Research notes

Herman, Edward S. and Noam Chomsky. 1988. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books.

Herman and Chomsky

Summary

Claim: a 'propaganda model' of the mass media: "the media serve, and propagandize on behalf of, the powerful societal interests that control and finance them" (xi)

Keywords: media, propaganda, US, soviet

In conversation with:

Aim:

Method: comparing leading US media to Pravda in the Soviet Union to prove the out the following key features:

• news is produced by a relatively concentrated industry of several dozen profit-making corporations
• the industry is dependent on advertising for its profits
• it is dependent on government officials for its sources
• it is intimidated by right-wing pressure groups
• it is imbued with anti-communist ideology.

also has media of other countries as case studies (Guatemala)

Why important

To academics: as a different angle for media analysis

To general public: promotes better understanding of how media work in general

Relevance to my research: might give some insights for my thinking about ideology

- - - -

Notes:

Herman and Chomsky deny ideological contestation. "What institutional mechanisms or cultural traditions or contradictions of power provide room for debate and revision? The political economy perspective typically does not say" (Schudson, 1989: 270)

"what journalists do, what they see as newsworthy, and what they take for granted as premises of their work are frequently well explained by the incentives, pressures, and constraints incorporated into such a structural analysis" (xi)

Schudson, Michael. n.d. “The Sociology of News Production.” July 1, 1989 11(3):263–82.

Michael Schudson, Sociology of news production

Summary

Claim: Journalism is where the news are "made"

Keywords: Journalism, news, ideology,

In conversation with: Molotch and Lester and Tuchman; Herman and Chomsky; Pearce,Freud and Laing; Stuart Hall on 'news values'. Organisational approach (Rothman and the Lichters)

Aim:

Method: Comparative study

Why important

To academics: contributes to contemporary sociological studies of news

To general public:

Relevance to my research:

- - - -

Notes:

There are four approaches to the sociology of news:

1. Political economy approach: For understanding the. broad outlines of the news product. ideological aspect of newswork

2. Organisational approach. Routine (planed and promoted by the same agent); scandal (planned by one and promoted by the other); accident (unplaned and promoted by the other).

3. Culturological approach: while there are events continuosly occuring in the world, they are shaped and curated by the media, which create a discourse around them. Eg what critics say about the work of art, and the publication about on The Guardian is as much part of a work of art, as the artefact or event itself. Eg., in Stuart Hall - "of the millions of events which occur every day in the world, only a tiny portion ever become visible as 'potential news stories'" (277)

Harvey, David. Marx’s Refusal of the Labour Theory of Value, March 1, 2018

Claim: "Marx’s value form is not a still and stable fulcrum in capital’s churning world but a constantly changing and unstable metric", influenced by markets, changes in technology, social reproduction and other factors.

Marx never aligned with labour theory of value and instead proposed his own "value theory".

Andreas Siekmann - more illustration inspiration at onlineopen

eg, which sources could be helpful in the following intersections of theories and praxis

How does “entrepreneurial ideology“ differ from “company cultures”? Seemingly, the latter presupposes that there is a certain adherence of the worker to a bigger whole, while the former aims to separate workers into standalone disempowered individuals. At the same time, both result in the same view of the workflows, where the all the initiative, including the ones of freedom, flexibility, ergonomics and ultimately, rights, come top down from the manager. This means that while there is a view of a choice, in fact we are looking at an antagonistic relation between the individualised entrepreneur, who disregards exploitation for the benefit of not being attached to any particular company, and remote employee, who are ripped off by any administrative decision by way of company culture that tells them what their relationship with labour should be.

Images courtesy: Instagram

Gas chromatographic recording (chemical mesaging) in insects. Thomas S. Baker, Learning the Language of Insects - and How to Talk Back

Konrad Lorenz: Animals do not have a language in the true sense of the word. In the higher vertebrates, as also in insects, particularly in the socially living species of both great groups, every individual has a certain number of innate movements and sounds for expressing feelings. It also has innate ways of reacting to those signals…
King Solomon’s Ring, The Language of Animals

Project Cybersyn was a Chilean project from 1971–1973 during the presidency of Salvador Allende aimed at constructing a distributed decision support system to aid in the management of the national economy. The project consisted of four modules: an economic simulator, custom software to check factory performance, an operations room, and a national network of telex machines that were linked to one mainframe computer.

Two clippings from Automated government, an article by John W. Macy in The New Computer Age, 1966:

http://simson.net/ref/1966/SR_AutomatedGovernment.pdf

Source: http://www.betweenbridges.net/Arntz.html

Terrorists visit and research potential targets. We call this activity hostile reconnaissance. If you suspect you are witnessing

• hostile reconnaissance
• a suspicious vehicle
• an unattended bag
• any other suspicious activity
  Telephone the police without delay.

What is suspicious? - Filming, drawing, taking notes or photographs, or just watching for extended periods, focusing on security cameras, hallways, fire exits, access and egress routes.

Source: https://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/advice-and-support/countering-terrorism/Pages/report-suspicious-activity.aspx

Achille Mbembe - Decolonizing Knowledge and the Question of the Archive
p.25 - a chapter on Deep Time -
We can no longer think about “the human” in the same terms we were used to until quite recently, because we have entered Anthopocene - an new ‘deep’ geological time (environmental change of such significance that the very existence of humanity is at stake). - We therefore have to rethink the human not from the perspective of its mastery of the Creation as we used to, but from the perspective of its finitude and its possible extinction.
1) Humans are part of a very long, deep history that is not simply theirs;
2) The dualistic partitions of minds from bodies, meaning and matter or nature from culture can no longer hold.

A new understanding of ontology, epistemology, ethics and politics has to be achieved. It can only be achieved by overcoming anthropocentrism and humanism (!), the split between nature and culture.

1) 1955 moment has happened, is happening and is going to happen: walking backwards means turning towards the past, which in this case is important in order to make a link with the present and the future.

2) We spend your life walking backwards because you can see the past but not the future—that’s why we trip: Walking backwards is a good way to concentrate on the walking as a process, on the physicality of it.

3) Be kind rewind: each step of Bandung walk is meant to symbolize the change that the conference would bring about - by performing the walk backwards we create the cavity in deep time, and the possibility/necessity for the walk to 'happen' again, to fill in the gap, thus provoking the deep time to bounce back.

Double-click to edit...

- Ironic political myth
- Cyborg as a metaphor - negative connotation (in an ironical way - because she’s actually promoting the cyborg)
- Cyborg = other; Hybrid : organism+machine
- Third party, like medicine at war - machine bridges the gaps, it is keeping people alive. War = cyborg orgy.
- World without gender (Haraway doesn’t like the idea of male vs. female;
- Cyborg doesn’t have genesis, doesn’t remember cosmos.
- Promoting cyborg.

————————————————————
- Haraway breaks down the boundaries:
~ Animal/human (from beginning of XX century);
~ Organism/machine (she’s writing it in 1985);
~ Physical/non-physical (example of light as both physical and non=physical (TV) - you can see it, but cannot touch);
~ Dualisms (cyborg ignores the dualism; one is too few, but two is too many);
————————————————————

- Haraway is a non-specific determinist.
Determinism (wikipedia) - philosophical position stating that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given those conditions, nothing else could happen.
- Fractured identities (we all have multiple identities).
- Marshall McLuhan: “The medium is the message"
- Cyborg has to have a great deal of power (political identity in writing);
- We are cyborgs (it’s our ontology). It means that we’re building and destroying machines, identities, categories, relationships.

- Feminism:
~ Women are not superior to men (they have just as many flaws as tractions);
~ Haraway: I’d rather be a cyborg than a goddess.

Source: RMA

[Idiotes] deliberately withdrew from the status of metropolitan citizen to become cosmopolitan-figures without familiar topological or spatiotemporal grounds, or at least figures t~at presented the illusion of and allusion to such groundlessness.

P. 207 - It is important to note that all idiotae, self-declared or not, are apolitical figures without agency to engage in politics, without a polis, and specifically without a civic connection.

Three concepts of rhetoric: "logos" = rational appeal, "pathos" = emotional appeal, and "ethos" = ethical appeal

Townley Vase, 1773 - the idiotes is a heroic fool representing chaotic, irrational, random action intended to break the conventions of the polis.

p.210 - Most significantly of all, the idiotes is the archetypal puer aeternus, the eternal child. So the idiotes is half-devil/half-savior, the threat of destruction and the promise of creation held synthesised within it. The idiotes is fundamentally immature, incompatible with the public sphere as it can never be pubes, adult.

P. 211 - Such a state [of an eternal child] characterizes contemporary art today, which is distinguished by the paradigm of paradigm-less-ness, or a paradigm that permits the endless proliferation of disconnected paradigms.

p.212 - In order to challenge this apolitical hegemony, a non-idealist materialist critique of the quasi-syntagmatic ethico-economic conditions of art needs to supersede the self-limiting and confining illusions/allusions of freedom that are both the principal currency and the constraining embodied web like structures of art today.

p.268 - Polymath scientist Dr Daniel Barker, ejected from NASA under dubious circumstances,
is called out of retirement to assemble a crack team of specialists
(mathematician, cryptographer, cartographer, psychoanalyst, environmental
chemist) after an apparently commonplace homicide investigation opens
up wider and deeper complicities—firstly with the financial meshwork that,
beneath the everyday surface of capitalism, grotesquely binds together coltan
mines, art auctions, pork futures, and arms deals; and subsequently with the
history of modernity and its petroleum-lubricated time-travelling relationship
to the physical history of the planet, the sun, and the universe beyond. These
genre devices give the work a performative relation to the complex concept of
‘plot’—as a narrative thread and as a tract of space separated for a specific
work, but which retains unknown complicities with its original matrix.


The investigators’ forensic analyses take them back and forth across the
surface of the earth, to interrogate protagonists and suspects not limited to
human beings but also including built structures and synthetic objects which
must be coaxed into ‘speaking’.

Source: Sonnabend Gallery

Media as authority

—and how this changes the lives of individuals in the current period. In the past, media was mainly used as a means to maintain authority or sustain a system through surveillance, control or blockage of information. In the 21st century, however, different forms of media influence each other through sharing, participation and diffusion. It is now changing into a strategic tool for individuals or minority groups. The current change confirms the prediction made by Nam June Paik, who observed that even televisions would cease to function as a means of one-way communication and become a participatory, interactive medium. A new generation of artists recognizes media as a living organism: when they work together, they can disseminate information or opinions on certain events of the society in a terrifying pace, overthrowing existing systems and networks of information or proposing new ways of interpretation.

