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

We Roam Your Streets at Night

You may have guessed that I love animals, and that I live in London. There aren't that many wild animals living in London, but I still love the sight of every single one of them. A lot of people consider them vermin, but rats, mice, foxes, pigeons, crows, are all magic for my eyeballs. 

There are quite a lot of foxes around Peckham, where I live, and I always thrill at a late night sighting when the streets are dark and quiet. That's what inspired me to make this print - called 'We Roam Your Streets at Night'. 

We Roam Your Streets at Night, A3 giclée print on Hahnemuhle german etching

Foxy

Victorian terrace

Wet tarmac typography

And now for the technical bit..
I created the whole print in Photoshop, working over a sketchbook page that I had scanned in. I like working with layers and playing on the interaction between them, so I decided to limit the colour palette by working on 3 layers: one cyan, one magenta and one yellow. I set the layer blending modes to 'multiply' so that the colours would mix where they are overlaid.

I drew into the layers using my trusty Wacom tablet. Here's a step-by-step GIF...

We Roam Your Streets at Night - Step by step GIF

So the colours I had to work with are cyan, magenta and yellow. Along with... 

Cyan and magenta making dark blue;

Magenta and yellow making orange;

Yellow and cyan making green;
No colours means you see the white page;

And if all three colours are present they make a dark colour, almost black.

I have separated each layer out to try and demonstrate, below...

The cyan layer

The magenta layer

The yellow layer

These prints are being printed by The Print Space right now, and I will post again when they arrive and I have listed them in my Etsy shop. 

18/03/2014 UPDATE

I have listed these prints on Etsy now! Check it out here: www.etsy.com/uk/listing/182980029/a3-print-we-roam-your-streets-at-night

Many thanks!

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

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

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!