aMAZEment

Hello, blog my old friend. It is I, your maker, come back from the dead to once more tread your halls before no doubt disappearing again for another few months amid whispered promises of updating you more often that I have no intention of keeping. Now that the pleasantries are out of the way let me tell you about Honest Ed's.

Fan Expo

Last weekend was Fan Expo and it is an annual long weekend of all my nerdiest fantasies come true conveniently located in one massive convention centre. It's aimed at fans of sci-fi, comics, anime, horror and gaming and there were also arts and crafts, celebrities, interactive booths and cosplay. Basically a nerd's mecca. A tiny slice of heaven on earth. I'm surprised I had any money left in my back account after it. It spans four days from Thursday evening to Sunday. I went down on the Sunday arriving before it was opened and staying there until it closed soaking up every last drop of fandom I could.

Graffiti Alley

The graffiti in this city never ceases to amaze me.

Figment

I went back out to the islands at the weekend with a friend to attend Figment, a small, interactive arts festival that was being held on Olympic Island. It was completely free and run by volunteer artists and there were different installations and crafts scattered across the island. We arrived pretty early, just as it was getting under way, so it was still relatively quiet but we meandered around the festival for about an hour taking it all in and taking part where we could.

The Hearn

The Hearn generating station is a huge, decommissioned electrical generating station in Toronto. Apparently the Statue of Liberty could fit in it standing up or on its side. Which is an unusual unit of measurement and also makes me wonder when the Canadians are intending to invade New York and kidnap their prized statue because with statements like that they are clearing plotting something. For the month of June there is an arts festival taking place in Toronto called Luminato. As part of the festival inside in the Hearn were all manner of weird and wonderful art installations (and you know I love weird) including the world's largest mirror ball.

7.9 meters high. Or .11 Statues of Liberty high in case you were wondering

30 Day Drawing Challenge

A while back I blogged that I would do a 30 day drawing challenge. It was an ambitious endeavour, I knew that when I began, and I fully admitted that I wouldn't get it done in 30 days. After counting it seems I finished it in 40 days (which ain't so bad) but this is also partly due to my squeezing in 3 or 4 drawings on the last day. I learned that I don't enjoy drawing so much when I have to do it to a time constraint and I rushed the last few just so I could be done with the thing. If you look carefully you may be even able to pinpoint the picture where I thought "feck this I'm sooo bored with this". On the one hand I wish I would have put the same effort into all of them but as my creativity and enthusiasm for the challenge waned I know I would have gone longer and longer between each drawing and it would have dragged out to 50 or 60 days thus defeating the point of a 30 day challenge. Anyway without further ado I present to you my totally inside-the-lines, midnight wine fuelled/morning post-cornflake doodles. Dun da da dun!! Click any picture to embiggen.

Day 1 Self portrait (my chin's not that big in real life, I swear)

Day 2 Favourite animal

Day 3 Favourite food (Japanese)

Day 4 Favourite place (Japan)

Day 5 Best friend (Dog is man's best friend so I went with that)

Day 6 Favourite book character

I have many favourite book characters, being a voracious reader, but I finally settled on these characters from Robin Hobb's awesome Farseer trilogy and Tawny Man trilogy and drew my own anime-ish inspired interpretation of them.

Day 7 Favourite word (It's just such a lovely sound. PILLOW!)

Day 8 Favourite animated character

Rei Ayanami from the manga and anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion is my favourite animated character ever despite being an unreadable, sad character (or maybe because). She's also a clone and wears a kick-ass one piece whilst kicking ass.

Day 9 Favourite tv show (Community is hilarious. WATCH IT!)

Day 10 Favourite candy

Day 11 Turning point in your life

For those who don't recognise this it's the statue that sits in Eyre Square in Galway City, the city where I attended university. Galway was a big turning point for me. I made friends there that I will have for life and will always love that place no matter where I go.

Day 12 Most recent accomplishment (travelling)

Day 13 Comic

Day 14 Favourite fairy tale

The Children of Lir isn't so much a traditional fairy tale as an old Irish myth. I love the old Irish stories and this is one of my favourites.

Day 15 Family portrait (family's too big, this'll do)

Day 16 Inspiration (this theme annoyed me by being so damn vague)

Day 17 Favourite flower (cherry blossom)

Day 18 Doodle (I call this 'Birth of a Planet')

Day 19 Something new

This was another theme that annoyed me. Something new? I mean c'mon, what is that?! So I googled the words 'something new', saw some footprints in images for some reason and went with this.

Day 20 Something orange

Day 21 Something I want

Day 22 Something I miss (my friends. Can you tell I'm getting bored of it yet?)

Day 23 Something I need (food)

Day 24 A couple

Day 25 Scenery (I don't like drawing scenery so I cheekily skipped this one)

Day 26 Something I don't like (death to all aubergines!!)

Day 27 Something I love

Day 28 Anything you'd like (tried drawing a face, failed, drew this... thing)

Day 29 A place you want to go (oh the laziness of this picture)

Day 30 A congrats banner for finishing

Well although I didn't put the effort into this that I maybe should have I'm glad I did it because at least I got 3 or 4 halfway decent pictures out of it and drawing gives me great pleasure when I'm actually in the mood for it.

Click here to have a look at my previous 30 day challenge, my 30 day photo project. If anyone has any suggestions for any other 30 day challenges/projects that might suit a person of mildly creative and slightly lazy disposition I would appreciate the suggestions.

Man hole covers...

... are pretty here.

Visual feast

Today while I was wandering through town with Ai, one of the AIEs from my schools, we passed a building on Namiki Dori near Parco that is due for refurbishment soon. While they are waiting to gut it and put something shiny and new in its stead artists from around Hiroshima have come down and installed pieces, grafittied on walls, vandalised toilets and generally just turned this otherwise lacklustre building into a free gallery of sorts. Almost every available space has been upgraded from blank wall to art and the central theme throughout is peace and memories. Here are a few of my favourites.

This tiny bakery front is less than a foot high. I want those tiny cakes...