Gwen Turner: Hatching Ideas

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T02:15:00.000-08:00

Let's make 2012 a real Swinger!

To see all pictures at their larger original size, click on the image once for the light-box viewer.

To re-cap back to this time last year, here is a link to the trailer of Domestic Bliss, completed by a close friend and collaborator.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T02:54:00.000-08:00

Due to some rather more sinister "Jaques Tati moments" when negotiating the technology of today, I only just managed to get these cards printed this side of Christmas.
There are two sides to this design, and as we all brim for the new year, the other will have to wait...

Lots of love xxx

(Here are the Christmas card designs from last year...)

...

2011-12-21T07:08:00.001-08:00

A little pre-Christmas something...

Granny's Rinse Adventures

2011-11-25T04:04:00.001-08:00

I absolutely loved creating and drawing this short story recently and I would like to preview it here...

Coupled with Granny's almost excessive thirst for experimentation and the Grumpy Grey Grannies' rigid lack of imagination...

The help of Judge Cloud is called upon...who, has the experience of forever...

The Granny's Rinse Adventures Comic will soon be available in my shop, OUCH!

(And why but ofcourse I shall be sending gift copies out to unsuspecting near and dears and other peeps to have a peep!!)

Two White Peacocks

2011-11-13T03:29:00.001-08:00

The following photos were taken on Isola Bella, an island on Lake Maggiore, Italy.

To see all pictures at their larger original size, click on the image once for the light-box viewer.

Flesh and Stone

2011-11-12T12:53:00.001-08:00

2011-11-12T12:47:00.001-08:00

2011-11-12T12:10:00.001-08:00

Andy and I were happy to be able to stay in Arona, Italy again this year, in early October.
I share a collection of shots that I took, titled Flesh and Stone...

Here is a link to a post I wrote about our trip to Italy last year...

Wales

2011-11-07T14:25:00.000-08:00

We visited my mother and other relatives in Wales in late September. I show a couple of select shots here starting with one that was only savoured once I had put my camera away. For it's memories sake...

The second was captured in a greasy spoon cafe. The people who ran it spoke in Welsh amongst themselves and in English to us.

To add to the Salt series, is a little protein. Better reserves to get through a pending winter...

(must store it

like a gerbil does

in it's cheek pouches)

Windows

2011-11-06T12:53:00.000-08:00

Outside it is cold and dark

Yet

Inside the sun rises

This is another shot taken by me from The Windows series. To see originals at their actual size, you can just click on the image once...(more new discoveries!)

To Master

2011-11-06T12:40:00.000-08:00

As may be expected; my inertia-ridden, tantrum throwing revolts subsided when I journeyed (as I often do) into the world of Jean Giraud Moebius. All the while, through the end of October I was thinking as I drew in my studio "What about my hand?...It's gonna fall off!"

The days are getting dark as early as 4.30pm.

I may not need to explain any further why, after having studied this illustration, I felt like a spoilt child.

Here is a link to see a larger version...

It is an enchanting drawing, and could even put some of the old masters more on their tippy toes...(and this one is still alive). A drawing like this almost lets you breathe more.

A humbled Gwen returned, tail between legs, to her Roald Dahl-esque shed at the bottom of the garden.

Note: Some images, like this one, that I re-elaborate on this blog, have been shared with the full intention to spread further awareness of something I believe to be good, and of value. Although I have not sought consent of it's origins, I hope that this is acknowledged with respect; it was found on google image search and was already published on-line at the URL link, and before that, I do not know where it was found. With thanks.

Speedo

2011-11-03T05:11:00.000-07:00

I drew this on a card for my nephew Karl's 3rd birthday this September. The gift that I sent over to Berlin consisted of a pair of bright red Speedo swimming trunks and a giant red sausage balloon. Tagged to the balloon where very specific instructions for it to be blown up on the big day.

A short play...The Golden Hour

2011-10-10T14:30:00.000-07:00

My partner Andrew Bridgmont is putting on a play and I would like to sound it out here on the blog. This is the way that theatre practitioners in the industry go about getting their own work a platform, it may be an initial foot-hold before something like The Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He is a fantastic writer (and director), and has been an actor in the industry for 30 years and produced a number of other plays in the past...

To quote Andrew: "I came to the table with an idea based on a short story I had written and we began to talk about ways of bringing it to life in dramatic form. I would go away and come back with a rough draft. The actors would read it and then we would all discuss what seemed to be working and what needed to be looked at. We repeated this process. Three months and numerous drafts later we arrived at this slender 25 minute two-hander. Its next test is in front of an audience".

The play...

Lizzie has just murdered her pimp with a bottle of Moet champagne. Before facing the music she sets out to meet her final client, Frank. Although it appears that his only interests are tea and the Foxtrot, Frank proves to be more than Lizzie ever thought possible. She is faced with a decision.

This 45 minute two-hander is a funny, erotic and ultimately moving portrait of a woman’s unconventional response to love, sex and ‘50’s Britain.

At:
The Concert Artistes' Association, 20 Bedford St, London WC2
Tues 1st Nov at 4pm and Wed 2nd Nov at 7.30pm.

The Poetry Cafe, 22 Betterton St, London WC2
Thurs 3rd Nov at 4pm and 6.30pm.

Do come along, any of my avid blog readers interested in a fine story told and performed by the finest.

Please RSVP your chosen performance for complementary admission and a glass of wine to:
andrewbridgmont@hotmail.com or phone 0208 533 3954

Insert 1st Nov 2011: I am definitely planning to be at this show for the evening performances on Wednesday and Thursday, for any of those people whom only I know, it would be really great to see you!...I am looking forward to this!

Domestic Bliss...The Magnum Graphic Opus!

2011-09-05T13:06:00.000-07:00

Today, I have gathered some aims. First off, I write this in mind of the lovely people out there who have purchased a copy of Domestic Bliss...we were all left with quite a cliff hanger!

