365 Days

Day 365

2010-12-31T20:44:00.005Z

Hello! So this is the very last post that I'm going to make on this blog. Oh no! Fear not though - feel free to keep up to date with my latest goings on (though not quite so regular as everyday, I expect) over on my NEW BLOG - I'd really appreciate it if people would continue to follow my work over there. For now though - here is a recap of this year - from Day 1 to Day 365! (feel free to add your own soundtrack)

I would like to say a massive thankyou to everyone who has followed/commented on/looked at/got involved with this blog this year - it really means a lot to have had so much support from such a wide range of folks. This has been a brilliant exercise for my drawing - it's quite strange to look back at what I was producing 12 months ago to the work I've been making recently.

2011 is going to be good. Lots of exciting things to be a-happening. Right now, I think I might have a massive drink. Cheers!

(I've just realised how appalling the quality of this video has become, sorry about that but blogger wouldn't let me upload anything bigger. I've now put it on Youtube - as you can see! - watch it bigger over there like. Ha! What an anti-climax.)

Day 364

2010-12-30T19:38:00.001Z

1 day left!

I will be making these bear drawings into a little book soon. A book of bears. Yes.

Day 363

2010-12-29T22:35:00.001Z

Really sorry! Back to usual tomorrow. For now, this is a little sketch for a possible poster design.

Day 362

2010-12-28T23:46:00.002Z

This is shit, I know, sorry. Can't currently use the scanner at home as everything's broken. This is a project that (hopefully, having some stupid issues that are stupid and need to be sorted soon) you will get to see next year. Got to see the, always lovely, Jane Richardson today where we did the planning of said project, until the stupid issues arose. It'll be fine. I'm sure.

Day 361

2010-12-27T22:00:00.002Z

Oops! Might have accidentally had 2 days off. I do apologise, Christmas consumed me - or rather I consumed Christmas. So very, very full. Anyway - I hope everyone has had a lovely, festive few days and continues to do so!

Day 358

2010-12-24T18:11:00.002Z

Myself and the puppy would like to wish you all a very happy Christmas. And a very big thankyou to everyone who has followed/commented on/looked at this blog this year - it really means a lot to have had so much support. I'll save the roundup for the end of the year though, as typing this is preventing me from having food and/or drink in my hands. Happy Holidays everyone! Hope you have a lovely festive season!

Probably won't be posting anything here tomorrow. I think that's fair.

Day 357

2010-12-24T00:05:00.001Z

I am back in York for Christmas with the folks! Here's a doodle from the train.

Day 356

2010-12-23T01:09:00.004Z

Got into the print room today to print up the grey layer for these test prints. I don't know - you know that feeling when you spend too long on something and you don't really achieve what you wanted and it all seems like a little bit of a waste of time? I'll figure something out to make it work.

Drawing bears is much easier...

Day 355

2010-12-22T02:09:00.000Z

Day 354

2010-12-21T01:16:00.003Z

I was featured on Etsy today! Been quite excited about it for a few days and I'm a little overwhelmed at the response - it's a very nice feeling. Have a look at the interview here

Day 353

2010-12-20T00:53:00.002Z

This is part of my present for my twitter Secret Santa. Sorry that this is a photo, I currently have a keyboard (the musical kind) using my scanner cable.

Day 352

2010-12-19T00:07:00.002Z

I didn't draw these...

Day 351

2010-12-17T23:43:00.000Z

This probably doesn't look that exciting but, believe me, it holds much promise.

Day 350

2010-12-16T23:09:00.002Z

Got into the print room today to do some tests. You'll have to excuse the dodgy phone pictures. These are quite bright as, for tests, I was using process colours - the real things will be much less garish. They'll also have another, detail layer on which I wasn't able to do as there were no screens available. I know. However - I am surprised and pleased with them. Maybe they'll be good. Probably won't be able to do the actual finished prints now until next year as I need to order paper and the print room shall be closed. So it will not appear on this blog! I suppose you'll just have to follow whatever comes after this...

