PECULIARBLISS
ISSUE 6 / PASTIME / UBERKRAAFT
PeculiarBliss.com is a stream of doodles and images, featuring creative, original works from sketchbooks and other mediums into one location, with the hope to inspire continued creative thinking. PeculiarBliss Magazine is the quarterly continuation of this effort. This issues theme: “Pastime� Cover Image: UBERKRAAFT
All The Above - VAUGHN FENDER
P E C U L I A R B L I S S ISS U E S IX
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TELE - Hugo Diaz
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pastime - Abe Honest
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Pastime - Simone Webb
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pastime - Brianne Farley
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pastime - Andrew Walker
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Pastime - C. M. Carter
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pastime - Cloudery
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pastime - Patrick Savile
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Pastime - Philippe Poirier
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Origami Girl - Bryony Crane
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pastime - Ashley Niro
PREVIEW
introducing
Uberkraaft
He has three children and a full-time job as a Creative Director at Storm Creative Communications, but his pastime is what has earned him the attention of international design blogs and curated art websites. Matt Williams, the artist behind Uberkraaft has found his niche in being, well, anything but niche. Balancing the inviting with the tenebrous, the occult with the traditional, Williams creates a range of refined work. His crisp style complements the diverse content resulting in varying emotional responses. Staying versatile and, dare I say peculiar, has helped Williams’ arts and crafts endeavors catch more light than a typical peripheral pastime. interview BY : SHANNON DUGGAN
PHOTO BY Andy Gosling
“The Miracle” • Photoshop
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PREVIEW: UBERKR A AFT
“ Painted Trojan” • Paint marker on bristol board, coloured in Photoshop
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“ Fanfare for a new king” • Paint marker on bristol board, coloured in Photoshop
PREVIEW: UBERKR A AFT
What are your pastimes? I don’t really have too much time for pastimes – I have 3 kids and a couple of careers, so it doesn’t leave much room for anything else. If I’m not drawing, I might pick up a guitar, but it’s a bit too infrequent these days. I dabble in yoga from time to time, and I’m relearning how to skate (board) at 38. I try to fit that in a lunch break during the week. Do these areas of interest influence your work? I’m not sure they influence my work in any tangible way. I think my work is a bit more cerebral, perhaps some of the eccentricities in my work just come from accumulated fatigue!
the work I make for myself is a channel for my experience of life, it’s intensely personal and necessary for my sanity.
What have the biggest challenges been in carving this career path without formal design education? Well, getting a foot in the door for a start I taught myself web design, Actionscript and a bit of Macromedia Director and a friend got me into an agency he was working for. Without that way in, I might have been in trouble! Secondly, confidence I suppose. Without a design education I’ve found it quite difficult to be confident in the work I’ve made. Thankfully, I think my confidence in my conceptual skills has helped me through. What was your starting role at Creative Storm in 2005? I was originally taken on as a web designer to fill a gap. Over time I got more and more involved in ‘creative’ for our clients and the projects proved to be pretty successful! I have a very good understanding with the managing director and I think he has a good appreciation of how I work. I’m pretty forthright and I won’t bullshit anyone, and ultimately I seem to have a talent for understanding exactly what the clients need even when they’re not sure themselves. I’m really quite proud of the integrity we have instilled at Storm. We’ve created a reputation on our honesty and that reflects in the work we make for the clients. Fundamentally, we rely on our listening and understanding before our creative talents and we’ll happily turn down business if we don’t believe the client will benefit from it. PHOTO BY Andy Gosling
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“Colonel Windpipe characters” • Digital, Photoshop
Describe the oeuvre of work created outside of Storm Creative. I guess I’d have to describe it as ‘eclectic’. It’s really important to me to not pigeonhole my work with a style or a label. I’m constantly trying to produce work that I want to see at that time and that means it can take any form at all. If I had to break it down, I’ve done cheery stuff, uneasy stuff, some retro stuff and some downright scary stuff. Who knows what’s next? I guess, if there is a running theme through the work, it’s probably an atmospheric thing. How do you differentiate between art as a pastime and art as a job? My entire life is filled with ‘the visual’. It’s all I really think about. The work I make for myself is a channel for my experience of life it’s intensely personal and necessary for my sanity. ‘Art as a job’ – I’m not even sure if that’s possible?! I think art is a whole different ball game from what I do for money, personally. I believe, as soon as money is involved, any notion of ‘art’ soon disappears. My day job is one of creativity and design skills, but it’s a job. It’s performing a specific function and it’s influenced by a lot of constraints (brief, client, budget, delivery method). What I love about personal work is that it can take ANY form, there are no restrictions. I believe that it’s one of the greatest things a human being can choose to do, to simply create something from nothing and share it with others. If money is involved I can’t help feeling it’s fundamentally flawed and a little bit seedy.