Will Bliss survive through her first few hair raising hurdles now that she has been left alone in the dark wild forest with nothing but fence-hopping amidst urban back gardens as her credential? She can be quick yes...but we hope not dead. What of the Hobnobs?...How can they cope without their cat in that big modern city? Will they be able to face their dark past now they don't have their pet for distraction?

When I produced the first episode of Domestic Bliss, it was quite high octane, as I was continuing pretty much straight from my M.A. which was intense. I had ignored some other very important things happening in my life, so that I could get the first episode done and flying, life's beginning to peel together somewhat, and only now do I get the benefit of hindsight. I had some confidence and pacing issues last winter, and unnecessary urgency which was destroying my relationship with the characters and the whole project. I had shifted studios and the many shifts took their toll more than expected. It is my first graphic novel, and a joy to learn about how one tackles all the different aspects of its creation let alone the marketing side.

It would be a good idea for me to explain some aims...I was a little myopic during it's launch which I forgive myself for. Vision sees it as unfolding; it's a case of getting the ball rolling and I had kind of imagined a bit of a recession of energies after Hatching the series. This has become a pattern; creations move around on the stove from front burner to back, because once new, it is quite vulnerable and I don't yet have appropriate objectivity. In the meantime I was able to Hatch a more matured project like OUCH!

My mission statement was that Bliss be a pleasure to create in my own time, and to tide over those gaps where one finds ones self in the freelance world ((Insert: 07.01.2012) this may change, though at this stage I won't predict). That has certainly been the case during this summers journey's with her. I might have found that honeymoon feel again. I aim to at least get a short trailer completed for mid winter, which will involve collaboration. (My aims of getting episode 2 done by now have gone deep down the pan). I am considering a mixture of publishing options for the next one...perhaps print on demand for a while until I get the third...then fourth rolling etc, etc...they can then be priced a little more cheaply too, ((Insert: 07.01.2012) I predict that there will be between 5-7 episodes in total). The beauty of comics is their versatility and freedom. It has become a tendency of mine to work in seven year cycles...it should all turn into a large snowball, and...ROLL!

(As part of her extended launch phase) she is going to get some decent exposure now that a collection of four of the artworks including the front cover has just been published in The Association of Illustrators Annual catalogue: Images 35.

To see all pictures at their larger original size, click on the image once for the light-box viewer.

Summer songs

2011-09-03T14:51:00.000-07:00

Well, besides a lovely summer of getting my life into gear, I have had only a little time in between, to do my creative work, which I hope to remedy now that Autumn is in the air.

Days that I have managed to steel away to create have been spent in my new work space. A shed in the back garden (thanks for help from my father).

I like to call it a "Chalet" of course...it's very exciting...a sort of 'Summer House' with a little veranda that you might imagine Huckleberry Finn to be sitting on in a rocking chair...(a bit older though, with a Jack Daniels and perhaps a guitar)...(and a fag). Inside, I aimed to keep furnishings minimal, so it kind of looks like a nunnery/school room, it feels quite colonial.
It is a massive 2 by 2 meter square inside, and just the right size for my small table, a good chair, my old gas heater from the last, but one studio (Roger, you know them well), a nice rug, and lastly, a favourite framed original etching of mine from childhood, hung beautifully on it's own upon the white gloss walls. A green stain on the wood has made up for it's 'shed' look.
Andrew and I needed to re-sew a lot of grass which is now growing; much like my vigour.

Here is the table and my drawing board, and here she is at night...a little glowing light.
No more cellar (the place I have used to work in for some years on and off), goodbye depths, and hello garden!

My music inspiration this time is Meat Loaf. Oh, and Kate Bush too....just the kind of Beauty and the Beast scenario Meat Loaf might have imagined. I call them Kate Loaf and Meat Bush.
Below I share some wonderfully awful videos of Mr Loaf...
I wouldn't generally do this on my blog...I don't think... (who laid down the blog rules?) I simply must share a couple of examples from YouTube. Bat out of Hell goes without saying...

Modern Girl
Aside the even more awful recording where the sound falls out of sync at the end making it more like a badly dubbed B movie; here is the first of my inspirations...I reckon I may have pencilled the sheer vibe of this harmonious cocktail (not the video as much as the music and please note: the ferociously 80's looking, and extraordinarily choreographed women).
I Love it!

Dead Ringer for Love
Here we go, its Cher for this one,...pure unremitting SASS! (Definition: Ungodly amount of cool) = THE duo.

Good acting too!

I am all set with these tuneful comrades, I swear to God that listening to this stuff improves the work by half. Of course the space one works in makes all the difference and this...after years, has now become just how I like it.
My parting recommendation would be album collections: 'Piece of the action, The best of Meat Loaf' and 'Kate Bush, Hounds of Love'.

Rock and Roll.

A.O.I. Images 35 Exhibition...

2011-08-07T01:40:00.000-07:00

I shall be exhibiting an illustration (Dawn in Darlesville) alongside selected illustrators for The A.O.I. Images 35: at The Bankside Gallery from the 25th of August to the 2nd September. For full details, follow this link

This promises to be an illuminating show!

New online portfolio...

2011-07-17T08:02:00.000-07:00

I have had some changes made to my website recently, (thanks Peter), and taken away the past theatre examples; it is now purely a portfolio of my illustration work. There are some additional new pieces in the simple-varied section, click here for a peek...

Insert 25th July 2011: For now I am keeping my last theatre design commission on this website here.
(29th July...retrospectives): The Miracle is a play (by Lin Coghlan) about a series of strange but profound events that take place amongst the community of a supposedly insignificant satellite town...
Designing The Miracle at Watford Palace (close to where I grew up), was like a rewarding tip of the ice-burg to some considerable years of feeling around in London within the sub-levels of cultural existence;...like an invention that has to be right, this show made me shiver as though something had been expelled. The show was performed for three nights (a common schedule for youth theatre).
I remain very proud of the work created by those involved in this production, it felt good to take leave for other re-inventions on such a high note.

Fish puppet: two were made to be operated together during the play.

(The puppet's head comprises of two Balti dishes and a couple of small sieves).

An article worth looking at...