Source: e-flux

A social organism as a work of art: Beuys invokes a concept of 'direct democracy' in an essentially hierarchy-less social organism. We must probe (theory of knowledge) the moment of origin of free individual productive potency (creativity). Every human bing is an artist - total artwork of hte future social order.

Free democratic socialism: self-administration and decentralization (three-fold stucture). Communication occurs in reciprocity: it must never be a one-way flow from the teacher to the taught. The organization for direct democracy through referendum.

Source: Institutions and Objections, pp. 929-930

Many of the cultural exchanges orchestrated by or on behalf of Western institutions ignore the specitivity and complexity of local art.. through an appeal to art as "universal language.

"Tomorrow is Another Day", an exhibition by Rirkrit Tiravanija (1996-97)

"Exchanging Thought", Koh, Chiang Mai, Thailand

Gemma Corradi Fiumara, The Other Side of Language: logos in legein: to lie with, to gather in, or to receive (opposes to "the assertive tradition of saying"). We are imbued with a logocentric culture in which the bearers of the word are predominately involved in speaking, molding, informing. We must begin to acknowledge the long-suppressed role of listening as a creative practice.

Koh: communication must begin with an attempt to understand as thoroughly as possible the specific conditions and nuances of a given site.... Western artists and institutions shoudl learn to begin by listening

....cinema can be made through other means, not only through moving
images or sound but through photographs, music, voices, poetry, texts,
performances. And second, the format of the cinétract emerges from
filmmakers in Paris May'68, determined to create a public response or
statement to political crisis in the form of what they called a
cinétract. A cinétract is formulated through the montage of any kind
of visual material including graphics, handwriting, books, postcards,
found footage, quotes, archival documents, black screen. It is
produced with the minimal means post-production. It focuses on the
details or the overlooked margins of an event. It is distributed via
mass-media channels. It directly addresses the viewer and listener. It
is produced anonymously. It resembles a pamphlet. It is made with
no-budget. It is made with affordable or available technology. It is
not a news report. It reveals the position of the author. To make a
cinétract is to find a form that speaks to a sense of necessity. A
cinetract emerges from a concrete situation. It is an act of public
utterance that demands a questioning of the positions of the speaker,
the figure of the addressee, and the question of the right to speak
for whom?'

Source:http://dutchartinstitute.eu/page/6064/roaming-academy---doreen-mende-and-the-otolith-group-present--cinetracts-by-othe

p. 930 - Products that are considered 'works of art' have been singled outas culturally significant objects by those who at any given time and social stratum wield the power to confer predicate 'work of art' unto them;....

State-funded and private museums.

Any public museum receiving private donations may find itself in a conflict of interests.

p. 931 - Bertold Brecht, /Five Difficulties in Writing the Truth/, 1934 'the courage to write the truth, although it is being suppressed; the intelligence to recognize it, although it is being covered up; the judgement to choose those in whose hands it becomes effective; the cunning to spread it among them.'

...'artist' and 'work of art' are predicates with evaluative connotations deriving their currency from the relative ideological frame of a given cultural power group.

They participate jointly in the maintenance and/or development of the ideological make-up of their society.

They work within that frame, set the frame and are being framed.

Here, by a remarkable regression, we have come back to the level of expression of the Egyptians
. . . Pictorial language has not yet matured because our eyes have not yet adjusted to it.
There is as yet insufficient respect for, insufficient cult of, what it expresses. - Abel
Gance

What art has been granted a dream more poetical and more real at the same time! Approached
in this fashion the film might represent an incomparable means of expression. Only the most
high-minded persons, in the most perfect and mysterious moments of their lives, should be
allowed to enter its ambience. - Severin-Mars

Sources: Text: W. Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction Images: http://quintessentialruminations.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/atget2.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_SwKfl4Jngo/UJ6hmjV55NI/AAAAAAAACVY/_zTMbwFfOMg/s1600/eugene+atget-2.jpeg http://www.alleyconnoisseur.com/wp-content/gallery/atget/la_cour_du_dragon_paris_vie1913.jpg

• engraving of the "great chain of being" from the Rhetorica Christiana of 1579
• frontispiece to Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan (1651)
• One reason why print-makers and engravers were often interested in depicting the social hierarchy, it is suggested, is because - as artists who were also craftsmen - they were obliged to occupy an ambiguous position within it.
• William Powell Frith's painting Derby Day (1856-58)
• "an unacknowledged conspiracy" since the 1970s on the part of both Labour and the Conservatives "to pretend [that] the mighty inherited social differences of previous ages are dead and gone".
• London as the "Great Wen"
• the split between north and south has been widening at a faster rate since the 1970s, not just because of de-industrialisation and the drain of money and talent southwards, but also because mass awareness of these things seems to have deepened
• extreme economic disparities that exist between different parts of the UK
• ownsfolk in Scotland and the north of England were disproportionately likely to see themselves as "happy".
• The Full Monty (1997)
• Yet perhaps what is most and unavoidably missing from Rank is the politics of it all.
• The United States was founded on a revolution that abolished the monarchy, aristocracy, titles and primogeniture. Britain may be able in the future to become a more equal and open society while retaining all of these things. But this has yet to be proved.

Page 3. Marxist movements and states have tended to become national not only in form but in substance, i.e., nationalist
Page 4. the 'end of the era of nationalism,' so long prophesied, is not remotely in sight.
Page 4. Hugh Seton-Watson
Page 4. No "scientific definition" of the nation can be devised;
Page 5: ‘nation-ness’ and ‘nationalism’ are cultural artefacts of a particular kind.
Page 5: Hans Kohn and Carleton Hayes,'founding fathers'
Page 6: easier if one treated [nationalism] as if it belonged with 'kinship' and 'religion', rather than with 'liberalism' or fascism'.or
Page 7: nation is an imagined political community - and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.
Page 7. Gellner: 'Nationalism invents nations where they do not exist’.
Page 7: all communities are imagined.
Page 7: nation exists when a significant number of people in a community consider themselves to form a nation, or behave as if they formed one.'
Page 8: The nation is imagined as limited
Page 8: It is imagined as sovereign
Page 8: It is imagined as a community,
Page 8: reasons for sacrifices lie in the cultural roots of nationalism.

Very often, the academic turn seems to be a way to turn away from the academy: indeed, if the art field becomes an academic one, then what an academy has to offer can also be found elsewhere, at other institutions and self-organized initiatives constituting the field of expanded academia. The suggestion seems clear: we don’t need the academy.

Why should there be a doctorate in the arts, rather than nothing? Weren’t we happy without it? It is no secret that many people see neither the socio-economic necessity nor the artistic relevance of a doctorate in the arts. There is fierce opposition to it from people within higher arts education, universities, and the arts field—at least in so far as it still makes sense to draw a clear-cut distinction between higher arts education, universities, and the arts. Indeed, among many other things, the Bologna Process could be described as a deconstruction of the old demarcations between precisely these three sectors.

The time of academy-bashing is over. Indeed, the academy is back, almost. It’s absolutely fine to situate yourself outside the academy. But one shouldn’t hesitate to play a role within an academy, as many former outsiders today do quite successfully. It is my bet that the art academy is going to be the defining innovative institution within the art field in the next twenty years, much more so than museums, galleries, biennials, whatever.

Source: e-flux

"Kitsch, using for raw material the debased and academicized simulacra of genuine culture, welcomes and cultivates this insensibility. It is the source of its profits. Kitsch is mechanical and operates by formulas. Kitsch is vicarious experience and faked sensations. Kitsch changes according to style, but remains always the same. Kitsch is the epitome of all that is spurious in the life of our times. Kitsch pretends to demand nothing of its customers except their money – not even their time." (Greenberg, Clement. "Avant-Garde and Kitsch." Partisan Review. 6:5 (1939) 34–49)

P79 - L. V. Deursen: I also don't like it when publishing is meant to just satisfy a small group. Book publishing is interesting because a book can travel easily, because it can be purchased cheaply, and because it's actually the best device to distribute thoughts and ideas.

P84 - you can talk about the book and you can make dummies, but to all of a sudden have it back from the printer is often quite a shock. Especially the way this book came back - sort of purposefully casual, not very expensive-looking or particularly beautiful.

P86 - I quite like when there are some restrictions in a given project; I think that's actually quite healthy.

P88 - I can imagine a lot of people study graphic design because they have an interest in books and their content; in that sense, maybe it's not to weird that this field is now somehow new and more inhabited by designers.

Why do people want to look alike? Why do they want to do the same thing?

P90 - I can't really say that every graphic designer is a good publisher. Not every graphic designer is a good writer, far from it. Not every graphic designer is a good designer, even! [laughs]

-p91 - creating your own content is a good exercise and it can be really helpful when you have to make work for clients.

- p.98 - Goods allegedly exchange for a single bulb [of tulip]: two lasts of wheat, for lasts of rye, for fat oxen, wit day swine, twelve fat sheep, two hogshead of wine, for tuns of beer, two tons of butter, 1,000 pounds of cheese, a complete bed, a suit of clothes, a silver drinking cup.

LP. 21 - creativity= ability to perceive + imagination (gestalt). Allows art to be taught, not only the technical skill

Pedagogues: Froebel, Montessori, Decroly. School reformers, Rudolf Steiner, John Dewey. Great modern theorists of art: Herbert Read, E.H.Gombrich, Rudolf Arnheim.

- p.22 The difference between talent and creativity is that the former is unequally distributed and the latter universally.

- p.23 - the difference between metier and medium is that the former has a historical existence and the latter a transhistorical existence.

- p.24 - the difference between imitation and invention goes without saying. Whereas imitation reproduces, invention produces; whereas imitation generates sameness, invention generates otherness; whereas imitation seeks continuity, invention seeks novelty.

Drawings done during Miscontinuum opera at Barbican, February 2015. Biro pen, A4 paper sheets.

“I have dealt with hand-eye coordination all my life – it’s another kind of language for me. To see is to think and drawing is another way of thinking"

(The artist on his drawing retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in an interview with Charlie Rose, 21 April 2011).

Source: Bildwerk

Drawings from Salto gig in Moscow, February 2015. Biro pen in 10X15cm pocket sketchbook.

Pedro Almodovar's latest film backgrounds almost exclusively consist of iconography:

Source: Font men

A book by Emma Tucker, which is a first ever translation of a renowned 1972 Crouwel/van Toorn debate. Read more on Grafik website

A few gifs bits from an animatic work. Ballpoint pen, markers.

13-jan : Iconography+crumpled paper tracing - at which point the sign is not working anymore?