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When you switch between analog and digital design, do you find any resistance when switching back to the other? No, not really. I tend to work digitally when I’m low in confidence, there’s something reassuring about that undo button! I find I’m ultra slow when I’m working digitally because it encourages perfection but that’s not really a good thing. Do you have a particular project or series of works you are most proud of? Honestly, I’m still not a fan of my own work, and yet sometimes I look at a piece and I can’t believe I actually made it?! It’s quite odd. Generally, I’m of the opinion that if I was ever happy with a piece of work I’d give up, it’s the perpetual failures that keep me trying to do something better. That’s probably not the best mental attitude, and probably accounts the trouble I have with creative block! If I had to single out a piece, I think I’d go for “The Miracle” the piece I did for Ben Steers’ All I Want for Christmas charity project. I think it was the most successful image I’ve made, in terms of my intentions for it. I’m really happy with the ‘feel’ of it and I think it has that ‘nobody else could have made that’ thing about it. ‘The Players’ pieces/series are pretty important to me, simply because they opened up a whole new area of work for me. I guess what I’m most proud of is actually my body of work as a whole – rather than single pieces –simply because I tend to do a pretty good job when moving between styles. I’m happy with the breadth of my output I think.
“Tame Impala” • Linework in Microns, coloured digitally
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PREVIEW: UBERKR A AFT
“ High Five” • Paint marker on bristol board, retouched in Photoshop
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“Embarkation” • GoUache on bristol board
PREVIEW: UBERKR A AFT
I feel compelled to put voices to any characters of yours that have an open mouth. Please tell me you do the same... That’s brilliant, but no! I tend not to think of them as alive, especially the black and white ink characters. I suppose I don’t think of them as ‘characters’ per se. I see them more as lifeless statues or death masks. Quite often, the drawing you see, is what I imagine to be a ‘skin’ or a ‘shell’ that’s covering up what’s really going on inside. That’s really helped me to realize what the running theme is in all my work! It’s duality! The doodle pieces could always be read in many different ways and I think that’s part of the aim for the darker work too. A lot of the ink drawings will have faces that contain both friendly and nasty faces in one. It’s up to the viewer how they see it. Even the recent skull pieces were made to be anatomically incorrect. “The Lake” for example, the head is oversized so it can be read that someone is wearing the skull, and the body is that of a 4 year old child, so it’s all a bit unsettling. Perhaps I need help! When you are creating art outside of work, where are you creating? Digitally, at a little built-in desk setup in our living room; analogue, I’m normally hunched over a stupidly small coffee table in really poor light listening to a snoring dog and bad radio! What happens when you have a creative block? It seems that my brain just can’t cope with the void left after a big piece is done. I also have one of those brains that thinks too much and too many ideas seem to appear at the same time. That can make it real hard to get anything going at all. I don’t have any web-friendly ways of getting over creative block. I guess the most effective thing I’ve found is to force myself to just draw —just put pencil on paper —that really seems to work, but making it happen can be really difficult. I ‘give up’ making work a couple of times every month!
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“Fixed.What?” • Digital, Photoshop
PREVIEW: UBERKR A AFT
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“The other side of another sun” • Rotring on bristol board, digitally coloured
List three big goals to accomplish in the next five to ten years. I’m not a goals kinda person. I’m not really professionally ambitious or money orientated to be honest—I’ve already had more unexpected success than I would actively seek out. I’d like to have a solo show at some point in the future, for the experience more than anything I guess. Professionally, I’d like to think I could find a way to become a full time freelancer or begin my own agency purely so I can go after and create the work that I really want to make.
