Sunday 28 February 2010

Fishy Fishy

As a belated birthday present for my brother I made this poster of aquarium fish; I did the line drawings over Christmas and I'd already turned the fish into a game using illustrator but I wanted to paint them properly for the poster so I looked them all up again and made sure everything was nice and accurate colourwise and I got all the right names so it's actually very educational. I'm really pleased with the outcome, I think it looks pretty fun and my brother was pleased!

Monday 22 February 2010

Today's Work

I feel like I've been working none stop today from 9 trying to get as many Chekhov pages done as possible, I'm pleased with the results though but I need to do half a sketchbook tomorrow! It can be done though.

Sunday 21 February 2010

Chekhov Update

I started on my second sketchbook for the Chekhov project today, I'm concentrating on some new scenes in the story which involve more people and interiors so that's a bit more of a challenge but I'm slowly getting some pages done. The book is a bit more difficult to work with than the first as the pages just disintegrate really easily. I've been looking at Charles Keeping a lot while I've been doing these pages and borrowing a few techniques from some of his beautiful work.

Saturday 20 February 2010

First book finished!

So I have completed my first book for the Anton Chekhov project, I'm really pleased with it but I need to get cracking on the other two. I'm having a slight problem trying to find similar material to work on though, all charity shops are full of new books! I'll have to have a root through my existing bits and bobs.


The figures were really bothering me as well so I decided to use the ink to make them a bit more interesting, I wanted to have sections of the figures still showing through but make the majority of them silhouettes/shadowy, I'm quite pleased with the result, it looks as though the shadowy blackness is enveloping them which works well with the book and the way the black monk seeps into the writers life.

Thursday 18 February 2010

Even more Chekhov

I had my tutorial yesterday with John Walsh, he confirmed what I thought about the figures not being right, too detailed etc. so I'm going to simplify from now on and just concentrate on silhouettes and keep up with the garden work. I also went to the library to find some better images of gardens to use as inspiration for my inky scenes. John wants 2 more books by next week so I've got a lot of work to do but I'm enjoying it so that really helps. Here are a few more of the pages I've been doing:

Monday 15 February 2010

Chekhov Figures

I'm not really sure if I like these figures, they just look a bit stiff, I really need to practice drawing people.

More Chekhov + WEBSITE!

I've been continuing the Chekhov project this morning, I just wanted to post a few more images. I've done the last of the garden scenes for now and I've started on some figures. The first 2 are TERRIBLE, they're meant to be the 2 main characters; Tanya and Andryusha but they just look way too wooden and distorted, the lines are too heavy etc. The third figure is more successful, this is supposed to be Tanya as a young girl, there is a description of her as being quite heron-like. I want to continue with some figures but I don't know if I'll use them for anything, I'd maybe like to concentrate on silhouettes, especially for the possible animations.


ALSO I have now set up my website! After about 7 frustrating hours I managed to get it working, now I just have to upload work and make it all a bit more exciting but the hard part is over. I never want to hear the phrase 'FTP' again.

Sunday 14 February 2010

Anton Chekhov continued

Some more work based on Anton Chekhov's 'The Black Monk', I'm just working my way through the text responding to descriptions and paragraphs. These 4 spreads are based on the scenes in the garden of Yegor Semyonitch where fire is used to protect the trees from frost. Although it's not an important part of the book, the description of the smoke curling through the trees really inspired me and links well with the descriptions of the monk himself further on in the story. I really want to fill the book this week and begin transforming these drawings and paintings into larger pieces and possibly trying to create some animations using them.

Tuesday 9 February 2010

No it's not illustration...


but it would make a great one.
i love goats.

Nobrow DONE

Well, nothing new to show but I've submitted my 2 pieces for Nobrow's 'People I've never met and conversations I've never had' competition. I chose these 2:


Let's hope my designs get picked!

Teacup 2010

Last year I blogged about helping John Walsh with some window design for Teacup on Thomas Street. Things went a bit quiet over Christmas but John asked Nia and I to start working on the window again. He wanted us to do a Valentine's Day themed window, drawings of detailed teacups interspersed with some subtle hearts to add a slight romantic twist. As the dots from the previous design were still all over the window we had quite an easy time getting them to fit to the grid by just rubbing out the dots and replacing them so it didn't take as long as the original and was a lot less stressful. The window looked really good, the detail on the cups made it look a bit more exciting than the plain dots and the individual designs on the cups captured the character and atmosphere of the inside of the cafe.

Nia took some photos, I forgot my camera, so here are a couple, the rest are on her blog.


HOWEVER disaster struck over the weekend and when Nia and I returned to Teacup today the cup illustrations were all gone! We were pretty shocked as we'd intended to add some finishing touches to the window and we really didn't expect to see it completely clean however we were informed that the condensation had gone wild and all of the paint had run.

We felt pretty deflated after this but John said to try and do a simpler design so that there would still be a Valentines window. The prospect of creating a new grid was a bit too much for us so we decided to go for a more sporadic format with the positioning of the illustrations, focused mainly around the logo. We stuck to simple outlines of cups, cakes and hearts. The window just isn't as effective as the original detailed design but it would be a waste of time to attempt it again. I think the best idea would be to return to the outlines once they are completely dry and add detail then.