2011-07-14T20:15:00.000-07:00

My brother just sent me this link to an article in the Guardian about regarded graphic novelists, and their appreciation of various contemporaries.
Thanks Simon, this is very much of interest.

Spring cleaning for another year!

2011-04-27T08:05:00.000-07:00

This is a short recap over to when I first started this blog 16 months ago. I have entered into a phase of working on other pieces. It has been fun to get back to grips with some short sequences that I was getting started just before the acceleration of progress on the first episode of my graphic novel series Domestic Bliss. A climax to the end of a memorable and quite packed decade...(an update on recent book shop's, where it can be purchased is here).

Insert: August 20th 2011,...Bliss has now hit the wilds of Wales (thanks to my mum dealing with business over that way) including St Davids Bookshop which is a gorgeous little place that I always visit when I am there...I hope I am allowed to add this photo that I found on google...I don't see the harm...(if copyright slams me, I can just remove it!)

For now, here is a link to the first post of this blog...(it already feels like a pleasantly well trodden path!), which explains in a little more detail what stage I was at just over a year ago.

For now, Happy Spring!

Insert, 12th June 2011: I have further enhanced some thoughts that I wrote last February about the Comic scene, here.

Glorified Blog Doodles...

2011-04-14T00:18:00.001-07:00

Grey areas
Places where my mind wonders
Then comes back

Two by Two

2011-04-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

To see all pictures at their larger original size, click on the image once for the light-box viewer.

Two

2011-04-09T21:42:00.000-07:00

My evolving business, now online!

2011-03-29T10:30:00.001-07:00

Today, I am very pleased to launch my business online. It will be linked to my main website but for now:

Welcome to OUCH! my new gallery-shop!

Through a harsh, even dull winter, a sense of humour lobotomy, various trip-ups or overly joyous-celebrations about how important my work is…

Snuggrand and I appear to have pulled through intact!

Winter gestives...

2011-03-13T03:36:00.000-07:00

Through the dark months, I've been buisy hatching a business. One that I have been gradually building up for a number of years, and the collection of products has become impressive now. It will be ready to fly soon in fact...(watch this space).

Meanwhile I just fell shy of actually becoming a cartoon character whilst working on 'Bliss' towards the end of Febuary, not to mention poor Snuggrand.

Stumbling and then getting back up again, until the work becomes a kick. Learning the pace, and enjoying the rewards as it becomes easier...(then a nice cold beer).

Insights into episode 2 of 'Bliss'

2011-03-06T04:20:00.000-08:00

A sketch from some of the working notebooks...
Bliss sniffing around...where she is not welcome...

2011-02-23T15:20:00.000-08:00

2011-02-15T09:18:00.000-08:00

Window

2011-02-15T02:06:00.001-08:00

Salt

2011-02-15T01:34:00.000-08:00

I see salt sea salt

Salt from my eye that sees

Ocean drops or a tear

Worth a shot...

2011-02-07T06:12:00.000-08:00

Having not a load of experience with these comic conventions...there was a massive range of stuff...super hero's, war, zombies, films, stickers...etc, there were loads of customers; devoted collectors who come out in droves to such events (proper hardcore comic-con!).

(Insert June 12th, 2011: This convention seems to be a kind of comic antiques market, important, I think, to regard such events as an integral part of the whole sequential art matrix. I was informed by one of the traders that 'Kapow' is host to the current climate of comics. Andrew and I also took a trip to the 'MCM Comic Expo' this May...,current yes, but where the small beginnings of the independent comic artist may be in danger of drowning. I bought the latest 'Tpcat' illustrated comic: 'The Most Difficult Task' from representative Tom McNally, (a Biologist and also it's writer). I also discovered: Howard Hardiman's comic series 'The Lengths', and bought the first episode).

I was sat amongst it all like a fish out of water, with my peaceful graphic novel about a lost cat and her elderly owners. It seems that Bliss is forever set to cross thresholds (which she does throughout the story). It hasn't ever been the comic itself I have an interest in, but the way it's format offers such a diverse way of creating a story....and of course, a feast of drawing! I didn't feel unwelcome though, so I still hold out hope of perhaps a currently inappropriate event, in the future being peopled with other strays like myself. I like putting myself in situations out of the ordinary and it was a really interesting experience. I sold a few of Domestic Bliss, which to begin with, I had not expected to do... Here are some pics of our motley group. My mother (Judy Linnell) offered vital endorsement...she is well practiced from years of art fairs, shows and the like.

Next gig...

2011-01-20T06:30:00.000-08:00

Domestic Bliss will be trying her hand (...well...her paw) amongst...mostly super hero’s on February the 6th, at this event...Here.

Trailer...

2011-01-10T08:28:00.000-08:00

Trailer: Music and editing, produced by Gavin Childs, Gavino Productions (2010)

Domestic Bliss also has a facebook page, click here.
To see a bookshop stockist list, click here.
To purchase a copy online, click here.
Thanks.

2011-01-05T05:28:00.001-08:00

(Or how can I say a cross between drawing and writing?//@?

I'm wrawing, or...I'm drighting!)

Current book:

2011-01-04T09:51:00.000-08:00

A gift for Christmas that I shall read: A graphic novel version of The Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, (Artist Catherine Anyango).

Winter survival kit

2011-01-03T03:31:00.000-08:00

(view out at the back garden...a steel cold sky, photo by Gwen Turner)

The drawing board...a helm of change in deep winter tides. Moments of progress spent 'paper acting' (I have coined the phrase). A subterranean heaven in my studio (the cellar)...I have good daylight bulbs though, so I won't get S.A.D.

...H.A.P.P.Y N.E.W Y.E.A.R!

Photo of me by me!

Cold though, hence the rather attractive hat gear, and essential head phones for important transporting tunes (Robbie Williams, is actually good, but I feel abit bloated after a session with him...his greatest hits 1990-2010 album, 'In and out of conciousness'). Got heater sorted the other day so snug as a bug.

I found this invaluably handy before, and am likely to call on it's assistance again, as well as the heater!

...Oh, and my pen!

Insert, 2nd Feb 2011: I have further enhanced some theories that I wrote last March, here.

