Knitted animation gets serious

I'm outsourcing my knitting to puppets now. They seem to be pretty good at it...

Learning to run

This week I am mostly having difficulty learning to run and walk with 4 legs. But last week I think I did a reasonable job of walking with 2 legs, or at least an amusing job... See for yourself:



By the way, this is all because I'm at The Bristol School of Animation trying to improve my knitimation skillz before I use them to make a bid for world domination... or something like that.

Eyeball Workshops

The Affordable Art Fair was last weekend and there was knitting and crochet mania. Eyeballs and blood went everywhere. It was all under the guise of workshops to coincide with National Knitting Week and create more gore for my Bear's cauldron in the sculpture 'A Job for a Bear'. Much fun was had by all and we converted many new people to the yarn arts. At the end of it all the bear was sold and has a lovely new home to continue working his cauldron magic in.

Here's a picture of my stand in the recent graduates section where you can see the crowds flocking around the knitted plinth to watch my animation 'I am Ahab'. The other is of me teaching a spot of knitting. And a big thank you goes to I Knit for providing yarn, knitting needles and crochet hooks to make the Horror Knitting workshops possible.

A Job for a Bear

Here's a photo of my latest sculpture 'A Job for a Bear'. He's in charge of stirring the eyeball cauldron.

You'll be able to see him in real life at The Affordable Art Fair in Battersea Park from Thursday 18th - Sunday 21st October.
He'll be alongside Monster Head and I am Ahab in the Recent Graduates section. If you're around come and stare into the eyes of gore!

Crocheted Plastic Bag Laptop Sleeve

Check out this laptop case I crocheted from plastic bags. It's made from the best colour! And I'm recycling and saving the world and all that blah. If you'd like to make your own just leave a comment and I'll post a tutorial for you.



In related news here's a tutorial about how to make your own plastic bag yarn. It's easy and fun, hurrah! Also have a look at this round up of all the ways to turn your plastic bags into cool stuff on Treehugger.

Camberwell Degree Show - Last Day!

My knitimation 'I Am Ahab' has been showing at my degree show all week to rave reviews... If you haven't been to see it yet then tomorrow (Sat 23rd) is your last chance to marvel at it in it's knitted plinth housing. Here are some photos of the crowds enjoying themselves if you can't make it. It's on the 4th floor (Sculpture dept.) at Camberwell College of Arts, Peckham Road. I'll be there in the afternoon invigilating/answering all your knitimation questions. See you there!

New Knitimation is finished!

I've finished the video for 'I am Ahab' by Not-Too-Distant-Future. It's currently on display at my degree show at Camberwell College of Arts. You can go and see it in it's lovely knitted plinth from Tuesday 19th June to Saturday the 23rd. Or you can watch it now in all it's YouTube glory! Let me know what you think...

Cloud in a box

I went to see the Anthony Gormley show Blind Light at The Hayward Gallery today. He made a cloud in a box! It was much fun and very spooky seeing people disappear right in front of you. I highly recommend visiting it before it closes on the 19th August and then you can take some spooky pictures like this one.

Knitted Animation Progress

I Am Ahab is about a week away from completion and I know you're all waiting on tenterhooks for the big day... maybe. Anyway here's a sneaky shot of the whale to keep you going.

Woman's hour again...

In Radio 4 news the woman's hour piece was broadcast this morning. If you missed it you can listen again. And for amusement purposes only you may like to hear our first outing on woman's hour in 2003 here. The photo is of Ron Fuller's Viking from the Cabaret show at Kinetica. Nicked from Chris O'Shea's Flickr photoset.

And on the knitimation side of things, normal service has resumed on the filming of I am Ahab after a short break. It will be finished in about 3 weeks because if it's not my degree show might look a bit empty...

Radio 4

This morning I recorded an interview with my mum and gran for Women's hour on Radio 4. We were talking about the Cabaret Mechanical Theatre exhibition at Kinetica in Spitalfields market. It's going to be broadcast this Friday so make sure to listen in and be amused by whatever nonsense I was spouting in my seriously jetlagged state! In the meantime here's a picture of me in the most amazing tea shop in the world. It had tiny little birdies flying around inside! More on Day 6 of the seoul photos.

Jokes in Seoul

Well here I am in South Korea setting up a Cabaret Mechanical Theatre exhibition at The Seongnam Arts Centre in Seoul. It opens tomorrow. Here's a picture of some automata that me and Steve made in a spare moment!
You can see more photo's of the trip so far here:

Day 6
Day 5
Day 4
Day 3
Day 2
Day 1

Fun stuff!

And the winner is...

The Knitties! Hurrah! It won the award for Best Animation and was nominated for Best Music Video and Technical Expertise at The National Student Film Festival this weekend. I got a copy of Avid Xpress Pro and a bottle of King Cobra beer pictured here in the obligatory cheesy grin photo. I also got a smart little glass trophy! It was a really great event, all very professional and The Knitties was shown on a cinema size screen, which was, like, totally the greatest thing ever. The thank yous go to Thea for making me enter in the first place and The Stabilisers for having such an awesome song for me to make the video for. If you still haven't seen The Knitties you can watch it here or here.

Film festival action

The National Student Film Festival is on in Bristol this weekend. Check out all the info on their website. If you're in the area come and see some awesome films! I'm going to be there having some jokes because The Knitties is being shown and perhaps I shouldn't mention this, not wanting to tempt fate etc... but it's been nominated for an award!

Check out the magnets

Now I have floaty people. Which is good because the chairs I'm making are liable to collapse under any kind of weight...

RoboKnit

I always knew that knitting had a life of it's own. Now I see that it's been the robots all along.
Erm... anyway, here's the armature in Ahab's girlfriend. It's yet to be proven to work though. I'll be conducting a series of tests and publishing a report shortly.

Setting up an animation studio

Ta-Da!
Here are the beginnings of my awesome shed-based animation studio. Note the green screen, a new addition funded by a job in Singapore. And you'll also notice that Ahab now has a boat to carry him off across the seas to seek adventures and whales.