- drawing with light: how can shadow from a 3d part of drawing be a part of the drawing, too?

- drawing breaking out to space: a mix of drawing and 3d objects of line- like quality: thread, paper cuts, matchsticks.

- Rorschach tests, ink drawing by bending the paper.

11 jan: Folding the paper: a sequence of drawings made througholding the paper 1,23 times, etc. What the algorithm for such folding could be?

9 Jan : Family tree: connecting standing matchsticks with thread, add names of relatives to matchsticks.

8 Jan: resistance of form. Fold the letters, tie the paper on which the letters are printed with thread and test how these forms resist the tention. (This te had been completed. Outcome: there is also a tension when you physically hold a resulting object, a strive to open and see the letter fully, without the bend. Feeling of psychological discomfort).

I spent yesterday evening at The Showroom gallery, drawing as we listened to a sound piece from Graeme Thomson and Silvia Maglioni.

It took forever getting ready to exist: UIQ (the unmaking-of) - non-existent film by Felix Guattari

In the artists' words:
“A small community of envisionaries are invited to inhabit a zone of autonomous temporality where they become the hosts, receivers and transmitters of UIQ, contaminating each other in turn with their own visions and ideas of Guattari’s film and of UIQ’s possible manifestations, both within and beyond its limits.”

The soundwork recombines fragments of recordings of these “seeances” in a composition of myriad voices and electronic signals, elements that circulate in the Showroom gallery space, offering visitors glimpses of a missing film and universe that, though invisible, may begin to affect their own vision.

Source: The Showroom

A day of drawing and electronic opera from Mouse on Mars and Oval in Barbican.

P 114 - Pestalozzi, Table of Unit
P. 209 - Vojta Naprstek and Alois Studnicks divided collections into 20 groups:
A. Machines and apparatuses.
B. Metalworking in Industry.
C. Minerals.
D. Processing of clay, earthenware, ceramics and porcelain.
E. Glassmaking.
F. Wood processing
G. Clothmaking and weaving, laces
H. Animal Products - leather, leather goods, hat-making
K. Stationery, book binding, papermaking
L. Small items - miscellaneous
M. Chemical industry
N. Food stuffs and delicatessen
O. National industry
P. Household goods - tools, instruments, common furniture.
R. Civil Engineering
S. Light, heat, magneticity
T. Graphic art - book binding, photography, pencils, drawing tools.
U. Commercial section - measures, weights, international currencies.
V. Education - school aids, templates for drawing and modeling.
Z. Art and applied arts: a) assorted arts and crafts items; b) collection of artworks and assorted casts; c) arts and crafts antiques.

- A total absence of information about a given subject usually solicits no curiosity: without an awareness of its existence, we can't possibly care about it;

- When we come to realise the existence of something we never knew was there before, our curiosity is sparked: What is it? How does it work? What should we call it? Why is it there? But we remain in the early stages of our ability to recognise and read it;

- We attempt to accumulate information and, while additional research provides many answers, it also reveals additional questions, fuelling more curiosity still;

- At a certain point – at the top of the bell curve – we come to a place where effective discussion and debate is possible, but much still remains speculation. It is a moment of intense scrutiny and educated hypothesising when questions, answers, contradictions, controversy, desire, violence, disappointment and determination make up a complex system;

- Little by little, though, speculation gives way to consensus. The power structures that make up the socio-political fabric begin enforcing their choices. The many questions gather around common answers, and information becomes more and more organised, making the transition into 'the understood';

- Sinking into 'the understood', our given subject provokes less and less curiosity;

- Eventually, we have a dictionary definition.

This progression is also a loop: thanks to scientific, artistic or intellectual pioneers – from Copernicus to Duchamp – common assumptions about the world are second-guessed, challenged, and 'the understood' once again becomes 'no longer understood', prompting the cycle to begin anew.

Source: http://www.afterall.org/journal/issue.16/i.not.love.information

Rule 1: Find a place you trust, and then try trusting it for awhile.
Rule 2: General duties as a student - pull everything out of your teacher; pull everything out of your fellow students.
Rule 3: General duties as a teacher - pull everything out of your students.
Rule 4: Consider everything an experiment.
Rule 5: Be Self Disciplined - this means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.
Rule 6: Nothing is a mistake. There is no win and no fail. There is only make.
Rule 7: The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It is the people who do all the work all the time who eventually catch onto things.
Rule 8: Do not try to create and analyze at the same time. They're different processes.
Rule 9: Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It is lighter than you think.
Rule 10: “We are breaking all the rules, even our own rules and how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X qualities.” (John Cage)

Helpful Hints:
Always Be Around.
Come or go to everything.
Always go to classes.
Read everything you can get your hands on.
Look at movies carefully and often.
Save everything - it may come in handy later.

And some process work for Resistance of Form (2)

As the economic, environmental, and cultural model in which we live continues to collapse, people across the world are starting to realize that the lifestyle, dictated to them by capitalist governance, is no longer (and for many, never has been) fulfilling, meaningful, or even viable. The need to learn from historical resistance subjects and "commoning" practices (like the collective management of resources by peasant or indigenous communities) is therefore a worthwhile venture. Activist and theoretician Silvia Federici describes the commons as follows:

"For me the idea of the commons is that of a society built on the principle of solidarity rather than the principle of self-interest and competition. It is a society in which wealth is shared, there is collective decision making, and production is for our wellbeing and not for monetary accumulation. So it would involve a radical change. I would not call it a take over, however. That society is still only on the horizon. But we can begin to create new types of relations".– Silvia Federici during Revolution at Point Zero, an event organized by Casco — Office for Art Design and Theory, 1 February 2013

Do #dogs make us and our lives better? I have done an #illustration on the #stats across US. #infographic #doggylove

What works best for me:

- weird fingers, wavy arms/legs forms, twisted forms;
- ink blots, dry brush shading with black ink
- dirty walls and floors
- dry brush/pen hair
- very thin nervous pen lines + thick dirty lines made with a brush;
- parts filled with black (eg black suits, pants etc.)
- empty areas in the image
- dry brush tints (arylic, watercolor)
- brown ink/ or ink of any other color together with black ink
- pale acrylic backgrounds

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- characters should be like me, act like me, have similar mimic;
- not more than 2-3 colors in one picture;
- uncertain characters with faces that make me smile;
- grey shading;
- lots of detail in one place and a blank field in the other.

Some great drawings from the archives of great master.

From our induction at London Print Studio - a group effort.

Wanted to say a big Thank You! to Catherine Cabanela for the kind words in her article on BuddyTV today. Here's an exerpt:

The Illustrator's Special Connection with "The 200th in the 10th"
Having been a part of this ongoing project, I'd like to share with you some special items that other media outlets may be unaware of.
First, by now you have seen the promotional images and clips from "The 200th in the 10th," Bones celebratory 200th episode and you know that it's an exquisite homage to the late great English film director and producer, Alfred Hitchcock. Did you also know that the freelance illustrator who crafted the visual concept of this amazing piece of work is none other than Zhenia Vasiliev. Okay, yes, so you may have already hear that, but did you know that Vasiliev was part of the two-man team who designed 'The 39 Stats: Charting Hitchcock's Obsessions.' Imagine how excited we all were in late October when Alex informed us Vasiliev was creating our infographic! Note: In preparation for the 200th episode, you might want to study that Hitchcock infographic because the direction, cinematography and aesthetic of "The 200th in the 10th" comes straight out of the Hitchcock playbook.

Catherine also mentions our infographic had a good reception with Bones creator, Hart Hanson and Bones Executive Creator, Stephen Nathan. Here's the screenshots of their tweets:

​

If you like Bones series on Fox, here's a new giant infographic all about it we made with Alex Hughes. #BONES @FoxSpecOps3

Such a great idea, to use OpenType technology to convert math formulas to actual visualization! Have yet to test it - but thank you very much to my colleague Jim Kynvin for spotting it! Font is made by FontFont: here's the source link.

"The fact then that since I can't have data on paper when I am sketching what comes to mind and designing a data visualization, I feel that it is very helpful to explore visual features and visual aggregations that start exactly from what you have in mind, and that can serve to open questions on the data itself. I see this as a shortcut from your head to the final piece of data visualization."

Three distinct phases for me in my design process:

• A first phase when I am interested in the main macro categories of data we are analyzing;
• second phase where I just focus on the singular elements, the entry points that we have, to figure out which shapes, colors, features we might invent to better represent them
• Final phase where I would structure what I’d expect to finally create, not in illustrator (digital format), but on paper

Images and text courtesy Giorgia Lupi.
Full article is here.
Accurat website.

A new major collaboration from me and electronic musician Moonscape: his new album The Future We Have All Been Waiting For which is out today and a series of nine drawings I made for it (one per track).

Listen to the music: https://play.spotify.com/album/26j123jxGvGqpJsnAt3dDx
And look at my drawings while you do:http://www.evasilev.com/drawing/#/tfwhabwf/

Congratulations to Daniil Aleksandrov!

Street sketch from Brno this summer - just found it.

I quite like the idea of an equation, because it doesn't point only to art or to science, but has that universal kind of feel for any aspect of life. Artist is of course an equation with his art, meaning that an artist is not balanced if she does not create. But so is everybody else - any person finds its own approach, their own process that balances things out, to get to that cosmic equation that is so much spoken of in Nature and in human mind, and in relation of the two.

Equation, in turn, is a mathematical concept which lends itself quite logically to visual representation. This is a thing to think about, but here's a quick sketch made the other day of some kind of logical construction found in real life:

Basically, two dudes covering the roof of a building - one below, another on the top. The circular motion of the bucket connects the two, and so does their own co-motions. The lower man goes to the car on our right to fill the bucket, the top man goes to the left out of the picture to do the roof work. Then the process repeats.

Which insults are most offensive? Adam Frost and I have looked at the data behind rude words:http://www.buzzfeed.com/adamfrost72/great-british-insults-which-words-are-the-most-of-147xc?s=mobile

A sparkling example of how deep an icon starts to look when you place a grid behind it, although in this case, these are masterfully designed icons! Here's a link to the full presentation. #guardian #icons

With our piece about Hitchcok films in it. Congrats @adamfrostuk and a big thank you to @srendgen!

Pastel

Our Hitchock infographic appears in the Taschen new Infographics book!

Infographic infamy at Graphic Towers! pic.twitter.com/wPDmBbAwmw

— Aimée Stewart (@NativesAgency) November 5, 2014

The strong part of the drawing in space (and this goes back to my previous thoughts about constructing a Bach invention in C with thread and wire hanging across a room) is that it gives a strong experience of *being inside* the drawing, as opposed to looking at it from the outside.

