Garden

Dan and I are growing gem lettuces, tomatoes, kale, courgettes, peppers, chillies, french beans, strawberries, rosemary and mint.

I know it's not the done thing for an illustrator to have so many different styles, but I am always fighting between making nice little neat tight drawings and making big loose messy paintings, and I can't see how the two can ever be reconciled. I love working in a detailed and precise way in ink or gouache, but it's so much harder to be loose and it's what I admire in my favourite painters...there's something more human and authentic in going against the urge to make things look perfect and tidy, and it feels really good to paint without worrying what anyone might think about the end result. 

If you're in your comfort zone drawing neatly, I suggest you buy a big paintbrush, maybe a Daler-Rowney system 3 SY21 Long Flat Acrylic brush (I know...very precise - it happens to be my favourite brush). You can't be neat with it. It holds too much paint and water. You can use the edge to create lines, but not so precise and not much in the way of detail. But that's good - it's liberating to face up to your weaknesses. It's a challenge to try to suggest something with as few brush-strokes as possible.

Jean-Paul Belmondo

I went to visit my brother in Brighton over the bank holiday weekend. We both love film, particularly French new wave, particularly Godard's Pierrot le Fou (and the final scene where Belmondo paints his face blue and wraps himself in dynamite.) He's an actor I can't think of without a slight amusement. All films could be improved by placing Belmondo in the lead role. 

This portrait is based on his role as Silien in Melville's Le Doulos, a film my brother introduced me to.

Buy the original artwork here: http://etsy.me/TWEbmw

I created lettering from scenes and objects in Le Doulos: 

work in progress (black india ink mixed with white acrylic)

sketches and notes made while watching the film:

Portraits on Postcards 2

Last year I invited people to commission a postcard-sized portrait of someone they admired.

The response was wonderful and varied - inspirational figures included Vivian Maier, Charlie Parker, Edgar Allan Poe, Etta James, the Dalai Lama, David Lynch…

15 of these postcards have been collected in a zine (available here:http://etsy.me/RZpRIs) designed to be shared with the people you admire.

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I am now inviting *new* commissions for portraits on postcards. 

They could be famous people, literary figures, activists, poets…or they could be your own unsung hero. They might be your Grandpa. Or your cat. Anyone, as long as you can say why you really admire them.

E-mail me at: emma.ridgway (@) live.co.uk (note: no "e" in ridgway) with the name of a person you admire, along with an explanation of what you admire about them, and any photographs for reference.

Drawn in Winsor & Newton ink and painted in Cotman watercolours on Langton watercolour paper, postcards will cost £15 ($25 or €18), and will be shipped out (worldwide) at no extra cost.

If you wish, you can make this a gift to someone.

All finished artworks will be scanned and will eventually form a book.

Art for sale

Portrait of Billy Bragg - £52    http://etsy.me/TB00b8

A5 print - Portrait of Bob Dylan - £12     http://etsy.me/1jJC4x1

A5 Print - Portrait of Lou Reed - £12    http://etsy.me/TAZCJT

A5 Print - Portrait of Nikola Tesla - £12    http://etsy.me/1jcCVjE

A5 Print - Amsterdam's Pathé Tuschinski Cinema - £12    http://etsy.me/SqS8YY

Portraits on Postcards Zine - containing a set of 15 postcards - £25    http://etsy.me/RZpRIs

Le Jardin de la Mémoire - Episode 2

(click to enlarge)

to be continued...

(If you're on tumblr, you can follow the comic here)

Le Jardin de la Mémoire - episode 1

(I drew this last night and coloured it today)

Nothing is built on stone; all is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone - Borges

More close-ups from the Library of Babel collage

Visited my family back in Stafford over Easter - spent a lovely day working in the garden with my mum, accompanied by her two guinea pigs. We have some red tulips that my Grandad Cyril planted before I was born which come up every year. I love how eternal flowers are. (I planted freesias, which are her favourites, and lettuces, which I suspect the guinea pigs will gobble up).

(Bacon the guineapig)

My Grandad Geoff sat for me and let me paint his portrait, which was lovely...I hardly ever get chance to paint people from life any more. It's nice to paint someone you love and admire so much. I was so impressed with him for sitting still for so long too - he never, ever sits still. He always has to be busy doing something. His childhood nickname was "lightning".

Later, while having a sort out and throwing away sentimental ephemera I came across a couple of bits and pieces I made a while back:

(the piece above was from an idea for a comic about Prosopagnosia or face blindness)

Think of Brian Blessed. Now imagine him as a cat. That is Blake.

“A man sets out to draw the world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face.” 

- Jorge Luis Borges, The Aleph and Other Stories.

(This is the lower 1/3 of an A1 poster, made using public domain images from the British Library)

Find time for finding ideas

Use this link for free worldwide shipping and $5 off each item in my Society6 shop (until Sunday 13th April)

Collaboration with WeAdmire + the Barbican

I recently made illustrations for the Barbican, in collaboration with WeAdmire. 

This t-shirt design is for the Barbican's current film season - Cinema's Baddest Girl Gangs.

Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter is a Japanese exploitation film made in 1970, starring Meiko Kaji. 

The Barbican has a wonderfully spot-on description of it here. (Truly, the best hat in cinema history)

(photographs: WeAdmire)

WeAdmire have a pop-up shop in the foyer of the Barbican where you can purchase the t-shirts. 

(They are also available online here.)

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I personally loved the film - it's fun and swaggering, the ending is genuinely quite perplexing, the ratio changes for no particular reason in certain scenes, coca-cola bottles are used as molotov cocktails, Meiko Kaji is amazing as Mako right from the start (- that hat!)...all best seen on the big screen. Also, as far as I can tell, it isn't available on Region 2 (though it appears Arrow Films will be releasing a box set of the Stray Cat Rock films later this year, which is really promising)

(Barbican Podcast on Cinema's Baddest Girl Gangs)

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Early sketches: