Terraced house with Cargobike

A small commission of a family home intended to capture it at that special time with a young family within (hence the cargobike in the foreground).

For my mother

As a gift for my beloved mother’s 60th birthday I wanted to paint a picture of her with her own children when they were young. Unfortunately, thanks to her long-term commitment to camera aversion I couldn’t find an appropriate photograph, so instead I settled on this image. Mum and her two grandchildren are obviously too caught up in mutual affection to object to my dad taking the picture. I tried to stay true to the original image but tried to draw out the focal point and enhance the sense of intimacy.

Happy Birthday Mum.

Autumn in Dulwich park

 

Gluons and Colourfields

Here is another illustration for an article by Lily Asquith that appears in the Guardian online. It attempts to show a jet of quark and anti-quark pairs bound together by gluon colourfields.

Sketchpad Exhibition 2011

As mentioned in an earlier post, I have been attending life drawing sessions at The Prince Regent in Herne Hill on Wednesday evenings. The group organise an exhibition every year to display their ongoing collective and eclectic efforts. This year the private view will be held in The Prince Regent on Thursday 17th November with work on display until January at Pullens, which gives me 10 days to sort through piles of drawings and actually make a decision.

A Halloween Tribute

…and an advert.

After last year’s particularly sinister theme I wanted to do something a little different. I struggled with a request for an Amy Winehouse image as I wanted to make sure it was a celebratory way to remember the life of a beautiful and talented young woman and not something in bad taste.  As the second pumpkin was to serve as an advert for next weekends firework party I tried to make it more interesting, both to look at and to carve, by taking inspiration from the Day of the Dead festival, which, if I’ve understood it correctly, is also about celebrating the lives of those no longer with us.

Now all I have to do is work out how to get pumpkin pulp out of a cream carpet…

For pumpkin carving tips see my earlier post.

As much fun as football

I’ve been going to life drawing classes for a few months now (its something I’ve done a great deal of in the past but haven’t found the time for in the last couple of years). I don’t have any particular enthusiasm for the drawings I make there (posted below) but find the dedicated time to just draw and the process invaluable, but not necessarily enjoyable. I was trying to explain this to someone in the bar downstairs after the class when they asked if I’d had fun. I don’t enjoy it but I do love it. A bit like watching a tense football game, or at least what I imagine it might be like if you gave a damn.

The life drawing classes are held at The Prince Regent in Herne Hill on wednesday evenings- its a lovely class for all abilities.

Autumn Menus

 

A new menu for a new season, and I’m delighted because while I still love the mushroom stack (haloumi cheese, portobello mushroom, roasted veg and houmous on a pile of new potatoes and salad leaves) the arrival of the chargrilled squid with fresh chilli, coriander and chickpea salad can only be a good thing.

I tried to keep the design and illustration simple and on brand- a black ink drawing on brown paper.

These menus were designed for the Railway Tavern.

 

 

 

 

Bosons and Fermions

An illustration for an article about the differences between bosons and photons and the scientists who worked these differences out. Lots of information to choose from so I decided I wanted the image to be a more developed version of a doodle I might create to help revise these things for a test: pictures of the scientists that set out the statistics each group follow, a shape that helps remind of those qualities (symmetry for the bosons, wave function for the fermions) and the names of the particles that fall into those categories within.

The article by Dr. Lily Asquith appeared in the Guardian online last month.

Wedding Invitations for Rebecca and Henry

I designed and illustrated this wedding stationery for my very lovely friends who are getting married in the south of France later this year. We wanted something fairly traditional that included an image of their wonderful venue – Chateau la Bleretie. The R.S.V.P card had a vintage postcard style back with information tick boxes.

 

Overdrawn

This image started life as a collage about 2 yrs ago after the G20 demonstrations. A time when billions of pounds were being spent on bailing out banks and I got into a fruitless argument with my bank about some disproportionate bank charges I accrued when I went overdrawn by 7 pounds for 5 days. I felt somewhat frustrated by the situation.  Originally I intended the collage as a starting point for a painting, but when I started it, it just didn’t seem to work, too stilted or something. The collage remained in my drawer until a couple of months ago I decide it needed to be a drawing. And so, probably about 40-50 hrs work and several 4B pencil later, it is. The original measures 56x76cm.

Ponc Yr Aur

A view of the beautiful cottage where one of my Mum’s neighbours live, on Anglesey. The cottage and background – showing the view over the Menai Straits to Snowdonia is fairly accurate, but the foreground is more invention than reality.

Gell-Mann’s strangeness

This illustration was made for a blog article about quarks. I have found out since that Gell-Mann, who observed strange behaviour in quarks and called it strangeness, was also a colourful character who was caught trying to smuggle Peruvian artefacts on the day of Richard Feynman’s funeral which is definitely fodder for another illustration sometime soon.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/life-and-physics/2011/may/18/quarks

Toravaig, Isle of Skye

A painting from my recent trip to Skye. This view was a short walk from where I stayed, and the painting was begun quickly on site as Skye lived up to my expectations of glorious sunshine one minute and horizontal hail 15 minutes later.

San Cristobel paintings

These small paintings (14x18cm and 12×16) were made using drawings from a sketchbook I took with me on a trip to Central America in 2006. The second one I finished this week, but the colour and memory of the places where I sat and drew are still so vivid. There are about 100 other drawings from the trip so perhaps I will get round to working on some more.

Pebble Bugs

A fairly straightforward craft activity for small children, H and I collected small pebbles and painted them as various different types of brightly coloured bugs. (We had a look under rocks and in an insect book for inspiration). We used acrylic paint and then varnished them so they can sit happily in plant pots, though currently H insists on keeping them under her pillow.

