Tag: england

Jacob Halder

Jacob Halder (Royal Workshops of Greenwich, England), Portions of a Field Armor, 1588-1590, Steel, Brass, Gilding, Leather and Silk Velvet Textile, Art Institute of Chicago

Decorated with etched and gilt ornamental bands of zigzag and scroll designs set against a blackened ground, this armor resembles 16th century garments embellished with embroidered bands and edged with lace. The cuirass (breastplate and backplate) is of peascod form, featuring a high, narrow waist extending to a point below the waistline, with a scalloped border, as seen in clothing of the period. A knight could have dressed for crusade or a sporting event by wearing different parts of this full armor.

Worn by an English courtier, this elaborately decorated armor was produced in the royal armory workshops in Greenwich, England. Founded by Henry VIII before 1515, the Greenwich Armory turned out distinctive ware throughout the Tudor and Elizabethan periods and during the early years of the English Civil War which occurred between 1642 to 1651.

This field armor is the work of Jacob Halder, a Master Armorer at the Armory. He was born and trained in Landshut, Bavaria, and brought a strong German influence to the decoration of armors. He succeeded John Kelte as Master Workman in 1576 and worked at the Armory until his death in 1608. He was responsible for two armors in the Royal Collection Trust: those made for Sir Christopher Hatton and for Henry, Prince of Wales, the elder son of James Vi.

Henry Scott Tuke

Henry Scott Tuke, “The Critics”, 1927, Oil on Canvas, Warwick District Council, Leamington Spa, United Kingdom

One of a group of artists who settled in Newlyn in Cornwall and painted outdoors on location, Slade-trained artist Henry Scott Tuke is best known today for his paintings of young Cornish men bathing, swimming and sunbathing.

“The Critics”, painted in 1927, is one of Tuke’s most notable works. Two young men resting on the seashore are seen from behind, completely unaware of their archetypal allure as they joke with a third youth obscured by the water. Sensual in subject matter, tonality and brushstroke, the viewer’s perspective is that of the adoring voyeur reminiscent of E. M. Forster’s novel “Maurice”.

The Zoetrope: Jumping Frogs

The Zoetrope: Jumping Frogs

“Jumping Frogs”  is a three dimensional carousel from the 2018 Kickstarter company in England called 4-Mation. This is one of four models available. It’s powered by 24 3Watt RGB LED strobes, precision timed by a microcontroller linked to an encoder motor. RPM(Strobe-rate), brightness, colour are all controlled from a phone app. The Android app (4-Mation) is already in the play store, iPhone app is in progress.

James Brunt

Land Art by James Brunt, Stones, Trees, Leaves

James Brunt creates elaborate ephemeral artworks using the natural materials he finds in forests, parks, and beaches near his home in Yorkshire, England. This form of land art, popularized and often associated with fellow Brit Andy Goldsworthy, involves detailed patterns, textures, and shapes formed using multiples of one kind of material.

Brunt collects twigs, rocks, and leaves and arranges them in mandala-like spirals and concentric circles. He photographs his finished work to document it before nature once again takes hold of his materials. Brunt offers prints of his photographed artworks on his website.

Thanks to https://skogshaxa.tumblr.com

Calendar: February 5

Year: Day to Day Men: February 5

Hidden Face

The fifth day of February in 1924 marks the Royal Greenwich Observatory’s first broadcast of the hourly time signal known as the Greenwich Time Signal. Originally the idea of the Astronomer Royal Sir Frank Watson Dyson and the head of the BBC John Reith, the signal was originally controlled by two mechanical clocks with electrical contacts attached to their swinging pendulums. These sent a signal to the BBC which converted them to the oscillatory tone broadcast.

Situated on a hill in southeast London, the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, played a major role in the history of navigation and astronomy.The site of the observatory was established in 1851 by Sir George Airy as the Prime Meridian, the historic geographical reference line. By 1884, over two-thirds of all ships and tonnage were using it as the reference meridian on their charts and maps. Long symbolized by a brass strip in the observatory’s courtyard and later one of stainless steel, the Prime Meridian is now marked by a powerful green laser. As the Prime Meridian passes through its site, the Royal Observatory gave its name to what became Greenwich Mean Time, today known as Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

The Greenwich Time Signal (GTS) is a series os six short tones, or beeps, broadcast at one-second intervals by many BBC radio stations. Introduced in 1924, these tones have been generated by the BBC since 1990 to mark the precise start of each hour. The six short beeps occur on each of the five seconds leading to the hour and on the hour itself.  Each beep is a one kilohertz tone, approximately a fifth of a semitone above musical B5. The first five beeps last a tenth of a second each; the final beep last half a second. The change of hour occurs at the beginning of the last beep.

The beeps for national radio stations are timed relative to the UTC, the primary time standard by which the world regulates its time. The UTC is based on International Atomic Time (TAI) which is maintained by an ensemble of atomic clocks around the world that measure time by monitoring the resonant frequency of atoms. Electron states in an atom are associated with different energy levels; in transitions between these states, they interact with a specific frequency of electromagnetic radiation. This phenomenon serves as the basis for the International System of Unit’s definition of a second, the basis for International Atomic Time.

Note: The Royal Observatory, Greenwich, has the International Astronomical Union’s code number ooo, the first on the list.

Robert M Ball

Illustrations by Robert M Ball

Robert M Ball is an illustrator, designer and comic maker living and working in London, England. The illustrator is best known for his “Game of Thrones” art series called “Beautiful Death”, in which he draws an artistic interpretation of the latest episode’s fallen character. An illustration by Robert M Ball for every episode of “Game of Thrones” was commissioned by HBO for use online and in various print applications.

