modern

A pretty big installation job happening at Tate Modern in London yesterday. Best not walk underneath it.

standarddesigns.etsy.com

The Beatles vs. London vs. The Future

I love this photo of the Beatles’ final live performance, in 1969 on the roof of the Apple offices. I love it because of the London skyline at the top of the photo. Grey, grotty, dusty… quite the antithesis of the psychedelic Fab Four below (or perhaps a reflection of the state of the group at that point?) The 1970s are literally on the horizon, and things are about to get grim. OK - glam, then grim, but you take my point.

And in this day & age there can be no greater plaudit for a photograph than this: I have it as the lockscreen on my iPhone.

Working = Tinkering With Books

These might eventually turn into a series of Brian Eno prints.

Standard Designs in Stylist Magazine

Yes, there on the top shelf in this photo from today’s Stylist magazine is my Stone Roses print.

Should you wish to style your room in a similar fashion to the above, and I strongly suggest you should, the print is available here.

Coloured pencils are vastly underrated, especially when doodling...

Coloured pencils are vastly underrated, especially when doodling absolutely mindlessly as in this example. They really are the dill pickle in one’s aimless mental hamburger.

The Ultimate Art Print for the Book-Loving Led Zeppelin Fan

'Led Zeppelin IV' as if it had been written as a collection of Penguin Books. This print is available right now from the Standard Designs Etsy Shop. Click here for details.

The sun sets on Literature. Goodnight, Literature.

The sun sets on Literature. Goodnight, Literature.

David Bowie 'Space Oddity' 45th Anniversary Print

'Ground Control to Major Tom…' Can you believe it’s 45 years since ‘Space Oddity’ was released as a single? Crazy, eh? Released on 11 July 1969. And so now I wonder about Major Tom, and I wonder if, as the song still plays, he’s still up there, in the imaginary pop-osphere, floating in his tin can. So I made this print to commemorate the anniversary. It’s available now in the Standard Designs shop on Etsy.

It’s simple but effective, with a little bit of the late Pop Art of the period in the way the Earth is heavily colour halftoned, and a touch of the Art Deco revival of the early 1970s in the typography.

It’d look great on your wall. Treat yourself to one here.

Waiter, there’s a mid-60s abstract on the floor. Would you...

Waiter, there’s a mid-60s abstract on the floor. Would you kindly mop it up, please, as it’s putting me off my food.

Where Can I Find Storage Solutions Inspired By Late 1960s Formalist Minimalist Painting Round Here?

Oh, there you are.

The Cock

As seen in Sutton. The Cheam reference on the sign makes me think this is some kind of lodestone marking the intersection of the Carry-On films with Tony Hancock. But conjecture is cheap, and research requires paperwork, so I will leave it there…

Kate Bush 'Aerial' As If Written As Novels

This is the fourth in my series of Kate Bush albums reimagined as collections of books (after 'Hounds of Love', 'The Kick Inside' and 'The Sensual World'). It’s her colossal 2005 album 'Aerial'. Each of the books here represents a track on the album, and they’re all arranged in the same order they appear on the original CD release. It’s available now from the Standard Designs Etsy shop.

The print measures 42 x 29.7cm (which fits very nicely into a standard IKEA Ribba frame, as you can see above).

It’s printed on some rather nice 200gsm premium archival paper. It’s a substantial print.

The books (all Penguins) have been chosen to echo the warm colours of the original CD’s artwork.

There’s also a special offer in the shop where you can buy all four of my Kate Bush prints for the price of three with free shipping - click here for more information.

Washing machine… washing machine…

Doodling = Thinking

Somewhere in amongst these and their hundreds of siblings my next print is waiting to be discovered. But where, where? Ah, the joys of being an artist. 99% inspiration, 1% perspiration, 64% frustration (artists are notoriously bad a maths, as anyone who’s looked through a painter’s end-of-year accounts will attest to).

Oasis '(What's the Story) Morning Glory?' As A Series of Books

Another print as if the Gallagher brothers had started out as novelists instead of musicians. The print is available in my Etsy shop via this link.