With regards to this, experiments by Charley Peters with sunlight and drawing with white thread on the wall are of an extreme importance. The daylight moves across the room, instructing the behaviour of the drawing.

Listening to a musical piece, being in the music with attention of the mind, is, by analogy, a similar experience to being inside of the drawing. Having a drawing as a spatial object gives that extra bit of freedom to move around, - thus the audience's conscious decision instructs them on what kind of drawing they see.

As a note to self, further experiments have to carried out:

• thread and wire (different thicknesses) in space - smaller and bigger models;
• wall drawing and thread;
• use of tape (black or limited colour?)
• drawing and source of light

Link to Charley Peters' residency blog at Centre For Drawing https://www.a-n.co.uk/blogs/in-occupation-two-weeks-in-residence-at-the-centre-for-drawing/date/2013/01 .

Drawing can articulate our relationship to space and location, and the experiential act of drawing in-situ is central to how we record the world and our encounters with it. Experiences of drawing on location also allow an exploration of the nature of drawing itself, its relationship with materials, processes and the drawing surface.

Charley Peters, Drawing in the Reality of Space, TRACEY, 2014

CHARLEY PETERS, LOGICAL ATOMISM (2012), ACRYLIC YARN AND FISHING WIRE IN SPACE

Artist website: http://www.charleypeters.com/

1. Drawing and graphic design have a lot in common. Therefore, a study in drawing has a big impact on graphic design practice.

2. Drawing is phenomenological, which means that it is capable of telling not only about the subject of drawing, but about the process as well. ->

3. Both the process and the subject are equally important for the drawing.

4. Drawing is rigorous in following its rules, therefore much of drawing is instructed by itself, as well as from the outside.->

5. Involvement into the drawing from the outside should be minimized, so that the inside rules of the drawing were stronger and easier to use.

Source: Norges Bank

Source:Times

Source: http://www.moma.org/collection_images/resized/155/w500h420/CRI_210155.jpg

Jerwood Drawing Prize is "the largest and longest running annual open exhibition for drawing in the UK" (Source: http://jerwoodvisualarts.org/jerwood-drawing-prize-2014) First prize this year went to Alison Carlier, the first time in history when a Drawing Prize is awarded to audio work. I've recorded an exerpt - but actually, forget my bad self-recording, here's a link to it on SoundCloud

Here's a fragment of work by Hilary Ellis, Enigma II (thread on paper)

A fragment of Zoe Maslen's The Absents Presence, Hair drawing (pencil drawing on Fabriano paper)

It is fine to say, as many do, that drawing is good for you, but so is singing, and so is the Eurovision Song Contest. The high octane drawing of the twentieth century greats – Matisse, Picasso, Giacometti, Dubuffet, de Kooning, Tàpies, Polke, would be on my list, and certainly Daniel Clowes – is more than this. It breaks through the ‘sound drawing’ decorum preached in the pages of The Studio.Pride, prejudice and the pencil. James Faure Walker. From Writing on Drawing, p. 90

Source:http://kwc.org/blog/archives/resources/2005/gdrawing.jpg

If you want to succeed as a graphic designer in the digital age, follow these four simple rules (will have to make this as an infographic, as a parody to all those funny infographics online): 1. Always change the colours of your design to the ones opposite to what client has in their branding. 2. Select the most obscure free font you can find online, so that no one else could open your designs without seeing it with fonts switched off. 3. Make the design too big or too small to watch on screen. 4. Most importantly, don't forget to grumble that clients are idiots who don't understand anything!

- "The worst is better than the best because it can't get any worse"- "Old is the new new"

‘If you look upon an old wall covered with dirt, or the odd appearance of some streaked stones, you may discover several things like landscapes, battles, clouds, uncommon attitudes, humorous faces, draperies, etc. Out of this confused mass of objects, the mind will be furnished with an abundance of designs and subjects perfectly new.’Leonardo Source: http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/deliberate-accident-art

‘When we look at a road which sweeps before us toward the horizon, we must not say either that the sides of the road are given to us as convergent or that they are given to us as parallel; they are parallel in depth. The perspective appearance is not posited, but neither is the parallelism’. Source: Merleau-Ponty M. (1962). p. 261.

A great Friday morning is glorified by a great internet discovery called Monoskop - a collaborative wiki research on the history of art, culture and media technology.

Source: Wikimedia

55. Paul Klee, On Modern Art, p. 53: "The legend of the childishness of my drawing must have originated from those linear compositions of mine in which I tried to combine a concrete image, say that of a man, with the pure representation of the linear element. Had I wished to present man 'as he is,' then I should have had to use such a bewildering confusion of lines that pure elementary representation would have been out of the question. The result would have been vagueness beyond recognition."

Source: A Thousand Plateaus; Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari; p. NOTES TO PP. 342-350 □ 551

Gather field sound material and then use it as a basis for drawings.Pick some different types of fields, as: - Repetitive background noise, like a train passing by - Sporadic clustered noise, such as people walking across schoolyard / park with dogs - Sounds of tv program/ talk show in unknown language - Various types of silence: with different emortional charge (awkward silence, silence before the storm, concentrated silence between two loud noises, eternal silence of outer space, etc.) - Sounds from the inside spaces: big/small rooms, bars, cafes, library, in public transport, inside own home, train station, church, theater, hairdresser, hospital, lavatory, bathroom - Sounds of nature vs man-made: wind, car sounds, church bells, bird songs, dog bark, rain, thunder - Sounds based on objects found in the field: knock on wood, rotating / breaking the glass, pouring/ boiling the water, clicking on switches, echo of different places, hand dryer, crumpling plastic bag.

A short animation created during WT/ISIA 2014 summer school in Urbino, Italy [youtube=http://youtu.be/j3JC8bocmi0&w=900]

In the new computer age, the proliferation of typefaces and type manipulations represents a new level of visual pollution threatening our culture. Out of thousands of typefaces, all we need are a few basic ones, and trash the rest. The Vignelli Canon, p. 56

For many years now, I haven’t done a single logo. The reason for that may be that every time a client wanted a logo I'd say something silly like ‘If you don’t have identity a logo won’t help you’ – after which the client would walk away. This has not been a very responsible behavior on my side – and I decided to change my mind. Now I think I should do logos, even if I don’t know why I do them, because, as I now believe, if you keep on looking, you will finally find out what is it that you’re looking for.

In phenomenology, the environment is concretely defined as "the place", and the things which occur there "take place". The place is not so simple as the locality, but consists of concrete things which have material substance, shape, texture, and color, and together coalesce to form the environment's character, or atmosphere. It is this atmosphere which allows certain spaces, with similar or even identical functions, to embody very different properties, in accord with the unique cultural and environmental conditions of the place which they exist. Phenomenology is conceived as a "return to things", maneuvering away from the abstractions of science and its neutral objectivity. Phenomenology absorbs the concept of subjectivity, making the thing and its unique conversations with its place the relevant topic and not the thing itself. The man-made components of the environment become the settlements of differing scales, some large—like cities, and some small—like the house. The paths between these settlements and the various elements which create the cultural environment become the secondary defining characteristics of the place. The distinction of natural and man-made offers us the first step in the phenomenological approach. The second is to qualify inside and outside, or the relationship of earth-sky. The third and final step is to assess character, or how things are made and exist as participants in their environment. Source: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_(architecture)

1. Alice blue
2. alizarin crimson
3. amber
4. amethyst
5. aqua
6. acquarnarine
7. asparagus
8. azure
9. beige
10. bistre
11. black
12. blue
13. Bondi blue
14. brass
15. bright green
16. bright turquoise
17. bright violet
18. bronze
19. brown
20. buff
21. burgundy
22. burnt orange
23. burnt sienna
24. burnt umber
25. camouflage green
26. cardinal
27. carmine
28. carrot
29. celadon
30. cerise
31. cerulean
32. cerulean blue
33. chartreuse
34. chestnut
35. chocolate
36. cinnamon
37. cobalt
38. copper
39. coral
40. corn
41. cornflower blue
42. cream
43. crimson
44. cyan
45. dark blue
46. dark brown
47. dark cerulean
48. dark chestnut
49. dark coral
50. dark goldenrod
51. dark green
52. dark indigo
53. dark khaki
54. dark olive
55. dark pastel green
56. dark peach
57. dark pink
58. dark salmon
59. dark scarlet
60. dark slate gray
61. dark spring green
62. dark tan
63. dark tangerine
64. dark tea green
65. dark terra cotta
66. dark turquoise
67. dark violet
68. denim
69. dodger blue
70. eggplant
71. emerald
72. fern green
73. flax
74. fuchsia
75. gamboge
76. gold
77. goldenrod
78. gray
79. gray-asparagus
80. gray-tea green
81. green
82. green-yellow
83. heliotrope
84. hot pink
85. indigo
86. international Klein blue
87. international orange
88. jade
89. khaki
90. khaki (X11)
91. lavender
92. lavender blush
93. lemon
94. lemon cream
95. light brown
96. lilac
97. lime
98. linen
99. magenta
100. malachite
101. maroon
102. mauve
103. midnight blue
104. mint green
105. moss green
106. Mountbatten pink
107. mustard
108. Navajo white
109. navy blue
110. ochre
111. old gold
112. olive drab
113. orange
114. orchid
115. pale blue
116. pale brown
117. pale carmine
118. Pale chestnut
119. pale cornflower blue
120. pale magena
121. pale pink
122. pale red-violet
123. pale sandy brown
124. papaya whip
125. pastel green
126. pastel pink
127. Paul mauve
128. peach
129. peach-orange
130. peach-yellow
131. pear
132. Persian blue
133. pine green
134. pink
135. pink-orange
136. plum
137. powder blue
138. Prussian blue
139. puce
140. pumpkin
141. purple
142. raw umber
143. red
144. red-violet
145. robin egg blue
146. royal blue
147. russet
148. rust
149. safety orange (blaze orange)
150. saffron
151. salmon
152. sandy brown
153. sangria
154. sapphire
155. scarlet
156. school bus yellow
157. sea green
158. seashell
159. selective yellow
160. sepia
161. silver
162. slate gray
163. spring green
164. steel blue
165. swamp green
166. tan
167. tangerine
168. taupe
169. tea green
170. teal
171. teené
172. terra cotta
173. thistle
174. turquoise
175. ultramarine
176. vermillion
177. violet
178. violet-eggplant
179. viridian
180. wheat
181. white
182. wisteria
183. yellow
184. zinnwaldite

Text source: Full color, Martens, Schwartz. Roma Publications, 2013. P. 143-145

Artwork courtesy Ian Rowlands

Icon from a new Google icon set

A great website with lots of superb iconography - an extermely useful instrument when working on own icons - and for buying icons from designers, too, of course:

Pictocharts for 1968 Mexico Olympic Games, by Lance Wyman (US) Image source: http://www.tapook.com/2012/07/olympic-pictograms/

(from Digital Agency to Google)

Calibri has been behaving badly, tell us presentation specialists at Slidebean: 'Calibri is one of the ugliest fonts ever invented by mankind, I hold it up there with other design fails such the infamous Comic Sans MS'.

