This studio update looks at me kind of becoming an athlete, making zines and the usual media updates.

What do you mean you’ve kind of become an athlete?

I understand the scepticism, honestly I really do, but because it’s been so long since I last updated, a lot has changed.

It all started back in April. I was off to Lancaster for a Young Programme Event and I was just recovering from a really terrible cough that had been pretty bad. Bad enough that it had finally got me to kick my vape addiction. I know, it was really that bad.

Queue me working the event in April, still not fully recuperated, but recuperated enough to work, and having the usual existential crisis about how terribly I was treating my body. I was overweight, had just stopped vaping, and was chronically unfit.

Due to a strange confluence of events which I have written about at length in other places I ended up being signed up for a charity 5k against my will for The Moira Fund.

I immediately left the Young Programme and travelled from Lancaster to Middlesborough to visit a friend, and we accidentally went on a day trip to Whitby in the middle of Whitby Goth Weekend.

Whitby was great fun, and the fact that we went on Whitby Goth Weekend and my friend hadn’t noticed that was happening was even more enjoyable.

There was however a humbling part of my mini break; trying to climb the 199 steps to Whitby Abbey. It was horrendously difficult, and I was embarrassed that there were people who were easily bouncing to the top while I languished somewhere further down, resting on what I first thought was a bench, but then I later discovered it was a Coffin rest. Frighteningly apt.

Once I had returned from my visit and got back to Sunny Dundee, I decided it was time to get my act together. I downloaded the Zombies Run Couch to 5K app, bought a pair of running trainers, and set off trying to get myself more in shape.

What followed was a 4 month hellish nightmare of unimaginable torment which included two breaks due to injury, the purchase of a neoprene knee brace, and alarms set at 5.40am every second morning so that your kind writer can go for a run before work. Eventually however, it got to the point that now I’m just able to go and run a 5K. It’s amazing, and I can’t quite believe that I can do it.

Now that the training is out the way, and I can just run a 5k, I guess all that’s left is to actually run the damn thing? Well don’t worry about that, it’s happening on the 27th of October, and I’ll be there running my wee heart out. I’m by no means fast, and I by no means find the whole thing easy, but you better believe I’ll finish.

If you’re interested in donating to help me get closer to my goal, please feel free, you can donate and read more about the lead up to starting the fundraiser here.

Good for you! It’s good you’re being more active, and it’s great you’re raising money for charity, but we’re here to hear about your art…

I know, but now that’s out of the way I can get into the fun stuff. What I’ve been working on in the Studio recently.

Well I finished a portrait that I really liked the way it turned out.

I was really happy with how it turned out and I wish that I had more to say about it, other than it was quite a smooth process from beginning sketch to finished piece, and I wish I had a Timelapse of it, but I forgot as always.

Apart from portraits, I’ve also been making a lot of zines of late.

You’ve been making a lot of zines?

Yeah I have. Zines are always something that I enjoy making, because with not a lot of materials you can end up with a finished product quite quickly. The barrier for entry with zines is incredibly low, which is the point for such a punk product that is meant to be punchy, reproducible, and something that everyone with a viewpoint can get involved with.

I’m a fan of one page zines, but sometimes I do decide to make something with a bit more focus and of a bit more substance, and I honestly think that making zines about things is a great way to examine them and to get your point out there, so that’s why I made a zine about Kate Middleton.

I found the press fascination with Kate Middleton’s disappearance from public life incredibly interesting, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on why people were so passionately involved in something that has very little (I would argue none at all) impact on their lives.

While the temptation to get involved in conspiracy that it’s being highlighted to avoid focus being placed on something else, or more worryingly, that she was being hidden from public view because of some nefarious behaviour by other members of her family, the frothing pulse of the fascination with where Kate Middleton was fascinated me. Especially while actual children were being killed by bombs in Palestine. I couldn’t rationally make it make sense, so I reverted not only to form, but also to the absurd and I started thinking of the most unhinged places Kate Middleton could possibly be.

As such, Where is Kate Middleton? was born.

But that’s not the only Zine I’ve been making recently. I’ve also been making other smaller zines investigating our negative internal monologues, things we can do to make our lives better without much effort, collecting some of my favourite writings together, and also some of my favourite photos that I took during the COVID-19 lockdowns. They’re all for sale over on my shop.

While you’re over there taking a look, you might notice that I’ve also uploaded the Paper Fortune Teller, because I finally got that finished. I had to work around it for a while, because I was just never happy with it, then I also had to do some tweaking, because it’s a piece of work that you’re intended to fold, so I had to make sure it all lined up perfectly which I’m grateful that I can say it does now.

