Private commission

I was interviewed over at The Tools Artists Use. It’s a great site for finding out what different artists and illustrators have in their pencil boxes, how they like to work and what techniques they use.

Me and my lad make porridge pretty much every morning.

I drew this for the lovely Recipe Look website. Doodle your favourite recipe and send it over or just check it out for some hand drawn cooking know-how…

The art festival ‘Illustrative’ will be in Berlin from October 16th to Novermber 1st. Illustrative will feature over 60 artists from around the globe, with work ranging from drawing and painting, through murals to 3D work and animation.

The festival will also host the Young Illustrators Award 2009. The deadline for the award is September 30th. Head over to the Illustrative website for details about the festival and the Young Illustrators Award.

My good pal John, AKA Rememberthelittleguy has put together a beautiful new site to showcase his work.

It’s chockablock with John’s trademark cool characters, lush colours and lovely animations. I had the pleasure of working with John for a couple of years, and have always found the amount of detail and craft he packs into his work really inspiring - the new site’s worth visiting for the loading bars alone!

You can also download pdfs of John’s paper toys, including Mr Reeds, and then build them with your own fair hands.

Next Thursday I’ll be doing some live painting at the Everyman Theatre as part of State of Wonder’s production ‘The Almond Tree’. The play is a beautiful and darkly atmospheric reworking of a Brother’s Grimm fairytale. My paintings will be projected to form a kind of live backdrop for the play. There will also be live music by Hannah Peel.

Some of my pre-production sketches for the show…

There’s a bigger bear over here…

I recently took part in Shakespeare in the Street’s ‘Sonnet Walk’ for a second year. To quote the website… “Small groups follow a guided route…taking in some hidden gems of Liverpool’s history alongside more contemporary secrets. You’ll encounter performers along the way and you’ll never know what to expect.”

For our bit, Hannah and Cata sung Sonnet 113 whilst I picked someone in the audience to draw as though they were my one true love! The sonnet only lasts about two and a half minutes so I have to be pretty quick!

You can hear Hannah sing the sonnet on the Shakespeare in the Street’s website.

I also designed the logo for the event…

Artwork created for spoof shooter ‘UCOB5:TRTBH‘ for Be broadband.

The player has to fight their way past terrorist cyborgs, The Cursed Army of the Damned and Hell’s Elite Super-Undead in order to reach Broadband Heaven!

The game was directed and produced by Simon Alexander at mN and coded by Mike Barrow and Malcolm Bailey of MBX games.

One of the main things I miss about working in an office is the cake.

Three of twenty illustrations produced for an ‘office bingo’ card for Virgin’s staff magazine ‘Roger’. The concept was devised and directed by Ian Pierce of John Brown Media.

You can see the whole card here…

I’ve always found the idea of ‘The End of the World’ kind of romantic. At least there’d be no school in the morning.

This illustration was comissioned by Plan B magazine to accompany their review of Current 93’s latest album Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain.

You can see a larger version here.

Wolfpack chasing down a bear cub in the Robotwood.