Tuesday 30 October 2012

Goofy shot first!

This evening my Twitter feed was full of people commenting on the breaking news that Disney have purchased Lucasfilm in a $4 Billion deal and plan to release Star Wars Episode 7 in 2015.



I guess Goofy shot first!

Monday 29 October 2012

Vote for KITT!

I am not an American. I do not profess to know much at all about American politics. Therefore I will not be commenting about who should win the current Presidential Election. But I will say that I would DEFINITELY vote for this guy...erm, car!

Thursday 25 October 2012

Happy Birthday Pablo Picasso!

Pablo Picasso was born on the 25th of October 1881, so today is his birthday. Happy Birthday Picasso! :)

Picasso has been one of my favourite artists ever since I was a kid, and my mum still has a painting that I did at school when I was 10 years old of Picasso's The Sailor (1938) hanging up on the wall...

The Haunted Man

This week I have been mostly listening to The Haunted Man - the new album from Bat For Lashes (aka Natasha Khan) – and looking forward to going to her gig on Monday night.



So much so, that I decided to draw my own version of the album cover...



And I also discovered that today (25 October) is Natasha's birthday. So Happy Birthday! :)

Monday 22 October 2012

The Sketchbook Project London: The Movie

So last week The Sketchbook Project 2012 was on tour in London at Canada Water Library. I popped along to have a look at the sketchbooks of some of my friends that had taken part, as well as to sample some of other books in the collection...



On one of the days I was there, there was a guy with a camera filming and I didn't think much of it until he came over and asked whether anyone had taken part in the project, at which point I, rather sheepishly, put my hand up and said that I had. And the next thing I knew, I was being miked up and taking part in a short interview.

The "guy with a camera" was Felix Gonzales of You And I Films - a freelance media and video production co-op linking the creative to environmental and social issues - and he'd heard about the project and decided to come along and make a short film about it. Here's a photo of me mid-interview (courtesy of Miriam Sugranyes)...



And here's the full eight minute video, featuring interviews with various members of the traveling Sketchbook Project team who worked really hard to help everyone see as many books as possible during the brief stop over in London, as well as a few words from me around the 05:45 mark...

The Sketchbook Project, London 2012 from You and I Films on Vimeo.

Thursday 18 October 2012

Creative Project #5: Destroy

So I missed out on doing last month's Creative Project theme which was Euphoria, but this month's theme is Destroy and I decided to draw the one action figure that could definitely destroy a load of LEGO houses...



I did a few sketches trying to work out a narrative scene for this image, but in the end decided to go with this more iconic approach, and really make the green pop from the page.

Monday 15 October 2012

The Man Who Fell To Earth

Yesterday, Felix Baumgartner became the first skydiver to travel faster than the speed of sound when he jumped out of a balloon 128,100ft (24 miles; 39km) above New Mexico, also smashing the record for the highest ever freefall.

I was out last night, watching a gig by Emperor Yes in Camden, but I did watch the footage online when I got home, and a lot of it just showed a white blob in the middle of a blue screen. I guess it was impossible to get any close up footage of Felix's freefall, so I thought I would draw a picture of how I imagine he looked as he plummeted from space...

Happy Birthday Clare!

It was my friend Clare's birthday...well, a few weeks ago actually. But due to a number of reasons involving weddings and holidays, she only got around to celebrating it this weekend. So I only got a round to making her a card now too...

Friday 12 October 2012

The Sketchbook Project – London

I've previously posted about my The Sketchbook Project 2012 sketchbook, which I completed in January of this year and sent off to the Brooklyn Art Library to be part of their permanent collection. Since then, the sketchbooks have been on tour around the US and are now making a one week stop-off in the UK, and will be available to view at Canada Water Library in London from 12–19 October. The opening times to view the sketchbooks are as follows:

Friday: 4pm-8pm Saturday: 11am-5pm Sunday: CLOSED Monday-Friday: 4pm-8pm

I'm hoping to make it along tomorrow to have a look.

For those of you that missed my previous posts about my sketchbook, I selected the theme Heroes & Villains, and my book – entitled SUPERhuman – depicts various fantastical comic book heroes and villains carrying out mundane everyday tasks. It's an idea that I have plans to continue working on, and as part of that, and to celebrate the start of the London stopover, I've drawn a new image featuring Mr Fantastic from The Fantastic Four putting his mental abilities to the test with a jumbo puzzle book...



If you're Facebook enclined, you can view the event page for The Sketchbook Project - London here: http://www.facebook.com/events/275205519265968/

Thursday 11 October 2012

BRAINZZZZZZ!

I noticed this morning that quite a few people I'm following on Twitter had spookified their regular Twitter profile picture, presumably on a Halloween-related note. So, not wanting to be left out, I decided to customise my own Twitter picture. 'Tis the season and all that...

Before...


And after...

Happy Birthday Comic Gosh!p

Last night I attended the Comic Gosh!p comic book discussion group at Gosh! Comics. This month we were looking at Adamtine by Hannah Berry and His Face All Red by Emily Carroll. It was also one year since the group started. To celebrate the occasion I drew this picture, based on Adamtine, featuring Mike and Mark who run the Comic Gosh!p group...

Bronze exhibition at the Royal Academy

Yesterday afternoon I went to see the Bronze exhibition at the Royal Academy. I must admit to not normally being too fussed about sculpture, but the show was interesting, especially the room where they explain the process of casting a bronze statue, as well as the different effects and results that it is possible to achieve with bronze.

While I was there I did a drawing of this bronze statue of Ganesh, which was created in South India during the late eleventh–early twelfth centuries.

Monday 8 October 2012

Ed: The Movie

Last week I accidentally saw the latest party political broadcast by the Labour Party which had been dubbed Ed: The Movie. A propaganda piece for Ed Milliband, the Labour party leader, it featured various people Ed was at school with saying what a good guy he was and reiterating the point that he went to a London comprehensive school, not like David "Posh Boy" Cameron, so you should vote for Ed because everyone knows Posh people are evil ...or something. I'm paraphrasing slightly.

Anyway, after watching this with a sense of amazement, I came to two conclusions: 1) That Ed Milliband is a very strange looking individual. 2) If Ed Milliband was really going to be in a movie, it should probably be this...

Sunday 7 October 2012

Happy Birth-Dee!

Today was my friend Dee's birthday. We are also both members of the Illustrious Artists Facebook group, where the current creative challenge is to draw a portrait of another member of the group.
So I thought that I would combine these two things and draw a picture of Dee for her birthday...

Tuesday 2 October 2012

Happy Birthday Lenny!

So this is a bit late in coming, but I just found it on my computer and realised I hadn't uploaded it... A few weeks ago (the same time as my birthday) it was my friend Lenny's birthday. She had a neat house party with an actual steel band, and plenty of rum punch, and I made her this card...