Nikola Tesla sketch

Listened to a fascinating podcast about Nikola Tesla this weekend... and it's nice to put a face to a name.

trying to know my onions a little better...

I noticed an onion in my kitchen was getting a little long in the tooth but it appealed as a sketch subject, one thing led to another. Don't know why I decided to play with halftone too, but I enjoyed the whole thing.

a trio of colourful chaps...

I'd mean meaning to do a third irreverent installment to go along with my "Joseph's technicolour dream goat" and "Joseph's technicolour milk float" illustrations from a while back. A few variations sprung to mind (which I still might do when I have a quiet day) but "Joseph's technicolour speed boat" won out. I think it's the retro children's book vibe that's entertaining me as much as the silly word play. Might I have been more religiously inclined if R.E lessons at school had jokey illustrations as an accompaniment... probably not. Would have been more entertaining though.

Primate Family Portraits. The White bald headed uakari [wah-kahr-ee].

Just a quick primate illustration to keep the primates family portraits thing slowly rolling on.

Primate Family Portraits. The Golden snub-nosed monkey.

I wouldn't go so far as to say this is going to be a running theme... I'm just really enjoying researching and illustrating some of the more obscure members of our extended primate family. Today's relative, the Golden snub-nosed monkey.

an orangutan on a penny farthing...

Well then, what better way to break a prolonged dry spell on the old blog but an orangutan on a penny farthing... (incidentally I don't think there is an answer to that...). I recall many conversations with friends about the ergonomic considerations for vehicles, furniture and the like, should apes have culturally and technologically evolved a pace like we hairless chimps did. Just think of it... Certainly there would be buttons and switches on car floors. Chair seats would be lower down while arm rests would be longer (the budget 'cattle class' airlines wouldn't be economically viable in an ape world), and the handle bars of bicycles would be higher up!

As usual with my illustrations for a little bit bunny blog I'll post sketches plus a sneak peek of the final pic here, pop on over to A.L.B.B blog for the full thing. TTFN.

an ostrich...

Here's a sneak peek of my ostrich for this months a little bit bunny creature... as always follow the link if you are inclined to see more. I ended up revisiting a pose I'd used a while back for a flamingo illustration. I guess there are only so many ways you can arrange avian legs this long!

the trojan horse... or... it might well prove a good idea to look a gift horse in the mouth...

I was stumped for this months a little bit bunny blog post as the prospect of illustrating a horse didn't sound all that exciting... until I remembered the trojan horse that is! As usual I've only posted a cropped detail of the final illustration below, plus some rough initial sketches. If you would like to see more the full epic tale is over on a little bit bunny blog... I must admit while sketching, at one stage my wooden nag's design was unintentionally veering toward Monty Python's 'wooden rabbit'.... or was it a large wooden badger...?! Such marvellous creations as Gilliam's bunny tend to burrow into your brain and stay there (if you pardon the pun...).

Napoleon is proving complex...

Well my head and desk have been full of all things Napoleon over the last few days. I cannot talk about specifics at this stage, safe to say there's hopefully going to be a book cover and a few other things in the offing. Although the brief calls for a little restraint in how I depict the little big guy I couldn't resist having a play with a more caricature approach and get it out of my system early on. So here's some Napoleon sketches. No doubt more will follow...

can you hear me Major Tom...?

It's like my last but one post said... anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work [they are] supposed to be doing at that moment... This notion for an illustration popped into my head and pushed out the two other tasks I should have had in there today...

"the rather interesting octopus" or ... nothing I could draw would make it any more bizarre than it already is !

The challenge with doing illustrations for my other [group] blog "A Little Bit Bunny" is to make the chosen creature of the month a little bit quirky... a wry sideways glance... or just downright odd. This month it's the octopus, a particular favourite of mine.

I started out with weird doodles that amped up the fact it has a beak (something easy to forget, being buried as it is beneath those 8 arms ... we're not to call 'em tentacles by the way...), then I played about with stylising the anatomy, but no matter what I did, nothing was as downright bizarre as the actual facts about this remarkable creature. So that's what I went with... cold hard facts and a picture of an octopus... simple and to the point I hope.  Here are just a few sneaky peeks of my final illustion. As always the final picture is over on ALBB.

If cephalopods (or indeed natural history in all it's many and varied forms...) interest you I can recommend a glorious collection of 19th century scientific plates from the voyage of the H.M.S Challenger (and here too) that I found while researching all this. Just a closing thought... I do feel guilty that I ate some of the best calamari I've ever had while sketching for this illustration... It did taste great though! Maybe that's another fact to add to my illustration, "squid and octopus taste very nice"...?

