Charity

Thought I would quickly share with you the poster I made for this year's charity Christmas Quiz at my local pub. I wanted to keep it quite simple and traditional, and played with the idea of leaving offerings for Santa and his reindeer. The title font and the sleigh were from dafont, and the border illustration was my own work. Will hopefully be getting some more Christmas themed stuff up here again soon!

Pre-Raphaelites - Victorian Avant-Garde at the Tate Britain

Have you ever walked into a room and been truly overwhelmed by what you see? As a real fan of all things Pre-Raphaelite, I had the privilege of having this exact feeling when I walked into the Tate Britain when I recently went to visit their current special exhibition.

This time last year, I posted a blog with a small review of my northern Pre-Raphaelite tour (which you can read here), but this year it was the turn of the South. The exhibition is called Pre-Raphaelites - Victorian Avant-Garde, a vast collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings and other objects spanning the entire movement. The collection itself was awe-inspiring - it is as I've mentioned a very rare experience to see every painting you have ever loved in one single space, and I was simply blown away by the variety of pieces they had on show. I thought I would share with you a few of the pieces on display, but as I have said in the past they can only be truly enjoyed 'in the flesh.'

The first room of the exhibition contained portraits of the artists as well as earlier pieces by the founding members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Millais, Holman Hunt and Rossetti.

Millais - Christ in the House of his Parents

Holman Hunt - Valentine Rescuing Sylvia from Proteus

Millais - Isabella

The second room highlighted the Pre-Raphaelites' interest in history and mythology - with paintings and other objects reflecting their fascination with times past.

Paolo E Francesca by Alexander Munroe which was inspired by the same story as the painting below.

Paolo E Francesca Da Rimini by Rossetti

 The Lady of Shallott (illustration) by Holman Hunt 

One of the highlights for me of this room was seeing one of the very few existing copies of Tennyson's poetry published by Moxon, which included several illustrations by the Pre-Raphaelites. It happened to be open on my favourite of the illustrations, The Lady of Shallott by Holman Hunt, the painting of which was also exhibited. 

The Lady of Shallott, Holman Hunt

The next room contained a small selection of pieces which highlight the Pre-Raphaelites attention to detail in their depictions of nature. The main highlight of this room was of course Millais' Ophelia - if it hadn't been so busy in there (and rightfully so!) I would have spent all day infront of her. Other important pieces in that room include Millais' portrait of John Ruskin and the Hireling Shepherd by Holman Hunt. 

                            

Ophelia by Millais

                            

The Hireling Shepherd by Holman Hunt

The room that follows contains a large group of paintings with another of the main Pre-Raphaelite themes - religion and morality. This room contains some truly awe inspiring and rather imposing paintings, including some of my favourites from the founding brotherhood. 

The Awakening Conscience by Holman Hunt

The Annunciation by Rossetti

The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple by Holman Hunt

The final highlights of the exhibition then move through the later period of the Pre-Raphaelite movement which focuses on aestheticism and beauty. Here you will find some of the more enchanting pieces focused on women by Rossetti and some fine examples of works relating to the Arts and Crafts movement as well as some of the Kelmscott printing work by William Morris. 

Lady Lilith by Rossetti

A Vision of Fiametta by Rossetti 

This really is just the tip of the iceberg of the collection that is on display - if like me you are a Pre-Raphaelite fan this exhibition is unmissable, it is a real honour to get to see all of these paintings in one space.
Pre-Raphaelites - Victorian Avant-Garde is open until 13th January 2012 at the Tate Britain. 

(note - everything in this blog is my opinion; I have not been endorsed to advertise the exhibition as this is simply a review/summary. All images of paintings belong to their respective owners)

time

I don't often post unfinished work on here but I thought I would share this. Started putting together a layout for a tattoo design for a friend, with lots of different personal touches. I am by no means a tattoo artist so I don't know if this would actually work as a tattoo but I thought I would put my own style to the piece. It's intended to cover most of the arm. Wanted to show the line work, as I might not put colour to this myself. What do you think?

England

I fancied doing something type based again, it's been a while. This slogan was written on a gift I saw in a shop and it inspired me to do something tea-related. (Like I don't do enough tea related things? nevermind!) I wanted something bold and simple. What do you think?

girl

Finally managed to finish my sugar skull girl artwork today. Wanted to go for a cameo style which is why I added the blue background. Would love to hear what you think?

pencil

I don't usually post works in progress on the blog but I thought I would share this one as I haven't posted in a while. I intend to give this sketch some clean linework and some mega bright colours like my sugar skull piece, but for now here's the pencil work before I started applying ink. Within the next week or so I should have the finished piece up on here so keep your eyes peeled!

script

Recently I've been interested in calligraphic type styles and tattoo style flourishes, and I decided to have a go at putting together a little design. I settled on the four "bohemian ideals" from the movie Moulin Rouge that I recently rewatched for the umpteenth time; Truth, Beauty, Freedom and Love.

inking my design up with my trusty dip pen

What I came up with is loosely based on an existing typeface that I came across, borrowing an ampersand from a different typeface for a more unusual look. I'd love to hear what you think!

hideout

Just thought I would share a quick logo design that I did for a new temporary venture a friend of mine has started called The Hideout. It was just a simple design based on an existing font that I did a hand drawn version of. The project is soon to be under way and so the logo needed to be done fast, but I am quite pleased with the outcome!

