Cherry

The awesome fantastic shop Cherry Cherry are now stocking some prints of mine.



I recommend you go take a look at all the wonders in store - Lower Goat Lane, Norwich.



Only just found! - Midlake 'The Courage of others'

Blok

A swatch of sketchbook bits.









Thoroughly enjoying/over listening - Field Music

Astro

Latest piece for the Epoch Times UK print edition, published 30/03/10.

A Reading of 'When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer' by Walt Whitman

Excerpt
"When I heard the learn'd astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them...."

This piece came out looking slightly cartoony, which I was a bit uncomfortable with at first. I decided not to change it though, it just seems to work fine overall :)



In hope of making the computer work part of my Illustrating more efficient I purchased myself a Wacom graphics Tablet this week!
After a slow start it's proving to be a worthwhile buy. Because it's a new tool to get used to and is rather unfamiliar I'm finding myself concentrating a lot more, which I like.



I really shouldn't leave it until 1am to create a blog post, it took me ages to sting all these words together!

P.S. - This flick is soo good, you should SQUIRREL!!....... you should watch it.

Gaga

Musical friend Iain Lowery has an ongoing album project.
I donated a little piece for one of his tracks, all about his last much loved Cat Colin (R.I.P).

Read here
Listen here

Moment

Epoch Times Poetry analysis piece, from about four weeks ago!
Left unblogged while I've tried to colour it successfully, and failed so far.

A Reading of 'There is a Moment' by William Blake

There is a Moment

There is a Moment in each Day that Satan cannot find
Nor can his Watch Fiends find it, but the Industrious find
This Moment & it multiply, & when it once is found
It Renovates every Moment of the Day if rightly placed

The Epoch Times Newspaper continually uses its independent voice to report on the unlawful persecution of Falun Gong Meditation in China, an issue that may well be kept quiet otherwise.
I thought I'd use the image of Falun Gong Meditation to illustrate this poems moral advice.


P.S. Before me lies a huge dilemma.
Here or Here this summer?

Robin

Thanks to everyone who made a suggestion for me last week. I've decided which pic to enter now, more on that in future posts.



I have plenty of ongoing work at the moment so will post things as and when I can. Stay tuned.

Your Assistance Please

Dear Friends,

I received a phone call the other morning from The Creative Review asking if I'd be interested in entering their new annual illustration competition. The winning entries get printed in a special edition of Creative Review, this July.

I'd like to give it a shot, but it costs a bit to enter, and I'm not sure which piece to put forth??

If you have a minute, please take a browse through my portfolio and tell me which you think is my best piece (by that I mean the piece that you deem to be of the highest standard). Work from the Recent work and Illustration sections only please.

You can either leave a comment on this blog or on Facebook someplace.
Most helpful post gets a free print in the post!

Thanks.

Very

Latest piece for the Epoch Times Uk, print edition. Published today, 10/03/10.

The Antidote—Classic Poetry for Modern Life.
A reading of 'The New Birth' by Jones Very

Excerpt
"The portals open to the viewless wind
That comes not save when in the dust is laid
The crown of pride that gilds each mortal brow,
And from before man's vision melting fade"

I had a six hour turnover for this one, and the request for the shape to be 'really tall and slim'. After a really joyless time inking the linework (out of practice), the rest of the image seemed to come together a treat!
Depicted is the poet himself, who suffered a mental collapse during his time at Harvard University. Claiming himself to be 'the Second Coming of Christ, which resulted in his dismissal from Harvard and his eventual institutionalization in an insane asylum' (wiki).

PS. - Hasty Pizza hunger has caused me to just burn my hand on the Oven again.

Tillman

The Fleet Foxes Band portrait was created in many steps, namely one member at a time. This worked really well in easing along the end product gradually and fluidly.

Time management is a super huge issue for me at the moment. I'm not piled high with work and rushing around all the time, but it's so easy to spend time unproductively. I've taken to unplugging my wireless dongle, just so it reminds me not to get lost on the internet every time I have to plug it back in to look up something online.

PS. - My hands are under attack!
Left hand middle finger missing a chunk (Climbing),
left hand thumb knuckle burnt (Oven),
right hand thumb Cut (left thumbnail!!).

:(

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'

Cassettes

Following on from the Audio entry comes this piece.

Inspired by my favourite road sign, and favourite on the road moment (as long as you're not going too fast and get to stop and watch the beautiful creatures). The last time a group of Deer stepped out in front of me whilst driving along was about 3 years ago when I worked for the Latitude festival at Henham Park, Suffolk. It was pretty special.



The mixture of modern music and Fauna is a curious one, which I like.