Draw My Image

"To hell with reality! I want to die in music, not in reason or prose" - Louis-Ferdinand Céline

2012-01-07T10:23:00.000-08:00

I'm working on a large scale portrait of my friend's parents...

Can't Go Wrong Without You

2012-01-04T12:01:00.000-08:00

"And illustration? What’s the point of arguing for a resistance in terms of "radical" expression. Illustrator!! Go turn into a bag of worms. Zero future, If they can sell Maikovski like cereal they’ll do it. All artistic capability stops when there’s an ounce of money to be made. All the tutti-frutti ragtail of flunkey editors, art directors, marketing heads, etc. . . . the more chronically conservative they are, the better they’ll rule and the longer they’ll rule. You’ll never stir skulls like these even with an oar. It’s an escalator straight to the basement. You’re not there to dream but to listen to death rattles . - . it’s handcuffs!! Line up on the line!! That’s advertising. "Cafe de la Morgue." There’s nothing any more of intelligence or intellect of interpretation. Radical today? Just another coterie as inbred as the fattest agencies . . . jittering junk-heads, fashionable, flippant and ephemeral as maggot agencies are constipated and conservative. Either you take the position as artist to shoe the stars from another universe or else you ventilate your brains on the options handed you by high geared head breakers. Radical??? Not for long. You’re only a handshake away from being flied down, ironed, melted, glazed, starched, and mashed by these fathers of happiness. It’s no longer noon at 2 o’clock. Tell yourself that the next time you impale yourself on a grain of hope."

- The Brothers Quay (taken from this article).

(I always find the Quay Brother's work such a useful reminder to keep taking risks and not get settled in my ways)

"Respectable people...what bastards!" - Emilé Zola

2011-11-12T08:42:00.000-08:00

Lewis recently introduced me to the work of the writer Emilé Zola - at the moment, I have just begun reading The Belly of Paris. I admire his ability to go out and document the world around him in great detail - his books are precious resources, capturing the essence of a place and time before the existence of film.

You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.

2011-11-11T06:58:00.000-08:00

These are a few examples of illustrations I made a few months ago for a commission.

The brief was to design a set of characters - Mr and Mrs Farmer, their son Junior, Grandpa, Mrs Farmer's friend and Mr Farmer's colleague, who all discuss the work required of a pharmacist, and what this entails.

The client stipulated that they didn't want the characters to have any racial resemblance "to avoid an awkward choice". They wanted four double page spreads to convey four conversations between the characters.

I sent the characters, along with a storyboard rough to the client, after which they gave me the green light to continue. That led to these illustrations:

After they saw these illustrations, they changed their minds. Now they wanted green silhouettes based on stock photography instead of illustrated characters. And they needed them by the next morning. Really, I should have told them to find another illustrator at this point - I felt quite depressed thinking I would have to put my name to something so far removed from my own ideas. But I really needed the money, so I was in a bind. I duly sent over these images:

Surprisingly, given that I was asked to use stock photography, they found the silhouettes too "catalogue pose". The woman was too slim for their liking and because she was a pharmacist she wasn't supposed to be wearing jeans. Now they were asking for an illustration of Grandpa and Junior, which they wanted to be "generic yet stylised". It would have been much more helpful if they had sent some sample images of what they thought "generic yet stylised" meant. I sent over this illustration:

After this shocking image, they cancelled the project.

I didn't feel that I was taking huge risks - I was trying to create images that people could relate to - women having tea together, a boy playing with a ball with his grandad.

The client was asking for Grandpa to have a walking stick and for Junior to be in a wheelchair and for the main character Mrs Farmer to be overweight, and for none of the characters to have a racial identity. They were so afraid of offending people, and I found this really sad. I'm sure that people with disabilities don't need characters to be disabled for them to relate to them. And it is terribly patronising to expect a white person to fail to identify with the thoughts and ideas of a black person.

More festive pattern making...

2011-11-11T03:36:00.000-08:00

sweet-wrapper blue...

2011-11-10T04:11:00.000-08:00

reprising my interest in sami culture and gouache...

Gouache patterns

2011-11-08T11:14:00.000-08:00

I've been making limited palette patterns with gouache. (Would love to find a way to get them made into wrapping paper...)

Dreams are illustrations from the book your soul is writing about you - Marsha Norman

2011-11-03T06:09:00.000-07:00

(based on an illustrated book I made in a dream)

The Ladies' Paradise

2011-10-31T09:57:00.000-07:00

Today I've been experimenting with watercolour.

This is a book cover design for The Ladies' Paradise (Au Bonheur des Dames) by Emilé Zola, a novel and documentation of the inner workings of a department store (based on the Bon Marché in Paris), detailing the experiences of the staff and the techniques used to overwhelm the senses, aimed at encouraging customers to spend. (The handrendered typography is based on Zola's own handwriting on the original manuscript.)

New Empress Magazine

2011-10-26T10:07:00.000-07:00

I had a nice surprise in the post this morning...

