I'm trying to think

Bom Chicka What?

Never say never, so here is a soapbox rant about advertising. I hate 99% of advertising. It interrupts my life, it breaks up my occassional evening in front of the TV and if it’s going to do that – make it funny, interesting, beautiful or at least entertaining. Currently on TV is one of the worst ads I’ve ever seen – it leaves me diving for my remote control every time it comes on – it’s the new Lynx ad from BBH, the one’s with added Bom Chicka Wah Wah. What an utter pile of turd! It is such a contrived meme designed to ping round the playgrounds of the UK. If this catches on I’ll shave my arse and run down Oxford St. butt naked.

Existential blog crisis alert

"I'm trying to think" has reached a crossroads. The last few months of blogging have been great fun and I've actually met a few lovely people throughout the blogosphere, many of whom are listed on the left below. However, in the last month or so this blog has suffered a certain amount of neglect due to a new job, the builders and a lack of time. As a result, it's taken on more of a public diary function which worked well for the life drawing experiment (which is now over) - and the question is, which way should this blog go next? Please feel free to leave comments and make constructive recommendations.

One way is to make it more advertising focused, but I feel like that is covered better by other blogs like Russell Davies' and new to the mix is Andy Sandoz's blog. Also, I've volunteered to contribute to the new blog for the Creative Social, which could turn into a really interesting area that reflects the collective consciousness of the digital creative world. We’ll see.

Blogging is an experiment for anyone writing one and up to now my experiment has resulted in a wide ranging mix of subjects and themes – which I quite like. I’ve tried not to use it as a soapbox, I’ve tried to make it interesting and I’ve tried to use it as a reason to look at the world in a different way and find something to say about life and the way we live it. I guess sometimes life is overwhelmed with duty and tasks and reflection has to wait for another day, maybe that’s where I am right now. Blogs get interesting when life is at a crossroads, and blogs hit crossroads when life is all about getting your head down. Of course, the reason for a blog is that it makes you stop and look at the scenery, it makes you slow down a little and enjoy the journey, so life isn’t just a collection of tasks and random events, it’s considered, recorded and captured. (Which is another reason I don’t want this blog to become an advertisng/branding “I saw this cool thing the other day” list.) Life is more than that, and I want this blog to be more than that – so thanks for reading and I will try and find the time to think a bit more about stuff and write it down here.

Look, flowers

We're not living in our flat at the moment because the builders are tearing it apart and putting it back together with great care and pride but all rather slowly as a result. Eli swung by today and witnessed the back garden being emptied of several tons of plaster, old ceiling and wood chip wallpaper. From behind the rubble emerged the garden that we rescued last easter from decay and neglect. This is a lovely shot of the Clematis that Eli planted climbing up the fence that I put up. Hopefully, when we get back in the house in a few weeks, the flowers will still be there to enjoy.

Life Drawing - Week 8

Week 8 was hard. Everyone in the class had a nightmare except Eli who expertly mixed washes, paints and carcoal while the rest of us bungled through like a bunch of overgrown 5 year olds. This picture was the final pose - we were asked to paint in the white areas first, no drawing, no planning - just straight into laying the bright areas onto the page. This paint was only defined when we carved into it with charcoal - but by this time the measurements were all out - arms were too skinny, legs too fat and feet just plain weird. The only chance to correct things was to effectively tipex out the mistakes with more white paint, grinding out an image that worked. This is how far I got in the time allotted, it's better than last week - so that's something.