2. Polarstine

It didn't take long at all for the First Thing to pop in to my head when I saw Craig's polar bear tea towel. Right away it made me think of a flag. I imagined a nation state of polar bears with their own customs, laws, society and boundaries. This made me think that my nation of polar bears would need to have a map.

Maps

I love maps. I can remember looking through my parents' great big Atlas of maps as a child and wondering about all the far away places to be found on the pages inside. I still love maps today including Google Maps, but for some reason I'm not really bothered about SatNavs. I'd much prefer to have a real Road Atlas in the car with me all the time.

The pinnacle of maps in the UK as far as most people in the UK are concerned come from the Ordnance Survey.   Ordnance Survey Website

My idea of a great holiday is climbing the fells in the Lake District with the relevant OS map folded up in my backpack. The detail is superb and I can happily gaze at the maps for hours thinking about all the wonderful places they can take me.

Alfred Wainwright

But even though the OS maps can't be beaten for accuracy, the maps I actually prefer reading in regards to their romantic imagery and depiction of the beautiful Lakeland scenery are from Alfred Wainwright's walking guides. The Wainwright Society

Wainwright's extensive set of books are all completely hand drawn as well as the text being handwritten. He writes in an eloquent and often poetic way about the landscape which is far removed from just showing you where objects are located and how to get from A to B. After a long day on the hills, you have the chance to relive your adventure and plan the next day's by leafing through these lovingly created books.

My Creation

I decided to combine the imagery of an old map along with my own Wainwright style illustration of a polar bear. I found a nice image of a polar bear on the internet and proceeded to scratch away in Photoshop on a layer above with my Wacom tablet until I thought it looked a little bit like a Wainwright illustration.

Next I wanted my illustration to be a pop-out contained within the old-fashioned map. I wanted it to be an old map because I have always been fascinated by the concept of the ever changing boundaries that we humans put upon the landscape when we create our own little enclaves of identity called countries and their corresponding paper resemblances called maps. It is not so surprising that people can of course draw new maps and create new boundaries, but if you look at the earth from a geological timescale, even the landscape is just as changeable as the imaginary lines drawn upon it. Polarstine, the name of my imagined polar bear land is meant to conjure up images of global warming, the struggle of adapting to change, and the political conflicts that go alongside the creation of maps and nations and boundaries.

The final touch was to add the polar bear flag inspired by Craig's tea towel which I hope links it nicely back to my original inspiration from Craig.

Even my daughter Tabitha is sitting next to me now wondering what Craig is going to make of this. We shall look forward to it with anticipation. Hopefully even a few others will be reading this and thinking the same.

1. Printing

So here it goes my first post....

I've never done a blog before always fancied the idea of it but never got round to it. Hopefully this blog will allow Rex and me to explore different creative routes on a variety of  interesting subjects. I love the concept that we have come up and can't wait to see what gets created.

So the word I got was "Printing" hmmm.......

I began thinking about desktop printers and maybe creating a monster out of a printer (then realised I don't actually own a printer). So I then looked into letterpress printing, I really like letter pressed work with it's old-school method of printing through to the tactile feel of the impressions on the page, Sadly I didn't have the materials at hand to create any letter pressed worked.

The next type of printing I looked into was screen printing onto fabrics and this is where I had my brain wave (yes it occasionally happens) of Potato stamps!!

So the required equipment:

1 x Potato
1 x Knife
1 x Ink
1 x White tea towel

So I drew out a polar bear on the potato and hacked away with a knife. I then applied a layer of ink on the potato and stamped it down onto the tea towel to create the following results.

 So there we have it that was my interpretation of the word "Printing" I now need to find away of removing the bright blue ink off my hands.

So over to you Rex......

What is the First Thing...

...that you think of when I say a word. 

Everyone knows of and has probably even had a go at playing this game. Maybe just for fun with friends, maybe in a job interview, maybe you've been visiting the psychologist but that is another story that we don't actually need to dwell upon.

The Idea

My friend Craig Osgood and I took a walk on our lunch break the other day. While out chatting we decided to devise a way of getting our Creativity into action. We were looking for a bit of an ideas kick-starter. A bit of a challenge that should prove to be fun, interesting and productive for ourselves and then of course hopefully others may enjoy seeing what we manage to produce.

The Rules

Ours is a variation on the first word you think of game. We visited a random word generating website which offered us the word "printing" as a starting point. We then flipped a coin to see who would be the first to create something inspired by the first thing you think of when you hear that word. Our creations however will be visual - either an illustration, a photograph, a 30 second maximum video, or we are also allowed, as requested by Craig, to even make an animated GIF if we wish. Whatever really, as long as it is some sort of visual response to that originally suggested word of printing and then the topic will carry on to wherever it takes us.

Now that I think of it there's no reason why we shouldn't also be allowed to respond with an audio creation should we be so inspired. What do you think Craig?

As a result of a coin toss, Craig has the task of creating the first image and to post it to this blog by Sunday evening at the latest or earlier if he chooses. I will then look at Craig's image and will have the opportunity to create the first thing I think of when I have seen Craig's creation. My deadline will be the  following Sunday or then again maybe we should make that deadline to be one week maximum after the previous posting should we manage to find the time to speed things up.

The Inspiration

As well as being interested in a wide variety of creative, artistic pursuits centred around my love of playing with my computer, my real passion of the past few years is dancing. The more I dance the more I love it and the more want to do. Last week I was lucky enough to be at an annual dance event called the Spinderella Ball which is run by Ceroc Oxford at Eynsham Hall. While at the ball I was even more lucky to have met and danced with an amazing dancer named Hazel McNab. I think it was only a matter of time before I was eventually going to meet Hazel because she is at least as passionate and enthusiastic about dancing as I am, if not more so. Our paths were surely going to cross on the dance floor somewhere sooner or later. But being an amazing dancer is not Hazel's only distinctive quality. It turns out that Hazel is also an incredible artist as I discovered by having a look at her ongoing ambition of the moment of creating 366 Hearts in a year.

366 Hearts Blog

366 Hearts on Facebook

I love Hazel's illustrations and her creative inspiration of coming up with a new piece of work everyday, which it must be said was the real kick-starter behind the idea of creating this "First Thing" blog. So now it's time for a bit of discipline, a bit of day dreaming, a bit of work and hopefully a lot of fun along the way. Thank you Hazel.

And now Craig, let's get to work.

Rex Boyd