Friday, May 15, 2009

Paint It Cool



Firstly, thanks for the warm welcome to the 'Spill blog; I'm thoroughly enjoying reading it! By way of saying hello, I thought I'd post this up, it being my one and only moment of Guardian-related "notoriety" and therefore what better place to share it? This appeared in The Guide last year, as a result of some friends and I on our Last Rites message board messing about with MS Paint and posting up the resulting attempts at drawing famous album covers for the others to guess. In fairness, some of them were alarmingly professional, but when it got picked up by Wendy at the Guardian, she quite rightly appreciated that the joy was to be found in the paucity of some of the efforts, thus gaining me the dubious "honour" of three entries! The feature didn't appear online, so the above image is actually my own mock-up of the two page Guide article, done in InDesign - a cover of our covers, appropriately enough. Hope you enjoy it and maybe it'll inspire you to post your own works of art!

The text, which is hard to make out above, reads as follows:

"If you were after wonky fan art in the golden olden days, you'd just head staright for the Smash Hits letters pages. With a postbag flooded by shoddy simulcra of George Michael, they were testament to pop fans' obsessive tendancies. Those aiming for photographic realism would simply cheat, nicking grease-proof paper from their mum's baking drawer to trace over a poster. But that was to miss the point. The best ones were always the shonkiest ones.So it's heartening to see that crap pop art is alive and well. And a neat little game has emerged, utilising rubbish software MS Paint. Dating back to Windows 1.0, it has an almost magical ability to turn even the best illustrator into a dribbling toddler with afat, chipped Crayola. Which makes playing Guess The Album Cover all the more amusing. Head over to Last Rites Flickr photo stream (http://www.flickr.com/photos/25371672@N02/) to view an impressive selection of these fair works. And we really ought to make special mention of Amelia Shaw aged eight - artist and Durannie. Sterling work, Amelia."

Yep, the best one's by my friend Jules' eight year-old daughter! Over to you...

19 comments:

tincanman said...

There is one more RR/Spill level of participation and that is the Dropbox. It's a small harmless utility you download that allows us all to share files.

For info, see https://www.getdropbox.com/tour#1

The RR dropbox is only for regular contributors to RR, so if that is going to be you, email rr@tincanland.com for an invite.

BalearicBeat said...

Thanks, tincanman. I noticed mention of the Dropbox yesterday when I couldn't access the Quiz mp3. I do hope to be a regular contributor and hope it was OK to post a thread so early on; was flushed by the success of my first two 'Spill points!. Will email you for the invite. Cheers!

Blimpy said...

Excellent first post BB! On the 'Spill, there's no such thing as too many posts/comments so get stuck in!

ejaydee said...

I actually remember reading this, welcome BB, if you don't mind me calling you that.

ToffeeBoy said...

@ BalearicBeat - welcome to the 'Spill. I also remember seeing the feature in The Guide - it reminded me of some of the MSPaint works of art created by my daughters.

I noticed your comments over on the Mothership regarding flexi discs, Sarah Records and the whole C86 thing - you have another fellow fan here.

tincanman said...

Now if you stop your media player from auto uploading album art in dropbox you will be the perfect new Spiller. The trophy's not been awarded yet this month - go for it before my delete key wears out.

Blimpy said...

I thi nk i linked to the c86 tape free mp3 download recently. or did I?

BalearicBeat said...

BB is sounding fine to me, ejaydee! I only went for BalearicBeat as my usual nom de l'interweb was taken on the Guardian and it sums up the sort of music myself and my friends play on our internet (soon to be FM!!)radio show and various places around Manchester. I'll post up a mix of the kind of stuff I play when I'm DJing; I think you'll all like it: dance music, but very eclectic.
Glad you like the thread and some of you remember it too! Mine are "Born in the USA", "Power, Corruption & Lies" and "The Stone Roses". My mum was so proud ;-). You'd never guess I do graphic design for a living!

Haha! ToffeeBoy. I think there's a few of us out there. It went through a period of being much derided, but I think there's some great records from that scene and have revisited a lot of them of late. Must dig out my anorak and do a playlist of the best.

Cheers again for making me feel most welcome.

x

ejaydee said...

You did Blimpy, you did.

ToffeeBoy said...

@ Blimpy - I must have missed that. How very remiss of me ...

DarceysDad said...

Welcome aboard, BalearicBeat. Think BeltwayBandit might have something to say about you becoming BB too, but I'm not sure I know you well enough to call you BaBe yet!!!!!

Cheers and goodnight all.

goneforeign said...

BB; The text isn't hard to read if you dbl click on the illustration.

Shoey said...

What's this, GF giving out tech advice? I fear the axis of the world has tilted, but am looking forward to Toffee's death metal post, DsD's acid house mix and Aba being lost for words.. Welcome to the madness BB (or Beaty perhaps?).

ToffeeBoy said...

@ shoey said:

"am looking forward to Toffee's death"

Jeez, shoey, that's a bit strong for a Saturday morning...

goneforeign said...

Eh, watch it mate, Silicon Valley's just down the road, I think they call it propinquity!

goneforeign said...

Eh, watch it mate, Silicon Valley's just down the road, I think they call it propinquity!

Shoey said...

GF Can you e-mail me your mailing address? I have a memory stick of RR Social tunes from DsD to forward to you - there are too many to dropbox. Cheers.

Shoey said...

@toffee Ukrainians in DB - if you're still around.

ToffeeBoy said...

@ shoey - you're a star! Cheers, mate.