Day 349

2010-12-15T23:37:00.002Z

I've finally finished all 4 of these separations! I'm pretty sure they are what have made me feel as ill as I do right now as well - too much inhalation of masking fluid. Now to just print them...

Day 348

2010-12-15T01:54:00.001Z

Day 347

2010-12-14T01:40:00.002Z

Another bear. Same reasoning as yesterday.

Day 346

2010-12-13T01:25:00.003Z

Here is a bear. I've been getting extremely frustrated with these screenprint preparations (turns out the way that I'm trying to achieve them is actually really hard - and tedious - and annoying - and I don't know whether I'm capable of doing it how I want to. I'll keep at it though, for some reason) so I wanted to do something else. Also, this blog would get pretty dull if I kept just showing the small amount of progress I was making with them. Hence the bear.

Check out this injustice to the ever-lovely Sandra Dieckmann. Not on.

Day 345

2010-12-12T00:08:00.002Z

I do apologise that this is all I have to upload, but I realised that, whilst I have been busy recently, I hadn't done any Uni work in a few days so I've been working on this. It actually looks like a step back from last time. I ensure you it's not.

I was also making a couple of new items to add to my shop today. Such as this book and these prints.

Day 344

2010-12-11T00:35:00.002Z

Spent today sorting out a few more bits to add to my shop. Will hopefully have them photographed properly and listed tomorrow.

Today was also a very good news day, but you will find out about this in due course.

Day 343

2010-12-10T01:32:00.001Z

Some penguins for my excellent friend, Sarah.

Day 342

2010-12-09T00:21:00.002Z

Went out last night in the beautiful light to take some photos that seemed just right.

Day 341

2010-12-08T00:41:00.002Z

This is what Cheltenham was today -

Day 340

2010-12-07T01:09:00.001Z

Day 339

2010-12-05T23:44:00.001Z

Day 338

2010-12-05T02:13:00.001Z

Day 337

2010-12-03T23:46:00.002Z

I should probably apologise for the lateness of my finishing this. This was requested by my excellent friend for her birthday on 10th November. I may have only just finished it. It is quite nice though - bit different to the usual. I've already apologised to you but sorry again and I hope you like it, Sally!

Day 336

2010-12-02T23:43:00.002Z

Today I got to have a play with some microscopic camera equipment in the biosciences department of Uni as part of my ongoing research into fractals and such. I felt a little foolish sat on my own 'Ooo'-ing at rocks and leaves while people around me kept saying the words 'analyse' and 'data' over and over. You'd think they'd know by now that's what they do, without feeling the need to keep telling each other. I liked it a lot. There will be definitely be more.

Day 335

2010-12-02T01:48:00.002Z

An alpaca contemplating a poorly constructed icosidodecahedron for Paz López. I know you only requested an alpaca but he looked like he was thinking about something pretty important. Happy Birthday (for yesterday, now) and hope you like it!

Visited the exceptional Sandra Dieckmann today. There was cheese and animals and music and all the hot drinks and nice times were had. If you're not already familiar with her work (I'm sure the majority of the people reading this already are) then definitely have a look at her work. She's rather good and a particularly excellent person as well.

Day 334

2010-12-01T00:41:00.000Z

Day 333

2010-11-29T21:56:00.002Z

You'll have to bear with me today as I have been unwell and have not been able to produce anything new at all today. Bad isn't it? However, here is a recent sketchbook page to make up for it.

I could have lied.

Day 332

2010-11-29T00:29:00.002Z

A sketch. Of the future. Oooo.

Day 331

2010-11-27T17:33:00.002Z

November's mixtape for the Mixtape project.

Day 330

2010-11-27T00:27:00.003Z

I now have an etsy shop! Have a look at it over here - http://www.etsy.com/shop/JamieMilk for prints, books and all sorts of things (not quite 'all sorts' yet but you never know what the future may bring)

Very excited to finally have it all set up, hopefully people are interested enough to want to buy my work. Made this owl concertina -y-thing to put in there as well from last month's mixtape. Turns out it works quite nicely as a little object.

