Ride or Die

Here's a piece that I did recently. It was commissioned as a birthday gift for one of a trio of friends. The brief was that it had to include a tricycle (as a symbol of their three-way friendship) and the words "Ride or die".

I thoroughly enjoyed aggressively inking out the letters but decided that a Lisa Frank rainbow gradient would be perfect to lighten the tone. It looks like Summer holiday mischief to me.

Fresh ink

The trike

Printout

Rainbow typography

Nicki Minaj in colour

This is just an experiment for my sketchbook portrait, using Dr Martens liquid watercolours (because they're hyper bright) and oil based pitt pencil (because it's proper black). I think it worked.

I drew Nicki Minaj from a picture in an old issue of Wonderland. Once I start drawing, it often amazes me how crazy celebrities faces are and Nicki's is just about as nuts as she is. 

I often instagram things-in-progress, so follow if you're interested in seeing that kind of stuff I'm @abihey - FOLLOW!

Jäger-Bombed

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.

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.

String Section

Here's an image I did last week.  The brief was quite open; just a drawing of a violin really.  

Whenever a drawing requires some inky parts I go a bit crazy, 'just in case'.  I will definitely use some of these other ones for something or other...

And just for good measure here's a video of Owen Pallett doing some unexpected things with a violin.

Novak Djokovic for Crush Fanzine

Novak Djokovic was the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year 2011, and is world tennis number one with five Grand Slam titles to his name.  Aside from that he's just a really likeable character and I had the pleasure of drawing the tennis star for the next issue of CRUSHFanzine.  

This is issue # six of the quarterly publication, entitled 'Eastern Promises'.  As stated on their website it's a "New York and Paris based fanzine that explores the exquisite details of obsessions."  

You can order the issue here.

• Other Contributors include...
• 
  

• Jenny Holzer, Projection Artist whose truisms light up cities at night
• 
  
• Elmgreen & Dragset, Installation Art duo who built a Prada store in the middle of the desert  

• Martynka Wawrzyniak, Photographer & Artist who was gunned down with ketchup by a bunch of kids
• 
  

• Kirill Shevyakov, Graphic Designer who made Crush Fanzine's excellent website  

• 
  
• Josh McNey, Photographer who likes real Wrestlers and Cowboys and is not a player

My Favourite Weapon

I recently read an article in Oh Comely issue 10 about artists' favourite tools.  In one double page spread, eight artists from various disciplines waxed lyrical about their favourite tool to work with, accompanied by photos of said instruments.  I really enjoyed reading the piece and thought you might like to know what my favourite tool is.

The item I chose is a Faber Castell Pitt oil base pencil in Extra Soft with a Lyra pencil extender.
I like pencils; the feel of drawing with them, the look of them on paper, the variety of line weight and the not-wholly-defined ambiguity of the marks.  In my own work I often felt like inking ruined a drawing, like I was trying to pin down a butterfly with a nine inch nail.
I specifically like these pencils because they're black as opposed to the usual grey.  The solid colour means they scan well and details aren't lost in the translation to digital.  They do not, however, erase well.  Once your mark is made it will probably stay there (over 100 years if it's kept in museum conditions) so I will often make a light initial drawing with a normal pencil and then work on top with the Pitt pencil.
They're soft and they wear down quite quickly, but I like to have a sharp point on it so I keep a good sharpener on hand.  I use the extender so that I can keep on going to the last few centimeters.

For example...

I used one for my Nirvana line work along with Quink ink.
In my Austra illustration I used Photoshop to invert the pencil drawing and give the impression of light on dark.

If you want to give them a go they're £1.60 each from Cornelissen in all weights, and they have the pencil extender too.  I'm not getting paid for this by the way.

If you're an artist, what's your favourite tools to use?  If you have a "real job", what's your favourite piece of equipment in the work place?

The Art of Packaging

Here is a bit of work I did recently under the direction of Khary Simon for Jansy Packaging.  

Jansy Packaging design and manufacture packaging and accessories for cosmetics.  It was really interesting to study and portray the glass, acrylic and metal (and bristles) used.  I combined pencil drawings with ink for some variation in texture and colour.

After my part was done the individual drawings were arranged in a layout which will run as a print ad in a trade publication.  Voilà.

Happy Birthday Kurt Cobain

Today, the 20th February 2012, is Kurt Cobain's Birthday.  Were he still alive he would have turned 45 today.  It's difficult to imagine.  To the world Kurt Cobain will always be young and beautiful, dissatisfied and awkward in his own skin.

