Latest Artwork

This is a piece of work inspired by the hilariously terrible yet amazing surreal montage art on the cover of Choose Your Own Adventure game books, and the box art of Atari games. 

First I was shown this brilliant art done for Panic Software and the style reminded me a little of the covers of Choose Your Own Adventure books.

The Choose Your Own Adventure books often featured strange montages of monsters, caves, forbidden lands, children dressed in 1980s fashions running away from smug heads in the sky....the Giant Floating Head seemed to be a common theme. You can see some of the book covers here

This features my brother's head in the sky, the other objects have nothing to do with anything, they just feature frequently in this style of art for some reason. I am definitely not as good with watercolour as the artist who produced the magnificent Panic Software artwork, but all in all it's a bit of fun.

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE

THE WEB DEVELOPER!

While visiting clients from hell - a site where all designers, illustrators and developers can come forward and reveal their worst clients and client request - I came across this unbelievably awful request for a logo:

 Logo with Flare

Client: I already know what I want for the logo. It’s a house, with a face, and it’s on wheels with an exhaust pipe coming out of the back which is shooting out smoke in the shape of dollar signs.

 Naturally I began to envisage how hilariously disgusting this logo would be, and decided I'd have to draw it. So here it is. Just a simple deal with inktense derwent pencils.

However I just know that if I were unlucky enough to deal with that particular client, they would probably have said "those dollar signs aren't visible enough, can you make them a little more..ostentateous?"

 (At this moment in time I am very tired of serious art, and so I only have the ability to do jocular things like this. It will probably be quite some time before I can bring myself to do something considered, or any sort of major project. I've completely run out of ideas. Such is university's effect on the young, easily discouraged and tired mind)

My brother cleaned out his room when he left home and I got his letraset. 

I want to use it..and I keep planning to..but when I finish the drawings I was going to put the letraset on..I realise they look better without it.

The first one; a self portrait..making green look wary and anxious and sinister. Colour choice is partially because I now have phthalo green hair, at least for the time being.

Then the next picture is in yellow, trying to make yellow look sad and empty. I'm having this thing with trying to get the colours to represent the opposite of their cultural associations...it would have been very obvious to do this next picture in blue, wouldn't it?

the reference credit for this intriguing ovine

I hope you enjoy, more of these "trying to get the colour to symbolise the opposite of its cultural origin" pictures and more of me trying to use the letraset will doubtless come soon.

And hopefully a few updates since I haven't posted here for ages!

I did three illustrations for an illustration major.

They each were based on the idea of travelling or journeys, and different kinds of journeys (different perceptions.) As a jumping off point, each illustration was inspired by a song - the illustrations do not directly illustrate the lyrics but are inspired by the whole mood of the songs.

The Slow Train - (Lemon Jelly)

Seeing as this, to me, is the manifestation of a physical journey I chose to draw a bright, cheerful psychedelic illustration of a happy steam train, like something out of a children's book. The destination is known and excitement mounts.

The Tourist (Radiohead)

The second illustration in the series explores a journey between life and death, or to the spirit world. Radiohead's song, in my opinion, is about a car crash and a near death experience. Dogs are supposed to (along with other animals) be able to see ghosts, and there is a strong tradition of spectral dog based mythological figures such as the grim or the barghest or the phantom hound (upon seeing which, the viewer will die.) The picture is supposed to appear unfinished, violent and arresting.

20th Century Trip (Feeder)

The last illustration is a representation of a journey of the mind. This little track is a short, ethereal outro and brings to mind an out of body experience, which is why I chose to represent this as a person floating in limbo - underwater. 

 I hope you enjoy them all.

First I started out with this sketch 

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 I started painting. First I approached it by blocking in the colours, then I realised that because of the amount of highlights, this wasn't going to work. I'd have to start with fine details. As it's a watercolour painting it required a lot of planning because the highlights had to be negative space. It's near impossible to paint over dark colours with light in watercolour.

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And that's it finished! It was a marathon effort but I think it was worth it.

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