Our previous Kick-About was inspired by an iconic image from the realm of science – Roentgen’s X-Ray – which enthused us to go beyond the surface of things and marvel at what we found there. This week’s big number is not some similarly scientific muse, but rather the number of weeks The Kick-About has been up-and-running for; that’s four years of quick-fire ideation, experimentation, playfulness and discovery! This week’s celebratory showcase is a re-showing of works producing during this 4th cycle of fortnightly prompts – and if you want to peruse all previous editions, you’ll find them collected here.
Graeme Daly
The Kick-About No.80 – Charles Sheeler
“My favourite Kick About this past year has to be the film created for the Sheeler prompt No 80. I made this film last minute, as I always seem to do, but everything worked out so much better than I could have hoped. There is a lot of smoke and mirrors in this film and if you were to look at it in the 3D space it was created in you would be less than impressed at its simplicity. Through the lens of the camera and toying about with parameters and minute movements it made itself. What was so enjoyable about this project was going in blind and trusting the process. knowing that sometimes you don’t need all the kerfuffle and pre-production faff to create a film and this nod to Sheeler and his shapely precisionist paintings felt very freeing.”
@graemedalyart / vimeo.com/graemedaly / linkedin.com/in/graeme-daly / twitter.com/Graeme_Daly / gentlegiant.blog
Francesca Maxwell
The Kick-About No.96 – Maud Vantours
“Paper, paper… I use it so much in my work I don’t know where to start. But I have chosen this one for the beginning of the year. A calm seascape made of tissue paper and ink: the sun is not out yet and the sea is still unsettled from the windy night, but there is hope for a calm and sunny day…“
Tom Beg
The Kick-About No.88 – Actiniaria
“The visual idea for these faux-anemone images came to me quite quickly. I envisioned delicate sea anemone-like things as kitschy sun-bleached floral arrangements encased within Victorian parlour domes. Or they could perhaps be faded prints and photographs from the same era, that years later now have that unique musty scent of aged paper. “
X / earthlystranger / vimeo.com/tombeg / tombeg.com
Vanessa Clegg
The Kick-About No.97 – Vanitas
“If it’s not too late then I think I’d choose the ‘Vanitas’ prompt… mainly due to the enjoyment of setting it up, fiddling around with holding a torch as well as my iPad and getting the shot before the candle smoke disappeared. The challenge of all that was stimulating and fun! It’s difficult as each KA has its own delight, but experimenting and, at times, being unable to anticipate the outcome is, to me, what it’s all about, so bring on the next one Phil, you’re doing a brilliant job!”
vanessaclegg.co.uk / vanillaclegg
Jan Blake
The Kick-About No.79 – Sheila Hicks
“I have no idea why I have never seen the work of Sheila Hicks before and other women artists of this particular era! What a great discovery. Striking and powerful. Having worked myself within vast architectural spaces and in theatre, I felt a kinship with her idea, attention to spaces and love of masses of colour. I like to see through the colours and the mixing of the layers in relationship to one another as they move, held within a skeletal structure in architectural space. I have been collecting these netting pieces that hold fruit and vegetables and the metal tags that are wound round the end that have been waiting in the wings for an opportunity. Their restriction of colour bothered me at first and yet it was a release to see what i could make with them. They are bouncy and can be twisted into rather wonderful shapes that brought me back to something more organic and lively. Playing with the results on the computer to find new colours was fun if a little bit frustrating as my tech knowledge is rather limited! I was intrigued though about how the overall texture looked more like a tapestry. More food for thought!“
Phill Hosking
The Kick-About No.100 – Centum
“Here’s my little offering for the 100th edition of the mighty Kick-About. Good opportunity to say ‘Jolly good work that man’ for keeping this going! With this one I took the concept of ‘Centum’ and decided to create a self portrait in Photoshop using 100 squares, using one hundred individual ways of representing the information within those squares. Riffing slightly on the work of Chuck Close, I saw this as a good opportunity to explore this method of looking at the macro via small and often detached decisions in the micro level.“
Gary Thorne
The Kick-About No.100 – Centum
“Funny how at times you begin things and by the end you’re none the wiser. What’s brilliant is The Kick About doesn’t judge. So, a hundred of this, a hundred of that, and as Bugs Bunny was want to remark “That’s all folks”. Reaching the KA 100-mark, is a very fine thing and certainly worthy of celebration – so I joyfully raise my glass to you Phil and to all you KA’ers and say ‘CHEERS, THAT’S NOT ALL FOLKS!’”
