26 Stories Of Christmas

I've contributed to an online project called 26 Stories Of Christmas which unveils a unique illustrated Christmas tale every day this month up to Boxing Day. A selection of writers were paired up with an illustrator and I created an image to support Laura Kennedy's story The Magician which appeared on the 4th December. Well worth a look here, it's like advent calendar choccy for the mind and eyes.

Swimming Online

Here's some work I can blab about now that the revamped Nominet Trust website has launched. It's a couple of illustrations for one of their provocation papers looking at developments to safeguard children online called 'Physical metaphors for digital safety'. I ran (swam?) with the water as interpipe metaphor on this and enjoyed using a simple but colourful approach.

Smashing Pumpkins

Here's another illustration for the Circus Mind book of music prose, a Billy Corgan portrait for a piece on the Smashing Pumpkins. On that note have a smashing weekend y'all.

Flame On

Here are a few belated shots from a recent trip to lovely Dorset over bonfire night weekend. Stayed in the market town of Bridport and popped to Lyme Regis on the Saturday to take in fireworks at the Cobb and an inferno on the beach. Blazin'.

Scorpio

I chanced across the stone-cold classic Dirty Harry on the tellybox again recently and was reminded of the insane brilliance of Andy Robinson's performance as the Frisco nutjob Scorpio, particularly his schoolbus nursery rhyme routine. It also reminded me that a friend had requested his portrait so here it is in it's original monochrome and with a seventies subdued palette. Hope you like...well, do you punk!?

Nirvana

Here's the second portrait for the music poetry collection A Circus Mind, of a total of twenty I'll be working on over the next few months, the troubled Nirvana figurehead Kurt Cobain. I'm digging the simpler brush pen drawing style for this particular job, will see where it takes me.

Bridge Over Techy Waters

Here's another cover illustration for CIO magazine looking at the art of building bridges to partnerships in  business technology.

Joy Division

A busy few weeks have kept me out of the blogosphere but, dammit, there will be posts. So to kickstart this joint here's the first taster of a long term project I've been working on recently. I'm collaborating with the author Ryan Cox and a crack squad of illustrators, Julia Minamata, Zela Lobb and Dushan Millic, on a book of music inspired prose called A Circus Mind. For me it's an exciting chance to experiment with drawing and portraiture and wallow in some of my favourite music. First out of the gate are Joy Division and a suitably ghoulish post-Halloween interpretation.

Gridmobile

Here's an illustration for Miller Mccune magazine in the States looking at the possibility of electric cars that can generate cash from powering and regulating the grid. Nought to sixty quid in no time.

Fly-By

More aerial based illustration pulling a loop-the-loop on the blog, this time for AOPA Pilot Magazine looking at how pilots tend to have a lot on their mind. Just land the thing would yer!?

Power To The Peeps

Here are some illustrations for a feature in Ethos Magazine looking at Localism in action around the UK whereby local volunteers work together to improve their communities in various ways. A refreshing change from wholesale rioting methinks.

Fido

If I had a dog it might look like this mashed-up angry Atariesque animal. It's very hot today.

Inflight Illustration

Here's a recent illustration for Flight Training Magazine in the States looking at how US pilot training programs are more long-winded than those of countries such as Canada and the UK. Test-flew a more stripped back graphic style on this one which I'm liking.

Taking That

Visual design and animated elements created for the song SOS performed by Take That on their Progress Tour 2011. Art direction, 3D and animation by Fish Nor Fowl for Treatment Studio. See the animation here.

The Lost Boys

I recently went along to Future Cinema's California Classics weekend at Canary Wharf where they were reviving eighties nuggets The Lost Boys and Top Gun with outdoor screenings. I wasn't really feeling the need for speed so opted for death by stereo instead and went for The Lost Boys' mulleted vamps and greasy saxophonists. Santa Carla was recreated with a fairground, arcade hall, comic store and vampire lair all populated by actors and motorbike gangs hamming it up to eleven. The film was preceded with a cheese-tastic group karaoke session of the theme Cry Little Sister (Thou shall not fall etc.) and the movie itself was still great fun despite Corey Haim's fashion atrocities.

Hive Talkin'

Here's an illustration for America's Billboard Magazine for an article on the creative minds behind the MTV Hive website. Buzzzzed up the colours on this one (no change there then) to go for a modern take on old school MTV graphics. 

Le Weekend Part Deux

My wife and I zipped through the Chunnel on that Eurostar again recently for another rumble with Paris. We spent a fun evening at the Phillipe Stark designed budget hotel Mama Shelter, the rooms of which came with snazzy light-fitting masks based on comic characters, in our case the dynamic duo of Batman and, er...Obelix. The Père Lachaise Cemetery was nearby so we had a wander around the necropolis, finding Oscar Wilde and losing Jim Morrison, before moving over to stay in the Canal Saint-Martin area. We strolled up the canal to the Parc de la Villette, stopping to gawp at the Logan's Run-style spectacle of the huge Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie with it's towering disco ball, before spending an end-of-summer evening in the Parc des Butte Chaumont supping le vin at the lovely Rosa Bonheur bar, our new favourite spot in Paris. On Sunday we got our tourist fix following a literary themed walking map around the left bank of the Seine, ticking off the sights en route (bonjour Notre Dame) and spotting the pads of Hemingway, Orwell and Kerouac amongst others. It were bon.

Business Class

Here's another editorial pic for The Telegraph, this time for a HSBC supplement about globe-trotting UK business folk exploring new markets.

Images 35

Bit of a delayed post this but what the hey? I popped along to the AOI Images 35 Exhibition a couple of weeks ago at Bankside Gallery London for this year's awards night. Had a top evening catching up with friends and colleauges and checked out some of the great work on show. My BBC Proms 2010 illustration was hanging in the Advertising category and goes on tour with the exhibition across the country. Also picked up the new Images 35 book and here's a spread with a few of my bits and pieces that passed muster with the judges.

Paths Of Infamy

Busy couple of weeks in Pottsville, will get the posts flowing asap. For now, here's a Monday morn drawing of little known actor, Timothy Carey, who I've recently discovered from a couple of early classic Stanley Kubrick films. He plays a louche sharpshooter in the influential heist movie The Killing and an unfortunate French soldier facing execution in the WW1 anti-war film Paths Of Glory pictured here. He smash'n'grabs every scene he's in with his oddball charisma and built a reputation for pissing-off his fellow actors according to this interesting article on his barmy career and underground legend status. Will be all over this guy's crazed oeuvre.