More inserts, 20th August 2011: Only now after summer highs, do hindsight benefits dribble together like Mercury. Looking back over this post is strange, I am able to see it with some clarity and confidence now. At the time it was a kind of fake "I am o.k." yet the feeling was of excitement and real fear. I can describe it better using the film Point Break as an example. Those bank robber surfers called 'The Ex-Presidents' choose to live on the margins of society and life, tripping in excess. But at a certain point in the film there is something sacred about it and it is simply just allowed; this feeling. A feeling that the character (played by Patrick Swaze) is so determined about before he takes his surf board to the giant centennial wave at the end. It can be madness but it is real, people cannot stop him (though they all try) and he will get no medal for bravery. That's it; that wave, that chance of the moment. His right to do it will be his only smell of true freedom (for him, it means right now, and ultimate death).
With it's different degrees, I won't need to go to the extent of their criminal violence to get to such a feeling. Surf board?....Nah...drawing board any day!

Happy Christmas!

2010-12-18T02:33:00.000-08:00

My Christmas cards for this year... (2010, what a crescendo!), a continuation from last years editions...(to be continued for next year too...)

2010-12-12T08:31:00.000-08:00

I have just noticed that Laydeez do comics have kindly added me to their links list: Here

2010-11-17T12:23:00.000-08:00

Domestic Bliss (and hard-bound gift editions over the Christmas period), now available at The Courtauld Gallery shop.

Here I am below, binding my books under the watchful gaze of my cat Snuggrand!

2010-11-16T15:38:00.000-08:00

Fall

2010-11-16T15:24:00.001-08:00

Trees are now stripped bare of their leaves, all has fallen away. My drawing board calls me...a welcoming recreation for hibernation this year, but...procrastinations..."Procrastination across de' Nation"!!!

There isn't even an exciting swell in winter, hence the need for festivities, you have to summon it up from various withering resources...those hopeless trees do not inspire, I shall look away...toward...a blank page! I have to stoke up that fire inside, yes Camus... "that invincible summer within".

Some lovely encouraging sales going on though, I love it that commerce ignores the seasons at times like these....

Italy

2010-10-27T04:12:00.000-07:00

I have just returned from a two week trip to Italy with my partner Andrew. We were very fortunate to be able to stay at a friend's flat in Arona, a town situated by Lake Maggiore in the north. On the first morning we awoke to tolling bells (...very loud as the church was literally next door!)...and were soothed at the heavenly beauty of the Lake, and surrounding mountain vistas of the Alps and could feel the timeless sense that drew (and still does) artists to paint the landscapes, the light was sharp and low being late October. Stresa; one of the lake's elegant resorts, was where Hemingway stayed at The Grand Hotel and eventually escaped in a rowing boat with his lady across the lake to Switzerland, running from the Italian authorities and from the war.

Urban experience was brief and we took a trip into Milan for one of the days. A change really is as good as a holiday, and visa versa...nothing is familiar, everything is new, although there exists in me an affectionate acquaintance for a country that I have visited as a child and also used to live for a year or so, when I was a baby.

Italy, the place where the capital game all started. Here are a couple of shots...

Photo by Gwen Turner

Photo by Andrew Bridgmont

Once back in England I created this illustration as a gift for our friends out there...

Caption: "Move over Carlos!"

Saint Carlo was a respected saint in Milan (1538-1610), there is a vast statue of him by Lake Maggiore up the mountain side, and below are some of my reference photos to give an idea of the scale of this thing...

We climbed up inside him ascending to the top and looked out from the guy's nostrils, we came out feeling as though we had travelled through his whole digestive system......(we were like a little team of purging irrigators)...quite a spiritual experience!

To see all pictures at their larger original size, click on the image once for the light-box viewer.

Last M.A. ponderings before galloping off into the sunset...

2010-09-27T01:29:00.000-07:00

One of our information sheets (hand-outs) stated the meaning of: "to illustrate"...several meanings followed, two of which: to shed light upon and to illuminate...this inspired me.

winding down...

2010-09-25T04:04:00.000-07:00

I am ruffling my feathers for work on the next episode. I find I have to go in wide and I have other projects in toe. I feel stifled at a tiresome need in me that could become addictive, to tap into the world (perhaps more regularly than things naturally evolve or bubble to the surface) via the web and state progress (as I do now). I am probably still shedding the last remains of (my perceived) institutional expectation since the M.A. which I appreciate very much as there is a degree of urgency when establishing something like this.

Now, I find the idea of pioneering days-on-end in the wilderness of existence and focusing on my work an attractive homecoming, but to life's university. I have broken this blog in and chartered progress on Bliss as she cut her first teeth. I now take the reigns off, and lay the saddle aside...

With respect to a long established and published illustrator (a children's book illustrator), I have been intermittently reading one of Jackie Morris' enchanting web-journals...her blog called 'Drawing a line in Time'.
I like her cat blog too. She lives in nature, which very much shapes her work...I feel revived after a dose of Jackie...(me being in the London smoke's borough of Hackney). She lives in Pembrokeshire where my mother also lives and works as a painter.

rough sketch rummaging...

2010-09-20T13:46:00.001-07:00

Mr and Mrs Hobnob on their only day off from location shoots...

Mrs Hobnob suffering from either a chronic bad hair day or an alien identity crisis...

Bliss just looking a little moody...

Next!

2010-09-10T01:42:00.000-07:00

Already, come the pleasant and encouraging utterances from various customers who have bought my book..."so when is the next episode"? I am going to make some headway on pages quite slowly to start with, and this will rev up, and hopefully, I shall be looking at another one in the next six months to a year...as a goal.

Sweet labours rewards, at the Hypercomics fair!

2010-08-22T12:39:00.000-07:00

A gorgeous venue in a lovely park, and a very interesting exhibition. A total of fifteen copies of Bliss, sold on her first launch day...I would say I'm feeling pretty chuffed to say the least!

I am grateful to those who could make it, and who bought a copy... what a great launch!