Ceci n'est pas un pope

On hearing the news that the pope was off this idea floated into my head and I had to do it... (apologies to Magritte... and any french speakers). Incidentally, with those red shoes, it seems to me that the Pope would make a cracking alternative to Dorothy in the Wizard Of Oz.... following the yellow brick road to the Emerald Vatican City... clicking his heels together saying "there's no place like Rome"... That's me dammed for eternity now I suppose...

saw a bag in a tree today

Looking out of the window today there was this small tale of an unfortunate (or lucky, depending upon your outlook...) carrier bag... I embellished the tree somewhat...

Staithes and gulls galore...

I went on holiday last month to a grand little fishing village on the east coast of Britain called Staithes. The place has already been photographed, painted and printed more than most, but not to let that stop me I thought I'd work it up into a print design too and see what happens. Gulls pretty much rule the roost there (as I can attest to with more than one sleepless night!), "mine...mine...mine" is spot on, so they are going to have to feature pretty heavily in the illustration, hence I'm trying to get them right before I go on. And now my sketch book is covered in gull sh*t !

cymbals chimp warm up sketch...

Couldn't get enough of the chimp with cymbals in Toy Story 3. You cannot buy them for love nor money!

BROCCOLI WARNING !

I was chatting with a mate tonight whose son has just started on solid foods, although I hear touching broccoli florets suddenly made him swing from curiosity to tears... ... made me laugh (is that wrong) so, as soon as I hung up the phone I sketched this guy. Sounds like the little chap might share George Bush Sr. views on the subject of vegetables. Don't worry though, the US secret service seem to know how to handle broccoli (42 seconds in :-)

RIP Lonesome George...natures living 'picnic hamper'

Poor old George. Depending on which sources you read, but the last remaining living specimen of the Pinta island giant tortoise, aka Lonesome George, died on sunday last at the (again, depending on who you ask) ripe old age / or middle age of an estimated 100 years old. The rest of his species were lost when wild goats were misguidedly introduced to his Galapagos island home and ate all the food. Whether some individual examples of the Pinta island Tortoise exist on another island in the Galapagos is open to debate, but either way it's a sad day as we tick off another species that may or may not have still been around had we not buggered about with things we didn't understand. It's not only the goats either... Man more directly played his part in why it is that all examples of giant tortoise are now a protected species. Damn it nature, what were you thinking of, packaging a tasty meal and a drink in one handy living picnic hamper, as illustrated in this episode of QI. Not to get on my environmental soap box, I'm no green angel, but the sad demise of lonely G does paint a picture...

gorilla doodle

The estimable Don Flores has done me the great honour of inviting me to join the fun over on Cup O'Doodle blog and here is my first effort. Don posts various styles of random abstract doodles on the blog and then various folks use these as the basis for an illustration flight of fancy. Like my other group blog endeavour A Little Bit Bunny it's a grand way of generating artwork and it's really fascinating to see how different illustrators take the same starting point but end up at different destinations.

another magpie logo... (I've been here before!) & screen printing plans

At the certain risk of repeating myself (what's this, paid magpie logo project number four for me now... total number of enquiries for magpie logos must be around eight or nine... I've really lost track now...) here is my latest magpie logo design This feathered fellow is for a publisher in the Netherlands. I really don't know what  manner of 'corvid zeitgeist' I've been fortunate enough to tap into...?! Mustn't grumble of course.

To explain my absence of major creative bits and pieces of late most of my spare time (when not occupied with magpies) has been with the aim of being able to start screen printing from my modest little abode. Todays job was to design an exposure unit to produce my printing screens. There's still equipment to buy and things to make (oh, and prints to design of course) but I hope to have blog worthy fodder (and prints to hawk, maybe an etsy shoppie...?) before too much longer! Ever since my toe dip last year into the world of screen printing I've wanted to be able to sort out a modest set up and produce my own prints. It's going to be great to get a little messy and make real things! Watch this space.

go with your first idea...

Went to Chris Haughton's excellent "Digital Handmade" show at So Far The Future Gallery last night with my good bud Phil ... well, to be honest we ended up gate crashing the private view, but everyone was very nice about it all. Chris even let us drink his beer and bend his ear when he no doubt had more important things to do.

The digital illustrations translated perfectly into the fair trade crafted rugs, lamps and soft toys and, the icing on the cake, there were advanced copies and artwork for Chris' new book "Oh No George!" which manages to pull off superbly that difficult trick of being as good as his applauded first book A Bit Lost. Another book for my groaning shelves come March next year!

While there I got the opportunity to look over the rug design competition entries and I'm kicking myself on two counts. My choice of colours didn't print out at all well so my 3 illustrations didn't really look much at all when viewed off the screen and up on the wall, and there was also an excellent cert sure fire winner, a flattened 'bear skin rug' design. I should have gone with my gut and worked up my initial sketch idea for a tiger skin rug design (and I also had a notion for a polar bear too believe it or not...) instead of / as well as my other 3. Hey ho, a lesson learned. It was just a lot of fun plotting pixels and taking part.

In conclusion what have we learned today... your first idea might be your strongest and, if you're free between now and Dec 7th go and see Chris Haughton's Digital Handmade exhibition!