the A1, in the snow

some little thumbnail drawings of the A1, in the snow, drawn a few days ago as we travelled to norfolk...

greenbelt

after a year off, we returned to the greenbelt festival this year.

i'll post more about it when i get time [i've returned home to some tight work deadlines] but in the meantime here's a bit of artwork that i did for the festival, and which has been used on their 'thank you' cards, sent out to all the volunteers who give up their time to make the event happen...

the festival theme this year was 'travelling light' and the plant in the pic there mimics the shape of the iconic letter g that greenbelt uses in all it's branding...

Songs of Praise...

tune into Songs of Praise at the weekend [24th August] or set your vhs recording devices.

it's from leeds, and it's all about faith and culture and the arts up here...

stocking up...

i've just added some stock to my online folksy shop.

there's a couple of new 'people of leeds' cards, that tetley's fold up book from my last post, two more barnsley cards and the Raised in Leeds exhibition catalogues...
so plenty to browse...

go have a look and let me know what you think, and maybe even buy summat while you're there... :-)

[and yup, i know, some of the photos need upgrading a bit...!]

more messing about, lino-printing fold-up books.

so here's another thing that i've been messing about with - making little fold-up books from lino prints.

this one contains pics of seven people that i observed and drew on visits to the Tetley art space in leeds.
it's a lovely place, well worth a visit.

i messed up the arrangement of the pages, so what should've been the cover is actually page 2... :-(

following on from this there'll be a similar fold-up of people drawn on a day out in norwich, one containing prints of some folk seen at the yorkshire sculpture park, and one of shoppers drawn in the trinity shopping centre in leeds.
when i can get round to doing them, of course...

I'll also hopefully get around to restocking my folksy shop before the end of the month, and will include some of these in there when i do.

meanwhile i bobbed in to chirpy's in leeds today and left some more cards and prints with harriet there; so if you're passing, nip in and have a look. i'm especially pleased with these big ready-mounted sets of my first six 'people of leeds' cards...  :-)

messing about, drawing in photoshop

I've been messing about drawing in photoshop.

Here's the original pencil drawing alongside the more finished Photoshop piece [drawn over the top of a scan of the original sketch, direct into the computer using my graphics tablet]

Photoshop allows you to zoom in and get very detailed - i'm not sure if that helps or hinders the drawing process really, you lose some of the rough edges and the more expressive marks, and the whole thing can start to look a bit smooth.

it's all good practice though :-)

on the telly. sort of.

so here's a nice, weird little thing.


some of my artwork has ended up dressing a set in a sitcom on sky living.

it's in a show called 'trying again' starring chris addison and jo joyner [and it's actually quite good]

the story of how my work actually ended up there is a bit unlikely, and involves ok comics, and a very nice bloke who used to work there but is now in tv production...

so we've been excitedly watching the show every week in anticipation of my stuff cropping up, and then, at last, there it was, in episode 5. i was the only one who could actually identify it at first, and i have taken a fair amount of abuse from the family as they pressed their noses to the screen trying to make it out.
but i don't care.
it's on the telly :-)

[and the production company have given me a load of ok comics vouchers to spend as a 'thank you'. result!]

Champions cards pre-order...

Remember me posting a week or so ago about the cards that I'm drawing up for the Fox fanzine?
Well, here is the link for you to go and order a set. Every home should have one :-)

...and here is another sample, just to whet your appetite...

Meanwhile, in Barnsley...

over the past few years i've found myself in Barnsley quite a bit, and with a lot of free time on my hands when i'm there.

recently i decided that i ought to make better use of that time, and so i started making little drawings of the things and the people that i've seen going on there.

that has developed into a series of lino print cards, that celebrate the everyday happenings of the town.

it's kind of tongue in cheek, and a contrast to the People of Leeds prints. I'm gathering them together under the title of Meanwhile, in Barnsley - think of them as my affectionate tribute to the place :-)

these are the first three cards in the series - Man Waits For Bus, Guitarist Looks At Clock, and a wraparound image of a man failing to control a dog called charlie.

upcoming additions to the series will hopefully include Girl Brushes Hair, Man Texts Somebody, and Two Ugly Dogs Go Beserk.



meanwhile the three cards pictured here are available for purchase right now in my Folksy store :-)

lcfc champions caricature cards...

more new work...

to celebrate the mighty leicester city's championship winning season, i'm doing a new set of pastiche cigarette cards for the fox fanzine, only 9 quid, and a bargain £3.50 to subscribers.

here's the first two that i've completed... i really ought to pull my finger out and get cracking on the rest :-)

to get ahold of a set, try the fanzine website or email them for more details...