Photos taken by Andrew Bridgmont

A satisfactory moment is being relished right now as I type this, sitting with a nice cold beer after a good day at the market....a harvest...sheer Bliss.

...Great to get the chance to look around at the world now I have surfaced from underneath my artists mossy rock, I just saved myself from metamorphosing into a complete mole! I by chance, found a wonderful comic which I bought immediately (SOLD point blank to the lady called Gwen!): Toilet paper Life...

The cover, with a hopeless little mouse sitting on a toilet in the middle of a field of roses, somehow sums up life's tragedy. It is debatable as to whether I feel the same way as the artist who explains in the opening page: that "life is like a roll of toilet paper...in the beginning, it is all pure and white...time passes and stains appear...call it memory"...arguably, a somehow effective analogy of sorts. Throughout, the artist philosophises on how tricky justice is, and touches on some insightful (although too brief) ponderings about desire, also how it is in fact... (as I interpret it) extraordinarily difficult not to be a hypocrite...and the only real problem is in the condemnation of it. At one point, are also some possibly over affectionate co-operations between various species (perhaps over egging the point), suggesting, that if we are unable to extend compassion to one another, that we extend it to all sentient beings.

True blue anthropomorphic reversal style makes the pill, as ever easier to swallow, and about half way through there is a televised news flash by a dark eyed rabbit about the growing phenomenon of abused onions.

There is a devotion to the drawings which I admire, they are charming and sometimes hilarious/ if a little sick, and quite clear on the dark side of cute. The cover swung it for me!

Artist (from Taiwan) goes by the name of 'tpcat'...

To see all pictures at their larger original size, click on the image once for the light-box viewer.

Note:
Thanks tpcat, I am sure you are happy for me to share your wonderful front cover illustration.

Alumni Bulletin

2010-08-19T11:04:00.000-07:00

Bliss has just been added to the alumni bulletin...here...Links, Links!

2010-08-16T05:02:00.000-07:00

Bugpowder

2010-08-08T03:42:00.000-07:00

Daniel Fish has just posted Domestic Bliss details on Bugpowder

2010-08-06T00:10:00.000-07:00

"Let's not make it such a God awful small affair...for the girl with the mousy hair..."

Quote, Bowie, with a Turner twist.

Camera catching

2010-08-05T06:34:00.000-07:00

Photo by Gwen Turner

I captured this on the way home from the Lake District.

To see all pictures at their larger original size, click on the image once for the light-box viewer.

The Lake District

2010-08-03T04:45:00.000-07:00

Photo by Andrew Bridgmont Photo by Gwen Turner

Me and Wordsworth

July, a much needed break in The Lake District.

I have a new book to read, The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth...

Next Gig: Hypercomics: The shapes of Comics to Come...

2010-07-24T10:37:00.000-07:00

Domestic Bliss will make her debut appearance at the Comica Comiket, independent comics fair, Sunday 22nd August. The Pump House Gallery, Battersea. The fair is curated by Paul Gravett and is one of the events taking place as part of Hypercomics: The Shapes of Comics to Come, link here.

Launching: Domestic Bliss

2010-07-19T06:32:00.001-07:00

Here are links to exclusive preview pages and a web-shop where it is available for purchase from August:

Dan Berry, who runs a graphic novel programme at The North Wales School of Art and Design, has just posted them to their blog: The Comics Bureau, here's the link.

Synopsis below...

Synopsis and other thoughts:

2010-06-11T13:56:00.000-07:00

The story is a parody on modern living. It is about the journey of three main characters (amongst others): Bliss, a domestic cat and her elderly owners Mr and Mrs Hobnob. Bliss gets lost and has to learn to fend for herself in the wild, whilst the Hobnobs need to move out of the past. It is about two kinds of survival; on the one hand, Bliss and her struggle in the wilderness and her dangerous encounters with the agricultural industry, and on the other, the Hobnobs quest to stay alive whilst playing their roles in an increasingly modern and alienating world…

It's a story of love too!

This is a new take on previous comic trends, with an environmental slant.

I have had some distance from it now. I am glad I kept up the momentum after the M.A. at least to get the first episode done, otherwise I would have strayed toward other attractions...kind of like a self imposed post M.A. probation period, I have had to behave myself. Having the studio has been fantastic, a real motivating aspect to the process. Now things can cool down a bit. Good.

Ideas theories and retrospectives:

1) Hybrid picture book/comic

2) Art book

3) Filmic novel

4) Graphic film....(probably best)

5) The idea earlier on: an autonomous film

6) Movie....moving image...image that moves...moves me and others...movage!

7) Flick book with nuance

8) A Fovel

9) A Film-vle

10) Errrrrm...a Gr-ovel...(ha ha!)

(Insert Dec 2010, I thought of another: A Graphic Navel...

...as creating one requires a considerable degree of navel gazing).

Things are evolving beyond the zine/style comic book, and I have thoughts beyond them. What with bad press about super heroes, and the need to save the day etc...this has no bearing on how the form can fly as does the literary novel. The situation is excitingly open yet naturally tentative. To think of any recent and regarded works, I would choose Shaun Tan's 'The Arrival' and also Sylvian Chomet's animation work as an inspiration...especially Beleville rendezvous...they use no words. Insert: 2nd Nov 2011: French comic artist Jean Giraud Moebius, is genius. I like the work of (Finish) Tove Jansson: The Moomins and am further intrigued by her wider evolution into literary works much later on in her life.

I added words at the very end of my process. Actually, I started with a substantial story outline that I had written out, that felt like a blockage, but gave structure. Then it all disseminated into visual interpretation rather like interpreting a play text and creating a design. Then words left completely for a very long period as I felt my way through visually, until the tip of the very end like a cherry. Preserving the interpretive aspect of the visual, it's volatile nature contained by the essential mast of words. Words acting like pegged guide ropes to a tent...if they come loose, it does fly yes... but in a blind flat spin.

All within the parameters of me and my drawing board which is very enjoyable, and keeps me out of mischief as it were. My knitting...