I honour I have drawn this tribute of the whole band.  I must admit I don't listen to Nirvana a lot these days, but I have had their whole discography on repeat for the past week.  It seems like I forgot what good music it is.  

Nirvana x 4

I made a gif of the drawing in progress.
Expect everything to be animated from here on in!

I also made the image into wallpapers for you to adorn you computer or cellular telephone with!  Enjoy...

Desktop Wallpaper 
click on the image above and save it

Phone Wallpaper
click on the image above and save that sucka

From A to B: Born To Die

Lana Del Rey's album is out today, and I created this illustration in anticipation.  

Probably quite appropriate because of the scrutiny she has been facing regarding her
fake-ness/authenticity.  I don't really care about that.  I'm enjoying listening to the Deluxe Version of Born To Die.

Lana Del Rey - Born To Die

The Details

I have done a short outline of the process that went into the making of this.  It was a little involved so I hope it makes sense.

Drawing the face...

1...

...2...

...3

Scanned and tidied

I scanned and adjusted the components in Photoshop, making sure it all works together.

I decided to get rid of the jewellery.

With the portrait layer mode set to 'Multiply' I added the inky back layer and messed with the hue to get it looking a little ethereal.  I didn't want to go for the obvious corporeal red.

The skull was drawn in pencil on tracing paper over the portrait to make sure it fits the picture.  Once I scanned it I inverted, so the black lines on paper look like white on black, and inserted it under the face layer with the layer mode on 'Screen'.

Ta Daaa!

... Good Things Will Come

'The Fairies' is a short story from Charles Perrault's Fairytales where a beautiful but put-upon young girl is kind to a stranger who, naturally, turns out to be a fairy and bewitches the girl so that jewels and pearls come from her mouth with every word she speaks.  The moral is basically that when kind words are spoken; good things will come.  

This is my imagining of the situation.  You may get richer the more you talk, but it would be pretty gross to drool jewels.  It's still a good reminder that you have the power to be cruel or kind with your words.

#letitsnow

I have a husband from Africa who is obsessed by snow.  His effusiveness on the subject tends to make the British roll their eyes, but inside we all know that a White Christmas would be really magical.  Sadly it's gotten warmer in the last few days, but maybe it's like Elf where everyone has to have xmas spirit for Santa's sleigh to fly, ie: if it trends on Twitter it will come true.

I absolutely love the work of Ernst Haeckel (look him up) and this is my own Natural History array for Christmas, labelled and everything.

Merry Christmas everyone!

5 Days // 5 Drawings

I decided not to blog my drawings every day; that would just be too much.  Doing them everyday is enough work!  I fell a day behind on Saturday because, well it was the weekend and I just didn't think about it.  I have caught up now though, so I at day 7 I am still on schedule.

These are all over the place and so rough.  Welcome to my head!

-

Day 3

Favourite Food

-

I have spent a good chunk of my life as a vegetarian.  These days I mostly don't eat meat, but do still eat meat sometimes, if that makes sense.  When I do eat animals I get free range / organic and appreciate it.  I also try not to ignore where it came from (ie animals).  It's easy to forget when it comes clean, sliced and wrapped in plastic that that ham used to be a pig.

-

Day 3

Favourite Place

-

What a thing to have to decide! let alone draw.

-

Day 3

Best Friend

-

Again, I'm not an eight year old girl (anymore) but in the spirit of things; here's Ross.

-

Day 3

Favourite Character

-

He's not literary, but on Sunday I was watching 30 Rock and squealing about how much I love Kenneth.  This is grotesque and half melted.

-

Day 3

Favourite Quote

-

I'm learning to not deliberate about the prompt too much.  I have other stuff to do with my days as well people!

Zoo Day!

Last Friday I went to the Zoo (ZSL London Zoo) and had a brilliant time looking at the beautiful//crazy animals.  I'm ambivalent about zoos because it's hard to prioritise the happiness of the animals when people also pay to get a good look at them, but I do like seeing the animals.  I think London Zoo does a very good job in general.  Definitely the least satisfied-looking animals are the Tigers; one was just pacing a figure eight by the fence until the crowd grew too big and then it moved to another spot.  But I was happy to see a poster showing the new Tiger pen that they are going to build and it's big!

These are my photos from the day, and a couple of sketches thrown in for good measure.  Pretty self-explanatory (but I can't label them all because I can't remember what they all are).  :)

  

Cheers!