This photo just won’t stop popping up across the internet, usually with discussions on how it has been photoshopped.  Some people discuss the grain, the pixels, the lighting and assume it’s the result of poor photo manipulation but to my eye it’s far more simple than that.

If you look closely, it’s apparent that there are at least two jellyfish in the shot.  One in the foreground (marked green) and one being followed in the background (marked orange).  The shape of the jellyfish makes it look like their tentacles are part of the same creature, and because the diver is in front of the tentacles of the second jellyfish here our eye assumes he is in front of one giant beast. But this positioning is why the lighting changes, as the diver is between the two.  It’s an optical illusion.

this perspective is easier to visualise once you see the true scale of the Jellyfish from multiple angles

and here is another shot with a similar trick of perspective, but less effective as we can process the parts more easily as there are no overlapping jellyfish to confuse us, plus the divers are obscured by the foreground creatures.

Taking over a London bus with a deck full of drunk workmates is quite an experience.

Djing with vinyl for the first time in years.

you know a set is going well when people start showing you their secret wu tang tatts.

I made these prints for family.  They’re based on Dick Frizzell’s Four Square man work.

I’m planning the next twelve months of print work now, this stack of stuff from the second half of 2011 makes me want to do better.

Had the luck to go see the premiere of Shame.

I was also lucky enough to see Noises Off at the Old Vic.

This soup smelt amazing.

My bike ate it’s own gears, killing itself as it bent the frame.

Saddle rash in my new jeans after a week’s wear.  I expect my backside to be fully visible within the month.

Screenprinting took up a large part of these past few months.  This was a job I did for my friend Chris at Mission.  They were making some invites for a Belvedere (red) event.  I hand pulled about 600 of these on unique sheet music sourced from ebay.

My work for Mistakes has also been a big part of my weeks.  This print I did to experiment with blends was unbelievably popular with around 50 copies being claimed over a single night.

On a visit home I found my dad ripping windows out of the building.  He does this kind of thing.

my ‘trippy hollywood’ series of experiments for Mistakes continued with Jack Nicholson.

What’s October without a fancy dress Halloween party?

Sometimes, late night shopping in Tesco throws up a curveball.

When in London, eat giant onions.

I met this guy.  Hendrix is an awesome chap who just happens to be a dog.

One day I was working in an office as a freelancer, and I realised it was completely empty.  It’s quite a strange feeling when you’re in a place like this on your own with nobody watching to make sure you’re putting in the requisite effort (I was).

Never bad mouth punks or hippies, or else they’ll slash your brand new screens.

I did a lot of drawings for Nell’s Upstaged columns on ideastap.

I also branded Workshoppe, Hazel Stark’s pop up for xmas.

I worked hard to get this right.  I knew I wanted to make this ribbon effect with overlaps and gradients & I’m super pleased with the end results.

It wasn’t all work though.  I went to Edinburgh for the first time in my life.

I’m not sure that this storage container is as respectful to Ensign Ewart though.

Nell has a phobia of ships, and their hulls, so she was pretty pleased I found this fake one for firemen to practice on.

In Dec I did an edition of prints for Le Gun.  These were HUGE prints of giant black cats.

Printing black on black, I was experimenting with gloss finish water based inks.  They were amazing, giving me a finish I would have never believed possible ten years ago.

Me and Lisa continued putting on Mistakes every Friday night.  The place is looking pretty awesome at the moment.

Christmas happened.

My sister made these.  It’s like a before – after illustration for if you eat too many of them.

Then it was time to loiter in the post christmas sale.  I was filled with confusion at the mannequins.  The legs on this one are outrageous, although I don’t think this photo shows that.  It was seriously ill looking.

This shot of the same style model shows it a little better. Nice cadaver chic. God knows why it’s in Thermals, pants & socks but no trousers or jeans or skirt or even shorts.

Uniqlo was having a sale on being Chris Slevin.

The last thing I did in 2011 was produce the first copy of Conventional wisdom.  It is a hand printed large format zine that concentrated on the records Lisa (my fellow dj at Mistakes) and I enjoyed over the year.  Future issues will deal with more varied subject matter.

and the very end of 2011, at our NYE party, we went full working men’s club.

But I’ve got a massive backlog of stuff to update when I get back to work on the 8th. In the meantime, listen to these mixes I make with Lisa for my night MISTAKES