It has been great to tackle fiction from a graphic novel angle, now I feel I am shifting something from my own system, I will make some comments about these images below by Shaun Tan:

Image details: I am struck by the atmosphere in this illustration, and indeed it's impact. It is from a children's book by Shaun Tan: "The Red Tree".

This one: Though I feel this is a simply stunning illustration...

When seen in isolation from the whole sequence, the interpretations can be numerous...like witnessing snap-shots in real life that can so easily be misunderstood. But the book takes one on a 'reassuring' journey, the poor powerless girl does get out of the bottle, and what an incredibly effective way of summarising feeling...A children's book about depression!

(Insert Dec 2010) But the story is also about keeping faith in those small good things, represented by a little red tree sapling that you can't see very obviously, but is always there on each page throughout until the end when the problem has shifted....A kind of horror children's book for adults too...all those adults out there who had to grow up really fast. There are about twenty words in total throughout the whole book...I reckon psychotherapists must have this on their reading list too!

To see all pictures at their larger original size, click on the image once for the light-box viewer. The two Shaun Tan Illustrations were found on Google image search, and before that, I do not know of their origin. With thanks.

Cooling off

2010-05-14T01:44:00.000-07:00

Bliss is cooling off or a while.

The fledgling stages are now over, this chick is officially hatched, its nest doesn't want it anymore (nine months since completing my Masters, funnily enough). So no more posts or a while, the first hurdle is clear, I now have another 99 to jump!

Final touches

2010-05-03T07:35:00.000-07:00

Last tweaking, printing and production for May/June, and developing a show-the-world-strategy. Launching it first after setting up my own publishing company then just carrying on with it really, but on a less high octane, now or never, first baby kind of level. It will gain in value in terms of the whole story, as the episodes are gradually completed over time, and I am confident about it's own self fulfillment for now.

I printed the first draft the other day which was monumentally satisfying! I showed a respected photographer friend the draft (which was still hot) and he was the bearer of good tidings about it. His objective eye was much needed, it is like I have just crawled out from beneath a rock and the sun is hurting my eyes. I think it is important to let it sit for a while, as it is just out of the oven, oohh aahh, hot, ouch!

More pages...

2010-04-23T12:45:00.001-07:00

To see all pictures at their larger original size, click on the image once for the light-box viewer.

A sky free of planes

2010-04-22T02:34:00.000-07:00

A problem in setting myself regimes when I am creating this graphic novel equals in me balking like a reprimanded child. I have never responded well to being pressurised (unless it is the kind of pressure when doing a job), I find I have to manage my own pressure on myself, and not be too much of an idiot to me.

All I wanted to do today is go running in this sunny spring weather...in my local recreational park where I had to stop and have a chat with the Daff's too, who said what a difference it made to the atmosphere when the planes weren't in the sky (even with the volcano cloud...just the earth having a bit of wind) they were breathing normally once more, they said..!

Also...

2010-04-17T12:48:00.000-07:00

Also, an end of first episode 'three page trailer' that goes at the end of the book for what is to come in the next exciting episodes...(pretty much done...), and a synopsis too (a short punchy one and a long one)...onward...

Caption:...(can't resist...usually for my eyes only in the studio)..."Darling girl, she will lick no ones arse but her own".

At this stage I feel it apt to pay homage to my muse...my cat Snuggrand.

Last few miles

2010-04-16T10:06:00.000-07:00

Just when I think I am nearly finished...disaster strikes! Touching up with photoshop is a perfectionists trap, you get caught up in detail! I have to accept again that this will take me a little longer than I originally thought. I need April, one last mile to make me totally happy with it. Then I can hold a finished book in my hand. 38 sides all together for the first episode...40 with first and end page...around 20 pages. On I go...

Thought for the day

2010-04-11T04:43:00.000-07:00

"We must learn to categorise phenomenon less rigidly"...Sartre.

A page from my graphic novel

2010-04-10T07:21:00.000-07:00

I am now touching up the pages on photoshop, best bit! Here is one example...

To see all pictures at their larger original size, click on the image once for the light-box viewer.

Mr and Mrs Hobnob

2010-04-10T07:02:00.001-07:00

Bliss

2010-04-10T06:49:00.000-07:00

Stories Aperitif...Little'ns please!

2010-04-08T08:41:00.000-07:00

I started reading Raymond Carver short stories last night, and I am humbled by how real his writing is, there is absolutely no pretence or obligation to please an audience what so ever, he is a writer who captures the essence of how people really communicate. A brave truth.

A few days go by and now, I am actually thinking, do I like Raymond Carver? I get this when I am blown away by something...I kind of get angry. Anger mainly for the countless missed opportunities before this new thing comes into town, and how isolated it is amongst the rest of it's "competitors". That's how it works I guess.

I can't spare the energy for large novels right now because of the focus I am channelling into my graphic novel....Audrey Niffenegger's Time Traveler's Wife is still waiting on my shelf...time will tell when I get the chance to read her fabled prose...I want to read it with someone.

Wooop woop!

2010-04-05T03:21:00.000-07:00

I have just been sent a photo taken of me, by one of my studio colleagues, at the moment it struck me I had finished (drawing) the first episode of Domestic Bliss.

Hello Daff's! Mi' old mates!

2010-04-02T08:18:00.000-07:00

What would we do without the winters dark gestation's?...

The daffodils are out once again.

Though I still feel they are towering above me as I wonder through the undergrowth...I know that soon, I can stand somewhere open, where I can behold a sea of them.

The End...(well of drawing...the 1st Episode)

2010-04-02T06:56:00.000-07:00

Finitto Binitto! On the start of the month for fools!...(well, I have to do page numbers at the bottom...around an hour of work) and it is good Friday today...a very good Friday.

Celebration drinks were had last night with some of my studio colleagues, seven of us in total. This 1st episode was made easier to get off the ground with their calm presence, gentle encouragement, their experience, the cups of tea, the chocolate bar runs and general good company...a sacred seven...perfect conditions for this sapling...a tear! (I reckon I am on This is your Life, I know, but that's the stuff of stories...little grand moments I call them). Cutting through that raw edge of newness...it is absolutely terrifying, like being blindfolded and pushed off (the person pushing is another me) an alternative grand canyon situated on the far side of the moon...or just a feeling of being like that little yellow Canary in the mine...you might pass out at any moment from a harsh and noxious gas! But it is the only thing that feels real, right now.

