Two frame movie for Cardiff

chalk drawings

Drawing on the sea wall in Margate with chalk that had washed up on the beach.

Two frame movie 2011

A mail art project posted to two friends; a two-frame movie of my hand. Please play the animation below.

Rupert Blanchard's first chair design book

Rupert Blanchard's first chair design book "will be released during the London design festival 2011, focusing on an incomplete look at his collection of tubular steel 'pel' chairs to accompany an exhibition of selected exhibits from his chair collection at Leila's Cafe in Calvert Avenue, Shoreditch, where you get a chance to read the book, try out a chair while enjoying a drink and something to eat; the perfect place for a design festival pit-stop..." there's a lovely photo-animation of some of the chairs on his blog too - play my drawn animation above

Peacock prints for 129 Gallery, Berlin

The 100 prints from my study of a peacock walking will be exhibited at 129 Gallery in Berlin from 11th August until 11th September 2011 as part of the Multiplicity exhibition. Each print is available to buy - please contact 129 Gallery for more information 129gallery@gmail.com

The 100 13 cm x 10.5 cm prints are hand printed onto my favourite carbonless receipt paper. I drew the peacock from the biopic Frida, 2002 and had to draw the peacock 20 times so that it carried through to all 100 sheets of carbonless paper. Each time I drew it it was slightly different and all 100 sheets animate the peacock in motion when played in sequence (as seen above).

The piece was inspired by Pervinder and Richard Khaira-Creswell's wedding on 3rd July 2011- I had a lovely day thank you for inviting me.

Gene Kelly's umbrella, Singin' in the Rain for Fox & Co.

I'm very sad to see Fox & Co. on London Wall has closed after 143 years trading. As someone who owns over 50 umbrellas I always fancied going in there one day and buying a bespoke umbrella. The film above is drawn from Singin' in the Rain, 1952 and shows Gene Kelly's umbrella which he throws into the air and catches again whilst singing and dancing in the milky rain.

Help! A Tiger, 2011 Part 2

An 'un-posted' project drawn from Help! and posted today to coincide with the end of The Year of the Tiger. The 'inky' sequence was drawn in 2009 using water-soluble pencils and reminds me of Matisse's painting of fish in a bowl on a table. Play the brief animation below.

Help! A Tiger, 2011 Part 1

Tomorrow is the 3rd February 2011 and so there are only a few hours left in the Year of the Tiger and I'm finally posting an 'un-posted' project which was drawn from The Beatles' 1965 film Help! on some of my origami envelopes. When the tiger makes an appearance (with Ringo Starr) a subtitle appears saying simply 'A Tiger'. I like finding animals in unexpected films from my collection and this sighting and subsequent study is a further homage to Eadweard Muybridge's Animals in Locomotion series and a continuation of my Moving drawings. I drew the sequence of 12 stills after reading about the horrific murder of Sumatran Tiger Sheila at Jambi Zoo in Indonesia in August 2009. Sheila was part of a conservation program run by the Zoological Society of London. She was drugged and skinned in her cage at the zoo by poachers who, it seems, were motivated by the trade in animal parts for use in Chinese medicine. Please play the looped movie below.

Homing Pigeon, Little Voice 2010

On the 11th May I walked up the hill to work and released 21 drawings of a homing pigeon into the post box. On the 17th May they arrived home, stamped Mount Pleasant. The 21 drawings were taken from the 1998 film Little Voice as part of a new project that I have started which is inspired by Roland Penrose's portrait of Lee Miller in which he gave her birds instead of hands. Please play the movie below to see the full sequence.

Hear The Echo, 2010

Hear The Echo, 2010 is a postal project for an audience of sixteen. It's 16 drawings of a horse from the 1961 movie The Misfits on 16 folded envelopes. Hear The Echo is named after one of five horses who died after last year's Grand National race at Aintree 2009. The piece is dedicated to them. The BBC are covering the race this week (10th April 2010) and I urge them to show the deaths of any racehorses during their coverage instead of covering it up. Better still don't show the race at all.

This mini exhibition, screened on 16 envelopes for 16 places and 16 people, will hopefully pass through many hands - postal workers, studio assistants, gallery workers, publishers and those that live at the addresses I've chosen. I hope none of you mind this letter - I didn't think there was any harm in it. In fact I rather like post - it gives me hope. And I hope these envelopes reach their destinations.

You are Tracey Emin, Sian Emmison, Simon Faithfull, David Osbaldeston, Sophie Calle, Paul Auster, David Bellos et Georges Perec, Hannah Waldron, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Gwen John, Lee Miller, Francis Bacon, Mrs Beatrix Heelis, Vincent Van Gogh and Joseph Cornell. I hope you like it. I like the way you work.

I particularly liked One Thousand Drawings, Surrey Girl with a Sparkle, Half-life palm-pilot drawings via email, The Pleasure of Your Company, Talking to Strangers, The Book of Illusions, Life: A User's Manual, Rain Day, your drawings of surgeons and your garden, your sheep sketchbook, your self-portrait with an umbrella and an empty chair, your work as war correspondent and your courage, your triptych paintings (movies in 3 frames), your beautiful books, the letters you wrote to Theo, and finally, the way you collected momentos - 'preferring the ticket to the trip, the postcard to the place' (from Sparkings, Adam Gopnik). If only the quality of my film was better.

Bear Skin Queen, 2009

Folded envelopes never posted but intended as comment on bear skin hats worn by the Queen's toy soldiers.

To find a tree and watch it grow, 2009

Georges Perec's Some of the Things I Really Must Do Before I Die featured at number 33, 'Plant a tree, and watch it grow'. From my window at work from March 2008 to March 2009 I drew the only tree that I could see on the envelopes that were sent to me. The drawing above was drawn in March 2009. See the movie below for the complete animated sequence of drawings.

A Study of a Henry Moore Dressing Gown in Motion, 2009

Detail from recently framed piece A Study of a Henry Moore Dressing Gown in Motion 2009 (They Made Me A Fugitive, 1947)

My sequence of 57 drawings documents a Henry Moore fabric in motion. In 1946 Moore was commissioned to produce designs for Ascher headscarves. His barbed wire design was used to

make a dressing gown which was worn by actor Sally Gray in the 1947 film They Made Me a Fugitive. The gown is worn in a scene in which Gray's character is beaten and falls to the floor.

Mystery Portrait Gala, March 2009

Mystery Portrait no. 41. Portrait of Rupert for the Mystery Portrait Gala at the National Portrait Gallery, 3rd March 2009.

Visit http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/news2/the-portrait-gala1/mystery-portrait-postcards-sold.php to see the other portraits that sold.

Fred Astaire Beat Time, 2007

Projecting my animated drawings of Fred Astaire dancing his sock solo A Needle in a Haystack from The Gay Divorcee, 1934 amongst the furniture in the warehouse.