Sketchbook Stuff

Not feeling well! Here's some sketchbook stuff I've been doing to pass the time.

 Food & Drink - here's Perkie sipping away and Jen with an orange on her face.

 Fashion - I like that tartan blazer thing and the braids.

Wildlife - an inky lion.

The Tuts girl gang girl

Hello!

Just a t-shirt/patch/tote bag/anything else design I did for The Tuts again. An all-girl, 3-piece, raucous punk band. 

Inspiration taken from Switchblade Sisters (1975), 80’s hairdos and The Tuts.

After doing This I started looking at Love & Rockets a comic series by the Hernandez brothers which, deals with similar themes to this  illustration: punk, lots of good female characters and black and white artwork!

Kate Nash Ink Doodle

Hello,

Just an inky doodle I did. If you look carefully you can see my vain efforts to draw her using a dark pencil. Got angry and rubbed it all out and started fresh using a brush pen.

I might be seeing her tomorrow at The Shacklewell Arms, London. Fingers crossed!).

Shadow Snatcher for A&C Black (Wired Up series)

Hello,

Just a commission I did for A&C Black. Here are my favourites.

Johnny and the Bomb - Educational Music Book

Hello!

I've been working on some black and white commissions for the past few months. This one was from A&C Black and required producing some illustrations for  a musical adaption of - Johnny and the Bomb, A novel by Terry Pratchett. This would be designed for kids between 10-13 so upper primary school or lower secondary school. I think there was a TV adaption of the novel too, I'm sure it's floating around on Youtube somewhere.

This was an interesting one as I had to draw lots of illustrations with a stage with various characters standing in position (stage left, stage right, down-stage centre, etc.) I had to remember that the directions were from the actors point of view...not the audience, so recalled those fun/nerve-racking school plays I did, so it wasn't too bad. Any way, my favourite pieces are the costume ideas and they liked the job I did, yay! Oh! and I got to draw people of various colours, which is always a bonus.

Unicorn In Uniform

Hello!


Song by Colour Me Wednesday. Drawing by me.

Ink Sketch - Lana Del Rey

Hello,

I woke up this morning really wanting to draw something. I was still in a silly dreamy mood and spent around 45 minutes on this inky sketch of Lana Del Rey, (I must find the source of the wonderful photograph I used for reference), before I ran to work and got there in the nick of time. I’m enjoying how people are finding it so difficult to define her.

Dee Dee

Hello,

developed that ink drawing of Dee Dee from Dum Dum Girls.

Mr Bowie

Hello,

This is Mr Bowie in a suit and bow-tie.

Inky Stuff

Yellow,

Some stuff I've drawn recently when I should have been working. I don't know if I've mentioned already, but I got a small commission doing some panels for OUP. A the moment I'm doing stuff on Dick Whittington. I'll be getting another story soon.

(Illustrations: some animal studies and a sketch of Dee Dee of Dum Dum Girls)

Mummy

This is my mum :)

Petrify

Hello,

May be I should have posted the roughs first...Nah - do that later. I've completed that B/W commission I got from A&C Black. The story is written by Beth Chambers and is aimed towards 14-16 year olds who have a low level reading ability. So the text is fairly intermediate. However they wanted my illustrations to be mature enough for that age range. They said they wanted as little of grey as possible due to the dot-printing method. The story involves a group of friends. The main characters include Ella the sensible girl, her stubborn friend Josh and a horrid small witch-like lady named Ma Jessop. I might make last minute changes on these, (never know). Here are my best ones.

Raina

Hello,

I got the B&W commission! The brief from A&C Black. They want me to do 10 illustrations for a children's fiction titled Petrify aimed at 12-15-ish year olds. Just completed the roughs and sent them off. They wanted atmosphere, creepiness and a sort of graphic novel look. Since it's B&W, I've been rummaging the library for graphic novels, comics and other B&W work. I was delighted to find Craig Thompson's Blankets - Absolutely stunning. The ink-work is fluid and very accomplished. I've been analysing it to death. It inspired me so much I went and bought his latest graphic novel titled Habibi, influenced heavily by Arabic calligraphy and a sort of romantic orientalism.

The illustration is of Raina from Blankets. I must must must read it!

Library Doodles

Hello,

doodles I did at work yesterday.

Lykke Li

Hello,

Listening to the tracks from Lykke Li's wonderfully crafted second album titled Wounded Rhymes. How poetic!

(The illustration is of the splendid lykke Li herself.)

A Boring Waiting Room

Hello,

This was a pen drawing I did in a boring wating room. I'm currently colouring up Snow White. The Deadline is close!

Listening to Warpaint. Especially Elephants, which is a great example of their dreamy psychedlic style.

It's raining here.

Snow White Roughs

Hello,

I've been working on Snow White stuff for the past gazzilion months. Just finsihed the roughs and got the 'okay' so I'm starting to add colour now. These are some of my faves. Hope you enjoy and will be posting more :)

Sketching People

Caught drawing,

Senior collegue: *cough* erm sorry to disturb your sketching, but could you start shelving on level two for me?
Me: *hides sharpie* sorry? Yes. Where? Oh level two, err okay.

*tra lala walking purposefuly to level two*

Sketchbook: Doodles and Ridiculous Stuff

Hello,

I've been doodling and also playing around with ink. These are scans of some of the pages from my current A5 sketchbook.

Merrivale Mews

Yawn,

Merrivale Mews - a road I sometimes pass by. It always makes me smile looking at that street sign. I think of some sort of jazz band made up of a group of yowling cats performing in front of a feline audience.