For Units 12 and 36 the album cover I have chosen to design is "The Circus"; seeing as one of the two units for this project is "Computers in Art & Design" I thought I would try and involve computer technology in my project in other ways than just using programs such as photoshop. I came up with the idea of making a an online blog to present my artist research. I thought it would be a different way of doing things and also would make an interesting link to the unit. I am looking at Freakshows in the Circus world and have tried to choose artists whose work relates to this topic in some way.

Merve Mokoc

Merve Mokoc creates illustrated portraits of presumably dead people as the images have a shrine like quality about them. Other details like the comfortable poses maintained whilst having a decapitated head, or the rolled back white eyes make me think this. The pupil-less eyes are particularly freaky, the cold blank stare into nothingness that each sitters has. Mysterious numbers are given to each subject, numbers that are not a date but possibly a code, very strange indeed. Each illustration also has a specially designed frame; I do really enjoy these illustrations however odd, the simpleness yet detail is very appealing.

Mariana Monteagudo

Mariana Monteagudo creates sculptures of creepy little characters. The cartoon like creatures are definitely eery and there are details of trauma, bandages, stitches and dirty faces all make for gloomy creations. But although unsettlingly somehow they are also remarkably cute.

Erik Mark Sandberg

Erik Mark Sandberg is an artist who creates very strange portraits of people covered in hair, who resemble the sort of characters that were part of the traditional freakshows. The series "hairy children" is particularly unsettling, all the portraits are very striking, and I feel he has deliberately drawn their eyes lonely and glazed.

Pablo Campbell

Pablo Campbell is a artist whose work I thought was particularly appropriate for this project. The typography you can see has obviously been taken from old freakshow posters, and I will definitely be using his work as inspiration for the typography I will be producing for my album covers. I particularly like the effect he has created to make the posters look layered and like they have been ripped off the wall again and again.

Kira Leigh

Kira Leigh is an artist who creates intriguing surreal, humouress and playful portraits of quite disgusting characters. Her work is intricate and detailed and vibrant with acid colours. The drawings are a visual documentary of her day to day life and thoughts and popular culture. I really like her style of drawing and the amount of detail that you can see in her work is amazing. The way everything is so random but flows so well is surprising. Her work will definitely be inspiration when creating my own freaky characters.

Alex Pardee

Alex pardee is a freelance artist and designer famous for his illustrations for album cover art. His illustrations are mainly of creatures he imagines, freaky and grotesque characters, which coupled with the fact he designs album covers makes him perfect for this project. He mainly works in pen, inks, watercolour and dye, and although his creations may be twisted and horror like, they are also extremely beautiful. His style and ideas are very original and vibrant and I really enjoy his work.

Gottfried Helnwein

Gottfried Helnwein is fine artist, painter, photographer, installation and performance artist. There are many serious topics behind his work which include historical and political issues, psychological and sociological anxiety. His work is often considered provocative and controversial. I particularly like his hyper-realistic watercolours and drawings, mainly of wounded children. They are highly disturbing, showing children scarred physically and scarred emotionally; however the style and tone of the drawings and the colours used make the images compelling and beautiful in an extremely strange way.