Fleet Foxes

Latest Portfolio show piece.
My favourite band of 2008/09, of whom I'm eagerly awaiting their next album, due out later this year.

'Robin has revealed that for their sophomore he will try to sound "less poppy, less upbeat and more groove-based". Taking inspiration from Roy Harper's psychedelic classic, Stormcock, or at least its 12-string guitar he said: "That will be the primary sonic distancing from the last record".' - Wikipedia

Indie-Folk, I do love it.

Scholar

A Reading of 'The Scholar' by Robert Southey.

Most recent Epoch Times piece. Published two weeks ago, I've been feverishly tweaking the colour version ever since.

The two blue characters are Keats and Sappho, ghostly company of the solitary Scholar as he reads classical texts.
I chose a rather close up composition for this one, mainly to convey the intimate nature of reading alone and the sharing of thoughts and feelings that an author can create. If I read a lot, I often find the voices of characters becoming more developed in my mind, even more so with graphic novels. In this image I wanted the historic authors to be right near the reader, as if they are becoming part of his consciousness.

The colouring on the reader character developed into a sort of sepia look. The idea being that reading books is an age old practice, and the guy depicted is delving into history. The poem also has some content regarding the poem's author making their own place in history to come, or 'futurity' as it's put.



A good few commissions have come together recently, so I'm going to be busy in coming weeks. Luckily the bad weather is keeping me indoors, but like everyone else I'm pining for Spring to show.

Re-discovered Classic of the week! - Tower of Power, Urban Renewal

Further Foxes

I met a recent Fine Art graduate yesterday. In talking about the subject I was reminded about how much Contemporary Fine Artists have to explain their work. I don't mean 'explain' as in justifying a piece being 'Art' to a bewildered public, but just the practice of backing up each decision made in the creative process.
I used to practice this a lot, but in Illustration it becomes less needed. The image works as an aid to a text (traditionally), an extra piece of accompanying communication. Any explanation needed should lie in the text.
An exception to this is in stand alone Illustration pieces (in my case this one).
I miss explaining my work. I'm going to try elaborating more in future posts.

I won't start here today.
These are just sketchbook practice pages.
Hope you like them.



My housemate's band, The Lost Levels, are on their UK tour right now. Watch a recent video of them HERE.

Fox Practice

Find of the week - 'What Isn't Nature' by Cass McCombs
as featured on Jason Dill's 'Skate More' section

Casio

A not so experimental experiment.
No story as such, just something I wanted to draw to see if it works.

Staying with the theme of yesterdays technology, the Casio F-91W sits upon his wrist. I used to have one of these, I'm going to get another.

More like this may follow.

Find of the week - Bob James, 'Take me to your Mardi Gras'