Bjork - Biophilia Illustration

Been inspired by Bjork’s recent album project, Biophilia, she’s worked with an army of artists, designers and engineers to create 10 apps that link up with her new album where you explore a universe via song. It’s truly a feat of experimentation, she even got David Attenborough to record an intro for the app. She’s ace.

Heres my illustration I’ve made for friends article concerning the project.

Now Then Magazine July Issue

I've been humbled this month with an interview and feature in Now Then Magazine, a popular free publication based in the heart of Sheffield. They regularly feature artists as their main angle and they use up many pages with artwork from the featured artist, I've kept copies as collectables from certain artists features such as Nick Deakin and Lord Bunn in the past.

Copies of the magazine are free and can be found in most independent bars and boutiques around Sheffield!

Hey Sholay

Sheffield based band, Hey Sholay have been making waves in the local scene as well as winning a poll with the NME to win a gig slot at this years EXIT fest in Serbia. I'm a big fan of their music with their galloping drum beats and distorted guitars and catchy melodies. Listening to their music paints a picture in my head of how I'd approach their artwork, even though two members of the band look after the artwork which is very fine art touching on illustrative angles.

Here I wanted to play with my use of water colour textures and a bit of linear pencil drawing, I had a lot of fun working in this, just purely because it's been ages since I've worked on any personal work.

Tramlines Hantu Collective Merch 2011

Heres the the design I've submitted for this years Tramlines Festival merchandise, and I'm pretty happy with it. I wanted to capture the fun and explosive vibe that's in the city for that one summer weekend a year. I love Tramlines as it transforms the city and theres always good bands to watch.

I'm happy with this collaboration between Hantu Collective and Frooly, both Sheffield based creative businesses and hopefully we'll be able to work on next years festival merch... providing they go down well this year. Hint hint.

You can order them through here -------->

Janelle Monae Portrait

After a while I'd noticed I haven't worked on many of my own personal pieces, the recent months have had me tied down to more commercial work. Sometimes it's good to vent creatively and I normally have hundreds of ideas or images in my head that I want to put down onto paper or in this case, screen.

I'm a big fan of Janelle Monae, especially her performance and public persona and the conceptual image she's put across in her music and videos. I've always wanted to adapt her portrait into one of my stylised pieces so I had a bash.

I tweeted her and she even responded to my first draft, saying she liked it, which made my day. I'll be sure to watch her perform at Glastonbury this year which I cannot wait for.

First draft:

Final Piece

I wanted to work another version of her smiling and laughing so I could have little robots dancing in her hair, maybe if I have the time I'll work on this version too...

Rolo Tomassi Hantu Collective Jumper

I've designed a new jumper print for the band Rolo Tomassi as some limited edition merchandise for the Hantu Collective. The brief was pretty simple, I was told that they like owls, so putting this together was easy to draw. I'm a big fan of the concentric circles because the owl here.

Wu-Tang vs. Jimi Hendrix Competition

On very short notice I entered a competition hosted by none other than The Wu-Tang Clan to design the new album cover for a mix done by Tom Caruana who's done a series of awesome hip hop mashups and mixes, most notably my personal favourite, Wu-Tang vs. The Beatles . The design brief is for the upcoming Wu-Tang vs. Jimi Hendrix. Instantly I knew I'd have to approach this project with my own take and style, and with a little help from some friends they directed me into using the iconic portrait of Jimi Hendrix . I also thought Purple Haze would have to play a part within the design too.

Eventually I managed to add more emphasis to the psychadelic patterns and purple smoke aswell as refine the faces of the original 9 member of the Wu. I thought putting RZA in the centre was a master stroke, as he is the main member of the clan. The font is one that Jimi Hendrix is known to have used on his previous albums and gig posters.

BUT sadly as of 24th May I found out that the design didn't make the cut, but if you're nosey enough you can see the design that did win the competition if you click here. Hopefully more opportunities like this will crop up in the future. Fingers crossed.

Sarah Mac Album Artwork

I'm still finding it hard to find a spare moment just so I can update my blog and keep things up to scratch. The past month I've been mainly working with local musicians in and around Sheffield. In particular, I've been a fan of Sarah Mac's blend of genre stroke pop song writing and instrumentals, she's even cooler and down to earth when you meet her in person so her music more or less fits well with her being.

I was asked by Liam at Mixed in Sheffield who's been mixing the album for Sarah, to produce some artwork for her new EP titled, Everyone Knows. Jumped at the chance, I instantly had an idea in my head, some might say slightly predictable and admitted the design concept was predictable on my part but I thought in context to what I know of Sarah Mac, it suits well.

