Happy Christmas Everyone!

A Graphic Cosmogony

Thursday saw the launch of A Graphic Cosmogony, published by Nobrow, who once again have produced a book of beauty. Amazing print job, with great cloth spine detail provided by the cover artist Micah Lidberg. Much to my relief I got the colour separation almost right and my seven pages didnt turn out brown .

Its worth a visit to their shop/gallery to pick up a copy and see the current exhibition of the very talented Rob Hunter and Jon McNaught

Been working on a rough idea for a childrens book with a friend. Its been interesting to try and shift my work to a mode that can work for that genre but this will need to be tested and judged by others soon. It has been a positive experiment because there was a better , more direct use of my initial drawings allowing the image to become richer through the digital process.

This still need lot of work and another trip to the zoo

New editorial

its been a busy couple of weeks on the editorial front. Commissions have included a piece about the taxidermist Carl Akeley for the Washington Post , a series of images for Together Design for Safer Clinical Systems, an article about the exclusion of women from the boardroom for National Post, and a piece about the Dodd Frank reform on Wall st

It Nice That Issue 4

It Nice That issue 4 is now out. A well designed and produced magazine full of interesting articles that expands upon the wealth of talent featured on their blog. Whilst the blog continues to provide a daily dose of the excellent work going on in the world, the printed magazine offers you a chance to slow down, spend time with the work they present and enjoy it again at a future date. I was lucky enough to draw portraits for the contributors section

To buy a copy click here

A Graphic Cosmogony

I posted about a 7 page comic I was working on a while back for Nobrows 'a Graphic Cosmogony'- well, it's now available to pre order. you can read more and purchase it, if you so wish here. It full of talented folk giving their take on the idea of creation. heres the cover of the book and a couple of my pages.

Iv e been making another set of cushions, still exploring how a narrative can work as decorative homeware but have an uneasy content. Theres an underlying theme of the mob rule, hunting etc in my personal work at the moment but this is only simmering away and not the priority in the cushions. what is more exciting is the limitations in the material and how it changes my visual language. whilst it remains important for me to make the originals purely in fabric im looking into ways they could be printed and how this might change the images again

sketchbook /limited colour

Recently I have worked on a number of projects that have required a limited colour palette due to the reproduction process. Whilst I enjoy this way of working I worry sometimes it can be an 'effect' which is aesthetically pleasing but could disguise the drawing or content. To try and avoid this happening I have started a sketchbook to try to bring my initial drawings closer to the process. starting with the basic primary colours but this will develop in time

save the arts

This animation by David Shrigley is the first installment of work by a series of artist involved in Save The Arts, a project attempting in to stop the government proposal of important art funding being slashed. Please take a minute to enjoy the animation and if you agree with the content, you can sign the petition here

'End' Comic for NoBrow

Handed in the final artwork for The Graphic Cosmology last week. heres a double page spread for the 7 page comic. Will post when the book is set for release soon

The Globe and Mail

really nice piece to illustrate about hoarding for Global and Mail magazine

todays news

quick half day editorial piece in todays copy of The Times

Nobrow comic work in progress

For the last week ive been working on a 7 page comic for the forthcoming release 'The Graphic Cosmogony' by Nobrow - a book feature a whole host of talent dealing with the theme of creation. The whole task has been exciting but daunting.

Here are the rough books i made just to get a balance to my story and work out the structure of each page, making sure the story reads.

at the same time i was tested methods that meant i could create the artwork that would maintain my interest by being able to shift enough away from the planned roughs.

making the leap to a much larger scale meant the artwork could come to the fore front for a while as the structure of the story was already in place

Nobrow use a four colour pantone print process. i tried a few ways of colouring the image but again, planning ahead meant the images where becoming more like what i expect to see in a comic rather than how i wanted to see my work in the format

These final drawings are getting somewhere. There is enough flexibility to allow me to hopefully tell the story whilst looking accidently the final comic will (hopefully)be finished next week

recent work

New York Times.

a very quick turn around of 5 hours for this piece about the oil slick ability of people in Louisiana to carry on through a disaster

FT. Book review.

this top piece is work in progress. its a version that didn't get approved at the rough stage. i want to work it up anyway as its taking my work forward and away from a more straight forward construction of a narrative.

This version has less of a relation to the landscape description in the piece but is visually more interesting with the moon cut out dominating

Final piece to go for print. i was quite pleased with the final piece but it felt to like something i have seen time and time again in my work, which can be a symptom of commissioned work,referencing of past projects. hopefully the other version will offer something new and bit a bit more surprising

New Scientist

really interesting piece about the use of medication with autistic children.

i have quite strong ( but probably misguided ) views on this which become apparent in my first couple of roughs. the final piece became more about the different options/ dilemmas of treatments and that the visually shape of the children didnt fit it to what we , as society , expect as normal behaviour. the parents want what is best but it is a confusing puzzle, maze of theories.

Hand

im very excited to announce my new book 'Hand' is now out. Published and beautiful hand screen printed by NoBrow. They have set about making a fantastic platform to showcase illustrators own authored work . Producing a variety of formats with the print process clearly thought about for each job. Visit their site to see work by a strong variety of worldwide artists

thanks to everyone involved in the printing etc at NoBrow

click here to buy 'Hand'

new commissions

couple of new editorial pieces for business magazines in the US

new t-shirts

I Had two packages arrive in the studio this week containing t shirts.

The boy t shirt is now on sale at Lazy Oaf in both boys and girls sizes. The Death one at Collective edition in either grey or white

very pleased with the results and excellent print quality so big thank you to both Lazy Oaf and Collective edition