The Hideout is a recording space for musicians and emerging talent based in Guildford. If you are interesting in recording some material with some brilliant engineers, check out their Facebook page and do get in touch; but be quick as they will only be there for a couple of months!

Album

Today I was featured on Illustration Rally's Album Cover Rally. Before I entered I had a browse at some of the things that were already up and there's some beautiful pieces on there, go have a look! Illustration Rally always have great open submissions going on so keep an eye out on their blog - you can also follow them on twitter at @Illustration_R.

When I saw the rally I had a couple of album ideas in mind but I decided to settle on Katy Perry's Teenage Dream as the sweet sugary theme of the album lends itself quite well to my work, and I wanted to experiment with some new kinds of type. I also wanted to make a feature of the famous blue hair that Katy was sporting at various events when the album came out. The type on my new banner above is an extension of the type I designed for this piece. The the above image is the variation I settled on for the rally, which is featured here.

I decided to include a few of the other variations in this post as I was quite pleased with all of them!

bright

Today I've been experimenting with Photoshop a little more than I normally would, having a go at constructing pattern designs in a kind of digital collage. I wanted to try and mix up colours and patterns and see what I could do - I'm not sure how I feel about what I've come up with but I do feel that it's a step in a good direction! I would love to hear what you think - let me know in the comments. Thanks! x

different

I haven't drawn an actual human person in probably a year. Maybe even longer than that. So when my good friend Pav (this is for you, baby!) inquired about my illustration I decided to do something totally different, go a little bit crazy and attempt to draw one. I guess it's what you would call a fashion illustration, and I was inspired by the grunge and pastel trends (I now want this hair) and wanted to kind of bring them together.

 I can't decide if this is finished yet, but I got quite excited about it and wanted to share it - maybe you could tell me if you think it looks finished? Personally I'm not sure about the background, or if she needs something solid to be sitting on? I based the pose loosely on a photograph of myself, and I really felt that working from a good reference photo made this much easier! enjoy.

summer

It's been a little while! I've had an idea in my head for the past week or so and this is kind of the manifestation of it. I've been looking at ways to use the scrollwork I've been fascinated by as well as meaning to create a piece with the phrase "one swallow does not a summer make" ever since this summer began. This led me to looking at and researching vintage tattoos, Sailor Jerry Collins style, and this was what I came up with. Really been enjoying the tattoo ink style since I did my valentine piece a couple of months ago, so I may try a few more vintage tattoo style drawings. Hope you like it!

Creatives

Just a quick post to share a feature with you all - A couple of weeks ago I was featured on a site called The Young Creatives, a great fledgling collection of artists, designers, crafters and other creative types. Their site is chock full of fabulous folks and it's a great way to connect to other artists. They did a small feature on my work  which you can read here.

They also featured a good friend of mine and fab illustrator Natasha Aldred, whose feature you can look at here. As well as featuring on artists and creatives, they also share interesting articles and event details for the artistic community. Go have a browse!

You can follow The Young Creatives on twitter, at @t_yc. To see blog updates and new works you can also follow Natasha, @natasha_aldred.

Costumes

Over the past couple of months I have been working on designing the branding and website for a small venture I am personally involved with called The Costume Cellar. Over the years our family and friends have accumulated through various channels dozens and dozens of brilliant costumes that have all ended up in a collection in our cellar, and we have decided to share these costumes with the public in the form of a costume hire service.

I posted a blog at the very start of this venture while I was designing the first logo for the Costume Cellar. Since then, I went on to design the website for us, set up twitter and facebook links and design our business cards. This was a great exercise in creating an identity for our venture as well as getting back into the habit of using Photoshop and Dreamweaver to get the website running. This was a great opportunity to put my illustration and typographic skills to a good use - I wanted to give the designs a quirky feel and I was very pleased with the type design for the logo.

I also arranged the first photo shoot for the costumes (with a big thanks to the models Tasha, Holly and Andy!) and I hope to arrange more in the future as I only really captured a small amount of what we have to offer - you can see the photos on the gallery section of the website and on the facebook page.

Business cards (thankyou to moo.com for these!)

I made use of the new facebook timeline layout to add our identity to our facebook page.

A couple of screenshots from The Costume Cellar website that I built from scratch using photoshop and dreamweaver. 

Lobster

Happy April! Recently I've been rediscovering my love of type (as if it really ever went away). A little while ago I also rediscovered my love for the work of Lewis Carroll when I acquired a lovely copy of his entire works from an antique shop, and while reading through Alice in Wonderland I came across an interesting nonsense poem during Alice's encounter with the Mock-Turtle and the Gryphon. The illustration above takes the first two lines of the poem, and frankly it was a bonus opportunity to draw a lobster. Turns out I really like drawing crustaceans. 

In the near future I will also be sharing some exciting news that has been keeping me busy over the past couple of weeks. enjoy!

pictures

I was messing around taking photos today ,and it made me realise that I have quite a lot of photos that I am proud of that nobody will ever see, as they don't really relate to anything - so I thought for a change from illustration I would share some of my photos with you. Some of them are quite old but I am really happy with them yet haven't really done anything with them. They're not really related to each other, but they might make a nice collection. I'll try and reference any of the places in the pictures just in case you're interested in seeing any of the buildings for yourself.

(above three photos at Hartlebury Museum, Worcestershire)

(above six taken at the Lost Gardens of Heligan, Cornwall)

Boys swimming on a cold day in Clevedon

Birds circle the roof at Croome, Worcestershire

Carousel at Brighton Pier, East Sussex

Spires outside the Bullring centre, Birmingham