Ouch. After reading an introduction like this the only fonts I want to use now are by all means only Comic Sans and Calibri! I'm even ready to forget my beloved Arial and Times New Roman for a while. (:

Image source: http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/ascender/calibri/

Let our lives be changed forever! The interactive chart builder that we've been dreaming of for so long has finally been created by the genius of Matt Bentley (and it also exports results into svg's!).

Access it now!

Fig.235 - Similarity of the subordinate Fig. 236 - Structural contradiction in one common element Fig. 237 - Similarity of the dominant Fig. 238 - Structural Inversion

Logically, users are after numbers, because that where the core information is. Why is there a need to visualize the data?

It seems like there is a purely visual mechanism that helps us to understand data in a different way when we look at the image, as compared to just the display of numbers, - a new meaning appears.

Austrian philosopher of science Otto Neurath was famous for his passion of collecting various curiosities. Here's some of the things he was interested in:

• hieroglyphics
• isotype (vienna method)
• pictocharts/pictograms
• phenakistoscope
• atlas
• pictorial mnemotechnique
• emblem
• symbol/inn signs
• binary/duodenary systems
• visual aid/visual education
• saragon (voice)
• synchronogical chart
• tangram (dissection puzzle)
• rebus cards
• roundel
• alphabet books
• accident prevention pictures
• optical teaching aids
• zoopraxiscope
• drawings of primitive peoples and children
• sachbilder (descriptive pictures)
• anamorphic pictures
• mayan pictures
• cave paintings
• silhouettes

source: Neurath, O., From Hieroglyphics to Isotype: A Visual Autobiography, 2010 Image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoopraxiscope

Gothic infographic by Adam Frost and me on The Guardian books - 70K views within 5 days! Plus 10K Facebook shares and 500 Tweets. Is it a lot, though?..

Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology_of_art

Production: Adam Frost, Rosie Roche, Gabriela VieruDevelopment: Matt Bentley Design and illustrations are by me.

1. Always right: Titian, Veronese, Tintoret, Giorgione, John Bellini and Velasquez. 2. Questionable: Van Eyck, Holbein, Perugino, Francia, Angelico, Leonardo da Vinci, Corregio, Vandyck, Rembrandt, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Turner and the modern Pre-Raphaelites.

3. Most desirable: Samuel Prout (Rhine), John Lewis (sketches in Spain), George Cruikshank (Grimm's german Stories), Alfred Rethel (Dance of Death, Death the Avenger, Death the Friend), Bewick, Blake (Book of Job), Richter (illustrations to Lord's Prayer), Rosetti (edition of Tennyson).

Beth Hoffman kindly mentions the three pieces we produced for CCAFS:

Strictly speaking, there are only surfaces covered with marks. The rest is human interpretation of them. This could be argued that 'there are examples of graphics where shapes and colours are not employed to represent data'.

The answer to this might be:

'We agree that any conscious design activity implies some kind of analytical thinking. And where there's analysis, there's data. Therefore, any graphic design is dealing with representing data, and so there's no entity as Data Visualisation which would be separate from any other designing activity. And in turn, this proves that Data Visualisation is a term which was created artificially.'

I.e. we came up with term 'data visualisation' so that, on one side, we'd have a certain theoretical framework to facilitate working with what interests us most, and on another, to make sure clients pay us more and with greater ease.

Perspective, depending on the angle of picture plane to picture's surface. When two planes are parallel, it creates a top view (as in most maps). When perpendicular, it is a front view. Sharper angles create deep perspectives, flatter angles are less deep. (map of Rome from Otto Neurath, p.151)

Dry point, monoprint, January 2014

And here's the original sketch, made from Craft Beer pub:

The sketch, among other Urban Sketcher's sketches was also kindly offered by James Hobbs for display on BBC radio 4 website, as part of his interview about his new book and urban sketchers community.

Color temperature and humidity in color

Color systems

Process sketches for the MJM-Deloitte stuff:

Barron Webster: http://www.behance.net/gallery/Google-Your-Business/10338489

Google Drive from Upperquad: http://upperquad.com/work/google-drive/

Google Play Music: http://designtaxi.com/news/358926/Fun-Cheerful-Illustrations-For-The-Launch-Of-Google-Play-Music/

Icons for Google Drive from Zachary Gibson: http://www.behance.net/gallery/Google-Drive-Icons/9187105 Celeste Prevost: http://weandthecolor.com/google-graphics-by-celeste-prevost/22971 Jefferson Cheng: http://www.jeffersoncheng.com/Google

Animal badges for Deloitte conference in Dallas - rough stage

For the inspiration, here's a link to some other examples of animal badge-like illustrations, from the portfolio of Portland-based studio Always With Honour.

China's social networks infographic

Client: Internal presentation Brief: An infographic targeted at 14-year old girl who has to relocate to Shanghai from Kansas because of her parent's work relocation. Ideas: Social networks are one of the teenage girls' highest priorities and are the place where they spend a lot of time. This infographic's problem is that there won't be any familiar social networks available in China, and it offers some information for those who still wants to spend time online with choosing which alternative networks could be used.

The piece is for a presentation so shouldn't occupy more than one screen in height. The data is not real at this point.

FCA interface project log

Client: Financial Conduct Authority Brief: Interface and series of infographics on the 10 social segments. Ideas:

1. Interface: Use their 21 degree slanted square as the general interface element and build a kind of slanted bar chart based on their market segmentation. Approved by client: 10 segments with pictures in them (image containers), skewed by 21 degrees and generated from a bar chart, according to percentages of those segments (in bar chart, the widths represent percentages, not the heights, so the height is consistent). Used together, they form a pattern. Roll-over state enlarges the hovered segment and gives the title of it below. Clicking on each segment takes the user to the horizontal infographic, scrollable across 3 or 4 screens (a still image).

2. Infographics: Each of them consists of 4 parts: 1) who are they (doughnut charts); 2) their attitudes (bar charts); 3) their behaviours (bar charts); 4) summary (icons + simplified bar charts).

3. Icons: slanted icons for last sections. Weather allegory for risk of detriment

Friday, Oct 4th, 2013: Updating the information It was decided to send the photography and colour for each segment for approval prior the data, as there is another specialist working on the photos. We need to get them approved so that he could be sure which photos to work with.

Data for four segments has arrived today. The problem was that now it is not consistent with the original design: instead for 5 and 5 bars on pages 2 and 3, there are now 6 and 5, or 5 and 4 etc. Have decided to put in all of the data as it has arrived and later on adjust the layout when it is approved.

Rosenfeld L. , Morville P., IA for the World Wide Web

Directives: come up with an image that would be easy to change and tweak around, it would also answer the British Council's general tone for all imagery. The hard bit here is that they don't have anything on neither iconography nor illustration in their branding (only photos could normally be used), so this is questionable if such approach will be approved. Among other considerations, it was decided to do it in black and white, and graphically simple, to oppose the photographic row.

Original DVD remote and my attempt to redesign it: Sample task models (even these level of roughness helped a lot):

Basically, my solutions leaves only the elements you need to access directly while watching videos: "play" (/pause when pressed again), "volume", "brightness", "subtitles" and "menu". The rest of functionality can be made accessible through the menu (hence the arrows, plus "enter"). On top is power on/off and eject/inject.

Try it yourself - here's the link

Interactive infographic, with a great video demo:

Google Visual Assets Guidelines on Behance: part 1, part 2 Designer website.

One of a series, following a general style developed by Caroline Leprovost:

Facebook shares reached 2969 on Tuesday 27th August.Link to the graphic on the Guardian website.

The infographic has also been reposted on the following websites: Slate.com
co.create

co.create [again], this time with an interview by John Brownlee

Version 1. The initial idea is to do an infographic about how to do an infographic, and test out the 'flat iconography' aesthetics (along the lines of Google and Mailchimp's flat icon design). Initial data set consisted on four main parts: Data, Story, Chart and Design, so the start point was to select four main colours and to do a wireframe with one big introductory screen and four consequtive parts, each having its own colour, plus gray.

While working on the wireframe, I also thought it could be nice to go really big with all elements, and make the graphic viewable on the mobile screen (but I had to complete the first wireframe before going back to this - I want to try out a separate mobile version, with a really narrow artboard).

Follow-up ideas: make a supplementary (black-an-white, derived from Google's flat icons) icon set, and use consistent height/width rectangles for each of the sections.

Structure: Part 1 - introduction (data, story, chart, design). Parts 2-5: 1) term, class of word (noun,verb), transcription; term definition ("data is Facts and stats collected together for reference or analysis"); 2) supplementary field (e.g. 'analysing your data'): icon, 2-deck subhead, 3-4 lines of text; 3) Professionals field (e.g., Designer, Data Analyst); 4) Tools field (e.g. Microsoft Excel, Adobe Illustrator); 5) Try it! field: 1-deck heading + 2 or 3 tick-marked 2-deck slogans (e.g. "MARKING UP A SPREADSHEET", "SKETCHING CHARTSWITH KEY DATA").

Next step: mobile version on a narrow artboard, especially intro screen with big header and four icons.

A random infogrpaphic created by dragging things out from the artboard:

A new infographic by the genius Adam Frost and me on the Guardian website: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/gallery/2013/feb/11/whats-in-a-name

Adam Frost/Zhenia Vasiliev Here's a link to it on the Guardian website.

Drypoint on aluminium board

Ice cube, woodcut/digital

Wood engraving, A5, August 2012

My blog was quoted in another blog sometime ago - I just learned it while googling my own name... a useful routine :) Many thanks, boomerontario!

Гарибальди из города Ниццы Всё не знал, куда дальше стремиться. Но король Мануил Его уговорил Отдать Франции свой город Ниццу.

Ницца, родной город Гарибальди – объединителя страны, был уступлен итальянским королём Виктором Эммануилом Франции в обмен на помощь в войне с Австрией. По меткому выражению Гарибальди, этот шаг сделал его чужестранцем для Италии.

