New website at last.

So, at long last I've managed to put a new website together, I must admit I didn't care too much for my old site and I've wanted to change it since day one but it's done it's job over the past year or so. I did half expect that the creation of new site would take me a long while to put together and I was rather surprised at the fact that it only took three days (still, I'm totally unaware if this is a good frame of time for web design, but for me, a laymen, it seems quite good.) Hopefully getting the new website out of the way will pave the way for me actually using my free time more constructively over the coming months and actually put some more substantial work together. Anyway, check out the site if you have 5 minutes - www.johnalanbirch.com

Sink Dundee, Sink.

This week I've been slowly attempting to get myself into some sort of routine again. The past month or so has been rather eventful on most fronts apart from the 'Art' front if I'm totally honest. In an attempt to get myself back into gear I have set myself the task of completing (at least) two pages a day in my sketchbook in a hope to let me draw some inspiration from something. Although I am quite lenient with myself, if for some reason I don't do the sketchbook pages one day then they will accumulate to the next. I haven't been feeling too inspired by the things I've been drawing lately so hopefully this may help some. Also Jen's been helpful in mentioning a few projects that I think I'll enter into, again it gives me something to do and hopefully get me moving and feeling a little more confident of my work again.

So the past month as I mentioned was eventful, my friend Dave visited Dundee for the second time, Jen and I had a holiday to Skye with her family and I joined my family for a holiday on the West Coast, Mumford & Sons concert in Edinburgh, Inglourious Basterds preview, a few days of work in between and this weekend I'm back off to the Wirral again to see a friend from Morocco. I've been kept busy to say the least but it has been rather enjoyable.

Today's been a successful day as far as drawing and stuff creative goes, getting into the swing of things again. It's also been raining very heavily, I like the rain though, it's nice to be inside in the warmth and just listen to the rain and know that I don't have to leave the house until tomorrow morning, I sure hope it's dry tomorrow though.

A new painting for the bedroom wall.

The old painting from the bedroom wall. (I'm not a fan of this picture...)

Sketchbook pages (Proof of work!) Chickens from Carrbridge

More sketchbook stuff: Moroccan Water seller and New York street sign.

Sketchbook stuff: Jen's little wooden church.

Note: For safety reasons not all sketchbook work has been included as some of it is terrible and boring.

Until next time,

JAB

Sail On...

A sketch of Jen's little Milliput house

So again I appeared to have been sidetracked by work and alike and I haven't blogged in a while. It's quite handy though as I practically got two weeks work at full time in the end which made up for taking two days off for Dave's visit to Scotland. I've been attempting to keep up with doing some drawing and I'm starting to build up some steam on that front. Oh, and yesterday I finally started to plan a little of how I want to change my website...Well, I've only been wanting to change it for like a year...

So first up, some drawings! I've not had any huge inspiration at the moment for self-initiated sorts of projects and I'm kind of enjoying the safety of the sketchbook, however I do realise that sooner or later I'm going to need to break out of the sketchbook and actually do something of some significance. I have half a mind to take up the Zine/Comic ideas I was having at the end of last year again although I kind of feel that they may have passed and it may well be time to just start something completely new. We'll see.

The Liver Buildings

A sketch of the Liver buildings, it's weird because whenever I seem to think of 'home' or 'Liverpool' in particular this building always comes to mind. In reality though this building holds next to no significance to me...I mean I've seen it, but that's honestly about it. I don't know what's so 'homely' about it though.

Root Beer and Grumpy Cat

I'm not too sure why but lately I've kind of started looking at old timey american signs, I guess sort of anything spanning the 50's/70's, I just find something inexplicably romantic yet tacky about the style. I suppose in reality I would rather have a can of Root Beer that looked like the can above in my sketchbook than anything Coca-Cola/Pepsi-esque. Each to their Own. I don't think the cat picture needs much explanation...I like cats.

Scruffy Portrait

Today has been spent doodling in my sketchbook again and also trying to come up with a more solid idea for my website before I actually start putting it together as soon as possible. However I've not really been able to find much to draw so I just drew a self portrait, which I do realise now that I've scanned has terrible proportion and probably only really looks like me because I have glasses on, and something from iPhoto (exciting, huh?) but yeah...something about artistic license.

Another iPhoto Sketch: New Brighton

It's nice to finally have all my books with me in Dundee again. I just started looking at 'Vernacular Drawings' by Seth whilst taking a break from drawing/computer with a cup of tea. I never really knew too much about Seth but I really love his style as you can probably tell (he was the reason I decided to get a date stamp for my sketchbook) also maybe an explanation for my love of drawing signage and alike.

Lumberjack by Seth

Mimico Fish & Chips by Seth

I'm off to make soup. Until next time.

JAB

The end of a Sketchbook.

