new thing

it's been a while since i posted, so here's a new thing.


i've been thinking about the city.
over the past few years i've drawn people in leeds, and been round various bits of it on various buses; i've drawn local houses and made prints of them.

and recently i've been thinking about how i can make those various explorations a bit more joined-up and coherent. a commissioned illustration project that will come to fruition early next year will satisfy some of that for me (and i'll blog about that when it happens) and i'm working on a series of careful digitally painted portraits of leeds folk (that's been really enjoyable, but each image takes a long time to complete...)

so now i'm also wondering about narrative.
i love a good story, and i want to weave some of that need for narrative into my work - lately i've just not felt that i've got much of a tale to tell. again, that will maybe surface with this illustration job next year.

in the meantime, this little thing has come about.

it's a series of lino prints of leeds places/structures that i've been and drawn, some suggested by friends on facebook.

the text on each is the first line of a song playing on my ipod as i made the drawing or the print.

it's something that i did with the house prints, though the wording on those weren't necessarily the opening lines of songs.
i like the idea that the first line of a lyric is the beginning of a new story, and i like the way that the image and the words juxtapose to suggest a narrative.

i also really enjoy the way that each image can link up, put side by side the prints can begin to develop a storyline all of their own, with the suggestion that it's being played out across the city.

and of course i've always loved imposing my record collection on folk :-)


the plan is to make and release these prints in sets of maybe ten different designs... i've got these first five done so far.


i'm treating this as a little project in it's own right, but also maybe as preparatory work for some future stuff, part of something ongoing and a bit more intentional and authored.

[the lyrics come from songs by paul buchanan, cherry ghost, arctic monkeys, the blue nile and ride]