Issue 3 of New Empress is now available from these stockists:

The BFI Southbank shop in London.

Wardour News in Soho, London.

Cornerhouse in Manchester.

The New Empress webshop.

The Prince Charles Cinema, London.

Riverside Studios, London.

Watershed Media Centre, Bristol.

2011-10-21T03:02:00.000-07:00

you-kulele, me-kulele

2011-10-18T02:01:00.000-07:00

I've begun to learn the ukulele and because its swiftly becoming my new obsession I decided to make a little information book covering the history of this petite instrument, its ancestor the Portuguese cavaquinho, its close relatives, its place in Hawaiian culture, the basic chords, strumming technique, its popularity during the 1920s with stars like Buster Keaton...but I only got as far as its name: "ukulele" (Hawaiian for "jumping flea") and got so distracted by this little piece of information that instead of the planned information book, I have a little narrative developing, about the peculiar life of a Jazz-age, Gregor Samsa-ish, parasitic beastie.

r-e-a-c-h

2011-10-14T09:09:00.000-07:00

alphabet soup

2011-10-14T05:13:00.000-07:00

I've been playing about with creating letterforms based on imagery from my web-comic,

Les Jardin de la Memoir (which has just been updated with some new pages)

2011-10-07T01:50:00.001-07:00

You can now find my work on Behance: http://www.behance.net/emmaridgway

Drawing on Location

2011-10-04T16:04:00.000-07:00

Lewis kept moving his hands while I was drawing him, so it looks like he has a cat on his lap.

Pumpkins and Peaches

2011-10-03T16:11:00.000-07:00

My Grandad Cyril has been growing beef tomatoes, and has been very generous in sharing them with us. He is 87 years old, and his garden always looks full of colour and completely beautiful. I made him a drawing of some of his tomatoes in watercolour and charcoal (Lewis cheekily calls it "pumpkins and peaches").

And so castles made of sand fall in the sea, eventually

2011-09-20T15:11:00.000-07:00

My Dad asked me if I'd make him a portrait of Jimi Hendrix.

I've liked his music for a long time, but I didn't know much about his life, so I watched this documentary while making the drawing ("Jimi Hendrix: The Uncut Story"). His family and friends are interviewed, and while there is a tendency for people to elevate him into a prophet-like figure, its really insightful about the meaning behind many of the lyrics of his songs, and about his early life. He had a really difficult life, but he was also incredibly talented - able to play the guitar upside down and back to front, as well as playing songs backwards, by ear. I felt quite sad by the end of it all, but it made me start listening to his music again.

a little rant, and then back to work

2011-09-16T03:37:00.000-07:00

"I think the situation is that there are art directors out there who I'm sure think I'm a total bastard to work with, and there are art directors out there who think I'm a complete dream to work with...and I think its in direct relation to how much they try and change me, basically. If I get an art director who likes what I do -that's why I'm doing it in the first place - and then trusts me to do it, and trusts that I know my audience and that I won't just mess around...I'm doing the project because I really feel something for it, I want to do it as best as possible...if theres that air of trust, then we get on famously and I have wonderful working relationships with art directors and designers.
But the ones who come with preconceptions and want me to change and do something else...it gets very testy. Because really I just like to be left alone to do my own thing, and so I'm just not appropriate for those jobs that need tonnes of roughs and tonnes of development and constant changing, I'd rather not do that. I don't like doing roughs because the roughs just kill it for me. I like to work out the piece as I'm doing it and allow for mistakes and for inspiration and abstraction - for things just to happen." - Dave McKean, (in an interview with Escape From Illustration Island - podcast episode 61)

I am taking comfort in this after working for a month on what became a particularly épouvantable illustration job. If you agree to do a lot of freelance work for someone, it is probably advisable to write a cancellation clause into your contract stipulating how much you would need to be paid if the job is cancelled. Preferably more than the miserly fraction I was left with.

I'm relieved that it wasn't my first illustration job, because it would have put me off for good: constant changes, 3 switches in style (from full colour pen and ink characters, to green silhouettes in adobe illustrator and then on to limited palate brush and ink), breakdowns in communication, weekend work at no notice, and the vaguest of requests for changes, "can you make it generic yet stylised?" all sent via a design group.

I realise now how much I value being able to actually communicate with a client properly, and how important it is that the client trusts me to do my job. Just as you believe a pharmacist or a plumber or a surgeon can do their job without needing your advice. Why shouldn't it work like that? Why should illustrators and designers be at the behest of their clients, instead of the other way around? This approach of letting a client dictate what they want the design to look like leads to such a sad, watered down, bland end product, leeched of any genuine mark of personality or creativity.

On a positive note, the whole experience has made me able to work faster (sometimes managing 5 illustrations a day) but mostly it has really made me value the clients I've worked with prior to this, who have all been such a joy to work with - helpful, enlightened, articulate, thoughtful - and I am truly grateful to them for trusting me.