Marion Raper
The Kick-About No.96 – Karl Blossfeldt
“Karl Blossfeldt was a truly inspirational photographer and I have done sketches and paintings from his work a few times over the years. However this time I decided to just go with the flow, and wandered around my garden and up and down the road with my phone, taking photos and feeling a bit like David Bailey! It was amazing, the amount of flora, seed heads and even fungi that was so easily found. I really had a great time just snapping away and with quite pleasing results.”
Phil Cooper
The Kick-About No.103 – Roentgen’s X-Ray
“It seems a bit not-quite-right to nominate these drawings that I did for the most recent Kick-About prompt submitted only two weeks ago, but it is the work I’m most fond of and interested by from 2023-24. It got me thinking about processes that I hadn’t tried before and I found the creative avenues it opened up a lot of fun to explore.”
Itta Howie
The Kick-About No.93 – Murmuration
“Sunset Ritual – Daily pocket-sized murmurations, imagined and drawn at dusk”.
10.5 x 15cm, charcoal.
Phil Gomm
The Kick-About No.86 – Michael Landy
“My choice for this ‘Best Of’ edition of the KA is The Kick-About No.85 featuring Michael Landy as its muse. As I sat in my kitchen glueing chunks of broken terracotta flower pots together with only the sketchiest idea of how things might turn out I did think ‘What are you doing?’ – not least because, at the time, I was supposed to be doing lots of other things that might be considered more important to the nuts and bolts of keeping the lights on. However, as these two figurines began to emerge, I experienced that wholesome satisfaction that comes from taking images from your mind’s eye and making them real. It can feel like the most important act of all.”
Kerfe Roig
The Kick-About No.87 – Niki De Saint Phalle
“I’m picking #87, Niki de Saint Phalle as my favorite, though, as usual, it was hard to choose. But it started me on the Major Arcana tarot card project I’ve been meaning to do for some time. I’m continuing to work on, and revise, the cards. Maybe by next year at this time they will be done…“
kblog.blog / methodtwomadness.wordpress.com
Jordan Buckner
The Kick-About No.101 – Mainie Jellett
“I’d never heard of Mainie Jellett before this prompt, but my initial response was all about those amazing formations and compositions of block colour. As a quick win, I wanted to create a series of very quick colour blocks that at least held some of the complexity and perhaps history seen in Jellet’s work. And so I made these creations – all simply colour responses to historic photographs I’ve collected over the years. The particular photographs used here are from a set of Victorian photographic glass slides I found in a charity shop once. I have no clue as to the actual setting or location of the slides, but I think they are probably Magic Lantern images – kind of fake scenarios used to tell stories in local theatres. Nevertheless, they all still suggest full worlds lost in time – families, pets, buildings, holidays that somehow say so much, and due to their potential artificial nature, possibly nothing all at once.”
Charly Skilling
The Kick-About No.79 – Sheila Hicks
“There have been several prompts this year that have really fired me off in new creative directions, but I think the one I choose for the annual Kick-About review is my response to Sheila Hicks, Kickabout #79. I started playing about with some length of yarn, and then a couple of cushions got involved, and a wigwam plant support. I didn’t know where it was going. There was no plan. But I became engrossed and just kept going. When I look at the finished article, I think naiad, waterfall… and it pleases me.“
James Randall
The Kick-About No.86 – Michael Landy
“I picked the this little fella because it marked a software use growth spurt that was exciting at the time and is helping the churn still.“
And, to inaugurate our 5th cycle of kicking it about, a big hitter…
Red's Kingdom 
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