Creative Review

Varoom Magazine

Edition: Winter 2010

Daniel Pudles; Old Guitar Player article

I found this article in Varoom magazine and wondered if I could have stumbled upon something any more accurate to reflect my studies currently. In it Pudles reflects on his childhood memories of Picasso’s The Old Guitar Player which he once found on one of his parents LP covers. It is somewhat fitting that he should mention how Picasso had to cram his image into the space available. I can relate to this technique as a working illustrator, if that is what you can call it… a technique. Somehow, no matter how big or small the space is that’s available, I can always bank on me not being able to get the proportions right to fit the frame. It always looks crammed in there; too much information busting at the frame’s seams. For once it would be nice to create an image where the whole of my elements would feature in said image unlike currently where the edges of certain elements are cropped off. Although, the outcome can be a positive one and maybe it’s a technique that should be embraced, something to set my work aside from others. I’d like to think of it as the ‘jam jar effect’, see how much I can possibly fit in without it overflowing the rim.

Additionally, I am looking at Picasso currently in relation to my dissertation, in particular Guernica which came later, after Picasso’s Blue Period (which Pudles looks at here). His Blue Period however, is vitally important in understanding some of the working methods and themes incorporated in his later work, such as and including Guernica.

I think this quote is my favourite of the year thus far is Pudles’ “come on get into that box!”, it feels like whenever I mention it or whoever I mention it to I should be talking about a jack-in-a-box not one of Picasso’s masterpieces!