I like owls, but I won't wear feathers...

This is what I mean by an Owl costume folks!

I'm going to publish a wish list that will bore the crap out of anyone who doesn't like their clothing girlie, owlie and cool.

These images maybe subject to copyright

Owl Jumper $288 from http://www.mariechantal.com/

Red 70denier opaques £6 from Topshop

Black fur lined boots £35 from M and S

Red scarf $28 from Aeon

Silver owl Necklace $20 from http://www.shanalogic.com/

Black Hitch skirt £70 from All Saints

Limited edition embroidered cami from gormanclothing

Owl me up. Like, now.

Drawings that I'm happy with this week...Mazda and Joe

Who's better than his brother Joe? Dominic DiMaggio? or maybe Shazza Ozzbourne...

Wed Mag continues to surprise and delight by letting me draw lots of fun odd people!

PGCE has left little time for much in the way of picture work, but I have been trying to rectify this over the holiday break. Firstly, a big shout out to all the illustrators that took part in the 24 Hour Comics event that was an enormous success and I have never been so proud of such a talented group. You should see the other blog for more details!

I am drawing vintage celebrity couples at the moment, i really want to get my teeth into some book ideas that i've been kicked around way too long! also my textile project is sadly neglected.
no doubt modules 3 and 4 are going to rule my life in Jan, along with the small matters of applying for my own job (fun) and moving house :) wait, i need to find somewhere to live yet.

I have been very lazy this week without college and trainee teaching, I have to get some motivation juice and not lie -a -bed til 10.30am.
Mornings will no longer be Big Bang Theory and Ugly Betty, until i find the strength to operate the vodafone dongle. i will rise, find a pencil and draw my little heart out. hmmm...work nearly over...where is the wine? Ahhh, i remember why i haven't been making it up in the mornings...

I have man-flu! wah!

Well this sucks some, but it is giving me a chance to catch up on some picture making, but my bed-covers are getting all painty, because i'm not leaving for no man. suck it.
I also have school tommorow and Black Maria have a gig in Exeter Saturday, so I'm downing the beechams my very good friend just wasted his lunchbreak buying for me like its Tequila and i'm 15 or something.

Busy week alltold, and i will post more pictures soon. i'm going to go find something to wipe my snotty face on...bleugh.

Moved by some beautiful dresses by Claire Armitage (search for her on www.falmouth.ac.uk ) and some seriously gorgeous reportage work by Anna Cattermole (I must find out if she has a website, I'm not sure my google hitting is bringing up the right lady) to properly pull my finger out, and explore the joy of illustration through textile design...and a song about wallpaper and heartbreak by the Black Maria Memorial Fund (please check 'em out! http://www.thememorialfund.com/ I am their newest member)
so watch this space! I'm loving the idea of putting together a design and having it printed digitally onto silk and wool and other lovely things, and a possible collaboration with Sarah Hunt, an immensely talented haberdasher and designer...

oh, I'm so excited I have almost forgotten my misanthropic ranting from the last post...

I start teacher training on Monday, so wish me some luck x

Congratualations and a big shout out for all the MA convecators whose shows are PVing tonight, doubt I can make it as am wearing IT hat tonight, but will be Falmouth-bound tomorrow to bother Paulie for tea, and I'll be snooping then.
The spirit of Brooker has subsided somewhat, now the weather has turned for the better. Still having minor intermittent rages at forms and being put on hold by the SLC. It's almost as if they don't want to give me free money. Baah!

Please, If you can get along to the MA Shows at Woodlane at 6pm tonight, I'm sure they'll be beautiful, and wine may be involved...

Today's nod to Illustration career...resizing images and saving to disk for streamlined fashio folio. I'll peg them on the website soon...laters

fanatabulous.

