HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

Here is my 12 days of Christmas card design in the most obnoxiously Christmassy colours possible....  Can you see all the (mostly bird-based) gifts?

Lost in London

Lost in London is a beautiful quarterly magazine about living simply in the city.  It initially caught my eye because of its natural bent and local attitude.  They also happen to make fantastic use of illustration between the covers.

For this latest issue, number 8, I was asked to illustrate the Starling murmuration (yep, I had to look it up too!) that happens over Rainham Marshes.

THE SPREADS

THE COVER

There are lots of gorgeous spreads in this issue and it would make a great present for any lost Londoners you might happen to know!  For £10 you can order a copy online or catch it in these stockists.

DETAILS

10 days til Christmas!

We don't have a tree, but I wanted some festive decoration in our home for Christmas.  So I decided to decorate our living room window myself and have two trees!  I took a whole day to do plus some preparation and editing but was worth it.

I used Posca markers to draw on the glass because they're opaque and they will scrub off no trouble.

The music is from Sufjan Stevens' new Christmas album called Silver and Gold.  It's very festive and a bit weird, but brilliant. (And would make a great gift for a Sufjan fan!)

I have made a few attempts to produce a video, but this time I swore I would post it no matter how it turned out.  So here goes...

And Merry Christmas!




PS. I don't usually move around like a fully caffeinated ant.

Phone Pop

Whoops I let my blog go quite a while without posting!  But I assure you it is because I've been very busy.  I even have a whole new business to show for my efforts.

Ladies and Gents, may I present to you...
www.Phone-Pop.com

I got an iPhone 5 when they were released and really didn't want to put a bulky case or cover on it and spoil the look.  I thought there must be a better way to protect and enhance your phone.  The aluminium  back plate offered quite a nice opportunity to add some decoration onto the phone and merge it seamlessly onto the handset.  And so, the Vinyl Back was born!

Phone-Pop.com is an online store that I have created.  There are 6 sets to choose from and 3 different designs in each set.  Because the Vinyl Backs are easily removable you can change the look of your phone as often as you like.

They are all original designs that I have created and I hope the range has a little something for everyone, whether you want your Vinyl Backs to be bold or blend in.  I aim to release new designs regularly so the options will increase!

Have a look at the Phone Pop shop and let me know what you think!

If You Love Me by BenZel & Jessie Ware

I'm so pleased to have been involved in the making of this awesome video for "If You Love Me".  The track is a 90s gem by Brownstone, reworked by producers BenZel and featuring the beautiful vocal talents of Ms Jessie Ware.




The video was produced by Studio Moross, where I helped out creating and filming some of the visual effects used.  We turned the studio into a Laboratory and made a mess with all sorts of miscible and immiscible liquids.  Yeah, I still remember a few things from my school Science lessons.

Credits

Director - Kate Moross
DoP - Laurence Stephens
Assisted by Abi Heyneke & Guy Field 
Edit & Grade & Post Production - Kate Moross
Playback Op - Oliver Chapman
With thanks to James Moriarty & Will Samuel

Jäger-Bombed

This Is How The World Turns

I got some new markers last week and I thought I'd celebrate with a little Indian inspired type and decoration...

Brixton Market

On Saturday Kaylene Alder and I held a stall together at Brixton Market.  This was my first ever market experience (not going to market, I've been to a lot of markets).  I have been feverishly printing and wrapping and working on my offering in the past couple of weeks and I think it paid off.  We did a good job assembling a stall that looked well stocked and quite neat (which was in fact entirely held together with duct tape).

I think we will be doing more of these in the future.  I'll be sure to let you know when it will happen!

Until then I will shortly be listing some of the items I have produced on my Etsy shop.

Take a look at Kaylene's Etsy shop.

And enjoy some pictures from Saturday!...

Kaylene at the stall

Stally Wally

My mum insisted I pose with my name

And then made Kaylene do it too

A few of my cards

My new badge design

Fitzpleasure

I love alt-J.  I'm not alone in this, because their album 'An Awesome Wave' is amazing.  I wanted to create an illustration in response to their music.

One song that stood out to me from the beginning was 'Fitzpleasure'.  It has this amazing off beat choral intro and then a super dirty bass drop.  I read the lyrics and while very poetic, they are also dirty.  And then I found out about the short story that inspired the track - Tralala from Last Exit To Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr - which is just beyond dirty into abject and brutal.  Still, if you have the stomach for it it's a thought provoking read.  This image is influenced by the track, rather than the story.  

