Broome Street Review illustration.

I was delighted to be contacted some weeks back now by an arts/literary journal based in New York who had happened upon my blog and liked an illustration I had done for an Illustration Friday topic "instinct". Isn't the web a great place...it provides the impetus to come up with work and (if you are very fortunate) people who are prepared to pay for that work. So I'm indebted to The Broome Street Review for liking my work enough to get in touch and I can heartily recommend you visit their site and blog if you are in the mood to have your post modern artistic sensibilities stimulated and stretched.

Painted Mandrill

Gouache and collage. 285mm x 232mm

Here's my long overdue Mandrill in the intermittent 'twisted creatures' game played with my good friends Kev & Phil. It's been a funny one this. I'm pretty happy with the collaged mandrill itself but I kinda got a bit carried away with the painted background. I think it would have benefited from a bit more planning, as I would usually do. Maybe it was the Matisse programme I saw on TV recently that got me carried away... Compositionally and graphically I don't feel it quite holds together... that said I'm pleased with the colour palette and 50's vibe, and I had fun loosening up and just going at it Pollock / Miro style so not all bad. As an exercise in getting more comfortable with gouache I cannot complain too much I suppose.

marmalade flapjacks

Hi blog! Miss me...?! Following links via two excellent, and talented, fellows blogs (Michael Robertson & Abz Hakim ) I happened upon the marvellous they draw and cook blog run by Nate Padavick & Salli Swindell....phew enough name checks for now....What a great idea for a site as so many creatives are bound to like getting creative in the kitchen too. Some ridiculously talented folks have posted submissions to this blog (illustrate your own recipe to the page layout brief on the blog) so I hope my humble effort cuts the mustard (no pun intended :) I had a blast doing the illustration. Deciding on the arm layout was a bit of a fiddle, and I nearly forgot the honey (though that's not why the honey ingredient has bees instead of an arm, I just couldn't fit another arm on the page... that, and I like drawing bees...) but it's great to try and get your head round visualising a process like this... a bakery story if you will. I'd be interested to hear if anyone 'reads the story' and attempts the flapjacks... PS. if anyone is wondering on the strange text spacing on parts of the layout there's a page gutter in there I was trying to steer clear of.

quite a few giraffes...

gouache and collage 220mm x 330mm




Where do all the days go...? Amongst other mundane things last week I followed up on a link recommended by several good friends and went over to "one million giraffes". As the name implies this site is after one million giraffes, created in any means except on the computer... as this would be (quote) "too easy" (OK, don't get me started, safe to say I don't agree with that ! anyhow...). Once I got began I just couldn't stop and so, 10 or so giraffes for the cause later, here I am. I guess I have to add giraffes to the list of other things I find myself drawing obsessively from time to time. Also it was a grand excuse to paint something again. I still think my colour mixing is letting me down... I got carried away and deviated from the earth tone digital colour sketch I started with, both for good and bad. At the least I really should have used the collage way of working as an opportunity to redo the chrysler building (which is veering too close to magenta for my liking). Similarly the giraffe on the left is too vibrant. As a whole though I can live with some points OK. In case you are wondering about the giraffes at the bottom with the blotchy painted outlines, they are from the waste paper left after I had finished painting the collage elements for the main painting. I dooodled in the gaps while I waited for the main painting to dry. Positive space giraffes, negative space... my desk is overrun!!! Enough long necked tomfoolery for now...I have more constructive creative work I should really concentrate on.

Fly Icelandic...

I knew I could do better with this idea and since I've been backing up my files all day I needed something creative to play with. I was aiming for the retro feel of the classic 1950 / 60's airline posters for TWA and BOAC, don't know if I quite got there, but it's fun to try, and as this is still very much a topical story, I thought I'd give it another go. For anyone reading this who isn't in Europe I don't know how publicized the story has been around the globe but the broad strokes are that a volcano with an unpronounceable name ( Eyjafjallajoekull volcano ) in southern Iceland has been doing what volcanos do from time to time and belching out great clouds of ash all over Europe. Playing on the safe side air traffic authorities have called a halt to most commercial flights as this ash can play merry hell with a planes engines, not to mention sandblasting the rest of an aircraft back to the bone. Kinda conjures up images from Dick Dastardly & Muttley trying to catch the pigeon and having their plane disintegrated around them to the sound of a buzz saw.