James Allen

James Allen, “Old Broad Street, L Street Station”, Drawing, 2013

James Allen studied Fine Art Printmaking at BA and MA Level at Canterbury Christ Church University before completing The Drawing Year at The Prince’s Drawing School (now the Royal Drawing School). Selected Group Exhibitions include the RA Summer Exhibition, ING Discerning Eye and the Jerwood Drawing Prize.

The focus of James’s work is the activity of the human form corresponding with architectural surroundings, with high levels of movement from the figure working in conjunction with the building’s structural solidity. Drawing is the essential language that fuels his creative practice with the need to record and expose time.

Tohy Cragg

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Sculptures by Tony Cragg

Tony Cragg was born in Liverpool in 1949. He worked as a laboratory technician at the Natural Rubber Producers Research Association before attending Gloucestershire College of Art and Design, Cheltenham College, and the Royal College of Art, London.

Tony Cragg lives and works in Wuppertal, Germany. An artist of great international acclaim and immense energy, Cragg has developed more possibilities in the making of sculpture than any other sculptor since Henry Moore discovered the ‘hole’ as positive space. He has employed more materials than most, and tested them to their limits through a wide variety of means, so that he seems to be one hundred sculptors at any one time.

Cragg’s contribution to the debate on contemporary sculpture practice is considerable. Early works of the 1970s were mostly made with found objects through which Cragg questioned and tested possibilities. Later pieces demonstrated a shift of interest to surface quality and how that could be manipulated, and a play with unlikely juxtapositions of materials. Results vary from the exquisite to the grotesque, from the refined to the crude, in bronze, steel, plastic, rubber, glass, wood, plaster and more.

Croft Lodge Studio

Kate Darby and David Connor, Croft Lodge Studio, Leominster, Herefordshire, England

Architect: Kate Darby; Designer; David Connor

The existing 17th century ruined cottage was adjacent to a common. To the east end of the cottage sat stables that had fallen down and were beyond repair. The strategy for the Croft Lodge Studio was not to renovate or repair the 300-year-old structures: but to preserve them within a new high-performance outer envelope. This means that on the buiding now there are two roofs and two walls, an old one and a new one. Everything about the ruin was retained including the ivy, the birds nests, old fabric, the cobwebs and the dust.

The Invisible, “Surrender”

The Invisible, “Surrender”

The Invisible began in 2006 with Okumu, who – encouraged by Matthew Herbert to record solo material – soon realised he required the input of friends Leo Taylor (formerly of Gramme and Zongamin) and Tom Herbert (a member of Polar Bear (British band) and Acoustic Ladyland) to make real the sounds inside his head. Herbert’s Accidental Records spawned the production of the band’s first official release, the one-track 7 inch vinyl “Constant” in early 2008.

The name arrived after the three began writing. The moniker is a nod to the writing of Irish philosopher and poet John O’Donohue, who articulated the notion that humans exist in parallel worlds – the visible and the invisible; one physical, one spiritual.

The Invisible’s second album, Rispah was released on Ninja Tune in August 2012, having been recorded in Brighton – with producer Richard File. The album’s first single “Protection” was premiered through online music magazine, The Quietus] Rispah was named after frontman Dave Okumu’s mother, Rispah Achieng Okumu, who died during the making of the second album. Rispah is, in the words of singer-guitarist Dave Okumu, “a love letter to grief.”

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Tom Lane

Tom Lane “Gypsy Tonic Number 29″

Tom Lane, otherwise known as Ginger Monkey is a graphic designer and lettering artist with 11 years of experience in the industry. He has worked for an eclectic range of clients, from global commercial corporations to design studios and advertising agencies to small start-ups and individuals. He works closely with clients to produce high quality crafted artwork, packaging designs and branding.

Tom currently lives and works in North Devon, UK.

Laura Bacon

Willow Sculptures by Laura Bacon

British Sculptor, Laura Ellen Bacon (born 1976) works raw materials into large-scale or ‘human-scale’ artworks, in both interior and landscape settings. Working with predominately natural materials and her bare hands, her works embrace, surround or engulf architectural and natural structures.

Her work has been described as ‘startling but beckoning’; ‘monumental yet intimate’; ‘frenzied yet calm’.  Laura’s particular use of materials emerges from a compulsive desire to work them into a formed space of some kind, using a language of materials that seems strangely familiar to the natural world.

“I began making my early works upon dry stone walls and evolved to work within trees, riverbanks and hedges, allowing the chosen structure (be it organic or man-made) to become host. I am still powerfully driven to create spaces of some kind and over a decade into my work, my passions continue to merge creatively with architecture.

The forms that I make have a closeness with their host structure or the fabric of a building; their oozing energy spills from gutters, their ‘muscular’ forms nuzzle up to the glass and their gripping weave locks onto the strength of the walls. Whilst the scale and impact varies from striking to subtle (sometimes only visible upon a quizzical double take), I relish the opportunity to let a building ‘feed’ the form, as if some part of the building is exhaling into the work.”

Amber Run, “I Found”

Amber Run, “I Found” from the Album “SAM”

Amber Run is a British band from Nottingham, UK composed of Joe Keogh, Will Jones, Tom Sperring and Henry Wyeth. The band has released one album and three EPs while being signed to RCA Records. They were initially called Amber but were forced to change their name to avoid a conflict with the German dance-pop singer of same name.[3] The band has played mostly in the UK and Ireland.

In July and August 2014 the band released videos for the single “I Found” and “Pilot”, respectively, that are a duology. Speaking to LeftLion Magazine in December 2014, they explained: “We were already discussing what to do with  “I Found”; it’s not a song that screams “single” but we wanted to release it in some form. Releasing it with “Pilot” just seemed to be a good method to bring attention to the whole EP, and doing something creative with the videos is a bit more interesting. Linking the videos gives you more scope… [to] expand the storyline past three and a half minutes.“

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)