2011-09-12T01:51:00.000-07:00

New Empress Magazine are currently doing a survey on cinema-going habits - giving entrants the chance of winning a set of DVDs. You can find the survey here.

No one knows where we go, when we're dead or when we're dreaming

2011-09-09T04:36:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos I took last time I went back home. I love nasturtiums, they are so vivid, and the way they grow makes them look like fireworks or explosions. These pictures were taken in my mum's garden:

I've just taken 4 paintings to Mustard Cafe in Norwich - the original Nikola Tesla drawing that WeAdmire turned into tshirts (and probably the most popular of all my t-shirt designs), a painted portrait of the daschund from my comicbook "Les Jardins...", and two of the Mata Hari illustrations, are now all available to buy (framed) at my favourite cafe in Norwich. Mustard also make amazing coffee and really really good food - pictured is their Ginger & Lemon cake and a flat white:

Blake

2011-08-23T01:33:00.000-07:00

a birthday card for Dan's Mum, featuring their cat, Blake (whose pastimes include persuading people to open doors for him).

Sensurround

2011-08-21T09:07:00.000-07:00

an illustration for New Empress magazine, for an editorial on Sensurround, a process used in the 1970s to create "extended-range bass for sound effects" in cinemas. Film producer and agent Jennings Lang (pictured) wanted to create an "event movie" - and Sensurround was first utilized to create the film "Earthquake", using sound to emphasise the feeling of an earthquake for the cinema audience. Unfortunately, the bass was so loud that ceiling tiles would fall down, cracks appeared in the walls of cinemas, the windows of nearby businesses shattered, and some people reported nose bleeds and headaches.

(You can find the latest issue of New Empress Magazine at BFI Southbank, Wardour News in Soho, The Prince Charles Cinema London, Riverside Studios London (one of my favourite cinemas), and Watershed Media Centre in Bristol, and via the New Empress webshop).

A selection of my illustration work has also just been featured on the blog of Juxtapoz Magazine (one of my favourite magazines). You can find the article here.

Character designs

2011-08-09T05:35:00.000-07:00

I've found a few old character designs for a children's book I began (but had to abandon) a few years ago.

Epic Studios

2011-08-09T02:59:00.000-07:00

3 of my illustrations are now on display (and for sale) at Epic Studios (117 Magdalen Street, Norwich), along with the work of 9 other Norfolk artists. The exhibition was organised by Making Space and will last for a month.

Richard Ayoade

2011-08-03T05:46:00.000-07:00

an attempt at drawing Richard Ayoade; actor, writer, comedian and director of Submarine.

"What a terrible mistake to let go of something wonderful for something real." - Miranda July

2011-08-02T08:36:00.000-07:00

A little portrait of Miranda July, one of my favourite filmmakers.

(You can find her website here: http://mirandajuly.com/)

"If I exorcise my devils, well, my angels may leave too" - Tom Waits

2011-08-02T03:22:00.000-07:00

Dan has been asking me to make a portrait of Tom Waits for ages, so here it is.

And here is Tom Waits performing The Piano Has Been Drinking in 1977:

"It takes a long time to become young" - Picasso

2011-07-29T08:44:00.000-07:00

"Nowhere you can go is more peaceful than your own soul" - Marcus Aurelius

2011-07-29T02:35:00.000-07:00

I like the idea of snails being low and ugly creatures, but having somewhere beautiful and sacred to retreat into. Marcus Aurelius said: "People try to get away from it all - to the country, to the beach, to the mountains. Which is idiotic: you can get away from it any time you like. By going within".
The temple in this illustration looks a bit like a dragons face - it is based on the wats of Thailand. I was lucky enough to visit Phuket a couple of years ago and see a few of these beautiful temples for myself:

"Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self" - Kafka

2011-07-27T01:23:00.000-07:00

The castle belonging to this snail is based on Schloss Neuschwanstein in Bavaria, Germany. It was commissioned by King Ludvig II, a product of his own imagination, inspired by "old German knight's castles" and the music of Richard Wagner, and a place that he could retreat into. Inside the castle, the walls were decorated with murals based on the legends used in Wagner's operas.

His cousin Elizabeth said of him: "The King was not mad; he was just an eccentric living in a world of dreams."

(Neuschwanstein later inspired Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland.)

Seven Stories

2011-07-19T04:03:00.000-07:00

This is a little book cover design I created for Krzhizhanovsky's Seven Stories.

My favourite of the 7 stories contained in this collection is called Quadraturin, about a man who lives in a tiny room, in a building of tiny rooms (which, faithful to the regulations in Russia in the 1920s when the book was written, are regularly measured to check that they are the specified 9 metres by 9 metres). He buys a mysterious substance called Quadraturin from a salesman which, when applied to walls and floors and ceilings, causes them to grow. Unfortunately he forgets to dilute the Quadraturin, and becomes terrified someone will discover his endlessly growing room, which becomes ever darker and cave-like.