А. Дубровский, 2011

Garibaldi from the city of Nice did not know where to seek further. But by King Manuel he was persuaded to give his city of Nice to France. (Makeshift translation of A. Dubrovski’s poem).

Всем известный Колумб из Америки Не привёз ни единой лимерики. Но привёз он маис, Табак и сифилИс. И довольный вернулся в Америку.

А. Дубровский, 2011

Well-known Columbus in America Did not bring a single limericks. But he brought corn, tobacco and syphilis. And happy he returned to America. (Makeshift translation of A. Dubrovski’s poem).

Great news is that I was commissioned to draw a cover for February issue of How To Spend it Russia. The story was how to wisely donate funds non-profit organizations.

Предводитель сената Катон Захотел съездить в город Кротон. Указатель не видя, Угодил он в Ауфидий. И увидел Катон, что крот он.

А. Дубровский, 2011

The leader of the Senate, Cato, wanted to go to the city Croton. Having missed the pointer he landed in Aufidy. And Cato saw, that he was the mole. (Makeshift translation of A. Dubrovski’s poem).

Аристотель, вид сделав построже, Так Платону сказал: «Ты мне, всё же, Друг, без всяких сомнений – Говорю без стеснений. Только истина, всё ж, мне дороже».

Да-да, так и сказал, полемизируя со своим учителем Платоном: «Платон мне друг, но истина дороже». На что учитель добродушно заметил, что «жеребенок лягает свою мать».

А. Дубровский, 2011

Aristotle said to Plato: "you're a friend of mine, of course, without any doubt - but the truth is more dear to me". Yes, that what he said, arguing with his teacher Plato - "Plato is a friend, but truth is a greater friend". The teacher good-naturedly remarked that "a foal kicks his mother." (Makeshift translation of A. Dubrovski’s poem).

Периклеса из славных Афин Покусал при купаньи дельфин. И сердитый герой Перед всей агорой Поквитаться поклялся с дельфином.

А. Дубровский, 2011

Perikles from glorious Athens was bitten by the dolhpin during swimming. Angry hero sweared in front of the whole agora to get even with it. (makeshift translation of A. Dubrovski’s poem).

This one is for the next issue of Zhenia's Useful Calendars (January 2012):

All the best wishes for the Halloween from Zhenia Vasiliev Illustration!

Character from Fox and Owl book.
Illustration that appeared in October issue of Zhenia's Useful Desk Calendars.

Character from Fox and Owl book. Illustration that appeared on the November issue of Zhenia's Useful Desk Calendars.

Cartoon for weekly Tandemocracy column, The Moscow News. Authors: Tim Wall, Zhenia Vasiliev

Illustration that appeared in October issue of Zhenia's Useful Desk Calendars.

Illustration that appeared in November issue of Zhenia's Useful Desk Calendars:

New set of Zhenia’s Useful Calendars (for October and November 2011) have arrived! They are sustainable, colourful, offline and free. Not receiving one? Would like a calendar for next couple of months be delivered to you by post, free of charge?
Simply drop me a message on my email. Looking forward to hearing from you!

For an article by Mark Teeter, The Moscow News

Cartoon for The Moscow News story by Anna Arutunyan.

"You may not know who we are, but we know who you are!" - "I won't tell anybody; I'll be mute as a fish." The words on the truck say: "Beluga's caviar". The Moscow News story by Sara Buzadzhi.

Our Tandemocracy cartoon was featured in today's Hire an Illustrator newsletter. Great thanks and best wishes to Darren & Jane Di Lieto!!

A new "Tandemocracy" column has just started at the newspaper where I draw cartoons. In it, our russian leaders, who are obligatory featured in every cartoon riding a tandem bike, are never tired of new amazing adventures. Such as, for instance, putting out forest fires, finding bits of ancient cultures on the sea bed, testing new cars and submarines and much more. Sparkling humorous ideas are supplied by Tim Wall, the visual interpretation is by your humble servant. Here's some of the recent ones:

Cartoon for weekly Tandemocracy column, The Moscow News. Authors: Tim Wall, Zhenia Vasiliev

Soviet soldiers are welcomed by Colonel Joshua Chamberlain. For the Moscow News article by Mark Teeter.

Cartoon for The Moscow News, for the story by Mark Teeter.

For the Moscow News article by Olaf Koens.

Illustration that appeared in August issue of Zhenia’s Useful Desk Calendars.

For the Moscow News article by Olaf Koens.

For the Moscow News article by Olaf Koens.

For the Moscow News article by Vladimir Kozlov.

For the Moscow News article by Olaf Koens.

Беляки в генеральском собрании, Проходившем в Сибири, в изгнании, Утвердили прави- телем Русской земли Колчака, адмирала по званию.

До сих пор удивляюсь, как Верховным Правителем России генералы выбрали адмирала.
А. Дубровский, 2011

In a general meeting that was held in Siberia, in exile, White guards approved Kolchak, Admiral officer, for a head of Russian land (I still wonder how Russia's generals have chosen an admiral as supreme ruler)(makeshift translation of A. Dubrovski's poem).

A series of birthday cards goes on, today featuring Vitalik, a guitar player from Moscow's live trip-hop band Salto.

For the Moscow News article by Olaf Koens.

Russian film director Nikita Mikhalkov and two visions of Stalin. For the Moscow News article by Mark Teeter.

"History today" cartoon for The Moscow News story by Mark Teeter.

For Vladimir Kozlov's story at The Moscow News.

Славный Август из города Рима Был богами поддержан незримо. И тогда по рогам Надавал всем врагам Тот неистовый Август из Рима.

Воистину, завоевательная политика императора Октавиана Августа была впечатляющей.
А. Дубровский, 2011

Glorious August from the city of Rome Was supported by the invisible gods. And then by the horns Slapped he all his enemies That frenetic August of Rome (truly, aggressive policy of the emperor Octavian Augustus was impressive). (makeshift translation of A. Dubrovski's poem).

Great thank you to Natalia Skaloud, a PR Director of Obai and Hill, for getting me into the Sketchbook magazine's blog. A short interview with me appeared in their "Ilustrators 101" series:

Here's their Facebook page - be sure to like me there and help spread the word about this beautiful publication:

For the Moscow News article by Sara Buzadzhi.

For The Moscow News article by Mark Teeter - about how photos with Stalin and his comrades changed over the years, as they all disappeared (including from the photos).

Illustration that appeared in June issue of Zhenia’s Useful Desk Calendars.

About the movie "37-th novel", The Moscow News story by Mark Teeter.

For a great story by Olaf Koens, published in The Moscow News today.

Labels on the uniforms say: "doctor of science", "associate professor". The Moscow News story by Sara Buzadzhi.

Шуткой острой любил граф Кутузов Подразнить отступавших французов. «Бонапарт Напольон Съел с лягушкой бульон». Выдал как-то экспромтом Кутузов.

А. Дубровский, 2011

Prince Kutuzov liked to tease the retreating French with the acute joke. "Napoleon Bonaparte ate the soup with the frog. " Once he said impromptu. (makeshift translation of A. Dubrovski's poem).

Have a Happy May!

For an article by Mark Teeter, The Moscow News

For an article about the restaurant techniques of ordering a la carte.

On the theme of industrialised extraction of turf practised by peat companies.

У Гомера иссякли чернила, Когда он сочинял про Ахилла. И сказал он тогда, Вовсе то не беда: Ведь я слеп – ну зачем мне чернила!

А. Дубровский, 2011

Homer ran out of ink when he was writing about Achilles. But he said: "This is no trouble - as I'm a blind man anyway!"(makeshift translation of A. Dubrovski's poem).

A cartoon for a story about the friendly law enforcement in Moscow.

For a story about a guy, 50-something, who sold his home in the village and left Russia for Bulgaria (The Moscow News newspaper).

Знаменитый философ Сократ Был любого умней во сто крат. И за это народ (Горсть углей ему рот!) Повелел, чтобы умер Сократ.

А. Дубровский, 2011

Раздражение народа от поучений пытавшегося сделать его лучше Сократа вылилось в смертный приговор философу, по которому тот должен был выпить яд цикуты.

Prominent philosopher Socrates was smrter than anyone else. Because of that people ordered Socrates to die. (makeshift translation of A. Dubrovski's poem).

Tomorrow's cartoon is featuring this group of characters.

This is a work in progress over Predinex, a website which is all about online betting. Click on them to enlarge.

Here's some pages of High Peaks Venture Partners website which I re-designed between January and April 2011. Here's their current website, which may yet be the old version of design. Click on the previews to enlarge.

Character design for one of my cartoons about Fenimore Cooper-style indians.

I made some work for the Salto band today - a logo and a business card. They're playing some great trip-hop, folk, jazzy and jungle tunes:

This is funny and to the subject, there was an article about them the other day in The Moscow News, announcing their next gig in ArteFAQ, and the photo used on the website is one of their old ones, two years ago perhaps, with their (extremely talented!!!) singer Eva on the foreground and me hanging about in the background with my small keyboard (my short moment of glory!).

Photo by Ola Kleveta:

(с) KLE

Have a Happy April!

Bolivar finding a mushroom - second version.

INTRO. This new project of mine is illustrating a series of limericks written by a friend of mine, Andrey Dubrovski. The poems are in russian, so I will include a small makeshift translation of what's it about. To make it different from "Book of nonsense" I just finished, I will try to make them look different. Not sure how, but I know it's necessary, as the poetry is quite different. Stay tuned for more updates. This day's poem is about Simón Bolívar.

Боливар с берегов Рио-Бланки Из грибов собирал лишь поганки. Увидав мухомор, Он вскричал: «Что за вздор!» Экспрессивный сеньор с Рио-Бланки.

А. Дубровский, 2011

"Bolívar from the banks of Rio Blanco always gathered only poison mushrooms. When he saw fly agaric, he exclaimed, "What a rubbish!", that expressive señor of Rio Blanco.

Молодому мсье Бонапарту За обедом подсунули карту. И Европу тогда Съел он – словно еда Старый Свет был для Буонапарта.

А. Дубровский, 2011

Young monsieur Bonaparte was given a map of Europe during his dinner. And Europe he ate, as if it was his food! (makeshift translation of A. Dubrovski's poem).

Архимеду в порту Сиракуз Указали на стаи медуз, Обещав, если он Их не выгонит вон, Самого изгнать из Сиракуз.

А. Дубровский, 2011

Archimedes was shown flocks of jellyfishes in Syracuse's port, and was told to take them away, otherwise they will take him away instead (makeshift translation of A. Dubrovski's poem).

For an article about Spotify spreading its service to Russia, Billboard magazine.