BUY MY THINGS

Day 329

2010-11-26T01:31:00.002Z

Day 328

2010-11-24T22:44:00.001Z

Here's the screenprinted version of yesterday's post. It's quite interesting. Not right though - but it was only a test. It does intrigue me.

Day 327

2010-11-23T23:53:00.002Z

This is a test for some CMYK screenprints I'm hoping to achieve before Christmas (not sure whether this will be doable though). All hand-drawn/textured on separate layers of drawing film, scanned in and colours altered on photoshop for now until I can get to some screenprinting facilities to try it out properly. Kind of promising...

Day 326

2010-11-22T23:56:00.000Z

Day 325

2010-11-22T01:34:00.002Z

Picked the giveaway winner yesterday (my good friend picked a number at random for me) so a big congratulations to Beatriz Torres who will be receiving some goodies as soon as I send them and they make their way to Spain! Thanks to everyone who entered and thanks for the lovely comments people posted - it means a lot to hear your encouragement!

For now, I sleep.

Day 324

2010-11-21T00:52:00.001Z

Day 323

2010-11-20T00:21:00.001Z

Day 322

2010-11-19T00:01:00.002Z

An experiment.

Just so you know, the giveaway - as of about 3 minutes ago - is now closed. Thanks and good luck to all who have entered, I'll do a random draw in the next few days to see who the winner is!

Day 321

2010-11-17T19:50:00.001Z

Day 320

2010-11-16T14:12:00.003Z

Trying to explore the fractal form of natural structures. Photos taken with a Hasselblad - a very purdy camera.

Day 319

2010-11-16T01:06:00.000Z

Day 318

2010-11-15T00:48:00.000Z

Don't forget about the giveaway, folks!

Day 316 & 317

2010-11-14T00:10:00.003Z

Yesterday evening was very good. Myself and 5 incredible artists (Sandra Dieckmann, Erd Yankigun, Murray Somerville, Natsuki Otani and Thom Bates) partook (this is a good word) in some live drawing at the Ballad Of Nanny Floff magazine launch. It was a really nice night and our wall looked pretty good by the end of it!

I've nabbed these photos from the Ballad Of facebook page, you can see more HERE. If I can find any more I'll post them on here also.

I'd like to thank the Ballad Of ladies and Erd for asking me to get involved - it was a real privilege to meet and work alongside such talented folk and perhaps we could be doing something again in the future!

Also, this counts as 2 days because today, apparently, hasn't existed. Travelling and strange things.

Day 315

2010-11-12T02:27:00.002Z

I shan't be blogging tomorrow as I will be attending, and doing some live drawing with some amazing illustrators, at the Ballad Of Nanny Floff launch event at Jaguar Shoes in London. If you're around you should definitely come down - it's going to be a very good evening! Lots of nice times to be had. Having a bit of a late night making things to take down with me. Hopefully I won't be ruined.

Day 314

2010-11-11T02:12:00.001Z

Don't forget about my GIVEAWAY.

Day 313 Giveaway!

2010-11-10T00:10:00.007Z

Hello! To mark reaching 10,000 views on this blog and because I want to, it's time for a giveaway!

One lucky person will receive a package of delightful goods from myself, print, books and whatever I can find that I think someone will enjoy. Here's a preview of a book that you could have a chance of winning -

This is also kind of to tie in with the fact that I'm very close to opening up an online shop, so whatever you receive you'll get before anyone else can purchase it online - how very exciting!

I'll keep it very simple to enter, all you've got to do is;

1) Follow this blog
2) Leave a comment below (whatever you fancy, just make sure that I can access your email address somewhere so that I can contact the winner)

I'll pick a winner at random after entries close at Midnight (GMT) next Thursday (18th).

Yeah! Good luck! Also, please enter otherwise the comments section will look very sad. As will my face.

Day 312

2010-11-09T00:44:00.001Z

Day 311

2010-11-08T01:52:00.000Z

Pretty incomprehensible idea.

Day 310

2010-11-06T19:37:00.001Z

www.jamie-mills.com

Day 309

2010-11-05T17:35:00.002Z

Some photos taken in the Natural History Museum a couple of days ago.