It's a pyjamas and coffee in bed today. I should explain that it's not laziness really, more sort of a shifting of deskspace as I no longer have a chair in the space that doubles up as a bedroom and studio. Serious internet connectivity means i can't post any new work at the moment, as the world wide web falls over and dies at the enormous strain of uploading a 250kb image. That would be a quarter of the the bottom left pixel of most of my recent stuff, and I can't be beggered to resize. It would only take a minute, I am being epically lazy. Apologies. I'd go to find someone else's blog to follow in disgust at my nonchalant misanthropy. Try Charlie Brooker's.

Wedding invitations, shoes and Scarlet aside, it has been a very quiet summer. I have so many book ideas in mind, but haven't got my ass into gear before TEACHING SCHOOL starts in earnest. I should be going out drawing but have somehow just spent the last week propping up the local bars and sobbing into a Chablis, that my friends are all paid enough to eat, and I have to steal bread out of my flatmate's freezer compartment. Though on Monday i did manage to put in a couple of invoices, so watch out Lidl! Come payday, I'm going to buy you and sell you to Tesco's. Pah!

Oh a remarkable upside, I managed to empty a pub last night by trying my hand at singing Imogen Heap covers and a folk song about staggering through premonitions of death. Then i thought i'd raise the tone and a few giggles by playing Radiohead. The effect was similar to spiking, nah, replacing people's drinks with citric acid; The kinds of facial contortions usually reserved for those in the final death throws of cyanide poisoning. I think i shall return to drawing...

For those who actually hope to see some work on here, i shall use IT time on wednesday to sneakily upload something nice for you. Wait, shall i have a go?

worth trawlling through this rant for? probably not, though thanks for the effort.

Well here's an insight into the current state of play!

I moved to Penryn, quite accidently, as I was in a living pickle over contracts, appropriate tax bands and the joy of (possibly) returning to studentship!

Penryn is a lumbering relic of possibly what was once quite a nice old town, now overun with chavs and Lidl. And a propensity of drivers who singleminded seem hell bent on taking people's wing mirrors off, if not our front door on the odd occassion.

I am ruddy loving it, as you might be able to tell.

Secondly, Tom Sharpe, myself and Philippa Rushworth have now stepped up a gear on our 24hour illustrated comics proposal. If you are interested in producing an entire illustrated book in 24 hours (this may seem oddly familar to those of you who suffered the level 1 illustrated book at UCF, though I am assured we were given the option of more time) please please contact me. We have funding being sorted out to both use and exhibit at the Poly in Falmouth in November.

Thirdly, I'm still hoping that one day I might be ace enough to teach Illustration to others. So I keep up the work, and will start my Dttls in Sep at Camborne. Lush.

Oh, yeah fourthly, here is that work I've been keeping up...

sorry everybody, I've been keeping my nose to the grindstone and sadly haven't been paying the blog enough attention, I should have some lovely work for a lovely shoe company to show you soon enough...
keep it sweet and draw loads x

nose wax anyone? No, me neither. Given the cavernous racehorse nostrils Darwin saw fit to give me, I think it'd be easier just to grow a 'tache and join the circus...

Well he probably won't check this before he gets his leaving card, but could i just take this opportunity to wish Harry B all the best in his adventures to the otherside of the world.

And thank him for being a great housemate, a fab friend and for the opportunity to draw a gratutious camper van. Cheers, boss, you've been the best xxx

New website! same address! but prettier! I like this spring cleaning malarky, shame it's about 3 months late... :)
First 10 people to email me their name and address get sent a pretty postcard to frame. As you were xx

Ah ! vous regarderiez cela ! une belle fille avec des chaussures 'Converse' de rouge !

Does french make illustration more sexy?

oh i do like to be beside the seaside! Oddly, the wrong coast seems to be taking my fancy...

maybe I need a fringe cut. I can't see.

steven! STEVEN!

...just coming...

I have been bombarding people again with an aggressive illustration torrent to get work. Mostly to prove I'm not wasting my life. Yeah, cheers Mum for that. 

adding some flowery stuff. I am a picture maker! I like to be informative, so i draw PICTURES of THINGS. they EXIST! You wait.

