Rocket launch and the 100 Year Symposium

My painting inspired by old science fiction book covers from last century. Part of my portfolio development work.

This was the first piece I worked on when I moved into my BowArts studio and seems to have taken the longest to finish.

I’m fascinated by space travel and the stark reality of how long it will be before we truly start travelling any substantial distance.

The Monthly recently ran an article about just such possibilities The Stars My Destination by Luke Davies (sorry you can’t see it all here unless you are a subscriber.) The 100 Years Starship website gives you a bit more information. The British Library exhibition from last year Out Of This World also inspired me seeing all the old books and ideas, fascinating.

That essential studio space

Sketches to inspire me to find that perfect studio space…

This one I started to work into a proper Photoshop painted image as I just love the bulky steaminess of it.

Unlike many of my fellow illustrators I find it almost impossible to work at home and not just because I’ve no space.

Making drawings and paintings with a mixture of digital and traditional methods means I need somewhere I can sprawl and leave it set up.

These are just a few of the recent roughs I’ve been sketching up – mostly in cafes, on the bus or anywhere other than in the house.

They are a joy but I find the distractions of home too much so here’s to finding an affordable work space for my art.

Emily Barker and the Red Clay Halo sketched at Guildhall as part of the City of London Festival  last week, more brilliant Australians.

Sketching people is great and but it was quite a challenge as they swayed and played so it took a lot longer than other public sketchyness does.

Life drawing Bethnal Green

Again I think some of the quick sketches get more but looking at the 45min rendered pencil drawing it’s definitely got some good points.

More sketches from the life room

Thought I’d start posting pieces drawn in the life room to try and motivate myself to do more to get some illustration work.

Short sketch from the long pose.

30 minute sketch from the last pose of the session.

30 minute pose from the first half of the session.

I’m always refining and trying to work more into the longer poses and each model has there own unique challenges. This model had a really lovely curvaceous figure.

I think sometimes you need to find something that really appeals to you about the pose or model to get a good image.

Wednesday Knit

http://wednesdayknit.blogspot.com/

This banner is part of a set of illustration and design work that I did for Crafty Foxes new blog.

We are still adding more elements so it’s just the general look and feel with more to come in the new year.

This is the poster that I designed and illustrated to set the mood for the rest of the work.

I decided it would interesting to try and limit the colour palette and use screen printed style colour blocks.

Back to the old school – life drawing

One hour

20 minutes

10 minutes

3 minutes

I’m back into life drawing at Adrian Duttons classes in Bethnal Green, partly because I’m lazy and it’s a two minute walk away but mainly because in the words one of my fellow MA graduates ‘he is the real deal’.

Adrian runs both a drop in weekly and a back to basics series of classes, details of which are on the Meet Up web site for those interested.
http://www.meetup.com/LondonLifeDrawing/

I’m also participating in UPside an exhibition at the Medcalf on Exmouth Market which will be starting in September.

The images above are from the second session I went to and although I have some misgivings about them I am getting a feel for how my line works. I’ve abandoned the pen in favour of the more flexible pencil although I’m now attacking the page like they were a pen.

In the 1 hour drawing I used a rubber for both creative and correctional efforts and am enjoying what it brings to the process.

I hope these inspire you to get out there and draw. I love life drawing because the timed poses mean you always walk away with a good selection of images from every session.

Our MA Degree Show

This definitely counts as shameless self promotion but nervous as we all are I think that we all have something to be proud of.

I have not only been working on more work for the final show but also our 2010 MA Illustration blog and promoting the show through the Twitter account I set up.

Lucky me Illustration has 45 graduating students on show and so the blog was a bit of a mammoth to pull together. Sadly WordPress has no easy way to bulk populate pages. Regardless of the difficulties it has been a satisfying process and the results are a showcase of the diverse illustrative styles on the course.

The show starts with a private view on July 13th and finishes on Saturday July 17th. Please come down and have a look.

I’ll be showcasing some of the students work using the MA illustration Twitter account so why not follow us.

Political Satire

Zombie banker: Asleep at the wheel bankers.

Cleggmania: Spruiking for the left at the height of poll Libdem popularity.

Tired: At the end of Labour’s term in office Gordon looking tired.

Scream’n Lord Sutch: The real face of politics?

Not perfect but I feel like these are much closer to where I want to be in terns of layout, ideas and style for editorial work.

Loving the Deleter ink and dip pens suggested by Will Bailey. They produce a much finer line than the Uni-ball pens and provide more control than standard dip pens. The ink also dries in a more scanner friendly finish than Winsor and Newton calligraphy ink. The calligraphy ink can be very shiney and reflective making it difficult when scanning anything with colour on the page.