Next...Scanning...icing on the cake! But...I am going to chill for the Easter break with my fiance Andrew.

Bliss Progress

2010-03-28T11:18:00.000-07:00

A few more washes to do, and the drawing touches to one last page for Bliss and then it is scanning and computer clean-up. Estimate how long it will take you to do something then times it by three, and there is your answer, (not mentioning juggling other work to fund myself).

It seems a long time ago when I was at the phase of initiating the story, and I am having to remind myself of these simple reasons as I work through this more technical stage.

The next step is satisfying and a change from the kind of focus that I have been applying for the last year or so. I have to bleed substantially into April. Concentration when composing something takes up a considerably different and larger amount of energy and focus than does the latter half of the process. I find that the early compositional phase highly private and vulnerable, and have to be careful not to snap at various friends and loved ones. It will also be satisfying to have some pages to blog once I have scanned them. I am going to compose a synopsis for Bliss at some stage.

It will be nice to have thoughts about other ideas, and to get back into other stuff too. I stumbled into writing poems over the last few years (but these fell upon an angry and lost phase...). I have an expanse of photo journalism stretching from the mid nineties through until now, and other general creative photography. I have journals dating back to the late 90's. The journals that I wrote on my M.A. and the ones now are probably of particular freshness. Getting some of my wandering thoughts and prose into some form. I am looking forward to this.

A Graphic-film novel

2010-03-20T07:43:00.000-07:00

An autonomous film.

Horse Drawn Cart or Cart Drawn Horse?

2010-03-19T07:17:00.001-07:00

Gone and balked at my own deadlines! It is that spring air...I can smell it. I am like that horse that just won't drink that dam water!
Right...lay off any DEAD line talk....keep it at just LIFE line...I prefer that. I am enjoying running about outside at the moment, like a spring released freak! a rebel even to myself!

Easy does it...

Illustration inspiration (Zeidler: "Fabelwessen")

2010-03-15T04:46:00.001-07:00

I am looking through a wonderfully illustrated book that my brother and his girlfriend Anna kindly sent me from Berlin: Zeidler, Fabelwessen (I don't speak German) but these illustrations certainly speak to me today, they are great. Above, I share one illustration that I particularly like...

To quote Anna: "Zeidler has published a lot and is well known in Germany. "Fabelwesen" is a term I cannot easily translate. It describes creatures who sprang from imagination or whose existence is (so far at least) debatable. Mythological creatures, "half-creatures" like unicorns, monsters, goblins and so on. It is a rather old-fashioned term, reminiscent of fairy tales. Traditionally, you would find illustrations of these in a so-called "Bestiarum". We have some beautiful examples of illuminated manuscripts (in the Berlin collection of prints and drawings (Kupferstichkabinett)".

Anna Schultz works at Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin, and when in England; The Paragon Press with Charles Booth Clibborn, and The British Museum. My brother Simon Turner is a specialist in both the etcher and print maker Hollar, and previously van Dyck, a leading English court painter, both of whom lived during the 17^th century. He is Compiler and editor at Holstein, and also has a history at The British Museum.

To see all pictures at their larger original size, click on the image once for the light-box viewer.

Muses for me

2010-03-14T04:33:00.000-07:00

Fourth post of the day...Sunday. I remember a quote from a Biography that I read about Beatrix Potter:

"A silent power is slowly working it's way towards good, mind your own business, behave yourself and never mind the rest". (Beatrix Potter was the main subject of my written assignment during my studies).

I was reading this wonderful book (by Linda Lear) when I went on a pilgrimage to The Lake District two years ago come end of April. I virtually fled there for oxygen, it was a very beautiful week. There were lambs everywhere, and I did wonder lonely as a cloud to where Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy also lived. Quiet walks on my own contemplating... sitting on rocks and just looking. There were some amazing thunder storms too, those "silent hills" (Beatrix Potter) looked so ancient and wild.
Image: from Google image search.

I filmed on my camera, this mum with her lamb...hopefully not invasive on purely grounds that I was unable to ask her permission...we witness sweet moments like this without the need to capture it, and let it fall to the uncharted reservoirs of being...but this is a while after the lamb was born and is just stumbling to it's feet.

To behold

2010-03-14T03:31:00.000-07:00

I thirst for a solution. I grab at anything I see outside...out there in the world. I thirst for a solution that can only come from within me.

Spring

2010-03-14T03:11:00.000-07:00

The Daffodils are coming, I can feel it...must not panic and throw an adult version of a tantrum, it feels horrible, (but not really too bad). The night is darkest just before the dawn...spring is nearly here!

Resort to the page...

2010-03-13T02:26:00.000-08:00

Well, here is one that I did earlier...yesterday in fact. It quite aptly illustrates how I felt this morning as I woke up. It is for another project that I am doing for someone else, but still I was quite pleased with it.

I am at the stage of completion with Domestic Bliss where you realise that there are..."one million"... tiny little bits to do still but your enthusiasm is draining from you. I have that bloated feel that I imagine a pregnant woman feels after nine months, I just want this out, this has brewed for long enough, I am not enjoying this now!

There is a positive reason for that I know, (so not to sign off on a downer!) I have to just sit firm within the process, and not rush to the goal prematurely. The desired effect: the desire itself, to effect, can kill the effect. A trick I find is, not to think about a goal (just a faint one), and through it all ("she offers me protection, a lot of"......no, oops, wrong one), I have learnt to like being at my drawing board. It took a while, but I am there, and that is enough reward for me today.

Insert Feb 2011: On good days, during the composing of the sequences, there is a palpable sense of your own discovery, unhindered by any expectation or outside pressure and this is probably one of the most satisfying feelings. Just the act of having a dialogue with yourself is enough to make the whole thing, simply enjoyable rather than worrying about receivership...first and foremost in any case, it takes the edge off of "product".

