Thursday, September 10, 2015

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]


Tuesday, May 12, 2015

big heads and a goldfish

partly inspired by paul digby's portraits which i saw at the tetley and the gallery at munro house, i've been drawing big images again.

these are all A1-ish, pencil and dr martens ink on watercolour paper.

a lot of fun to make.





Monday, April 27, 2015

Monday, March 9, 2015

fish

...probably a bit more escher-inspired than i'd like to admit.


rough



artwork

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

new print in progress...


...based on a pattern spotted in the tiled hall at the gallery in leeds...


Tuesday, February 24, 2015

some drawings that i've done recently and am quite pleased with...








the first two pics are from a book cover.

the woman with the bag was drawn early one morning as i was on my way for an x-ray at the local hospital.

the life drawings are from a class that me and our eddie have been doing lately - it's run by emma from the medium shop in the corn exchange.
the first three are very quick 30-second drawings, the latter two are 1 minute poses. it's been pointed out that i'm much better at the quick drawings than the longer, more considered poses, and it's true...


Thursday, January 22, 2015

Friday, January 16, 2015

new prints...

lino-printing work in progress... plenty left to do, and some [all?] of these will need revisiting/reworking/scrapping...

 :0)





Monday, January 5, 2015

trees, trackside.

several trees, drawn on a train journey across the pennines last week.