Creaturemag Online Art Magazine - We publish interesting art and literature from the UK and beyond

Artists: David Litchfield
Project: A Drawing a day
Website: facebook.com/davidlitchfieldillustration

For the past couple of months Creature has been keeping a very close eye on David Litchfeild’s a drawing a day project. Since 1st July the prolific illustrator has been creating a random drawing every day. We asked him a few questions about his project and he let us pick our three favourite pieces to display here on Creaturemag.

The piece above is one of his most recent (4/9/2010). You can check out all of the drawings here: facebook.com/davidlitchfieldillustration. It is great to see how David’s style is developing and merging, he kindly answered some questions about the project.

What is this project?
A Drawing A Day’ is something that I decided to do on my Facebook page where I have to draw and upload a new drawing everyday for the next year.

Why are you embarking on it?
It’s only been the past 6 months or so that I decided to seriously concentrate on illustration on a potential career path, even though I have always drawn. This seems to be a really good way of focusing on illustration and ensuring that I keep practicing and creating stuff. It’s great because now I’ve set myself this task I really need to stick to it. I usually get up an hour early in the morning and draw straight away. It’s bringing all kinds of stuff out of my bleary, sub-awake mind.

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Creaturemag at Shambala Festival 2010 – The 10 Picture Challenge

Shambala festival is a teeming tented circus town, a brew of sensory stimulation that is just right and ready. It’s all about the participation, there is an emphasis on open expression, friendliness and a staunch resistance against commercialisation and consumerism. It’s a truly eclectic gathering of characters, creative explorers and hedonistic experimenters stirring up a very special atmosphere and one that is very unique to Shambala. Our challenge was to sum all this up in 10 photos.

Arriving at 4pm on Friday, equipped with the necessities and armed with 10 photographs yet to be taken, we embarked on a 48 hour exploration of this new found land. Soaking up the splendid array of music the fields awash with art, costume and splendidly happy people all willing to make, do and see whatever they want. This is a creative enthusiasts dream and a field full of inspiration ready to be harvested.

The following photos form Creatures visual diary, 10 photos and some commentary that we feel sums up our Shambala festival 2010.

1 – Welcome to Shambala

Overlooked by a mansion house sat beside a lake on the edge of the woods lies a creative wonderland. Shambala is brimming with well considered art installations that make this festival an utterly extravagant garden for the senses. The sculpture above sat in the lake, you could walk to it over the water on a bridge just below the surface. (more…)

End of the Road Festival is fast approaching, tickets are completely sold out and with a line-up of such impressive musical calibre and headline acts like Modest Mouse, Yo la Tengo and Wilco for you to gawp at, that is no surprise.

We are looking forward to catching sets from Iron and Wine, The Low Anthem and of course, Edwyn Collins. We also know that End of the Road offers a whole lot more in terms of lesser known independent acts and  upcoming performers who have that little something special.

We have selected five acts that we feel will be little golden nuggets of joy at this years EOTR (in alphabetical order, we simply couldn’t rank them!):

Caitlin Rose – myspace.com/caitlinrosesongs
Creature saw Caitlin perform during the summer and we were impressed by bags of country song writing talent, a great voice and a strong repertoire. This 23 year old very highly recommended by Creature. Expect assured country songs tickled with melody and emotion.

Django Django myspace.com/djangotime
One word: “Storm”. We fell in love with that song on first listen. Django Django are certainly an upcoming act with much potential. What they do is difficult to explain but a joy to listen to. Based on reviews, their set will cause us to dance our little socks off and be left with a new favourite band.

Left with Pictures myspace.com/leftwithpictures
Creature saw an intimate set from Left With Pictures a couple of months ago and we will surely be in attendance at EOTR. Folk songs with a classical edge. These guys do it differently and captivatingly, expect sweet arrangements, interesting vocals and whimsical songs such as “Professional help”.

Ra Ra riot myspace.com/rarariot – Dropped out Unfortunately.
Creature has become quite attached to Ra Ra Riot over the past few years. We are excited to see that they are at EOTR. Their arrangements have an urgency and propelling energy about them. Expect tumbling drums, uplifting strings and some intriguing lyrics. This is good to move to.

Woodpigeon – myspace.com/woodpigeon
There will no doubt be many performances from these guys throughout the weekend. Please be sure to see at least one of them, especially if you are feeling a little worse for wear, this is healing music, full of wholesome musicianship, succulent strings and sweet vocal harmonies that will calmly caress you.

Whether or not you are going to this years End of the Road Festival these acts are sure worth a listen. If you have heard them before then great, if not then soak it up, it’s the good stuff! We’ll see you at the end of the road!

This year we will be helping with Croquet (www.croqueteast.co.uk) on the lovely lawns of the Larmer Tree Gardens. If you are in attendance at the event then pop along for a relaxing game, if you managed not to make it this year then sorry to be rubbing this in. Go next year!

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Artist: Kim Roberts
Project: Freak of the Week
Website: www.kimsbrainjunk.com

Creatures, would you please join us in giving a very warm welcome to our brand new contributor, Kim Roberts. Kim is joining Ollie Stone on Monday’s Freak of the week feature and will be creating a new freak every other week, especially for you. We’re all very excited and happy to have Kim involved.

We featured Kim’s illustrations a while back in our artist spotlight feature, you can read a whole lot more about her here: kim-roberts-kims-brain-junk

Her illustrations tend to be humorous, colourful and refreshing. They are happy creations, that clearly come from the heart. We have never met Kim but we imagine that she is like a little balloon, filled to the brim with creative ideas and just about ready to burst with colour and lines.

Variety is the spice of life and we are very proud to be publishing Kim’s wonderfully uplifting, rich and colourful illustrations.

We hope you enjoy the show.

Artist: Thom Kofoed and Steven Jarvis
Project: The inside thoughts of now
Website: sj-illustration.co.uk, thomatronics.com

Welcome to a brand new feature here on Creaturemag.  Sharing a slot with Chris Getliffe  every other Tuesday will be Thom Kofoed and Steven Jarvis. These guys will be collaborating on a project they call “The inside thoughts of now”. This series of posts will consists of bi-weekly pieces of merged art and writing created especially for Creaturemag by these thoroughly good people.

We love this first contribution from Thom and Steven, entitled “Make Me Feel”. We wont let on too much about our thoughts on the piece as we don’t want to dilute your interpretation. We hope you enjoy investigating it.

For a bit about the artists:
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