It sounds like you’ve been busy?

I both have and I haven’t. While I’ve been busy putting things on websites, planning social media posts, trying to please the algorithm and all that not so fun stuff, it’s also meant that I’ve consistently run out of time for drawing more and for writing cool things like these updates. I’m going to try to focus more on that now that I’m caught up with things and it doesn’t feel like such an insurmountable slog to try to get through things now.

That means more time for some proper drawing, and to work on some new projects, now that some of the ones I’ve been talking about for a while are done!

As much as it’s been a struggle to find time for drawing, and for making things that bring me a little bit of joy, that doesn’t mean that it’s been fully impossible. I did manage to do a little bit here and there, like these new ideas for monoprints that I cranked out one afternoon in the studio while the sun was bursting into the window and I had The Cribs playing so loudly my printmaking plate was nearly vibrating off my desk.

Well what have you been watching?

Autumn is a weird time of year for me. I’m not self-diagnosed SAD or anything like that, on the contrary, I’m at peak power in autumn, but it does always make me want to turn back to my comfort media of days gone by. There is no finer feeling than watching the leaves fall off the trees while watching a hyper-fixation of old.

Buffy, Teen Wolf or the X-Files Autumn? Unmatched.

Thankfully this autumn has only just started; and I do mean just started, we’ve only had a couple of chilly days here in Dundee, because I’ve started with an exceptionally rogue re-watch for this autumn, and I’m glad there’s time to revert back to form.

I came across it on Tumblr (it should surprise literally none of you that I was a Tumblr boy back in the day, and to a certain extent still am) back in around about 2012 when the first season was being uploaded and it immediately grabbed me with it’s wit, charm and comfortable depiction of homosexual domesticity.

The humour has either aged pretty well with time (or my standards might have lowered, lets be real) and being a good 13 years older than the last time I watched it has meant that there are elements of the plot that chime with me a little more than the last time. I’m a bit more weathered and a bit more worn around the edges since the last time, so I had a much more appreciative time this time around.

It has a great soundtrack, some great cameos if you were also a tumblrina back in the day (fans of Welcome to NightVale and Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion will be pleased) and for a small budget piece of media it packs a big punch. You can watch all the episodes for free on their official website here. The episodes are short, normally around 20 minutes so it’s easy to cram one or two in while you’re waiting on your dinner to cook. Give it a go, you won’t regret it.

Listening to?

I’ve been really enjoying going back and listening to some of the French band La Femme.

I first found them after their song Hypsoline was featured in the horror film ‘As Above So Below’ which has literally everything I want from a film. A protagonist who is a rip off of Lara Croft? Hot men with complicated back stories? Alchemy? Puzzles? SCARES? FRANCE? Sign me up for a catacomb tour and be done with it.

Hypsoline is from their album Psycho Tropical Berlin which really deserves a listen right through from start to finish. It’s experimental, but still musical and melodic, with tracks that will have you grooving around like you’re in a spooky mansion. Sur La Planche is another stand out if you’re just looking for a couple of songs to stick on.

Reading?

I am blessed that I have a lot of good friends who loan me a lot of good books. The most recent of the 59 waiting to be read that I have finished was Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin.

I’d say pick it up if you’re looking for an easy read and have an interest in the creation of video games, emotional plots played out with enjoyable emotionally stunted people, and a quick easy read that pulls the heart from your chest about three quarters of the way through.

I had seen a lot of people recommending the book, and had even bought it as a gift for the friend who works in Middlesbrough as he works in Video Games, which is a weird coincidence, but I had gratefully managed to remain spoiler free, which made for the enjoyment of the book. If I knew what was coming then it would have ruined my enjoyment a little.

Anything else?

My perpetual quest to categorise all the weird stuff I find online continues, and while I might not be making any headway with it, I did find this rather fantastic Azerbaijani cover of Say It Right by Nelly Furtado that I am obsessed with, so you should definitely give it a listen. It is the kind of thing that the Internet is fantastic for, and we can all be reminded of that from time to time.

Other than that, enjoy yourself this week, and the only thing left to settle is the

Question of the Week

Nice and simple this week, and keeping with the theme

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What is the strangest video you’ve ever found online?

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As always, let me know your answer in the comments below, and feel free to drop a link to it to share it with the class as long as it’s SFW. I don’t want anyone’s unemployment on my conscience.

-josh