I love Krzhizhanovsky's writing, it reminds me of Kafka and Bruno Schultz, and maybe even a smidgen of Roald Dahl too. It crackles with imagination. And he kept writing it even though the censors prevented his work from being published in his time. Even now, I really think it deserves a wider audience.

Making Space at Expresso Cafe, Norwich

2011-07-07T01:28:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we set up our new exhibition at Expresso Cafe, and luckily for us everything went smoothly. Rob and Rosie from MakingSpace were wonderfully helpful in organising the whole thing and assisting everyone with hanging their work.

I made 5 pieces, a series of ink and gesso drawings on the life of Mata Hari.

(the last image in the series, pictured above, is also featured on Tate and Creative Review's Blast/Bless blog)

Mata Hari

2011-07-03T06:47:00.000-07:00

I'm working on a set of 5 paintings relating to the life of Mata Hari - a Dutch exotic dancer who pretended to be a Java princess, and who was executed by a French firing squad as an alleged German spy during WWI.

The paintings are for an upcoming exhibition in Expresso Cafe, Norwich.

Like most science-fiction writers, Trout knew almost nothing about science.

2011-06-30T02:21:00.000-07:00

"No Place Like Home": June Mixtape Cover Design

"Liam Finn"

(a couple of illustrations for Creaturemag)

I am feeling quite homesick today, I miss my family and Hebe and my old job at the University, the lovely people I worked with, and my students, and cycling to work along the Isabel trail (a long cycle path, lined with trees and wild overgrown nature, over what used to be a train track) while listening to Bright Eyes, Joanna Newsom or the Magnetic Fields, and noticing the gradual change of the seasons happening around me each day, passing all the people walking their dogs...

This is what the Isabel trail looked like when it used to be a railway, before nature took over:

I've just finished 2 more pages on my webcomic : http://lesjardin.tumblr.com/

Now that it's June, we'll sleep out in the garden and if it rains, we'll just sink in to the mud

2011-06-26T09:54:00.000-07:00

I met up with Making Space recently - Rosie and Rob are two artists on a mission to help local artists to find interesting venues for their work (eg: ones which don't charge ridiculous fees per night/ have a clique-y committee behind the scenes deciding if the art fits with their standards). They recently had a very successful exhibition at the Unthank Arms in Norwich, and since I've been on board they've helped me to get my work exhibited at Mustard Cafe and (soon) Expresso Cafe in Norwich. I'm really grateful to them for their help since I moved here.

On Thursday I sold my painting of Billy Childish - the 3rd customer to come into Mustard Café purchased it the morning it went on display, which was kind of unbelievable. (Mustard have invited me to make more paintings for them too, which I'm starting to plan now.)

In the evening, Dan and I went to see Bright Eyes at the Royal Albert Hall (in the flesh!), and even though we were so high up, in terrible seats (people kept walking past us to go to the bar) the band played so perfectly, and were so full of energy, that it was a wonderful night and we were totally immersed, and now we're obsessed with their music all over again.

My friends at Unfold Amsterdam have been busy lately - they have contributed to a wonderful Amsterdam City Guide for the Guardian. It makes me wish I was back in Amsterdam...I think its my favourite place.

I've also been working on my comic, and it now has its own little site: http://lesjardin.tumblr.com/

Oh - also - I found a wonderful book by Andrzej Klimowski "On Illustration", which I would really recommend. He is an illustrator I've looked up to for a long time. During my 2nd year at Falmouth he came to give a talk about a graphic novel adaptation of The Master and Magarita he had created with Danusia Schejbal under SelfMadeHero. Pip Chorley and I were sat on the floor in the front row, as all the seats had disappeared very quickly, and I breathlessly told her how Klimowski was a Polish poster artist, that he had written a mesmerizing wordless narrative book called "The Secret", and how he was a friend of the Quay Brothers...not realising until he got up to speak that he had been sitting behind us.

Monsieur Lapin

2011-06-21T01:54:00.000-07:00

I've been drawing lots and lots of rabbits lately, playing with water-soluble graphite to create the soft texture of their fur. I am tempted to start making a children's book about them...

Lapins

2011-06-18T11:01:00.000-07:00

I've been experimenting today, on postcard-sized watercolour paper.

Gil Scott-Heron

2011-06-18T05:25:00.000-07:00

My brother Lewis got me into Gil Scott-Heron's music a few years back after playing me "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised".

Here's a wonderful Guardian article by Abdul Malik Al Nasir on how Gil changed his life.

Mustard Café, Norwich

2011-06-16T06:36:00.000-07:00

If you get chance, I definitely recommend a visit to Mustard Café in Norwich - the staff are really welcoming, the food is all home-made and the coffee is amazing.