It's been a couple of weeks since the last blog, just overly enjoying my time off I guess. There's been a little bit of sketchbook work, not a huge amount to be honest but Im getting started on the right track again which I suppose is all that matters for now. I went and visited 'home'* last week, it was the Magazine's (our local pub) 250th Birthday and there was a huge beer festival - as good a reason as any to visit home if you ask me. It was great to see friends and family again as last time I was home was over 5 months ago for the Christmas/New Year period which feels like an age ago. I did take a sketchbook home but only managed three pages, although over 3 days of heavy drinking and catching up with people I don't suppose that's too horrendous.

*I still manage to refer to the Wirral as 'home' even though I've technically lived in Scotland for almost 4 years now.

Sketch of Coffee table in the Living Room at Dad's house.

I really like how this picture turned out.

Today whilst waiting for the plumbers to come and fit a new shower I did a few more pages in my sketchbook, and managed to finish it. I started the sketchbook in November and really wanted to get into the swing of drawing daily (or on a regular basis at least), a practice that went rather well until I realised the reality of needing to look for a job and the sketchbook took to the back burner for a while which was a shame. However, I've finally finished it, a few months too late in my eyes but finished nonetheless, and now I can get started on my new sketchbook and hopefully approach it with the same ethos as i started the last. Here are the pages from today, not sure why I wanted to draw American 50's diner style signs, but I did so there. Apologies for the scans, the last few pages of the sketchbook are falling apart a little which made them difficult to scan effectively.

Hollywood diner.

I'm not sure what Donald's Serva-teria serves but I want to go there.

Hopefully have some more sketchbook work up soon.

JAB

A "REAL" Blog.

Jen's Jon Burgerman Birthday card to me (coloured by me)

It's been far too long since I've put some time and effort into a proper blog, saying what I've been up to and what I've not been up to. I'm just starting to get accustomed to having so much time off (it's a hard life, I know) - last week's five days off were a little wasted to be honest, however, this week I feel they have been put to good use. Today though, I have to wait at the flat for an electrician who's meant to be coming to fix the shower so it seems a good time to give the blog a go. As some of you will be aware it was my birthday last week, I had a great time and just wanted to take this opportunity to say a huge thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday and such.

I'll start with a few bits of work that I enjoyed from the Edinburgh and Dundee Degree Shows. Luckily we got to see both of them (although I did only make it around Illustration and some of Graphics at Edinburgh).

A set of Drawings by Laura Martin, Dundee.

I feel that the choice of the Vision building for the Dundee show was a good decision and would quite like to see the show there again in the future if at all possible. There was a fair bit of work that I enjoyed at Dundee but would probably take me far too long to talk about it all so I'll keep it short and sweet. I think one of my favourite pieces in the Illustration department were these sketchy drawings by Laura Martin, I like how fragile the line is and also the use of colour.

'Treehouses' drawing by Genevieve Ryan, Edinburgh

I didn't really get a chance to look in great detail at Genevieve's work, although I really liked this postcard. I may be somewhat guilty of not taking sufficient time to view everyone's work in the Illustration department at Edinburgh but I enjoyed the show nonetheless.

Print by Lizzy Stewart, Edinburgh

I've been a fan of Lizzy Stewart's work for a while after being introduced to her work by Jen. I really enjoyed seeing Lizzy's work up close at the degree show and also thought that the amount of sketchbook work she had amassed was pretty impressive (and of great quality). Well, after looking in at the degree show in Edinburgh we decided we'd leave for a wander around Edinburgh, however the weather didn't really allow us to do that, instead we popped into a coffee shop opposite Analogue to shelter from the storm. After that Jen and I went to purchase a Nigel Peake print (from Analogue) for our bedroom wall, which I must be honest, is still yet to be put up.

Sketch in an Edinburgh Coffee shop (page 1)

and then doodles at home, the next day (page 2)

More doodles from the next day (or so...)

Back to more some work that I like, I'm a huge fan of Jeffrey Brown's work (as I'm sure most of the people who know me will be well aware) and when I heard that there was an 'Incredible Change-Bots' fan club I felt I just had to join, with joining I received a membership card, a 'Change-Bots' mini-comic and a trading card which is another piece of original Jeffrey Brown artwork for the small collection. Anyway, after getting hold of these I wanted to look at some of Jeff's work again and so the other night I stuck my head into one of the books, 'I am Going to be Small' to be precise, no matter how many times I flick through the pages it always makes me smile. Could be a contender for one of my favourite Jeffrey Brown books...although in all honesty I suppose I could say that about any of his work. So yeah...

My 'Incredible Change-Bots' fan club membership card.

'Shootertron' trading card (front and back)

Classic Jeffrey Brown.