GZA and My T-shirt

So heres photo evidence of GZA wearing the t-shirt I designed for him! (earler post, below) I'll admit I'm still feeling pretty smug about that but hopefully I'll be able to design t-shirts for the other remaining members of the Wu-Tang Clan in the coming years.

But for now you can read a more detailed post about the GZA t-shirt project on the Hantu Collective website.

Protect Ya Neck Son

I've put this design together for The Hantu Collective to give to GZA when he plays his gig in Liverpool on the 21st April. Hopefully his entourage will like this.

Cow

I'd been asked by Cow in Sheffield to put together a wall mural piece that takes up the stair case of the store. It was a cool project to work on mostly because they gave me full creative freedom to do what I wanted on their wall, but admittedly I stuck close to what I was comfortable with. This time I wanted to add more elements in the piece so you'd notice there are plenty of mini stories dotted around the wall space.

My signature me

My nod to the Park Hill Flats

Sheffield has plenty of skaters flying and tumbling around

How it looks from the top of the stairs. My nod to Kelham Island

I <3 SY

My nod to the Tinsley Towers

Get away

Havin' a pint

National Media Museum Faith Project

Thought I'd interest you all in some higher res photos of the completed church pew illustrations. Finally finished the work on Wednesday 23rd of March. Now onto the next project whatever that is...

Church Pews: Faith

For the past 2 weeks I've been working on a commission by The National Media Museum in Bradford in conjunction with Freedom Studios. The exhibition is based on the theme of Faith and they'd asked me to illustrate loosely around famous locations and images related to Bradford. I'd spent a week researching the city and its famous landmarks as well as listening to recordings from the archives.

The studio managed to acquire a 200 year old oak church pew which they have chopped down into 6 individual seats that can sit 2 people, they even had to recreate the pew ends as closest to authenticity. I'd required them to coat them all in white emulsion (which I thought was sacrilegious to say the least but necessary) and then I allowed myself some time to plan head until I went straight in with marker pens.

The pews are stored in an abandoned mill, in the industrial quarter of Bradford, it's bloody cold in there and I'm constantly having to warm myself up by jumping around whilst listening to my ipod. I've found the best artists for this are Flying Lotus, Wu-Tang Clan and MF Doom. Lots of fun.

These will be on display at the museum by the end of the month and will be accompanied by a leather bound book which will have a miniature speaker inside playing a recording.

Look forward to seeing how they look on display!

St. Thomas Primary

For 2 days I'd been working at St. Thomas Primary in Meadowhead, working alongside Year 2 and Year 3 pupils for their "Making History" Project. It was a very enthralling and engaging experience working with young enthusiastic children whom were very sweet and very bright.

The two mural pieces are interpretations of the children's input, where they would give me themes to draw or randomly find me in the day and suggest other things I should put into the murals. The looks on their faces at the end of each day was worth aching arms and back (my aching arms and back)

These pieces will be used in conjunction with a traveling caravan museum which the School will bring into the second phase of the "Making History" Project.

New Self Portrait

I thought it was about time to update my little self portrait I normally use for my avatars etc. Looking at my older one showed me how far I've come in terms of my drawing and how I go about choosing colours etc. It's always interesting to see whether you've progressed (or regressed) over time.

OLD

NEW

Stars in Stripes Launch Evening

A couple of nights ago was the launch of the first Stars in Stripes exhibition, and I can say it was a grand launch. I wouldn't want to go into the whole prepping and building of the show as it was a lot of hard graft but a rewarding experience when we saw scores of Sheffield folk making the trip to Rotherham to come see us and support us.

Through out the day there was plenty to do with cleaning and mounting the work and setting up the bar, but after a few bottled of ale, all that didn't seem to matter. I was really happy with the amount of work on show from all of the 12 artists and it really hit me to see how far we'd all come since creating the Stars in Stripes group. We've secured jobs from Sheffield City council and Fright Night as well decorating bars such as The Harley and The Wick at Both Ends, sometimes you forget about these things and how much work is involved.

A big thanks has to go Peter Martin who's had to put up with all of us artists, and he's become someone I consider as a good colleague at the end of it, I hope out of all of us he feels the most smug about how the show was pulled off. I wouldn't go so far to say it was a total Berlin vibe on the night but it really wasn't that far off, taking a step back and seeing skateboarders hurling themselves around the space doing tricks was a little far from the norm but created an independent vibe which I've never experienced before at an exhibition opening.

To see more pictures from the evening they'll be posted on the Stars in Stripes website here.