#NextGenFest

This month I've been lucky enough to get the opportunity to do some promotional design work for mac birmingham, starting with a flyer for upcoming Next Gen Fest. Aimed at directly involving 16-24 year olds within the midlands arts scene, Next Gen Fest has been created by the Cannon Hill Collective, and boasts theatre, dance, visual arts, music, and not least, partying. I wanted the flyer to depict an uplifting celebration with a springtime fiesta vibe, the balloons representing the individual's creativity being 'set free'. Pure cheese, but it really is going to be a bloody great bash.
They even let me hand draw the trusty mac logo.

What's This Story?

I rustled up this zany illustration in support of What's This Story?, a growing interactive narrative made up of words, pictures, music, and moving image. In fact, pretty much anything can be contributed to the continuous story online. This great multi-modal project by Rosalyne Norford is open to everyone and the best bits will be exhibited at mac birmingham in April as part of Next Gen Fest, a unique event created by and for young people.

Join in!

DAN001

Much to my delight I was commissioned to draw a large iconic Bowie this week. Here he is, ethereal and vibrant, from the famous Aladdin Sane cover. I loved drawing this so much that it has sparked a desire to create further drawings capturing some of the many faces of David Bowie, and subsequently forming a range of prints.
Watch this face. I mean space.


Ps. The post title refers to the reference of my first ever invoice. I'll never forget it.

P A L E S E A S

A while back I was asked by illustration comrade Josh Whettingsteel to draw young Southampton upstarts Pale Seas for a zine he was putting together. And so, that is exactly what I did.
Happy to be restricted to the monochrome (as lately I've been going utterly colour bonkers; grabbing any crayon I damn well please) I used it as an opportunity to try and achieve more detail with a finer pencil and I'm quite intrigued with the atmospheric results. A pleasure to draw, I love the band's distinctive look, and their sound is also definitely one to "watch".

Some abstract sketches I created after visiting Mike Nelson's M6 exhibition at Eastside Projects, Birmingham, are also set to adorn the article. These warped ragged tyre forms looked like something that the sea would bring in, weathered and strangely alien, and fitted in nicely as the extra bits of mark-making that Josh was looking for. Really looking forward to seeing what he puts together!