On Saturday I booked my first official holiday from work and we (Me, Jen, Fiona, Daniel, Mark and Margaret) went up North to Carrbridge to attend a party to celebrate Jen's aunt's wedding. It couldn't have been a nicer day to sit outside and have drinks, chat, a barbecue and a fire, definitely some of the nicest Scottish weather I've seen in a good while...and this is the fourth year I've lived here. The following day we travelled back through to Dundee, again the weather was great and so we stopped at Bruar Falls for a bacon roll and a walk alongside the falls, a most awesome weekend (following photos where taken by Jen).

Making friends with the residents.

Life's a Killer: Wisdom from a piece of wood.

Bring it on Mel Gibson.

Me and Jen at Bruar Falls.

At some point last week during my ridiculously lazy days sitting about the house playing XBOX, watching South Park and drinking some beers, I decided that I really should take advantage of having a lot of time off and also the fact that I now can get pretty much anywhere in Scotland for free. It did strike me that for somebody who lives in Scotland I've not seen a huge amount of it so I'm going to make an effort when I have days off to use my rail pass and go to places I've not been before. As a result, yesterday I decided to go north to Stonehaven. I was originally going to visit Aberdeen although a friend discouraged me saying that there wasn't a huge amount to do there.

In the end I was happy with the choice of Stonehaven. I had best intentions to get up early and make the 0720 train, however, after staying up until 1 o'clock the night before with friends I managed to fall asleep again after trying to get up at 6. I almost stayed in bed but I started to feel guilty when I noticed how nice it was outside. I got out of bed and made the 0930 train. I've never visited Stonehaven and I was rather lost when I first arrived but after a bit of a wander I made my way into town and then to the harbour, the weather was stunning, but with it being Scotland I didn't bring sun cream but instead i had two jackets (one of which is my winter coat). Typical.

I walked up to Black Hill War Memorial and sat and drew for about half an hour in the sun before heading south along the coast towards Dunnottar Castle, a set of castle ruins from around the 17th Century. I spent about three hours looking around the castle grounds and enjoying the sun before sitting in the shade and having some lunch and a little more drawing. I think from my sketchbook pages I realised that I don't have the patience to sit and draw old ruins, however I found the place itself really interesting and enjoyed spending the day there. Instead of heading straight back to the harbour I made my way down to the beach (falling over once, the path was rather steep), went for a paddle in the North Sea and skimmed stones.

After that I headed back and found a Pub in the harbour area, and was rather pleased to find that they served my favourite ale. Two pints of Timothy Taylor's Landlord later and I decided to head back to Dundee and finish my day out. I walked about 10 miles all in all and caught the sun quite a lot, I have a very red nose but I had a great day out so it was worth it. Next time I go away I think I'll make sure I have Sun cream, then again saying that if I pack sun cream it will most surely rain. You've got to love Scottish weather (Following photos were taken by me, unfortunately I only had my phone camera so they're a bit crappy but you get the idea).

Black Hill War Memorial, Stonehaven

Sketch of Black Hill War Memorial

The approach to Dunnottar Castle

Seagulls atop Dunnottar

A section of the ruins.

Sketch of Dunnottar Chapel and Black Hill War Memorial in the distance.

The beach below Dunnottar

Beach below Dunnottar, a great beach for stone skimming.

Apologies for the terrible quality of the photos from my phone, two lessons learnt from yesterdays trip? Wear sun cream and take a half decent camera.

Oh and someone should probably tell the authorities that an Englishman comprimised Dunnottar's defences. Gees, and I heard that place was practically impenetrable.

Until next time...

Happy 'Birch'-Day

My Boylan's Birch Beer Glass

Today it is my birthday, and I am officially 23 years young. I got a nice new glass from Jen and a bunch of cards from family. Tonight Jen and I are off out to see 'Looking for Eric' at the Cinema. It's been a nice day despite having to work the 10:00am shift at work (probably my least favourite of all the shifts) but I'm only working today and tomorrow after having had 5 days off and then I'm off for another six days. So any form of complaint from me seems a little unfounded to be honest. Looking forward to a wee trip with Jen and her family up into the highlands on Saturday, and who knows...maybe next week I may put my train pass to some use and actually go on a day trip somewhere I've never been before and do some drawing!

and so it ends/begins...

It's been a long three months training for my new job, let's just say I'm not accustomed to full time working hours. I must admit I'm looking forward to part time hours but I was glad of the money though, I've purchased a few bits and bobs for myself which has been nice. Now I have five days off and it's come as a little bit of a shock to the system and I don't know what to do with myself. Well today I've sorted housework and stuff out and did a little sketch in my sketchbook which leaves me the whole afternoon to sit and play on my new XBOX (on my new 22'' television) with a beer or two, nice and relaxing...

Today's sketch.