I stand shoulder to shoulder with all denouncers of meanness. I honour spirit and faith and uphold the glorious amateur

2011-06-15T05:27:00.000-07:00

This is another drawing of Billy Childish (very similar to the one I sold in 2010) which will soon be coloured and put on display (and for sale) at Mustard Cafe in Norwich.

(A big thankyou to Rosie and Rob at MakingSpace for helping me to get my work out into this fine city!)

Les jardin de la memoire

2011-06-07T02:52:00.000-07:00

I've started to make a little comic book, entitled Les Jardin de la Memoire (or Memory Garden), about the dream-adventures of one man and his daschund.

Also, I just finished reading the graphic novel Blankets by Craig Thompson, and I urge you to read it too if you haven't already. It is beautifully crafted to the point of being impossible to put down and reminds me of the work of a lot of my favourite illustrators/comics artists (David Beauchard, Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba in particular).

2011-06-04T03:33:00.000-07:00

Unfold Poster 19: Tune-yards at Paradiso 6/6/11

2011-06-01T01:07:00.000-07:00

This is why I was building cardboard mountains.

The animal featured in this poster is an endangered species called the Mountain Bongo which is native to Mount Kenya - there are less than 100 mountain bongos in Kenya living in the wild. More than 300 are living in American zoos, but the plan is for them to return to their natural habitat in Kenya eventually.

I really recommend you listen to the tUnE-yArDs - the new album W H O K I L L is available now, and they are playing at the Paradiso, Amsterdam, on 6th June.

Interview

2011-05-30T07:33:00.001-07:00

I have recently been interviewed by The Artfuls - you can read it here.

Picasso in Paris

2011-05-30T07:28:00.000-07:00

The Van Gogh Museum have just announced that their exhibition Picasso In Paris 1900 - 1907 was "one of the best visited exhibitions in the museum's history", attracting 471,168 visitors (full article here)

To see my poster design for the exhibition, click here.

Unfold Poster 19 - tUnE-yArDs

2011-05-29T07:41:00.000-07:00

I have just had another A2 poster printed in Unfold (illustrating the tUnE-yArDs gig at Paradiso on 6th June - go go go!) it has been out in Amsterdam's finest cafes, galleries, cinemas, museums and music venues since Wednesday, and you can see it here too:

Open publication - Free publishing - More amsterdam

And here is a video of Merrill Garbus of tUnE-yArD's in action:

2011-05-29T07:39:00.000-07:00

I am currently GradGallery's featured artist of the week!

Have a peek at the GradGallery website here: http://www.gradgallery.co.uk/

GradGallery is a collective of University College Falmouth illustration graduates, specialising in a broad range of disciplines, with a mutual aim to promote our work in galleries and public spaces across the UK.

Lightmeter Beetle

2011-05-25T10:23:00.000-07:00

Dan and I have a steadily growing vintage camera collection, and today I've been using it as a starting point to create mysterious camera-beetle hybrids. This one is the result of a liason between a Leningrad lightmeter and a Lubitel.

Soon after drawing this, a real beetle appeared on my toe, and I made a film about his life which you can watch here: http://vimeo.com/24259311

2011-05-21T14:26:00.000-07:00

2011-05-20T13:58:00.000-07:00

2011-05-20T04:45:00.000-07:00

Post-cinema, rainy streets, having deep discussions in Franks Bar with Dan and Danuta.

WeAdmire

2011-05-10T12:21:00.000-07:00

The lovely people at WeAdmire have turned some of my illustrations into t-shirts!

(featured: Elizabeth Taylor, Morrissey, Nikola Tesla and Pathé Tuschinski)

WeAdmire are a t-shirt publishing company based in Shoreditch, London. They use a printing process whereby dyes are embedded in the t-shirts with heat and pressure, meaning that the design won't fade or crack/peel. They print the designs at between 300 - 800dpi, so they are nice and clear too.

They have a website full of unique and very intriguing t-shirts, and you can also find them on Facebook and on Twitter too.

The address of their shop is: 13-15 Great Eastern Street, London, EC2A 3EJ, England

We end up around the mountain that I climb to lose you

2011-05-05T04:40:00.000-07:00

I am building a set for a new commission

Here's a little scrap I found from nearly 5 years ago, when I first began to use a mapping pen:

Berney Arms

2011-04-22T02:54:00.000-07:00

(click to enlarge)

Me and my friend Danuta recently visited Berney Arms, a mysterious and beautiful land with no roads, accessed only by infrequent trains (by request) or by bike or on foot, and therefore a very quiet, serene place, punctuated by the sounds of lapwings, redshanks and yellow wagtails, the sight of the tallest windmill in Norfolk, , and a lovely "brown" pub serving local ales and yummy Stowford Press cider (the Norfolk Broads looks very similar to the countryside in southern Amsterdam). I've made a map of Berney Arms, inspired by our being trapped there after missing the last train home and having to walk the 5 miles to Great Yarmouth.