Tate

This little portrait commission (5x7inches) of a beautiful 14month old girl was a joy to do, and I had an excuse to get the silver-leaf out.

Sunset over Anglesey

I started this painting quickly while sat on a water-butt overlooking my mum’s vegetable patch as the sun set. Later in the studio I extended the board from its original square shape to try to balance the composition, and used glazes to tone down some of the contrast in the mid-ground.

Weserbergland diptych

These two small paintings were ones started in Germany several years ago that I have only just got round to working on in the studio. I enjoy what happens when you work from imagination/memory on an image that began as an observational sketch.

LHCsound poster

The LHCsound team have been working hard to develop GUI’s for use in interactive workshops in schools and colleges. This poster (still in its draft format) has been designed to complement the workshops and graphically represent in a simple way the process of sonifying data collected by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider.

The image was created using biro drawings to provide continuity with the LHCsound website.

Illustration workshops at Central Foundation Boys School

Last term I ran a series of five half day workshops with a class of year 9 boys at the Central Foundation Boys School. The project used the book that the boys were studying in English, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon, as a starting point. Focussing on the very literal way the main character in the book sees and describes the world around him, and the way he notices everything, we went out to the streets around the school to look at and draw everyday things in a new light. The boys wrote passages of literal descriptive text about their journey and then created a second passage full of rich metaphorical language, which they combined to form poems. We then worked on a series of illustrations for the poems that could be animated by the simple process of taking multiple photos of the work. The results can be seen below.

This project was organised and funded by The House of Illustration and I was helped by artist and illustrator Luke Embden.

 

Cutout Crown

Inspired by the news that the chances of marrying a prince are down by 50% in the UK, a creation to indulge your inner princess..

The best bit is, all you need to make your own crown is a piece of cardboard and a craft knife. Oh, and a bit of patience.

To create a design just sketch out a repeatable pattern and finalise the outline with a black felt pen. The design can be as simple or as complex as you want to cut out.

Trace or photocopy the design multiple times until you end up with something like the image below. I used photo editing software so I could flip over alternate images. n.b make sure the ends of the design will meet up with a slight overlap so you can join the design seamlessly.

If you want to use this design just download and print on paper.

With masking tape fix the design on to a piece card (the card should be quite thin – I used 200gsm black card). Use a craft knife on a cutting mat or stack of newspaper to cut out the design.

To finish align and glue the overlapping ends together.

Wear with hairpins and pretensions of grandeur.

Christmas tree angels

I don’t like roast dinners much, so the best thing about christmas for me is the excuse to indulge in frivolous craft activities.

These little angels are simple and fairly quick to make, and I’ve made a pattern and instructions which can be downloaded  below.

Angel pattern

The Tulse Hill Winter Wonderland Christmas Bazaar flyer

Rotten

This portrait of Johnny Lydon is one of a few versions I painted and drew as part of an illustration job. I knew when I was doing this version that it wasn’t going to cut it as its not exactly flattering, but its my favourite* nonetheless.

*the painting works the best and seems the most ‘real’ likeness. I wouldn’t, however, want it on my living room wall as it would scare me.

A Ruby Wedding present

This portrait was painted as a wedding present for my friends/family members Donna and Tom. Congratulations.

Recycled plant pots

This project was a collaborative effort with my 3 yr old daughter, and as it is thinking ahead to christmas represents a level of organisation that I am unaccustomed to.

Inspiration came from an article I read in the paper, that suggested if you grew narcissus bulbs inside 8 weeks before christmas and watered them with vodka?? at the appropriate stage in their growth they would flower at the end of december.

The article suggested nice ideas like planting them in teacups or jam jars but as I wanted to get H involved I decided that we should papier mache and paint some old plastic pots.

The first stage was to tear  up newspaper and cover the outside of the pots with layers of paper and a flour and water paste*.

When they were dry we painted them.

…and used a sponge to print patterns on them.

Then, just as they were starting to look bright and cheery H’s obsession with black paint got the better of her and she insisted on painting all but 2 all over again.

When they were dry they were ready for us to plant into. We quarter-filled the pots with gravel as there were no drainage holes in the pots and used a mixture of compost and soil for the rest. We chose to plant hyacinths and narcissus and put them in one of the dark, cold corners in our flat.

Now all we have to do is keep them alive until christmas, when hopefully they’ll look lovely and cheerful.

* You can make flour and water paste by mixing 1 part flour to 5 parts water and cooking (stirring continuously) for about 3 minutes or until it thickens  and let it cool. You could also use a mix or pva glue and water.

Halloween pumpkin

After last years pumpkin carving marathon (15 in total) I felt sure I wouldn’t be doing any this year. Until, that is, a massive pumpkin (weighing 30 kilos) was abandoned in the Queen’s Head and it was clear that destiny had brought us together.

I chose some pretty terrifying subject matter but I’m not sure whether that will ward off or attract the evil spirits…

Gordon Brown was going to be my 4th demon but at 12.30 last night after nearly 4hrs of pumpkin carving it just didn’t seem worth the effort.

PoetryQuest

I really love this photo, taken at oa shadow puppet workshop, run in tipi’s in middle of Hyde Park over the summer. The event was a mini festival to celebrate the end of PoetryQuest, a project run by Children & the Arts.

I thought shadow puppets would be a good way of incorporating the themes of epic and mythical poems that the children had been working on and using the space of the tipi (as the screen). Luckily it was sunny enough to work.

I haven’t got round to writing up the instructions for making the shadow puppets but will try and add them soon…

 

Big Draw event at the Hunterian

In October I will be leading a drawing workshop at the Hunterian museum as part of the Big Draw (a campaign that aims to use drawing to connect visitors with museum and gallery collections, urban and rural spaces – and the wider community – in new and enjoyable ways). Come along, it’s free and an amazing place.