Publishing my graphic novel

2010-03-01T09:43:00.000-08:00

I will distribute the first episode of Domestic Bliss as a self publisher, I want to get it about a bit as soon as it is finished! The web is now great for this.
Clerkenwell Tales, is an independent book shop that has just opened up near my studio, set up by Peter Ho, and he said that he would be happy to take some and try and sell them for me...there are a lot of places in fact.
Today, I reviewed what is left to do (whilst listening to The Proclaimers strangely enough!) As spring comes (what a devil of a winter, summer may have something to say about that, and be really hot!)...the mornings and evenings are lighter, I can now see the finish line and I am feeling that something has got out of my system, at last.
Pace, pace and I should be there by the end of March.

Process...

2010-02-13T06:39:00.000-08:00

I am drawing the last few pages of the first episode of Bliss. Although there are touch ups, a few changes to some pages, and various paint washes still to finish...probably a whole load more work, but that's no worry.

Then it is scanning and layout, and getting the page numbers in the right order to form a comic book, that will be A4 in size. Insert: In terms of design, it is actually slightly smaller than A4, compacting it gives it a much nicer edge (June 2010).

It will feel even better to have it all together, a product of the time put in...all nicely and neatly fitting into one book! Yipeeee! (need voice tone...)??/@3@...perhaps I will add a small podcast at some stage...

To see all pictures at their larger original size, click on the image once for the light-box viewer.

The Dilemmas of Mr Hope So

2010-02-02T08:08:00.000-08:00

Oh, here is another snippet of Monumental Muse.

2010-02-02T07:37:00.000-08:00

Here are some snippets from my short story and/or on-going strip: The Dilemmas of Mr Hope-so...

Graphic short story

2010-01-31T06:53:00.000-08:00

This is the title page for the story I entered for The Observer Short Story Prize last October: The Dilemmas of Mr Hope so. I wasn't a winner of the competition, but was pleased for the excuse to make something for a deadline or cause. I was charmed by the entry that did go through..."Paint", about a mother and her child finding ways to be creative at home, dreams of what she would love to do but wouldn't really, a dream time that can fill the pages of sequential art freely. It had a beautiful ending, anarchic even (added Aug 2010).

Process, and Laydeez do Comics...

2010-01-29T03:35:00.000-08:00

Right! I have given myself a "Fake deadline" to have the first episode of Domestic Bliss finished by end of March, it takes a long time drawing the pages...especially in a vacuum. I try to pretend that I live in an earlier century...reminding myself that the change of the pace of technology does not change the nature of time itself...I get rude wake up calls every now and then with this mind set and have to get back running with the frantic herd to remain in the world. But if I pace myself all is just good. But I have decided I can only do the first episode off my own bat...and at this pace, otherwise, I will be drawing it for the rest of my days on a gradual "dip in dip out" basis.
When I create the pages, I wouldn't use the word escape...I find it a place for reflection and contemplation. It is a getting lost in myself, and I regard this as a communion, a safe haven. Then there are the other ideas I am developing. Feb/March are a dipping in and out of this process and I have eight/ten pages left of the first episode or chapter and then probably a lot more else to do than I can foresee right now.

Laydeez do Comics was set up by Nicola Streeten and Sarah Lightman, they meet the last Monday of every month at The Rag Factory on Brick Lane. This month, I popped along and karrie Fransman gave a talk, we also all discussed Craig Thompson's 'Blankets'. I met both Sarah and Nicola at various Comica (I.C.A.) events and lectures a couple of years or so before during my early research into graphic novels. Back in the summer 2009 when my M.A. show was happening, I invited the Laydeez and they came along to see my work and that of the other years graduates.

Cards

2010-01-06T04:23:00.000-08:00

I make my own Christmas cards every year, the two snogging is to be further developed for next year...(here are next year's 2010 editions).

My snail character is as speedy as ever with it's journey into the end of a decade, 2010....Wow!

Hello Blog!

2009-12-13T05:46:00.000-08:00

Hi, I am Gwen Turner, setting up my blog, to introduce the work that I do: I am an illustrator and have been working as a theatre designer. I love anything that tells a story.

My intrigue is a shift/flux between genres: theatre/film and illustration (I throw a heaped table-spoon of enjoyment into the mix too).

Since my B.A. Scenography (1998) and many public commissions, I found I wanted to create my own story, linking story-boarding to theatre, film and the graphic novel. My focus is on the momentary gesture of characters, human or animal, in the context of universal themes of nature and belonging. Two influences: Heath Robinson and Jacques Tati’s wordless films.
I had been toying with the seeds of a story idea since 2005 and shortly after my last theatre design contract in 2006, I spent a period of time doing studio work, drawing (with other artists) up to 2007. To mark and tie together the time it would take me, I undertook an M.A. in illustration which I completed with distinction last summer. During this time I had the discipline to properly develop the groundwork for what the story was going to take form as: A graphic novel series called Domestic Bliss. Click here to see some photos of the show in the summer of 2009
I am now nearing the completion of the first episode, and developing other ideas and projects. The M.A. was also a valuable time for me to consider theoretically some aspects of visual practise and creative visualisation in general. I was also able to focus on honing computer skills and become more fluent with web applications.

I teach on and off, so far, mainly contracted through an organisation called Creative Partnerships, (I completed a P.G.C.E. teacher training in 2004-5).
(Insert: 07.01.2012) My research was mainly about: The Educational theories of South American born Paulo Freire, and making links with the visual mind and Dyslexia.

After twelve years of collaborative work in the world: As Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy did, I also now enjoy socialising with Daffodils and gazing upon that inward eye!"...

My illustrations (graphic novel...) is on going and my focus at the moment.

Some more photos of the M.A. Show...

More...

That's it...

(Insert: January 2012) This is a link to the blog that the guy's on the M.A. kindly set up to remember the year by.

Caption: "Right, that's it, we've had enough is there a better lake round here?...Anyone?..."

To see all pictures at their larger original size, click on the image once for the light-box viewer.http://gwenturnercamberwell2009.blogspot.com/