2011-04-18T02:07:00.000-07:00

I now have a Facebook Page: Emma Ridgway Illustration

Art Against Knives Portrait

2011-04-15T07:42:00.000-07:00

http://www.artagainstknives.com/

2011-04-11T02:06:00.000-07:00

When Churchill was advised to cut funding for the arts to divert money to the war effort, he replied:

"then what are we fighting for?"

(I wish the current UK government felt the same)

Art against knives

2011-04-06T02:48:00.000-07:00

I'm currently working on a portrait project for Art Against Knives, a charity which sets out to "reduce the root causes of knife crime through youth-led arts initiatives that provide an alternative to violent gang culture":

Lady Gaga

2011-04-03T15:45:00.000-07:00

a competition entry for V Magazine)

Muammar Gaddafi

2011-03-31T07:07:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Taylor 1932 - 2011

2011-03-27T13:44:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd do some painting today for a change.

Here's an interesting article on Elizabeth Taylor by Truman Capote
and here's another from the New Yorker

"Of all things I liked books best" - Nikola Tesla

2011-03-26T11:40:00.000-07:00

Cosy Letterforms

2011-03-23T05:30:00.000-07:00

Dan and I have just moved to Norwich and are settling in to our new life here (with lots of cups of tea)

Nikola Tesla

2011-03-23T05:05:00.000-07:00

I'm making a mini book about Nikola Tesla's inner life

There's definitely definitely definitely no logic

2011-03-09T08:22:00.000-08:00

my portrait of Björk, as featured on Illustration Rally

Van Gogh Museum & Unfold Amsterdam - Vrijdagavond Poster

2011-02-20T06:52:00.000-08:00

Poster commission for "Picasso in Paris 1900 - 1907" - Friday Night events at the Van Gogh Museum.

This was my dream commission, and it was a joy to work on.

I love working with Unfold - because they give their artists so much creative freedom. As you can see from their amazing posters so far (here), there is a lot of variety, not a "house style".

I did a lot of research, and if you look closely, and you're familiar with his work from 1900-1907, you might recognise a few faces in the poster - all 20 people below Picasso are modelled on his paintings. On the lower left is Picasso's best friend Cassagemas, whose suicide supposedly led to Picasso painting in blue. On the lower right is the old guitar player. In the centre are the saltimbanques (strolling acrobats) of Cirque Medrano, which Picasso used to visit frequently with his friend Apollinaire, and which inspired his Rose Period. And Picasso himself is held up at the top by the characters from this painting, which is actually one of his self-portraits - he often liked to represent himself as a harlequin, because as an artist he identified with their position as an outsider.

The poster represents his climb from a 19-year old unknown newly arriving in Paris to a world famous 26-year-old conquering the Parisian art world and becoming the new leader of the avant garde.

And here are Dansgroep Amsterdam rehearsing Nomade, a dance inspired by Picasso's circus paintings and part of the Friday Night Events at the Van Gogh Museum. They are wonderful to watch, and will be performing at the Van Gogh Museum every Friday - I would definitely recommend seeing them.

Hey, is that you?

2011-02-19T12:27:00.000-08:00

Here's a little teaser portion of my poster on the front cover of the special edition "Van Gogh Museum Friday Night Programme" issue of Unfold.

And here it is at the front desk in the Van Gogh Museum!

A huge thankyou to Russell Joyce, Steve McCarron and the rest of the very talented team at Unfold, and to the Communication Department at the Van Gogh Museum for this commission. I loved working on it, and I learnt so much.

You can find out more about the Picasso in Paris (1900-1907) exhibition at the Van Gogh Museum here, and about the Friday Night events for the exhibition here.

You can find full coverage of the exhibition in Unfold, which can be found squirrelled away in any one of these gezellig Amsterdam establishments.

(above image: another of my illustrations from inside the issue)

2011-01-17T09:15:00.000-08:00

here's a little part of a bigger something I'm working on at the moment

2011-01-09T12:31:00.000-08:00

(This was meant to be a picture of the young Picasso, but it doesn't really look like him.)

To escape is the greatest of pleasures; street haunting in winter is the greatest of adventures

2011-01-04T15:51:00.000-08:00

"and here...is the only spoil we have retrieved from all the treasures of the city"

- Virginia Woolf, Street Haunting: A London Adventure

This is drawn from my memory, a tree I saw in London which sparked lots of new ideas for my comic.

I think it needs something in the foreground.

cheeky lass

2011-01-03T10:44:00.000-08:00

A portrait of one of my dearest friends, Line Lorna, who makes beautiful illustrations (click here to have a peek) and who I hope to visit soon!

All things must come to the soul from its roots, from where it is planted.

2011-01-03T06:58:00.000-08:00

I am thinking of making a sequence of these images, of the plant growing and slowly taking over the house. Perhaps they will act as chapter headers.

If you find yourself caught in love

2011-01-02T06:06:00.000-08:00

Hebe

2011-01-02T05:40:00.000-08:00

A birthday card I made for Mum earlier this month, featuring our cat Hebe (and his new obsession: string)

He was a very good model and actually kept the pose for the whole time I drew him.

