Rockets and Robots

Hello all! I hope you had a lovely Christmas and a New Year's Eve that didn't leave you feeling like death.
To celebrate the new year, here's a look into what I've been up to since I last posted... making another ukulele! This one was for my friend Charlie for Christmas - she has an interest in astrophysics, so the only logical choice for her ukulele was rockets and robots. Obviously.
I've got to say, as fun as this was, never again unless it's for heaps of money. The painting is fun but making a musical instrument takes sooooo looooooong!

The little red guy on the base of the ukulele is my favourite.

Enjoy!

H

Adventure Time with Fionna and Cake (plus noses)

Hello again! Two posts in one week, my goodness. 

For your Saturday viewing pleasure I give you my version of Fionna and Cake (plus friends/enemies). 

I'm completely addicted to Adventure Time (and if you don't know what that is go look it up immediately) and I've been wanting to pay homage for a while.

I could've done the normal non-gender-swapped characters but I was swayed by the fact that I really want to be Fionna. She's awesome.

See you soon!

H

Pretty Nostalgic Magazine

Hello all!

Here's one of the things I've been working on in the last few months... some images for Pretty Nostalgic magazine!
As some of you may know, I love all things retro, so I jumped at the chance to work with Nic Dorman, illustrating her article on the vintage delights of my home county, Norfolk.

You can buy this issue (and others) at www.prettynostalgic.co.uk

Subscribers (like myself) can also submit content to the magazine by getting in touch with the Pretty Nostalgic team.

See you soon!

H

Trying new things AKA My Concentration Face

So today I tried observational drawing using my computer and my precious wacom. It's not something I normally do, but I'm always super impressed with those who do, so I wanted to give it a go.
I'm pretty pleased with the results for a first try (despite my slightly grumpy expression - that's my concentration face), and it's definitely given me food for thought in terms of what I might do in the future.
I've also moved back home to concentrate on my illustration work (and getting better) so exciting times all round.
Hooray!

H

Exciting upcoming event!

Well, as you've probably realised from the title of this post and the picture above I've got something very exciting coming up in the next week. 

I'm going to the Apple Store in Covent Garden and I'm spending about an hour going over my work and my art process with the general public! Get me and my bad self.

It's on Thursday 18th October, at 7pm, so hopefully I'll see you all there :)

H

p.s. Poland went INCREDIBLY WELL, so watch this space for info and pictures on Wroclaw/Hurdy Gurdy fun times.

Live Draw!

Evenin' all!

It's all been a bit horribly hectic with deadlines recently but I managed to get involved in a live drawing session over in south-west London not too long ago hosted by a friend of mine, Sam Baker, who asked for some illustrators to work during a video and sound installation he created.
The lovely Sara Taghdimi and I managed to created a fabric mural in just under 45 minutes to a mash up of Pink Floyd, 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Wizard of Oz.
As you can expect the result was a bit random, but it was really interesting to react to the music and accompanying visuals that immediately.

More posts to come soon (hopefully!)

See you!

H

Exhibitions and envelopes

Hey hey!

So I finally worked out what I'd like/what I had time/what I could afford to do for the exhibition in terms of promo material and I now have 99 of these littles beauties...

Teeny tiny envelopes! With greetings on them! And I'm not going to tell you exactly what's in them until after the private view. Because that's how I roll.

Anyway, just for info, it's the Blackall Studios we're showing in, down in Shoreditch The private view's on Thursday 12th April (6-9pm) and then the exhibition is on till the 17th and open everyday from 11am till 6pm.

Hopefully see you soon!

H

Exhibition Booklet Idea

Hello again!

Here's a little idea for a promotional booklet for the upcoming exhibition I'm in over at the Blackall Gallery in Shoreditch, using my favourite booklet/hidden poster format. I'm not sure whether it's going to be feasible, but if I had unlimited funds/time, then hand-folding a couple of hundred of these to give out would be lovely.

In any case, if you're around on the 12th - 17th April then come check it out! There'll be 63 illustrators showing! This is the place: http://www.blackallstudios.com/

Hopefully see you there. If not, speak to you soon!

H

How today could've ended.

Were my colleagues any less than they are...

Proper stuff to come soon.

H

A much needed Gallery Trip

Hello again!

I know it's only been a couple of days since my last post, but after giving myself a stern talking to I decided I needed to get back into the habit of going to galleries and museums to draw and I wanted to post the results asap. I'd kind of trailed off a bit since my drawing-buddy Shannon went back to the US of A and yesterday I made the effort to get back into it.

I also got my feedback from my assessment, and while I actually did pretty well, they did say I should be getting some more observational and figure drawing into my sketchbooks to support my other work.