Day 308

2010-11-04T19:04:00.001Z

Day 307

2010-11-04T03:06:00.001Z

Day 306

2010-11-03T00:29:00.001Z

Some test prints for this book. Very nice paper. Hopefully will be purchasing tomorrow.

Day 305

2010-11-01T18:21:00.002Z

Very nearly on 10,000 views! Thanks very much everyone (anyone)!

To mark this most monumental of occasions I will be doing one of these giveaway things that people seem so very keen on, soon. Watch this space...

Day 304

2010-11-01T01:24:00.000Z

Day 303

2010-10-30T19:55:00.003+01:00

Halloween time. My friend Felipe is going as a sleazy Mexican (when, in fact, he is actually a sleazy Brazilian - imagine that!) and he wanted a Mexican skull tattooed on his throat. He got it.

Day 302

2010-10-30T00:27:00.001+01:00

Day 301

2010-10-28T21:10:00.001+01:00

Finished mixtape packaging. All concertina 'n' stuff. Apparently this is as big as I can upload it...

Day 300

2010-10-28T02:48:00.002+01:00

Day 300?! Oh My. Not long now.

Met some lovely folk this evening but it's late so I'll say more tomorrow. Probably no real need to mention it now then really...

Day 299

2010-10-27T00:40:00.002+01:00

Beginnings of my mixtape packaging for this month.

Day 298

2010-10-26T00:37:00.000+01:00

Day 297

2010-10-25T02:47:00.001+01:00

Day 296

2010-10-24T00:56:00.000+01:00

Day 295

2010-10-23T16:21:00.002+01:00

[Apologies for this only being uploaded now, having some frustrating internet issues - hopefully our landlord will sort it soon. Another post to come later today. I did write this out yesterday though, about 2:30AM so apologies again if it's strange.]

A story for today -

This evening I went to a bar to meet some friends and have a drink. This hasn't happened in a while as, in general, places like this make me feel a little strange/uncomfortable (too many people, not enough air) and after a drink and some nice chat, I left for home, alone, as I wanted to do some work before bed and the walls were on me.

I was having a rather pleasant stroll home until, not 10 houses away from my own, on the corner of my street I notice a man asleep half on the curb, half in the road. Face in the concrete and arm bent peculiarly underneath him. Shit, I thought, I suppose I'm going to have to deal with this. After spending about 5 minutes trying to wake the man up, and considering phoning an ambulance or something (I don't know...) I finally managed to obtain an unimpressed grunt from him. Another 5 minutes later and he was sat up. My slumbering friend was clearly not in a good state, there were definitely things other than alcohol coursing through his system. I could tell this, not just from the substances surrounding his mouth or nose or his general demeanour but also from his insistence on knowing whether I had any coke/wanted any coke or could obtain him any coke. We were mates though, as he kept reminding me.

After some nice chat about the state of the economy, what I did, what he did, what my parents did, where we were, something about apprenticeships being the best way for a person to learn a trade, his inability to tell me where he lived so that I could help him home and my inability to roll him a satisfactory cigarette (which led him to believe that I was 'bent', though he then went on to let me know how handsome I was - the hypocrite) a group of unpleasant children came past. It was difficult, but I managed to stop him fighting the children and their appearance had erected him to his feet - which was a plus. We started walking. He reminds me of how handsome I am and how much of a good guy I am. I graciously accept his compliments. At one point he states that he bets that this will probably never happen to me again - I say hopefully not - we both laugh.

We decide that it would probably be best for him to stay with his mate (not me, though we are mates) this evening, so we walk (ish) in the direction of his mate's house. How accurate this direction is, I do not know. We come across one of the children from earlier, the child is a wanker. Also, the child does not have any cigarettes, Es, coke or pills - this makes him even more of a wanker.