Do something pretty while you can...

2010-12-22T16:29:00.000-08:00

My dashing hero is back from the film archive and so off we go happily adventuring together (Somehow the snow lets us get away with this)

London:
Billy Bragg at the Troxy
Eadweard Muybridge at Tate Britain
Francesca Woodman and Tom Lubbock at Victoria Miro Gallery
Glasgow:
Belle and Sebastian at the Barrowlands
Hertie Querty (featuring work by David Shrigley and Art Spiegelman) at GOMA

More excitement:
Unfold have very kindly invited me to illustrate a poster for them next year!
(and a fine new Rapidograph has just arrived in the post)

Unfold

2010-11-11T08:37:00.000-08:00

This is for the new issue of Unfold - its out today, so if you're in Amsterdam, grab a copy!

Its a wonderful poster publication featuring work by some very talented writers, designers and artists, covering "what's on. where. when. why" in Amsterdam.

(Here are some of the magical places where you can find a copy).

My illustration is for an article on Amsterdam's International Documentary Film Festival (IDFA), the biggest documentary festival in the world (the little building reflected on the fly's body and wings is the Pathé Tuschinski, where the opening night and awards ceremony will be held.)

Thanks to Russell Joyce at Unfold for the gig!

Raincoats, Finlandia, raincoats and lakes, the best words I take along in my field bag...

2010-11-05T17:52:00.000-07:00

A lot of the reference pictures I've been looking at for my Christmas cards feature huge groups of Sami children, all looking very sullenly in the direction of the camera. I've tried to make my Sami children look perky...but they've ended up looking slightly crazy instead, haha!

I am now so tempted to get knitting hats and shawls...

its an old romance, a boho dance, it hasn't gone to sleep...

2010-11-04T17:23:00.001-07:00

I'm still struggling to put a face on this fellow. So far my attempts have made him slightly too creepy or morose for Christmas card material.

Tintin

2010-11-02T16:02:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about early cinema and film tinting for a while now, ever since seeing Film Ist a Girl & a Gun at the Filmmuseum back in April, and because Dan showed me a really beautiful polarised print from the film archive the other week and it blew my mind! Tinting is something I've been meaning to recreate in my work for ages. I think it suits Christmas cards.

This footage was used in Girl & a Gun, the colour was all hand-painted, frame by frame:

Tuschinski

2010-10-29T17:04:00.000-07:00

I've just finished drawing Pathé Tuschinski.

(More about the building itself here)

Stick Insects and Leaf Insects

2010-10-29T08:19:00.000-07:00

Stick insects and leaf insects are my new fascination. I find it incredible that animals can mimic their environment. Leaf insects even behave like leaves to fool predators:

(A 47 million year old fossil of a leaf insect suggests that their present state was established very early on.)

Amstelpark sketchbook

2010-10-27T17:14:00.000-07:00

I'm currently working on an illustration for the next issue of Unfold Amsterdam, which I'm really excited about!

I've been inspired by the work of Roman Cieslewicz, who once said:

"To me a picture could never be separated from the content"

I've also been invited to take part in a collaboration called The Exquisite Corpse Project, organised by the lovely Abi Whitehouse (who, along with Desdemona McCannon, creates Doodlezine).

Here are some drawings I made in Amstelpark:

2010-10-23T14:03:00.000-07:00

This sami boy wears the four winds hat - the name comes from the idea that all the winds converge at the north pole.

My little mouth, my winter lungs

2010-10-21T13:35:00.000-07:00

2010-10-20T07:10:00.000-07:00

I'm making Christmas cards!

They are all based on reindeer and Sami culture. The Sami are the indigenous people of northern Fennoscandia (Sápmi), and their association with reindeer is recorded as long ago as 1000 BC when they were its hunters. By the 1500s they had turned to herding, and in modern day Norway they are now solely responsible for the reindeer herds.

According to Arcticdiscovery.com,

"Despite the use of technical aids like radio communications and snowmobiles, this occupation is still adapted to the herd's annual cycles."

I've been looking at early (1900-1920s) photographs of them and I am so drawn to the cosy-looking garments, use of patterns, beautiful hats and snow! But I'm aware that they have been misrepresented in the past, and I've been doing my research so that hopefully I do get it right.

I'm also inspired by Alexander Gronsky's series of photographs Less Than One, which I saw earlier this month at Amsterdam's FOAM. His images of Russia have a stark and graphic appearance, primarily because of the amount of white snow in them. Its worth seeing for yourself: http://www.alexandergronsky.com/

(I've been reading Tintin in Tibet too, which I should also mention features a lot of snow.)

And I've been listening to Bjork:

For this project I'm working with Indian ink and mapping pen on 300gsm gummed watercolour paper, and adding colour digitally. (I've been collecting autumn leaves during my cycle to work for some colours and textures to use.)