Icelandic volcano brings British airspace to a halt...

I was doodling at work today and this is a quick 20 minute comment on the news of the day.

A boy & his monkey, the finished painting.

Gouache, watercolour and coloured pencil on cream watercolour paper. 210mm x 225mm


Finally, after getting back from my easter travels, I got chance to put brush to paper and finished the painting on sunday. The client was really happy with the scan I showed him (phew, a relief) and, all being well, royal mail will deliver it safe and sound today. Very rewarding to have completed my first serious gouache (well OK gouache, watercolour and coloured pencil) but quite nerve wracking to work without the safety net of an undo command, especially as I was putting on the finishing touches and couldn't resist adding a leaf here and there, or tweeking the iris colours. Just one slip of the brush! Makes me all the more keen to tackle more painting. So nice to have that physical artwork on your desk to show for all your days efforts.I'd also really love to marry up the best bits of gouache with the best bits of digital. Those things that take a lot of fiddling in the computer (natural texture and flow of line) come so freely with painting while those painting challenges (control of line, sharp edges, accurate colour and the all important correction of mistakes) play to photoshops strengths. Cannot wait to play further!

A boy and his monkey.

Firstly, thanks so much to everyone who dropped by and said such nice things about Bathroom Lion, I really appreciate it folks! For those who asked it will, hopefully, be published October time. There's a chance it will be available on Amazon, and the publishers will have it on their site. When I know more I'll be sure and post about it.

I've been working on a commission for a little boy's first birthday present. His parents wanted a painting of the little guy riding a monkey, maybe holding it's ears, and wearing a green T-shirt with a 1 on it... the rest was however I wanted to take it. I showed them 2 versions of initial sketches, which I also splashed some quick colour on. They loved the colour palette of the left hand version with the character design of the right so last nights task was a marriage of the two. The parents are happy with version 3 (save for keeping the original sun design , showing the boy's teeth and having him bear foot) so the next step is to get out the paints! It's going to be a useful exercise in pushing me into doing more natural media pieces. I'd love to get my eye in with gouache as well so I've tried to design things with an eye to the final painting process. I guess I'll know how easy I've made my life when I get cracking over the easter break. I'm away for a few days so it will make a nice holiday project as it will like as not be raining! I'll post the final piece when I have it. Enjoy your secular chocolate eggs folks!

Bathroom Lion Cover, woohoo!

I'm really happy to finally be able to post something further on the bathroom lion book. No doubt a few tweaks to come here and there but this is the cover. Just 2 more illustrations for the inside of the book and I'm done! I've also posted an in progress lion doodle and my exploration of lion's paw bath legs... Although the showering lion was always going to be in silhouette I felt the need to know who I was dealing with behind the curtain. I think I read somewhere that Arthur Rackham always used to draw the rough details on his silhouette illustrations before inking in... I'd say it's essential in order to get a silhouette that really looks like it's owner. The multicoloured version of the hand lettered title is just a bit of whimsy to see what it would look like using the palette of the cover. More soon!

Cards, cards...Happy Mothers Day /Birthday!

Finally I get round to another post. I've a few things coming up which I can finally post on so my sadly neglected blog can feel wanted again. Today's efforts are a pair of cards I actually produced without going any where near a computer... wow who knew you can be creative without photoshop ;) The abstract watercolour collage is for my lovely mum's mother's day card. Islands, hills, rocks... please take your pick. Now I look at how I placed the 3 forms I think they are a bit too bunched up... but my card base was only A5 and I was loathed to trim the pieces down (and lose some of those interesting happenstance textures) to give me more room. My thanks to the inspirational, texture packed watercolourist krisztina maros for her tip on using salt with watercolour. I'm having a lot of fun with the effects... ta for sharing your trade secret!
The second collage is for my good friend Phil's birthday. He's had a wild thing vibe in his work for a while now so I thought it only appropriate! A bit of a rush job but I did enjoy reusing the character treatment I had for Carol (I guess IT/he now has a name) in my terrible yellow eyes submission. Sendak really knew what he was doing when he designed those wild things! More posts in the week.