Where do you see your art headed? I really don’t know. I can’t begin to imagine. I think the only way to find out is to keep making work. It’s a long journey! In the immediate future, I think I’m going to take steps towards developing much leaner work. My pieces take far too long! I’d love to develop a purely digital style that retains the charm/humanity/edge/spontaneity of hand drawn work. It’ll be a challenge, but I have in mind what I think could work. END
Ultimately, my big goal is to continue making stuff so I can raise my boys in an environment that inspires them to create their own paths and to be proud of their uniqueness. So far, the biggest payoff from all the work I’ve made has been to see the effect it’s had on them and how they are totally in love with making stuff themselves.
“European Panda” • Digital, Photoshop
visit UBERKRAAFT’S website for more info: www.UBERKRAAFT.CO.UK “BLDGWLF” • Digital illustration, Photoshop
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My Dome, My Head, My Skull, My Cranium - Jake Evans
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Pastime - Josh LaFayette
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Pastime - CHELSEY SCHEFFE
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all that created me in the past i now give to my future - Emily frasier
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Pastime - Emily Shaw
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Struggle - Eleazer Ang
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I Got Money to Blow - Kyle Mosher
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Pastime - Mark Mottershead
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Pastime - Cathy Klees
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Swimming, Drifting - Samantha Dolan
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Pastime - Sabreen Aziz
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Pastime - Oli Frape
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pastime - Matt Hunsberger
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Pastime - Nicola-Jayne Seddon
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Pastime Series - Nicola Benford
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Fuck Yeah - Louise Byng
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Pastime Dance - Josephine Kibuka
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Pastime - Julien Decaudin
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Sounding I (wet) - Karen KRAMER
P E C ULIA RB LIS S IS SUE S IX PeculiarBliss Magazine is a quarterly publication. To contribute to the magazine or website, email us: pbsubmissions@gmail.com
Editor / Designer Vaughn Fender www.vaughnfender.com @vaughnfender
Associate Editor Hannah Fichandler
Writer Shannon Duggan @sduggs
Contributors UBERKRAAFT / Matt Williams www.uberkraaft.co.uk www.twitter.com/uberkraaft Hugo Diaz www.flickr.com/photos/hdhdhd Abe Honest www.flickr.com/photos/abehonest Simone Webb www.3ate3.com Brianne Farley www.briannefarley.com Andrew Walker www.andrewwalkerart.com C. M. Carter www.inthequiff.blogspot.com Cloudery www.somethingcloudery.com Patrick Savile www.patricksavile.com Philippe Poirier www.philippepoirier.wordpress.com Bryony Crane www.bryonycrane.co.uk
Ashley Niro Jake Evans www.javaknees.tumblr.com Josh LaFayette www.joshlafayette.com Chelsey Scheffe www.chelseyscheffe.com Emily Fraser www.emilyfraser.co.uk Emily Shaw www.emilieshaw.blogspot.com Eleazer Ang www.flickr.com/photos/eleism Kyle Mosher www.kylemosher.com Mark Mottershead www.canhoto.co.uk Cathy Klees www.cathyklees.tumblr.com Samantha Dolan www.samanthadolan.co.uk
Sabreen Aziz www.sabreenaziz.posterous.com Oli Frape www.olifrape.co.uk Matt Hunsberger www.matthunsberger.com Nicola-Jayne Seddon www.livelikestudio.com Nicola Benford www.nicolabenford.co.uk Louise Byng www.tinykaleidoscopes.blogspot.com Josephine Kibuka www.cargocollective.com/josephinekibuka Julien Decaudin www.juliendecaudin.com Karen Kramer www.karenkramer.com John Rudolph www.wecantstop.com Chris Piascik www.chrispiascik.com
ISSUE 6 - Q2 - 2011
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Pastime - JOHN RUDOLPH
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pastime - chris piascik
We are now accepting submissions for the theme:
“CREATURES”
Submission Deadline
09.23.11
Content: We are open to all mediums —doodles, photography, digital, paintings, collages etc. All work should be sent by email. Please submit work to pbsubmissions@gmail.com with the title of the current theme. Guidelines: 1. Dimensions: 10 x 10 Inches 2. P lease create your work high res and provide a copy @ 100 dpi. 3. P rovide your contact info with all submissions. 4. O nly send work you want to have considered for publication.
P E C U LI A R B LI S S . C O M