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!

Just Like Hats.

Having promised myself I would enter Secret 7" this year, I created this little hat design with just hours to go! Torn between Elton's Bennie & The Jets and Laura Marling's The Beast, I surprised myself and went for classic track Harder Than You Think by Public Enemy. My design came out of trying to draw the caps featured in the video each time they appeared, to mixed results. Wanting the sleeve to remain humble and unedited I left the drawings laid out just as they appeared on the page. Hopefully this simple little idea acts as some form of testament to just being yourself and trying until you get something right.

Good luck to everyone who entered and you can vote for you favourite design over on Talenthouse.

And Now Here's Byng With The Weather.

The dawn of March meant it was my turn to pick a theme over on After School Club. Perhaps atypically British in my decision, I decked out the blog with all things weather-related, as we really do seem to have had an awful lot of weather lately. I brought in Michael Fish and his reassuring forecast that there will be NO hurricanes, as well as making a rather strange 'Sunny With a Chance of Cher' background and giving our very own chair a spot waterproofing.

You can read the full story over at my After School Club theme intro post.
Just make sure you wear galoshes.

Let's Draw.

I woke up on 8th Jan to hear the world whispering about David Bowie. Why isn't every day like this? I thought, to find the tweets and articles had been triggered by Bowie's return to releasing tunes at the age of 66. Needless to say this prompted a drawing, hoping to capture his chiseled, now aging, face as well as the colourful character(s) to be found inside him.

Viva la Bowie.

SOI ILLUSTRATORS 55

Miraculously my entry into the Society of Illustrators illustration awards was successful, meaning I had to have faith in Happy Birthday, Bill to travel across the miles to New York in good shape! Ever the showman, he made it in style. Here are some photographs of him in The Big Apple at the ILLUSTRATORS 55 exhibition!

If only I could have made it myself; alas, I had to make do with staying home watching the SOI's flickr set. Huge thank you to lovely fellow winner Annelin Fagernes for getting Bill's close up.

This half of the ILLU55 exhibition runs until 26th January, when it is the turn of editorial, book and advertising winners to take over until 2nd March. Definitely get down to the museum if you're in the neighbourhood, and look out for the book!

Eureka! OST

The After School Club january mixtape can now be heard on 8tracks and through our site, complete with my illustrated album artwork. Designed to soundtrack your ideas, the compilation of songs were picked by the four of us under our first theme - Eureka!

An eclectic mix of nostalgic tracks, sweeping electronica and charming instrumentals, this one goes out to any lab technicians called Terry.

hellosheiskate

First order of the club was to make portraits of each other for the ASC members page. Here is the lovely firecracker @helloiamkate ready for the site launch tomorrow. Blast off with us here.

Howdy, we are After School Club.

A new year, a new venture!

I have formed a collective with some of my favourite illustrators: Kate Rowland, Maria Midttun and Nathan Hackett, and together we are now known as After School Club. Having brainstormed and had adventure time last year all in the name of creativity we're ready to get some stuff out into the world as a team.

Our logo is thus; a little drawing of mine. Sure, he's just an unassuming ordinary red chair, but rest assured, he loves to party.

Intending to develop the role of the collective throughout the year, it begins as a platform to create work around a monthly theme and generally have lots of fun meeting up every month for 'business meetings'. We think it's important to see the people behind the illustrations and keep up with what's going on in the world at large whilst we sit scribbing at our desks, so as well as our drawings and makings we will be sharing collective mixtapes, managing our own Book Club, and bringing you a Something of the Month, every month.

Join in the adventure at www.afterschoolclubcollective.co.uk