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. 

Åpent hus exhibition

We are really pleased with 'The Way The Wind Blows' prints, printed by Steinar & Mats on their Duplo printer. The prints are part of the upcoming Åpent hus exhibition at Tegnerforbundet, Rådhusgata 17, 0158 Oslo from 29th November - 22nd December 2012. http://www.tegnerforbundet.no/kommende-utstillinger/
Each image is printed 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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The Way The Wind Blows

Last night we completed the images for our latest project, 'The Way The Wind Blows'. After developing a concept to illustrate change, influence and pattern, we produced a series of images and selected the two that communicated these ideas the best. The files are currently with Steinar and Mats in Oslo who are printing the images on a Duplo printer. We selected this particular method of printing for it's low-tech retro qualities and expect the finished prints to look slightly different from the digital files with regards to colour (a bit like an old polaroid photo). 

Duplo printing is limited in the number of colours it can reproduce so most of the colours in our images are made up by combining halftone dots of different colours. The registration of colours is never perfect and the results are sometimes unpredictable making each print unique. We have always advocated risk-taking at White Hole so introducing this philosophy to the printing process has got us very excited to see how things turn out! 

The images will be displayed at the upcoming Åpent hus exhibition at Tegnerforbundet, Rådhusgata 17, 0158 Oslo from 29th November - 22nd December 2012, and will be for sale in a limited edition of 5.

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More from John Hughes collaboration plus details about a new drawing project

Last week we began working on a new drawing project with a working title of 'The Way The Wind Blows'. The project uses the visual language of traditional TV weather maps to illustrate change, influence and pattern on a micro and macro scale (see sketch below). Two of the finished pieces will be on show and for sale at the Åpent hus exhibition at Tegnerforbundet, Rådhusgata 17, 0158 Oslo from 29th November - 22nd December 2012. 

We have also been producing more illustrations for the John Hughes collaboration. This sketch illustrates a piece of writing about a tense relationship between a farmer and his pig in the days leading up to the pig's slaughter.

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New publishing assignment and more on Empty Spaces

Last week we received an email from Fagbokforlaget (an academic book publisher) in Oslo inviting us to join them for a new assignment. Fagbokforlaget is a Norwegian independent publisher of literature, distributing material for use in teaching and professional growth for nursery, primary, secondary, adult and higher education. The project sounds very interesting and has a deadline of December 1st 2012 so it will be a busy November at White Hole! We are looking forward to working with a new client and hope it may be the beginning of a longer professional relationship with Fagbokforlaget. 

We have also been developing our Empty Spaces project and have begun making contact with a number of potential partners. The project is still in it's early stages and it's success is dependent on the co-operation and assistance of various groups and individuals. We are currently building a network of volunteers and partners that we hope can bring the project to fruition. You can read more about the Empty Spaces project here. If you have any suggestions for this project or are interested in participating then please leave a comment or contact us by email. We would love to hear from you! This film shows how a similar project is working in Newcastle, Australia. 

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