I am on The Boy's Mac again, and it won't let me juggle pictures, so the top image is one out of MY IMAGINATION. it is NOT REAL it does NOT EXIST. This covers the two sides of the illustration coin I believe. 

p.s Adam and Joe are like the big brothers I never wanted. 

well well well, sometimes it's hard work spending Friday's off in the pub listening to NIN thinking of something sweet to say about illustration. I have put an ad out in WEd mag as a wedding Illustrator, which I think would be a really cute and quirky way to celebrate a big day...have your portrait done, or a pic of the venue as a pressie for the happy couple.

I think I may have used the word 'quirky' too many damn times in the ad itself. But kudos to me, I didnt use 'idiosyncratic'. Or 'crayons'.

On a different note, here is the illustration I did for the counselling homework.

was having a beano mucking aroung last night with digital colour and ink. It's a self portrait.

I'm just trying out new ways of working at the mo, to get out of the rut. It's hard, when you graduate, you think you're at the top of your game, and it's hard not to fall into the trap of turning illustration tricks like scholl projects, so it's nice to fuck around.

aha! One pink oxjam poster! I have taped a paif of earphones to a piece of vinyl. get in there!

This is a departure for me, as it is digitally coloured...

I have woken up in Plymouth. Whoopsy daisy. So I have appropriated The Boy's Macbook, and i'm doing a poster for Oxjam. No money in this one but I reckon to get a lot of kudos from a friendly fish. At college I would probably have considered Dub Reggae out of my remit, being such an unrelenting indie drone fan. Mogwai, if you're reading this, want a poster? 

Here is life-threateningly cute picture of a wedding couple for Wed magazine.

Over the weekend, I have to spin out an Oxjam poster for G-town in the midlands, and an artwork for a mate's counselling coursework. I aslo have to go to Tesco's or starve. Nice.

p.s it would make my day if Photoshop Disasters picked up on this shameful misappropriation of the tool.

Not sure if this constitutes either illustration or a constructive use of time, but it did make Paul W spit tea out his nose

Working for Wed magazine at the mo showing a happy couple throwing the rule book out the window. Fairly literal and prozaic illustration, but ill whck it up asap, and get on with some wild and funky stuff over the weekend to make up for it x

Destruction leads to a very rough road but it also breeds creation. I think I need to start over...

I've been having fun.

Agent Darlink asked all nice like if i'd like to enter an AOI competion producing work around a London theme. I drew some wonderfully silly hats instead. You like? Deadline is next Friday, so any feedback would be useful/appreciated/shunned accordingly.

Going to Plymouth shoe shopping on saturday to match my new haircut. I am planning to become an Argyle WAG, but i'll be damned if they'll get me in orange...

Monday. day of dreams. Dreams shattered against rocks and disintegrating into shadows.
A non-student was just very rude to me and i feel a little fragile. I take comfort in the fact that he is not my superior, as he might seem to think. I have no superior. I'm not even sure i have an equal. Back with some picture news in a minute....

Went and Maisy day-ed at the Bookshop of local dreams in Wood Green where my mum lives today. I ate biscuits and accidently ending up working, selling books to unsuspecting customers who seemed to to think i'd worked there for years. It was really nice actually, I love working with books. I really have to knuckle down to my own soon. I was supposed to be hobnobbing yesterday with a publisher, but time catches up with you sometimes and drags you away from exciting times in a frog march. I have an idea though.

Meanwhile, i'm sticking up these two old portraits i did of the Bookshop Boys that i clip frmaed up and handed over as presents today to celebrate their first birthday. Interestingly, they have only got hairier since i drew these...Simon Key

Tim West

Yesterday was lovely! The tiny smalls were ecstatic to meet a big crazy lady who draws for a living. Campsbourne is a really lovely little school with such a positive arty vibe, and even the stropy kids got excited when i showed them my pictures and explained what i do. I think it's the first time i've felt like a professional drawerer. Not only that but it's made me realise just what an impact what we illustrators do has on little people. It's really made me want to tackle a picture book project again.

