Books

 Non Fiction

 kicking off my books is this humourful non fiction book on how to ride a horse. I found this many months ago in an oxfam and from the entertaining cover i knew this book would be great.

The book is jammed full of beautiful line drawings of a man and his horse and the struggles he has riding his horse.
The lines that are used are lively and in a way add movement to the drawing which i think is super important
for a book like this as it almost animates the struggles of riding the horse.
The layout on these pages in particular are extremely playful due to it being about steering which i think is very clever.
Great bit of 1940s graphic design.  

This page is a personal favourite of mine not only does it include a horse riding a man but has an excellent diagram of a horse that is completely uneducated it's almost like they asked a 5 year old to list what they think each part of a horse is, which i think is excellent. Also extra bit of cool information is that the page can be cut out and used a wall chart.
This diagram adds to the extreme playfulness of the book.

I'm not sure if this book fully categorises as a non fiction book as i read it and i feel no more informed on how to ride a horse. However, it's an excellent spoof of a book and especially an old book like this. with incredible simple line drawings which i find very inspiring i think this book has taught me how much lines can add movement to drawings and i really appreciate the humour of it all it's great to see how a book from i think 1940's? (tried researching a date but there isn't one specifically listed anywhere.) can have such great relevant humour. 

Picture Book

following a similar theme to the last book this one is also about horses i'm not even a massive horse fan but there are many excellent old books based on them. One of them is this book about an oridnary fruit wagon pulling horse called mario who was obsessed with eating sandwiches the slight smell or sight of a sandwhich would make Mario go on this wild rampage the book has lovely 2 colour illustrations in and in addition to this a couple of black and white ink pages which are also excellent and display beautiful textures and a relaxed brush style which like the horse play book give the horse movement.

I love this shapes in this particular image I think the absence of outlines makes this especially emphasised.
The lines used for the wood are also relaxed and give it a nice child like look to it and collaborate well against the clean shapes.

Yellow red, white and black seem to be the only colours used throughout this book, but this works wonderfully
the black horse stands out massively over the yellow back ground and the use of red on the children really bounce of the yellow nicely.

Self Published

For my self published book i chose Libby's Dad by Eleanor Davis. I found this a thought bubble and was amazed at how well pencil crayon was used on this book. I love colouring pencils when it's done well and this is a super example of it.
The story is also funny and witty and really captures the idea of young people hearing a rumour and going to such an extent to see if it's true.

The cover was what first caught my eye when i saw this book,
this is the first of Eleanor Davis' work that i have seen and i was instantly captivated by her style
the composition of her drawings and pages are also really nicely done for example,
the front cover follows on to the back cover making one big beautiful image when it's opened up

These 2 images show the playfulness of Eleanor's composition and how it leads you to follow 

the story throughout the pages focusing on specific characters or small elements of the sceanory just

to give the viewer a slight idea of where it's set and what's going on.

SHe does this by adding a slight bit of colour or texture but it immediately makes you recognise what it is she is trying to portray weather it's a pool or a bush.

Fiction

for my fiction book i chose Joe Kessler's Windowpane. I have been a big fan of breakdown presses books and comics for a while they are always full of lovely imagery and imaginitive composition and this set of books by Joe Kessler perfectly represent this. I think the way kessler makes work is incredibly playful that usually comes across very successfully. He is great at creating surrel sometimes dark images.

throughout the comic there is a range of some standard comic layouts mixed with a double spread of a beautiful image. The text is minimal but that adds a wittiness to the comic. The colours where one of the main things that originally drew me to this book. and the way images had been constructed where also another reason why i was interested. Some pages have been created with screen prints some digital and some with what looks like ink or felt tip pens. This adds to playfulness of it which is what attracted me to the book overall.

My trip to a gallery

At the weekend i visited Yorkshire Sculpture Park. 

I have been a few times before and i love it it's like a day in the park and a gallery all rolled into one!

If it was possible i wish all galleries where set in the Yorkshire dales because nothing goes sweeter with assessing art than that Yorkshire fresh air.

i started my trip in the main exhibit hall thing which had an exhibition from an artist called Tony Cragg. I'm not familiar with this guys work but he has a lovely craftsmanship to all his work which i really appreciated.

he was also sweet at making forms there where plenty of twists, heaps bends and joins within all his sculptures.

One thing i would give YSP credit for is they know how to curate. The layout was lovely so much space which is very important with sculpture i guess that's why a huge park is a great place to hold sculptures, but even indoors they still kept that spacious aesthetic. This allowed to walk around each sculpture and see it from all angles.   

look at all that space. 

I liked the colour of this sculpture they put this with over lovely coloured sculptures.
in the background you can see the artists sketches which i think filled some empty walls very well.

overall, the indoor gallery was a lovely experience as even with the big spacious rooms they still filled them with a heck load of sculptures however it never seemed cluttered, which personally is something that annoys me with certain galleries as there is too many things to look at i just feel like i can't concentrate on one thing very well. 

The outdoor stuff rarely changes but you never really get bored of them. it's like an arty adventure every time you go and i always feel like i see things that i have maybe missed before due to the massive size of it.

If there was anyway i could improve it is maybe fill some bits with a couple of sculptures as i was walking through some bits where there wasn't much to see also one big thing is make a clearer path!!!

most of the grass was heavily chewed up from all the people trekking from one sculpture to another. A nice gravel path around all the pieces would be lovely but i guess that takes away some of the freedom of a park. 

Overall, i rate this place highly. the curation is lovely and it's a great way to appreciate the size and craftsman ship of sculpture both indoors and outdoors.

strong 9/10.