There was a Young Lady of Clare, Who was sadly pursued by a bear; When she found she was tired, She abruptly expired, That unfortunate Lady of Clare.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man, on whose nose, Most birds of the air could repose; But they all flew away, At the closing of day, Which relieved that Old Man and his nose.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of Aosta, Who possessed a large Cow, but he lost her; But they said, "Don't you see, She has rushed up a tree? You invidious Old Man of Aosta!"

E.Lear, 1846

There was a Young Lady of Parma, Whose conduct grew calmer and calmer; When they said, "Are you dumb?" She merely said, "Hum!" That provoking Young Lady of Parma.

E.Lear, 1846

Here comes the magician on the blue helicopter, with an eskimo:

There was an Old Person of Ewell, Who chiefly subsisted on gruel; But to make it more nice, He inserted some mice, Which refreshed that Old Person of Ewell.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Person of Ems, Who casually fell in the Thames; And when he was found, They said he was drowned, That unlucky Old Person of Ems.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an old Person of Burton, Whose answers were rather uncertain; When they said, "How d'ye do?" He replied, "Who are you?" That distressing old person of Burton.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man at a casement, Who held up his hands in amazement; When they said, "Sir, you'll fall!" He replied, "Not at all!" That incipient Old Man at a casement.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Person of Sparta, Who had twenty-five sons and one daughter; He fed them on snails, And weighed them in scales, That wonderful person of Sparta.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Lady of Prague, Whose language was horribly vague; When they said, "Are these caps?" She answered, "Perhaps!" That oracular Lady of Prague.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of the Cape, Who possessed a large Barbary Ape; Till the Ape one dark night, Set the house on a light, Which burned that Old Man of the Cape.

E.Lear, 1846

There was a Young Girl of Majorca, Whose aunt was a very fast walker; She walked seventy miles, And leaped fifteen stiles, Which astonished that Girl of Majorca.

E.Lear, 1846

There was a Young Lady of Sweden, Who went by the slow train to Weedon; When they cried, "Weedon Station!" She made no observation, But thought she should go back to Sweden.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Person of Gretna, Who rushed down the crater of Etna; When they said, "Is it hot?" He replied, "No, it's not!" That mendacious Old Person of Gretna.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man with an owl, Who continued to bother and howl; He sate on a rail, And imbibed bitter ale, Which refreshed that Old Man and his owl.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an old Person of Chester, Whom several small children did pester; They threw some large stones, Which broke most of his bones, And displeased that old person of Chester.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Person of Tartary, Who divided his jugular artery; But he screeched to his wife, And she said, "Oh, my life! Your death will be felt by all Tartary!"

E.Lear, 1846

There was a Young Lady of Welling, Whose praise all the world was a-telling; She played on the harp, And caught several carp, That accomplished Young Lady of Welling.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Person of Cheadle, Was put in the stocks by the beadle; For stealing some pigs, Some coats, and some wigs, That horrible Person of Cheadle.

E.Lear, 1846

There was a Young Lady of Wales, Who caught a large fish without scales; When she lifted her hook, She exclaimed, "Only look!" That ecstatic Young Lady of Wales.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man, who said, "Well! Will NOBODY answer this bell? I have pulled day and night, Till my hair has grown white, But nobody answers this bell!"

E.Lear, 1846

There was a Young Lady of Russia, Who screamed so that no one could hush her; Her screams were extreme, No one heard such a scream, As was screamed by that Lady of Russia.

E.Lear, 1846

The book is finally here! Part One of Edward Lear's limericks "Book of Nonsense" (see some sample drawings here and in the news section) with my pen and ink drawings, with all respect to original illustrations by the author, to commemorate 200 years since his birth. The process of hand-making the book has proven itself to be rather lengthy, so from now on I'm still sending books through the mail, but also accept some donations, to cover postage, time to produce, etc. I hope to hear from you - drop me a line to my email. Here's some photos of how the book looks like:

There was an Old Person of Spain, Who hated all trouble and pain; So he sate on a chair, With his feet in the air, That umbrageous Old Person of Spain.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of Berlin, Whose form was uncommonly thin; Till he once, by mistake, Was mixed up in a cake, So they baked that Old Man of Berlin.

E.Lear, 1846

There was a Young Lady of Troy, Whom several large flies did annoy; Some she killed with a thump, Some she drowned at the pump, And some she took with her to Troy.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Person of Anerley, Whose conduct was strange and unmannerly; He rushed down the Strand, With a Pig in each hand, But returned in the evening to Anerley.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of the West, Who never could get any rest; So they set him to spin, On his nose find his chin, Which cured that Old Man of the West.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man with a beard, Who sat on a horse when he reared; But they said, "Never mind! You will fall off behind, You propitious Old Man with a beard!"

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Person of Bangor, Whose face was distorted with anger; He tore off his boots, And subsisted on roots, That borascible person of Bangor.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of the Coast, Who placidly sat on a post; But when it was cold, He relinquished his hold, And called for some hot buttered toast.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of Kamschatka, Who possessed a remarkably fat cur, His gait and his waddle, Were held as a model, To all the fat dogs in Kamschatka.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of the East, Who gave all his children a feast; But they all ate so much, And their conduct was such, That it killed that Old Man of the East.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man who said, " Hush! I perceive a young bird in this bush!" When they said--"Is it small?" He replied--"Not at all! It is four times as big as the bush!"

E.Lear, 1846

There was a Young Lady of Tyre, Who swept the loud chords of a lyre; At the sound of each sweep, She enraptured the deep, And enchanted the city of Tyre.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an old person of Dutton, Whose head was so small as a button; So to make it look big, He purchased a wig, And rapidly rushed about Dutton.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of Jamaica, Who suddenly married a Quaker; But she cried out--"O lack! I have married a black!" Which distressed that Old Man of Jamaica.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of the Hague, Whose ideas were excessively vague; He built a balloon, To examine the moon, That deluded Old Man of the Hague.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of Leghorn, The smallest as ever was born; But quickly snapt up he, Was once by a puppy, Who devoured that Old Man of Leghorn.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of Whitehaven, Who danced a quadrille with a Raven; But they said--"It's absurd, To encourage this bird!" So they smashed that Old Man of Whitehaven.

E.Lear, 1846

There was a Young Lady of Hull, Who was chased by a virulent Bull; But she seized on a spade, And called out--"Who's afraid!" Which distracted that virulent Bull.

E.Lear, 1846

The reverse of Punch and Judy!

Lenin's dog, Zhenka, was my namesake. This cartoon is for Mark Teeter's article which appeared in The Moscow News today, on Tuesday February the 8th. Click here to read the article.

There was an Old Man who said, "How,-- Shall I flee from this horrible Cow? I will sit on this stile, And continue to smile, Which may soften the heart of that Cow."

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man in a pew, Whose waistcoat was spotted with blue; But he tore it in pieces, To give to his nieces,-- That cheerful Old Man in a pew.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of Calcutta, Who perpetually ate bread and butter; Till a great bit of muffin, On which he was stuffing, Choked that horrid old man of Calcutta.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of Coblenz, The length of whose legs was immense; He went with one prance, From Turkey to France, That surprising Old Man of Coblenz.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man on some rocks, Who shut his wife up in a box; When she said, "Let me out," He exclaimed, "Without doubt, You will pass all your life in that box."

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Person of Tring, Who embellished his nose with a ring; He gazed at the moon, Every evening in June, That ecstatic Old Person of Tring.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of Dundee, Who frequented the top of a tree; When disturbed by the crows, He abruptly arose, And exclaimed, "I'll return to Dundee."

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of the Dee, Who was sadly annoyed by a flea; When he said, "I will scratch it," They gave him a hatchet, Which grieved that Old Man of the Dee.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Person of Troy, Whose drink was warm brandy and soy; Which he took with a spoon, By the light of the moon, In sight of the city of Troy.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Person of Cromer, Who stood on one leg to read Homer; When he found he grew stiff, He jumped over the cliff, Which concluded that Person of Cromer.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Person of Rheims, Who was troubled with horrible dreams; So, to keep him awake, They fed him with cake, Which amused that Old Person of Rheims.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of the Nile, Who sharpened his nails with a file; Till he cut off his thumbs, And said calmly, "This comes - Of sharpening one's nails with a file!"

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of the South, Who had an immoderate mouth; But in swallowing a dish, That was quite full of fish, He was choked, that Old Man of the South.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of Corfu, Who never knew what he should do; So he rushed up and down, Till the sun made him brown, That bewildered Old Man of Corfu.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Lady whose folly, Induced her to sit in a holly; Whereon by a thorn, Her dress being torn, She quickly became melancholy.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of Cape Horn, Who wished he had never been born; So he sat on a chair, Till he died of despair, That dolorous Man of Cape Horn.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of Vesuvius, Who studied the works of Vitruvius; When the flames burnt his book, To drinking he took, That morbid Old Man of Vesuvius.

E.Lear, 1846

Here's the cover for a lyric trip-hop compilation by Moscow-based label "Nenormzvuk" titled "Feeling ill on vacation":

Great thanks to the musicians and to Olya Kleveta for giving me the chance to draw for their cover!

There was an old Man of Bohemia, Whose daughter was christened Euphemia; Till one day, to his grief, She married a thief, Which grieved that old Man of Bohemia.

E.Lear, 1846

There was a Young Lady of Lucca, Whose lovers completely forsook her; She ran up a tree, And said, "Fiddle-de-dee!" Which embarassed the people of Lucca.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of Melrose, Who walked on the tips of his toes; But they said, "It ain't pleasant, To see you at present, You stupid Old Man of Melrose."

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of Peru, Who watched his wife making a stew; But once by mistake, In a stove she did bake, That unfortunate Man of Peru.

E.Lear, 1846

Restrained-range chicken.

There was an Old Person of Rhodes, Who strongly objected to toads; He paid several cousins, To catch them by dozens, That futile Old Person of Rhodes.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an old Man of th' Abruzzi, So blind that he couldn't his foot see; When they said, "That's your toe," He replied, "Is it so?" That doubtful old Man of th' Abruzzi.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man or Nepaul, From his horse had a terrible fall; But, though split quite in two, By some very strong glue, They mended that Man of Nepaul.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Person of Mold, Who shrank from sensations of cold; So he purchased some muffs, Some furs and some fluffs, And wrapped himself from the cold.