I'm at a little bit of a loss when it comes to explaining my choices (I created the image quite quickly) but I'll try...  

The main part of the picture is a yonic hand gesture, representing the obvious and a more spiritual and serene attitude.  There are several references to hands in the lyrics.  

"Steepled fingers, ring la-la-la-la-leaders, queue jumpers, rock fist paper scissors..."

The triangle in the background is delta, ∆ (the shortcut is alt+j on a mac), in clear and direct reference to the band.

The patterning around the wrists is in inspired by pylons.  They are strong but usually situated in a bleak landscape.

"Tall woman, pull the pylons down, and wrap them around the necks of all the feckless men who queue to be the next."

The cables also continue on from that sentiment.  They represent the visceral without being too graphic, and also show connection, turmoil, confusion and restriction.

The stain shape in the background is more directly from the ending of the Selby Jr story, but in general it's representative of the wake of destruction and dissipation and entropy: the dissolution of all things.

Sorry if this doesn't make a whole lot of sense and it sounds like I'm pussy-footing around the issue (it's because I am).  It should make more sense if you have dug into the 'Fitzpleasure' lyrics or have read the story.  I've done remarkably well to get to the end of this post without mentioning gang rape once.

Grab yourself a high quality limited edition print of this image.

Image Hoard: Always & Never

Book cover of Hemlock Grove by Brian McGreevy

This fantastic cover caught my eye.  I'm intrigued by the melodramatic werewolf novel that it represents as well.  It has very mixed reviews but it's being made into a series by Netflix and I think it might be worth a read.  I tend to judge books by their covers.

Above and below unknown images

These were pulled from an excellent, but sometimes disturbing blog of found images by Miron.

Above and below by Fin-DAC

Beautiful urban art, tightly controlled with a touch of chaos.  I think he does it all with spray paint.

Totem 2012 by Niark1

Crazy brilliant image by Parisian Designer/Illustrator Niark1.

Toujours et Jamais (Always & Never) by Pierre-Eugene-Emile Hébert

Hébert was a sculptor in Paris who had an unremarkable career aside from this piece in terracotta, which caught Baudelaire's eye at the 1859 Salon and remains a sensation on Tumblr.  It now lives in the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

Unknown

Unknown

Summer Crush

It's a sunny afternoon in London and you should probably be outside enjoying it, rather than inside reading blog posts.  If you want something to look at while you're out bathing in the sunshine then why not pick up a copy of CRUSHfanzine?  You can enjoy my portrait of Novak Djokovic and loads of other stunning work on paper.  You don't need to hack an unsecured WiFi network or even have any battery left to enjoy it.

Tola's Morning

This is a commission for  a guy called Martyn Adams who is writing a novel about a parallel earth.  People are the same but their society and culture developed differently from ours.  The people are called  the 'Naha' and they live a more communal life in a buildings and collectives called 'Nahum'. 

This is the final illustration entitled 'Tola's Morning'.

Tola's Morning

This scene is from quite early in the book.  The main character - Tola - has been bereaved of her partner and is coming to terms with it.

I turns out her first assignment, when she goes back to work as a Law Enforcer, is to visit our version of Earth to track down some rogue agents.

I thought I would show you some of my very sketchy sketches and development.

Character sketch of Tola

These are my thumbnails for the Illustration, thinking about content and positioning.

Initial garbled sketches for the illustration

Progression

Selection

Refinement

As you can see I left out Iyan (the dude sleeping) in the final thing, mostly for the sake of the composition and it doesn't quite make sense in this picture.

Learning about a whole other Earth can get very complicated, as you might imagine.  There is a Naha language, different customs and lifestyle and their technology is much more advanced than ours.  I did quite a bit of concept sketching, developing the look of characters, technology and architecture.  

Concept sketch for 'Nahum' structures with a good portion of the buildings below ground

Tola arriving for briefing

The main type of transport in the book is in a Relkim.  It is a floating, flying vehicle which looks like pretty much like a big metal pillow.  Drawing it was pretty easy.  What was harder was figuring out what's going on inside.

Development for 'Relkim' wear and masks

'Relkim' concept sketch

The Naha also have implants for computing and communication, but that's a whole other story.