Picture Postcards Yes!

 

Hello Everyone!

I hope you’re having a wonderful festive time!

Just a short post here to say I’ve got some new postcards in my etsy shop. They look amazing and in my opinion are the perfect alternative to rubbishy Christmas cards.

The are sold in sets of 6 for £5 ($7).

In fact I’ll be sending some out myself! Look!

 

Also! If you’re thinking about getting the fabulous ‘How to be a Ghost’ book now is the time! Monday is the last day I’ll be shipping them, after that I can’t guarantee they’ll arrive before Christmas so go go go!

That’s all for today. If I don’t post up before Christmas I hope you all have a great one!

Take care!

nx

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I done an interview with artist Marcia Furman earlier this week, she’s popped it up on her blog if you fancy a look!

I can’t say I’m that good at answering questions but I tried my best so hopefully someone will find it interesting.

nx

There is Always Inspiration.

As I sat yesterday evening scratching my head wondering what to draw I remember something one of my lecturers told me ‘if you’re feeling un-inspired just draw anyway’. I know it’s not the most epic or quote worthy piece of advice but none the less it rings true.

See, I haven’t done much drawing this week, aside from stuff in work and my usual daydream doodles so I felt a strong urge to at least draw something worth looking at. I thought and I thought, and what sprang to mind was something of constant inspiration, something so amazing and entertaining that always makes me want to put pencil to paper, and has done since I was about 4 (I’ve got school reports to prove it). I am of course talking about Zelda! and ‘A Link to the Past’ especially, which I’ve been playing through again. What I drew was all the cool items that aid you in your adventure.

I dunno how Link managed to fit all this in his bag, in fact he’s only got wee pockets, maybe they’re magic pockets. Anyways If you have a snes or a wii (with access to the virtual console) I strongly recommend A link to the Past. It may be 18 years old but its Zelda at its best.

So yea go play it.

nx

Cool Space Facts!

It may a surprise to you but I actually have a day job, yes believe it or not my doodles don’t quite cut a living. Anyways what I’m getting at is I work as a teacher in a community arts centre, me being the art teacher, and today I was doing a little class on space (our solar system specifically).

It went really well actually and I actually got quite animated and excited whilst I was doing my little presentation, anyways I’d like to share with you some cool space facts! This was actually one of the handouts from today…

I hope you found it interesting! I personally am a massive space geek and I’m holing out for a new telescope for my birthday (february 17th guys!).

In other news I have some cool new screen printing diplodocus bags in my etsy shop,  they’re only £5 ($8) and look how cool they are!

And everyone knows dinosaurs love to go shopping :)

take care

nx

Amazing Invention #16

This is a prime example of why I carry a sketchbook about, because sometimes gold like this pops in my head.

I’ve actually got some friends who knit so it’s possible I could turn this into a real thing, maybe I could go on dragons’ den?

Anyways that’s all!

nx

Sketchbook Entry 12/11/10

 

So I got home from work today feeling a bit creative, but only having an hour or so to spare before I went back out. I thought to myself ‘maybe instead of doing my usual faffing about with computers or flicking through tv channels I’ll set myself a little challenge?’ like making and finishing something within the hour.

It was originally made of 2 or 3 different pictures but I ended up cropping it lots as I like this composition better. Anyways, It’s about me fancying someone.

In other news I have recently acquired a new robot, I think he looks like a Percy, wouldn’t you say?

As always, any feedback on my work is more than welcome!

take care nx

Picking up the brush again

I have a new painting to show off, and no it’s not a little sketch or a glorified doodle it’s an actual painting which took me a good week (on and off) to finish!

To be honest, I’d love to blab for ages and ages about what it represents and how it has a deep philosophical meaning but the truth is I just wanted to paint and this is what came out.

Beforehand I was flicking through some of my old books and found a doodle of a robot sitting at a bar and I thought to myself ‘I’d really like to paint that’ so I went ahead just for fun of painting something.

Having that said, it might actually be a sneak preview of some of the stuff that’ll be going into the next exhibition :p

nx

This Week’s Books

Hello! I apologise for it being over a week since my last post, I have been working hard on some secret little projects as well as some things of my own that I’m not quite ready to show yet.

So with an absence of original material, I’d like to talk about my shopping. Since the daylight is increasingly growing shorter up here I’ve been going on little book buying sprees, mostly art and comic books mind you but still worth talking about none the less.

Ok first on the list is ‘Lost Constellations’ which is the 2nd art book by Tara McPherson, one of my favourite artists.

In this volume you can clearly see how Tara’s work has progressed and matured since the last book whilst keeping her signature style and pallete perfectly intact. I’d definitely recommend this book to people who are interested in artists of today although one thing I would say is that if you own the first volume a lot of the same art appears.

Next on the list is the’ Juxtapoz Poster Art’ book,  as a big fan on the Juxtapoz art magazines when I heard they were releasing a poster art book I couldn’t help but scoop it up.

The book features art and interviews from hundreds of artists and illustrators and even from flicking through the first few pages I was left with a strong feeling that poster art is an amazing art form with great possibilities and shouldn’t be overlooked as just another form of advertising.

Ok, almost there, 3rd on the list is a comic by spanish illustrator Gabriella Giandelli entitled ‘Interiorae’. This is one of my ‘random’ finds, basically I don’t know where to start with comics so my usual approach is to flick through some things in the shop and see which pictures I like best, this one won.

It tells the story of a little old lady on a journey to her final resting place, and if not a bit sad I found it really beautiful, mostly because of the astounding artwork which has such a natural feel to it, top marks!

Right I’m almost done, Last on my list is Shaun Tans ‘The Arrival’ I’ve always been a huge fan of this guy ever since I read ‘The Red Tree’ which inspired me immensely.

What’s interesting about this is that it’s a story about immigration and about all the people in history who have journeyed to the unknown in search of a better life, it also has no words or text whatsoever, as if to help you relate with the books characters. But as usual what appeals to me most is the simply oustanding and painstakingly detailed artwork.

Well I hope you enjoyed that nosey into my shopping, I’ll be back soon with some new pictures!

Take care!

nx

Dipping into Digital

I’ve always had a bit of a fascination and great respect for digital artists, mainly because although contrary to popular opinion, digital art is extremely tricky and just as time-consuming as traditional methods, it can also have the most amazing results.

So in my never ending quest for finding the perfect medium I went and bought a wacom tablet, not a big fancy one just the entry level chap, here he is!

So I had a little fart about and here’s how I got on;

Firstly I took a line drawing from one of my books, just a small sketch that had been floating about for a while.

From here I went straight in with the colouring, now granted that I’m pretty hopeless with photoshop I had a bit of a tough time and it ended up taking me around 2 hours to end up with this.

I guess it’s not bad for a first attempt but I can’t help but feel that it looks a bit too polished and a little bit lifeless.

So in my little huff I decided to go over the drawing in watercolours.

Which I think worked a bit better, that’s not to say I’ve given up on digital art, I just need to get better at it and spend a bit of time trying to used the tablet and photoshop etc so If anyone has any tips or knows of any good tutorials let me know!

nx

The Perfect Role Model

During my painting sprees I like to put on a film in the background, nothing that requires much thought or much of a plot to follow so my best bet is zombie films!

My favourites are from the golden age, where there was no cgi, just stop motion, good makeup and puppets, so yesterday I went through the whole Evil Dead trilogy and by the end I felt like paying a little homage, and here it is! I actually can’t believe I havn’t made a little tribute before, I mean, the guy’s got a bloody chainsaw for a hand, and then in Evil Dead 3 he gets a robot hand, a bloody robot hand!

If that’s not cool I dont know what is!

nx