E.Lear, 1846

There was a Young Lady of Poole, Whose soup was excessively cool; So she put it to boil, By the aid of some oil, That ingenious Young Lady of Poole.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of the North, Who fell into a basin of broth; But a laudable cook, Fished him out with a hook, Which saved that Old Man of the North.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Person of Prague, Who was suddenly seized with the plague; But they gave him some butter, Which caused him to mutter, And cured that Old Person of Prague.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man with a poker, Who painted his face with red oker; When they said, "You're a Guy!" He made no reply, But knocked them all down with his poker.

E.Lear, 1846

- Excuse me. Could you tell us how to get to Buckingham Palace? - I'm searching for half-hour myself already...

There was an Old Man of Apulia, Whose conduct was very peculiar; He fed twenty sons, Upon nothing but buns, That whimsical Man of Apulia.

E.Lear, 1846

There was a Young Lady of Turkey, Who wept when the weather was murky; When the day turned out fine, She ceased to repine, That capricious Young Lady of Turkey.

E.Lear, 1846

There was a Young Lady whose nose, Was so long that it reached to her toes; So she hired an Old Lady, Whose conduct was steady, To carry that wonderful nose.

E.Lear, 1846

There was a Young Lady of Bute, Who played on a silver-gilt flute; She played several jigs, To her uncle's white pigs, That amusing Young Lady of Bute.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Person of Philae, Whose conduct was scroobious and wily; He rushed up a Palm, When the weather was calm, And observed all the ruins of Philae.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of Quebec, A beetle ran over his neck; But he cried, "With a needle, I'll slay you, O beadle!" That angry Old Man of Quebec.

E.Lear, 1846

"What's going on? Haven't you heard the new resolutions?"

New arrests were the answer to a peaceful vigil held by the supporters of former deputy premier Boris Nemzov.
Latter, and some other opposition activists were taking part in the New Year's Eve demonstrations, which were the latest in a series of demos held by protesters on the 31st of a calendar month, in reference to Article 31 of the Russian constitution which guarantees the freedom of assembly. // source

There was an Old Person of Basing, Whose presence of mind was amazing; He purchased a steed, Which he rode at full speed, And escaped from the people of Basing.

E.Lear, 1846

Oil? What oil? Everyone's been using solar batteries for the last 50 years!

There was an Old Person of Cadiz, Who was always polite to all ladies; But in handing his daughter, He fell into the water, Which drowned that Old Person of Cadiz.

E.Lear, 1846

Online version of Mousecity comic column for The Moscow News is massively updated with 17 more short stories about good bulldog Sharik and his friends.

There was an Old Man of Marseilles, Whose daughters wore bottle-green veils; They caught several Fish, Which they put in a dish, And sent to their Pa at Marseilles.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an old person of Dover, Who rushed through a field of blue Clover; But some very large bees, Stung his nose and his knees, So he very soon went back to Dover.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Person whose habits, Induced him to feed upon Rabbits; When he'd eaten eighteen, He turned perfectly green, Upon which he relinquished those habits.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of Vienna, Who lived upon Tincture of Senna; When that did not agree, He took Camomile Tea, That nasty Old Man of Vienna.

E.Lear, 1846

There was a Young Lady of Norway, Who casually sat in a doorway; When the door squeezed her flat, She exclaimed, "What of that?" This courageous Young Lady of Norway.

E.Lear, 1846

There was a Young Lady whose eyes, Were unique as to colour and size; When she opened them wide, People all turned aside, And started away in surprise.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of the Wrekin, Whose shoes made a horrible creaking; But they said, "Tell us whether, Your shoes are of leather, Or of what, you Old Man of the Wrekin?"

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of the West, Who wore a pale plum-coloured vest; When they said, "Does it fit?" He replied, "Not a bit!" That uneasy Old Man of the West.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man who supposed, That the street door was partially closed; But some very large rats, Ate his coats and his hats, While that futile old gentleman dozed.

E.Lear, 1846

"Baseball bats enjoy great popularity in Moscow, although this sport is not very widespread in the capital. Sports stores rarely have baseball balls or gloves, but bats are always presented in wide variety of sizes." // source

There was a young Lady of Dorking, Who bought a large bonnet for walking; But its colour and size, So bedazzled her eyes, That she very soon went back to Dorking.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of Columbia, Who was thirsty, and called out for some beer; But they brought it quite hot, In a small copper pot, Which disgusted that man of Columbia.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Person of Buda, Whose conduct grew ruder and ruder; Till at last, with a hammer, They silenced his clamour, By smashing that Person of Buda.

E.Lear, 1846

Undelivered message returned to sender. Failed to deliver to the following recipients:...

There was an Old Man of the Isles, Whose face was pervaded with smiles; He sung high dum diddle, And played on the fiddle, That amiable Man of the Isles.

E.Lear, 1846

There was a Young person of Crete, Whose toilette was far from complete; She dressed in a sack, Spickle-speckled with black, That ombliferous person of Crete.

E.Lear, 1846

I wonder what "ombliferous" could mean...?

My blog was featured at a Guide to Art Schools website among the other "50 Excellent Drawing Blogs". Kind regards and thanks to Cate Newton!

There was an Old Person of Hurst, Who drank when he was not athirst; When they said, "You'll grow fatter," He answered, "What matter?" That globular Person of Hurst.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of Peru, Who never knew what he should do; So he tore off his hair, And behaved like a bear, That intrinsic Old Man of Peru.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Person of Leeds, Whose head was infested with beads; She sat on a stool, And ate gooseberry fool, Which agreed with that person of Leeds.

E.Lear, 1846

Wasn't quite sure what "beads" means... so decided to put a hat on her....

There was an Old Man of Madras, Who rode on a cream-coloured ass; But the length of its ears, So promoted his fears, That it killed that Old Man of Madras.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man of Moldavia, Who had the most curious behaviour; For while he was able, He slept on a table, That funny Old Man of Moldavia.

E.Lear, 1846

There was a Young lady of Portugal, Whose ideas were excessively nautical; She climbed up a tree, To examine the sea, But declared she would never leave Portugal.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man in a boat, Who said, "I'm afloat! I'm afloat!" When they said, "No! you ain't!" He was ready to faint, That unhappy Old Man in a boat.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Person of Ischia, Whose conduct grew friskier and friskier; He danced hornpipes and jigs, And ate thousands of figs, That lively Old Person of Ischia.

E.Lear, 1846

How this bird is called? Unknown yet...

There was an Old Man of Kilkenny, Who never had more than a penny; He spent all that money, In onions and honey, That wayward Old Man of Kilkenny.

E.Lear, 1846

There was a Young Lady whose chin, Resembled the point of a pin: So she had it made sharp, And purchased a harp, And played several tunes with her chin.

E.Lear, 1846

Welcome everyone and bring your friends! Now the address is approved - that's the same awesome place where the illustrators' "Autumn Lig" took place a month or so ago.

There was an Old Man with a flute, A sarpint ran into his boot; But he played day and night, Till the sarpint took flight, And avoided that man with a flute.

E.Lear, 1846

Great news is that my work can now be seen at 56 stuff's Throes of Art Illustrated, a collaborative project which is now online!

There was an Old Man in a tree, Who was horribly bored by a Bee; When they said, "Does it buzz?" He replied, "Yes, it does! "It's a regular brute of a Bee!"

E.Lear, 1846

Hmm, I'm sure there were no snowfalls for today...

There was an Old Lady of Chertsey, Who made a remarkable curtsey; She twirled round and round, Till she sunk underground, Which distressed all the people of Chertsey.

E.Lear, 1846

So Russia gets the 2018 World Cup. Just think: terrible communications, lousy food, bad hotels, awful service, ludicrous prices and an aggressive drinking culture – thank goodness England didn't win. // Simon Hoggart's week, The Guardian, Dec.5 2010

There was an Old Man with a gong, Who bumped at it all the day long; But they called out, "O law! You"re a horrid old bore!" So they smashed that Old Man with a gong.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Person of Chili, Whose conduct was painful and silly; He sate on the stairs, Eating apples and pears, That imprudent Old Person of Chili.

E.Lear, 1846

There was a Young Person of Smyrna, Whose Grandmother threatened to burn her; But she seized on the Cat, And said, "Granny, burn that! "You incongruous Old Woman of Smyrna!"

E.Lear, 1846

Here's the one from a couple of days ago, for Olaf's story about a girl who's a fan of Josip Broz Tito. I did my best to get the face right, as it's crucial for the picture. I also wrote his name below with small letters, just in case...

Second step of learning is also not very productive: a student is supposed to copy the ready-made formulas without understanding the way they work.

There was a Young Lady whose bonnet, Came untied when the birds sate upon it; But she said, "I don't care! All the birds in the air Are welcome to sit on my bonnet!"

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man on a hill, Who seldom, if ever, stood still; He ran up and down, In his Grandmother's gown, Which adorned that Old Man on a hill.

E.Lear, 1846

There was an Old Man with a nose, Who said, "If you choose to suppose, That my nose is too long, You are certainly wrong!" That remarkable Man with a nose.

E.Lear, 1846

There are three methods of learning. The first - and the least pleasant and outdated one - is when the teacher makes you learn something by heart without understanding.

There was a Young Lady of Ryde,Whose shoe-strings were seldom untied; She purchased some clogs, And some small spotty dogs, And frequently walked about Ryde.

E.Lear, 1846

Hooray! The first snow hit the ground this morning. Now it's going to start all over, again.

There was an Old Man with a beard, Who said, "It is just as I feared!-- Two Owls and a Hen, Four Larks and a Wren, Have all built their nests in my beard!"

E.Lear, 1846

I picked this book for the second time (the first time I only looked at the pictures), now I wanted to read about Grosz' life, and also about the time he lived in. And there was a lot going on in Germany between 1893 and 1959, I must tell you.

Pascale Mira Tschaeni & Michael Husmann Tschaeni won this years Illustrative Young Illustrators Award - two illustrators from Switzerland are having a unique expressive style. Congrats!

A funny-looking bird came down my street today and asked if anyone had a birthday. Why, I sent it to Moscow straigth away! Happy birthday, Katerina!

Billboard magazine

"I forgot to use the suntan lotion and burned as a lobster" (russian colloquial expression)

Today's cartoon was about the Mikhail Beketov, a violently beaten up (and mutilated!) journalist who suffered for doing his job. Story by Olaf Koens, photograph is from RIA Novosti archive :

After two years of painful reviving he hopes recent beatings of Oleg Kashin will attract public attention to problem of violence against journalists.

Highlights from the "Honza's New Car" 12-spread children's book I created during my course at Kingston Uni. The book was highly commended at Macmillan children's books competition in London in May 2010. Here's a link to the full book on Issuu.

Highlights from the “Killing Time” 12-spread book I created during my course at Kingston Uni in February 2010.