Went to see Agent Lady this morning. She's full of the joys of spring, promising big things from Egmont and dragging my folio to Bologna next week. What will materialise however is a different fruitbowl of fish. This wouldn't be the first time silly Cally got overexcited about the fragile phantom promise of a juicy job and ended up whimpering with her paws over her nose waiting by the phone. Poocakes. I get 'yah-darlink' blinded in a haze of 'mwahs' in these matters. Repeat after me. I must keep my pencils on the ground. Or my feet on the paper. Or something.

anyone know long it takes from Reading? i may karate chop myself in the face out of boredom in a minute. I have an interesting plan brewing involving weddings...dont panic if you're reading this Martyn...more later.

2 hours in a taxi and 3 and a half in coach D firstgreatpissedon make cally something something....
Go crazy? Don't mind if i do.

Three things are making me happy.
1) Don Draper. John Hamm, you are some kind of god.
2) I have been listening to 'Bodysnatchers' (the 'head) on repeat for 27 minutes
3) there is a lovely lovely boy in Plymouth who makes me feel like a 15yr old on a first date everytime i see him

It is nigh on impossible to draw on a train. I am going to be talking about Illustration in a primary school in North London tomorrow. I shall not tell the aspiring artists that illustration = starvation/disapointment and satsumas for tea most days.
Actuall, a satsuma would be really good right now...

I'm trying to come up with some ideas for a self-initiated book project to keep my grey matter occupied between illustration jobs, but i'm getting stuck, and over the weekend i think i worked out why. My problem has always been one of style over substance; I always knew the format of what i wanted to draw before I knew why that format might be appropriate.
I am forever indebted to Scott McCleod (not Highlander children of the Eighties...) for his chapter in Understanding Comics on overcoming the desire to put Surface i.e aesthetics before content. How many times did Alan bang on about contextualisation being the entire reason de etre for Illustration? why do these things take so long to sink in.

So i guess i need an ouevre before i find myself trapped churning out pictures for pounds with no satisfaction from what i'm doing.

Wait...can i have a cup of tea first?

i'm sooooo hunggrrrryyyy! waah!!! what can i eat thats in front of me? There's still a box load of chocolate valantine's money in front me from the lovely Sam Bradbury, but part of me wants something greasy and awful like Burger King.
I also have a mug full of candy canes from my boss who just got back from Center Parcs.
Who is reading this rubbish, honestly? for shame! do something constructive! go watch Goldenballs. Have a brilliant weekend. I'm off to snuggle my hunnybunny in Plymouth. It's ok, i'll ask first. xx

I'm having a think about this self promotion marlarky today...what a lot of fun it is. Actually it's terrifying, because if you let it slip at this stage (i.e straight out of school and wet behind the proverbials) you lose all that magic sparkle that goes with being the new blood. Soon i won't be a new graduate, i'll be a recent graduate, and then a resting graduate, and then a bum. Slippery

Whenyhoo, I'm going to talk to my friend Simon today and see if i can't sweet talk him into making some badges for me...
See! Crayons! Crayons=colouring in=what illustrator's major in at art school! Simples!

Gotta collect em' all

Must go before bad advertising copy becomes my only vernacular. Or i get sued.

hmmm....nice, nice...why can't i find anything nice? I have been telling students that their prints arent coming out right beacuse they have stolen God's vintage sherry stash and He is pissed.

This seems not to phase most BA Graphics types. They'll take the gamble.

Have you been watching Mad Men? It is unrelentingly awesome, and I am in love with Don Draper. It is written with such spare dialogue, and such subtlty of character that I am scared to big it up in case it does a Desperate Housewives and jump the shark too early.

aha! Nice! I have a lovely lesbian speed dating poster for you, my first commission after graduation.

Yum. As you were.

I tried mucking about putting some swirly stuff behind the text, but it looked cobbled together and naff. I then had a paddy about it, with the sense that I am a directionless art-tart who'll do anything for money. Welcome to the tawdy neon wilderness of Commercial Illustration.

