Meeting John Hughes

On Saturday I met with John Hughes to catch up and discuss the progress and direction of our collaborative project. We are both happy with the way it is progressing and we agreed that I would produce ten more illustrations before we meet again. 
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Support the #IncludeDesign campaign

Last year the UK government announced that the English Baccalaureate will be taught in English schools from 2015. The newly proposed EBacc qualification will exclude Design and the Arts from the nation's educational agenda. 

I recently found this photo from my art Foundation course and it reminded me of what an inspiring and creative environment it was to be in. The new EBacc will make these kinds of studio a dying breed. 
Read more and support the campaign to urge the government to reconsider their stance. 

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Screen CIty & Empty Spaces

Before Christmas White Hole were invited to submit a proposal for the Screen City Festival to be held in Stavanger, Norway in October/November 2013. The festival is dedicated to the moving image presented in public spaces, on the city's facades, shop windows and urban venues enlightening and changing the vision of the urban context of Stavanger. 

The subject of public space management has links with our Empty Spaces project so we made contact with Screen City to discuss the possibilities of collaborating. The talks were positive and we have agreed to discuss ways to develop our projects in connection with one another. 

More about Screen City Festival. 

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Happy New Year!

We are now officially back at work and would like to wish all of our followers and collaborators a very happy new year!

Our Christmas Gif to you!

As you may have heard, Christmas is upon us and we would love to offer you our very special Christmas Gif: A Christmas Tree at Zero Gravity! 

We also have good news about the Empty Spaces project. We have spoken with a Sandnes Kommune representative who confirmed that they are interested in Empty Spaces. We are now in dialogue with property owners to discuss how the project can work for them. 

The collaborative project with writer John Hughes is well underway and we are starting to accumulate quite a collection of sketches and ideas. We plan to meet and talk with John in the new year about the design and production of the book. The sketch below illustrates a dusty drive along Route 66 as the evening closes in. 

This will be our final post before the Christmas holidays so we would like to wish all of our followers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Don't forget the Åpent hus exhibition at Tegnerforbundet is now open. The exhibition includes Ian's prints from 'The Way The Wind Blows' and runs until Saturday December 22nd. The prints are in a limited edition of 5 and can be purchased from the exhibition or by contacting us directly at info@whitehole.no 

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Empty Spaces developments, book cover commission & more from John Hughes collaboration.

It's been a very busy and exciting week at White Hole with new developments to the Empty Spaces project. 

Sandnes Kommune have expressed an interest in working with us to develop the project and have begun speaking with local property owners about their possible involvement. Our aim is to encourage the property owners to open up their vacant commercial premises to creative individuals or collectives to use as work or exhibition spaces at affordable short-term rents until they became commercially viable again. It will be interesting to see what kind of response we get and we will discuss how we can develop the project later this week.

We also sent off this sketch for a book cover commission…

… and continued working on the collaborative project with Oslo-based photographer and writer, John Hughes. The sketch below illustrates the gloomy atmosphere inside a Greasy Spoon cafe in London's Kings Cross.

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Book cover illustration

Last week, Fagbokforlaget (an academic book publisher) in Oslo gave me some more details about the commission that they offered me at the beginning of the month. They have asked me to produce an illustration for the cover of a school textbook that presents Norwegian literature and the development of the Norwegian language.

I've begun to sketch out a few ideas ideas for the book cover. The challenge is to come up with something that looks modern enough to appeal to students and at the same time, academic enough to appeal to teachers. Here's a detail from one of the sketches. 

Don't forget the Åpent hus exhibition at Tegnerforbundet is now open. The exhibition includes Ian's prints from 'The Way The Wind Blows' and runs until Saturday December 22nd. The prints are in a limited edition of 5 and can be purchased from the exhibition or by contacting us directly at info@whitehole.no Follow us on our Blog, Facebook and Twitter.