Exhibitions and private views

Table For Living by Emily Rohrer

Designer Makers MA interim show

The interim show for designer maker strand of the Camberwell College MA (south London) had it’s private view on Wednesday night. It is part of my intention to try and engage in the time left with other MA pathways and turning up to their interim show was a good way to do that.

Designer Makers are a small group but they successfully filled the Wilson Road ground floor with work. Although I’ve my favourites the standard of all the work on display was high which bodes well for the end of year show!

I really liked Emily Rohrer’s furniture models (seen above). There is something intrinsically engaging about miniatures especially ones with moving parts. Displayed with the plans they were very much like architectural models.

Jessica Zollers ceramic work also caught my eye, and for me had a link to Sara Willets gouged acrylic that was on show last year at Wilson road. The forms have an organic coral like feeling swarming up the wall as they did.

Lu Hakozaki had some interesting furniture models in a very different mode to Emily’s work. Photo’s of which are on her blog. I really liked the rounded skeletal forms and was intrigued with how these were made.

Spidering it’s way up the wall was a wirey meandering piece that I think is Ashley Hemingway’s (maybe someone can confirm this). My impression of this  wirey piece was that it felt like a journey on the underground mirroring the point to point feeling that one gets from not seeing the landscape travelled only the landmarks. The wire and enamel also felt like the steel and tiles that make up so much of the essence of a tube trip.

I’m someone who can stand a look at work I enjoy for ages, both admiring the craft and skill of the maker and trying to divine both the artists intent and what it means for me personally.

Designer Makers from this years MA can feel proud, I was impressed by the skill and ideas driving the work.

For the curious you can find out more about the artists via the Designer Makers MA wiki:

http://madm.wikispaces.com/

Version at Medcalf, Exmouth Market

This week also saw the private view for the Version exhibition at the Medcalf in Exmouth Market, featuring ex-MA Camberwell students.

The concept was an interesting idea with the artists pairing up and creating works inspired by elements of each others practice. The Medcalf has regular small exhibitions with a great little space paired with a restaurant bar.

This exhibition is definitely worth having a look at and is on till the end of April.

Jane Henricks has some photo’s on her blog of the night.

You can also see some of the artists work at the Medcalf blog:

http://medcalf.wordpress.com/

Ronald Searle at the Cartoon Museum

The Cartoon Museum in central London is currently hosting a retrospective of Ronald Searle’s work.

The exhibition successfully covers his life’s work featuring not only his early noteworthy pieces like the St Trinian’s series but much of the editorial work  that he became known for. Searle is 90 now so I can only imagine how tricky it must have been to pick out what to keep in and what to leave.

It’s interesting to see his transition, from the rough drawings of his prison camp life during the second world war to the success that St Trinian’s brought and the development of his line and colour work in the decades since. I highly recommend dropping by, it’s on till July.

Matt Jones on his blog has done a great job of writing about Searle for those who want a bit more background.

End note

I have been busy on my project work and hope to have some posts featuring more of my works in progress shortly.

Alternative Press Fair 2010

Last weekend (13th of Feb) was annual Alternative Press Fair at the St Aloysius Social Club, 20 Phoenix Road, Euston (London). This year saw the ditching of the entry fee with just a request for donations at the entrance. The space also seemed easier to get round and for someone new to this scene. It’s freshing (and a bit daunting) to encounter all this print work and be unfamiliar with almost all of it.

The standard of work was really high with some excellent hand printed and quality digital piece’s for sale as well as a range of other crafty objects and tasty treats. As someone studying illustration it’s both inspiring and motivating to see what people are self publishing at different level’s.

Here’s a quick review of the things I picked up.

First up was StingRay magazine pushed into my hand for a discounted £1 by two enthusiastic young ladies! The writing is set to a fairly high standard and is definitely worth checking out. Issue two is open for submissions now on the theme of ‘travel’ for those interested.

Next up was Will Morris’s “The Apocalypse Club” containing two comic stories, the title (and first) story is a collaborative effort with Chris Bye the stand out of the two both graphically and from a narrative perspective. The graphic style is drafted to a high standard, with dramatic compositions and well crafted designs.

Then World War 3 – Illustrated issue #39 which is a larger American compilation of political comic work. Interesting and diverse I’ve only skimmed the surface but it looks to provide a solid range of topics and styles and I look forward to a more in-depth read as time allows.

Last was this lovely Valentine’s card by Rosie – sorry I can’t read the email address and no web address was listed. Please feel free to comment in the details. I like the whimsical nature of this piece and realistic pencil rendered dogs.

Hopefully next year I will have a few more pennies and be able to afford a few more things and maybe (even) have something to contribute myself!!

I’d love to hear any of your experiences of the fair this year or recommendations for other similar events going on in London so please feel free to add them into the comments!