Things take a much darker turn as we walk further towards his friends house (and further away from my own) as Owen (this is his name, but I can call him Ow, pronounced Oh, because we are mates) begins to tell me about his friend that died last year. What started out as a slightly amusing situation becomes much more emotionally scarring when he tells me about his friend's problems with addiction which eventually led to his death. He asks me whether I believe in God, I tell him no, he agrees. He is close to tears for a while. I wish for him not to cry and consider just running away.

Eventually we reach a point where I have given up hope of ever finding a house to drop him off at, and he seems much more coherent and happy to carry on his journey alone to his mates house (which is just at the end of this road). This seems like it is probably a suitable time for me depart. I am reminded again how handsome I am and that I am a nice guy. We will probably never see each other again - I say hopefully not - we both laugh. We exchange goodbyes, Owen kisses my hand and we go our separate ways. I run home and scrub my hand with a brillo pad.

Day 294

2010-10-21T22:19:00.003+01:00

Pretty much my crotch.

I've got nothing to hide.

(lolz)

Day 293

2010-10-20T19:55:00.003+01:00

I done did the finishing of a drawing. Given that I haven't uploaded a finished image in a while, and I am quite pleased with this one, I thought I'd share. This is a page from a mini-book, of which I only have a few more pages to draw, which hopefully I will have printed and available to purchase within the next few weeks. This was done on an A3 sheet of paper - hence the amount of time it took to complete. Yes.

Day 292

2010-10-20T00:50:00.002+01:00

So I didn't finish it today. Though I have got my brand-spanking-new, 1.5" bigger than before, iMac up and (almost fully) running. I'm still a little bit suspicious of it though.

Day 291

2010-10-18T22:39:00.006+01:00

My what a lovely picture you have taken on your phone.

If I get this finished tomorrow (hopefully) I might show the whole picture, seen as I haven't put anything finished up here in a while.

Day 287, 288, 289 and 290

2010-10-17T23:50:00.002+01:00

Hello. For the last few days I have been in Manchester, visiting my incredible friends Jane and Rowan. I've had a very nice time, but have returned to a slightly ridiculous workload that I will not go into.

We went to Jane's college and a nice outsider art exhibition and saw some taxidermy (only birds as others were being re-homed) and ate too much food and walked a lot and played ball till our hand's bled and saw a man in a bag and played with some rats and didn't buy a Big Issue and listened to a fat, drunk man whistle 'Paradise City' then almost die and played some tense, avant-garde music and listened to Jazz and watched an audience with Celine Dion. It was all very good.

Day 286

2010-10-13T22:09:00.003+01:00

When this is all drawn out properly and shaded in I think it might be one of the most complex things I've ever drawn. How very exciting.

I will be traveling to Stockport tomorrow to visit my good friends Jane and Rowan. I will not be returning until Sunday, so it is highly unlikely that I will be updating for the next few days - for this I apologise. If it makes it any better, I'm planning on having a very nice time.

Day 285

2010-10-12T23:56:00.002+01:00

Day 284

2010-10-11T19:28:00.003+01:00

Something a little different today, joined in with a life drawing class (the model was fully clothed though, I think they were learning about costume or something, she had a very strong jaw) which I haven't done any of in a while. Kind of didn't do it properly and just drew her face. Quite nice to work a bit looser than how I have been for, what seems to be, months and months.

Day 283

2010-10-10T23:56:00.000+01:00

Errrrrr...

Ok then.

Day 282

2010-10-10T00:04:00.002+01:00

Got the background done for Sandra's beautiful elephant. Little bit scrappy and needs some tidying up and a better scan but I'm fairly happy with it, hope she is as well!

Day 281

2010-10-09T00:23:00.004+01:00

Another couple of collab pieces sorted out. Yes yes.

T'was the Cheltenham Illustration Awards today - one of the more embarrassing moments in my life. Some very nice talks from some good folk though.

Day 280

2010-10-08T00:55:00.002+01:00

Been finialising some of the images for the ol' collaboration with the delightful, and extremely patient, Sandra Dieckmann. Having some very annoying scanning and photoshopping issues but they're getting there.

I know I've uploaded these images before - but they are different to the earlier ones. I swear.