This weekend I'm getting some nice prints made of my work, and some cards and postcards printed too, so I will be setting up the shop very soon!!

PS: Here is the black swan of Amstelpark, Amsterdam:

He is a very handsome fellow, very friendly and inquisitive if you decide to sit near the lake, but also a bit of a coward - he can often be seen being chased by a gaggle of noisy ducks and coots.

2010-10-08T00:12:00.000-07:00

Online shop coming soon - high quality prints, cards, badges, and original artworks will all shortly be available...watch this space!

Jazz (aged 11)

2010-10-05T15:18:00.000-07:00

My Jazz. When I was sad, he would always find me. He would sit with me quietly while I painted, and sometimes he would let me draw him. He was a very timid cat, but he would look you right in the eyes. His brother, Hebe, would try to grab his tail when he walked past, and chase him all over the house. When they were kittens they washed each other. They were ill and abandoned, and my dad asked us which one of them we would take home, but of course we couldn't separate them. We picked their names from The She Book of Cats. Jazz was an "exciting cat". He used to sit cool as a cucumber and look at next doors dog through the wire fence and conifer trees while the dog went insane at him. He especially liked to be stroked on the forehead, on the spot just above his nose, and scratched under the chin. He would stretch out and we would stroke his soft belly and tiny ribs and he'd stretch even further, plucking with his claws. Some nights he would wake me up at 2am, miaowing and miaowing, and I'd call to him "Its alright Jazz!" and then he'd be off, back into the night. He just wanted to know we were there.

He was like a sleek black panther and I loved him.

2010-09-11T06:56:00.000-07:00

(one of my illustrations from Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince, Illustrated Book, 2006)

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. Antoine de Saint-Exupery

This week I have been on a disability training course, learning all about conditions such as Autism, Aspergers and Dyslexia, visual impairment, physical disability, deafness, sign language and Deaf culture. It was really fascinating and I've learnt so much, so I'm planning to make some poster designs promoting awareness pretty soon.

The thing that surprised me most was discovering that sign language had once been banned worldwide (at the Second International Congress on the Education of the Deaf, Milan 1880).

Also, it was only as recently as 2003 that British Sign Language (BSL) was officially recognised as a language in Britain, and many countries still do not recognise their own native sign languages.

I really want to make some posters to draw attention to this, and to encourage more people to learn sign language, because I can see the importance of learning it myself.

2010-09-05T09:54:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to design the main character's house for my comic book. I want it to have an art nouveau appearance, to reflect the theme of nature throughout the story. This is one of the houses I've drawn in my sketchbook. It still needs some developing. The script is coming along nicely, so hopefully I'll be putting up a few more images soon!

2010-09-03T12:09:00.000-07:00

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

- Mark Twain

2010-08-30T10:33:00.000-07:00

Animal Masks

2010-08-29T10:23:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to use more colour in my work. These are some animal masks which will feature in my comic book.

Setsuko

2010-08-28T16:11:00.000-07:00

Meditations

2010-08-28T08:35:00.000-07:00

I have a little book of Marcus Aurelius's Meditations and it always puts things in perspective. He was a Roman emperor at the height of its power but his philosophy is quite stoic, its about getting on with things and being true to your own nature and not letting bad things stop you from being a good person. I made this little book for my dad while I was in my 2nd year at Falmouth and I've just found it again. (Click on images to enlarge)

Blue Willow Alphabet

2010-08-22T11:49:00.000-07:00

After drawing my china pig, I thought I'd try to make a willow pattern alphabet.

The pattern has quite a fascinating mythology behind it, containing varying stories about runaway lovers, an illegal society, and the burning of a monastery. (However, it is not clear whether these tales came from China or Staffordshire.)

Penny Pigglington

2010-08-21T14:30:00.000-07:00

This is a little drawing I've just done of Penny Pigglington, the infamous moneybox pig. He lives in a cash register and jingles wherever he goes. Pip Chorley and I imagined him and his many follies during a conversation a while back and now he won't leave us alone.

from my sketchbook...

2010-08-21T04:39:00.000-07:00

comic book front cover (development)

2010-08-15T11:07:00.000-07:00

I've developed the front cover a bit, to relate more to the story. It still needs some tweaking, but I'm happy with the way its going. Any suggestions are welcome!

"If this isn't nice, I don't know what is"

2010-08-13T02:27:00.000-07:00

And now I want to tell you about my late Uncle Alex. He was my father’s kid brother, a childless graduate of Harvard who was an honest life insurance salesman in Indianapolis. He was well-read and wise. And his principal complaint about other human beings was that they so seldom noticed it when they were happy. So when we were drinking lemonade under an apple tree in the summer, say, and talking lazily about this and that, almost buzzing like honeybees, Uncle Alex would suddenly interrupt the agreeable blather to exclaim, ''If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.''

So I do the same now, and so do my kids and grandkids. And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ''If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.''

- Kurt Vonnegut