I started off looking at evidence of the ageing process in the work there (for reasons that will become apparent when my final project is complete) and then I just started enjoying the light on the sculptures (always my favourite to draw from).

Used pencil, my trusty pentel styli refill (my ultimate fav pen) and some good ol poscas. 

Anyway! I'll see you soon. I can't promise it'll be this soon next time though!

H

Movember

Hello again!

Now, some of you may already have seen these illustrations, but for those of you that haven't, here's the story.
Last November I helped money to raise awareness for men's health through Movember. As I lacked the necessary hormones to grow a moustache I said that if someone gave £20 to support the cause I'd do them an illustration of their choice. Here are three of those commissions.
I raised £243 total. I'll see if I can top it next year :)

See you soon!

H

Mo' Commissions

Hello again!

So here's a few more of the backlog of pieces for a Children's text book over in Ireland. I've got some more pieces for kids text books lined up for a pretty big publisher here in Blighty that should be pretty exciting, but I won't give too much away on that score - not sure how much I can.

I also handed in all my work to be assessed for my MA today. It's the first of the two big assessments, and while I shouldn't worry about it, it's actually pretty nerve-racking. Partially because I've put everything I've done in the last 15 months in there, but mostly because I've had to leave all my lovely, lovely sketchbooks somewhere other than my room or my handbag. Weird.

I kept a new one back just for the occasion though. Couldn't face going cold turkey.

See you soon!

H

Commission backlog

Hello again!

For a while I've been doing commissions for various Children's text books. It's nice work; varied, fun and usually a bit of a challenge - as you can probably tell from the interesting mix of Christmas, Shakespeare scene and lederhosen.
I wasn't actually sure whether the publisher's would be ok with me putting stuff up here but I checked with my agency and apparently it's absolutely fine so here's a couple of pieces from the backlog!
I'll most likely put a few more up in a week or so (providing I remember lol) so...

See you soon!

H

G&B.

So here's some of the pieces I did for the Christmas period! A little trio of portraits of my friend's Greg and Bee for Bee's Secret Christmas Present of Awesome. As you can imagine I had to keep pretty quiet about it up until Greg had given me the all clear.

More to come soon! (It should be more pieces but it'll most likely be me sharing my knitting prowess with you. But there was stripes. That deserves a post.)

See you soon!

H

Christmas Cards 2011!

Hello all!

Sorry I've been quiet for so long - it's been a rather hectic month I'm afraid. 

I've been working to finish my research paper (which is finally done and dusted!), make quite a lot of Christmas presents for people (which will be uploaded once they've been opened by the recipients), working on a few commissions (I'll upload what I can), working and (obviously) making Christmas cards for people. 

I was perfectly fine with this workload, but my body organised a mutiny and punished me with a rather nasty dose of Tracheitis.

I'm currently bundled up in bed with a mug of hot Ribena (throat soother of champions) and strong antibiotics. I've actually been stuck in bed since last Tuesday with the monotony only broken by two doctors appointments and my mum turning up at my house, rolling me in a duvet, and driving me to hers to be fed chicken soup and worried about at a shorter distance. I must've looked (and sounded) pretty rough on Skype.

Anyway, that's enough of that - I thought this year instead of the usual style of Christmas card I'd go a slightly different direction and do a narrative based comic-card. Undoubtedly the many new graphic novel artists at uni this year are having an influence!

It's designed to be printed on both sides of an A4 sheet, slit in the middle, and folded so it creates a little book that can then be unfolded to see the poster inside.

This little piece is done with black and grey ink pens on paper and then photocopied on to some nice laid paper (I love that stuff). There was a run of 50 in total.

You might recognise it coz it's the same process I used for the 'Le Petomane' piece in my portfolio that Jonny Hannah taught us at Kingston Uni.

See you soon! Sooner than last time in any case ;)

H

Hannah for the Hub!

Incredibly exciting! I got to go on a TV show at the National Film and Television School called the Hub and do a live piece! They made me a massive board to work on - 6ft by 3ft - I started at half two and finished it on the show at half 5. I was so incredibly nervous, especially about the interview part but it went really well.

I really like how the piece came out (obviously looking back the next day I can already see things I'd change lol) but considering I was trying not to pass out from anxiety I'm pretty chuffed.

I've never really worked this big before, or really in this way (colour first, then line) but it's actually really fun and I think it works for my work. Maybe I'll get the chance to work like this again in the future - I certainly hope so!

This fellow is done in a mix of emulsion, acrylic and Posca pens.

I'm still waiting for the footage to put on here but I'll keep you updated!

See you soon!

H