Then, after i'd pulled myself together and had a stiff Cabernet shiraz, I re-read the rules and realised you had to pay £5 to even enter the bloody competition. Five whole english pounds! A hundred entrants and they've got the prize money right there! Arrange the following words into a well know phrase or saying. Off. Bugger.

That's another bottle of this Cabernet, very resonably half price at Tesco's at the minute. When a lady young enough to be my daughter doesn't ID me, won't accept a University Staff ID photo ID card, and makes the sniveling blonde skaterboy behind me snicker as he produces a provisional driving licence to buy his 3 litre bottle of White Lightning. And ID ing is supposed to discourage irresponsible drinking. Ha.

Whoops. Rant. I'll be back later with something nice. x

Life in an IT suite.

This ain't no party, this ain't no disco this ain't no fooling around

I find it wholey necessary to quote the 'Heads when dealing with this sort of shenanigans.

Right. I've been working on a cover image for Mslexia magazine, a ladie's magazine for ladies who do artistist stuff. It's a sort of competition brief that needs to be in Friday. it looks something like this at the moment.

My better instincts are telling me the text is getting lost, and might be a bit crappy. I'll work on it some more after some wine tonight, and see what happens. I have eaten my own body weight in snacks today. Will somebody sign my timesheet please?

oooh oooh! I always wanted to put this online, but it's a wee (ha!) bit dirty for my website.

BTW, I do a very nice line in illustrated porn these days, thank you Mike. You know who you are.

Did I ever tell you just how much I love owls?

No? x

What the devil? Monday again?! How odd.

Scarlet magazine March Issue is now out resplendent with piccy. Is it sad that I get a buzz off of seeing my name on the masthead? Do Illustrators ever grow out of that? I hope not. It seems like going into WHSmith's and being able to pick up a mag with your work in it should always be special. Then you can post a copy to your Mum and prove you're a real Illustrator. Yeah!

Weekend minus 1 hour...

Illustrator's don't really have weekends, they have panics that they don't have any work on for great swathes of time, something a bit akin to going cold turkey from a nasty crack habit (I should imagine)

Thankfully, IT Helpdesk technicians pretneding to be illustrators in their other lives do have weekends, and are spending them being spoilt rotten by their Daddies (fingers crossed)

and laced up to the eyeballs in Campo Viejo.

Wish I was as funny as the Photoshop Disasters guys.

Here. Have a picture. x

And have a nice weekend. If you get one x

I would quite like to have a moan about the terific impact of doom that a print server at a busy art school has when it rolls over and dies.

I won't. Instead I'm posting my newest piece of self initiated stuff...

And my latest commission for Scarlet Magazine. (copyright Scarlet March 2009)

Anyone fancy a weird spaghetti hands facial? no?!

Right. Off to kick a printer. x

And most importantly (and lastly for today) my good friend Mr.John Stanbury is an excellent proliferator of other people's Illustration work. Please check out his Advice To Sink In Slowly project. a range of advice posters are available to buy, including these two.

Believe me, they will make you happy

that is all x

Right, well this is proving fun. I can add pictures, and it's no really showing off if you're looking at them, because you are following this blog by choice. aha! excellent!

Things I have learnt from blogging so far

1) it is very Passe. Everyone who is anyone is on Twitter now darlink

2) I'm not nearly as funny as I think I am.

Here's a nice collection of christmas work I did. I know it's fabulously late, but it was a nice busy time for commissions, and I'm pining for it

I have been mostly doing editorial work since graduation. It's fun having random requests for such imagery as 'Can we have a woman being spray-tanned in a tent in her living room?'

(copyright Scarlet Magazine Jan 09)

This is something i did to branch out (haha ivy! branch, gettit?) I'm going for a cup of tea now. Dave says i'm taking this blog thing too seriously. Ill be back later...

As a graduate trying to make it in the Illustration game, I thought i'd have a go at keeping interested folk updated with a blog. This saves me time and efoort updating my website every few minutes with new work, and gives me a chance to show what i'm up to so my parents don't feel it was an enormous wate of money to put me through University. see Dad! This is what I mean by drawing pictures!