Day 279

2010-10-06T23:21:00.002+01:00

A sketch for another section of this mini-book thing (I should probably decide what it is). So far, I'm pretty pleased with the images and I'm getting through them fairly quickly - which is always nice.

Day 278

2010-10-06T00:19:00.004+01:00

Today I done learnt how to process film, thanks to the always-there-and-now-pierced-in-the-nose Felipe Pires Dias. These photos, again, are from my new camera, but taken whilst I was back at home so it was nice for some photos of the pup to crop up. I do miss her greatly.

Day 277

2010-10-05T00:20:00.001+01:00

I finished a drawing today, I shan't show you yet until I've finished the whole series. But in this image there are more trees than actually exist. T'was most tedious. Quite nice though.

Day 276

2010-10-03T23:28:00.002+01:00

Some strangeness has happened today. My good friend Felicity Hammond took an alginate cast of me today, for an ongoing project she's been working on, recreating the Pieta. I am Jesus. And my friend Felipe is the hand of the Virgin Mary. This is what it looked like.

Quite strange.

Day 275

2010-10-02T17:47:00.003+01:00

Photography. What? That's right.

Took these today with my newly discovered (t'was my Mother's but I have stolen it from her) Ricoh KR-5 camera. I'm quite happy with some of the images - these are the nicer ones, I'm still learning.

These three are from a disposable from a couple of weeks ago that I only got developed today. Pretty colours.

Day 274

2010-10-02T01:37:00.000+01:00

Something. But not quite.

Day 273

2010-09-30T16:35:00.002+01:00

This is the microwave in our studio space at Uni and the things that may be made within it.

Day 272

2010-09-29T19:36:00.002+01:00

Here's a snippet of something I'm working on. This is about 1/8 of the total trees in this picture. Stupid idea.

Day 271

2010-09-28T22:06:00.000+01:00

Day 270

2010-09-27T19:07:00.002+01:00

This will be a thing soon. Some sort of zine-y type thing. You might be able to purchase it. Depends.

Excuse this horrible scan, it's really horrible.

First day back at school today! Very odd.

Day 269

2010-09-26T21:24:00.002+01:00

Day 268

2010-09-26T00:45:00.001+01:00

Day 267

2010-09-25T01:55:00.002+01:00

Today, I transported my being back to Cheltenham again. This time, for good! I will very much miss the puppy - next time I see her she will be a normal, boring dog - but back to University on Monday. It's been a while.

Day 266

2010-09-23T22:49:00.003+01:00

Day 265

2010-09-22T22:06:00.002+01:00

Day 265 - this means that there are only 100 days left! What? Shocking. Where the hell did this year go? Got to admit, I'm fairly surprised that this is still going. Not too shabby. Might sack it off in a couple of weeks.

This also means that I should probably start thinking about some sort of year-long project for next year. I'm open to suggestions so if you have any, please let me know. Perhaps I could start an alpaca farm...

Day 264

2010-09-22T00:08:00.001+01:00

Today I have been throwing some shapes.

Ho ho ho.

Day 263

2010-09-20T21:49:00.000+01:00

Day 262

2010-09-19T21:40:00.003+01:00

Finished off (I say finished - for now at least) the penguin background for my collaboration with the delightful Sandra Dieckmann.

Also we (I say 'we' - I can't really take much credit for it) now have a studio together on Society6 for this project. Go have a look at all of the animals so far - HERE. Let us know what you think of them so far!

In other news, effervescent orange drink and porridge cure all known ailments.

Day 261

2010-09-18T21:35:00.002+01:00

I've been reading about fractals a lot recently. They are very interesting things. And some people produce some highly disgusting but slightly interesting, computer-generated images of them. I gave it a go. Highly disgusting. I quite like it...

Day 260 and some very nice news.

2010-09-17T17:38:00.004+01:00

I was going to tell you some news. Yes. Well - I won the student category of the Cheltenham Illustration Awards! Ridiculously chuffed - the awards were judged by Sara Fanelli, who is incredible, which is very, very nice. You can see my entry on my Flickr - HERE.

Very happy.