Thursday 20 June 2013

Liberty City






Here's the illustration for this months the Skinny. It's an article about Boston and features the USS Constitution (the world's oldest commissioned warship, apparently) made of various sights in Boston (Copley Square, the old state house, Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum etc). It's proved popular with Bostonians (well, two Bostonians actually) and I've sold some prints!




Tuesday 18 June 2013

The Returned Casting Process



I've been watching French zombie drama "The Returned" on Channel 4, it's good but the actors are all very french looking...

Monday 17 June 2013

Lost in a Box


This is a (very) short story about my adventures in a box. It's largely inspired by Steven Hall's super awesome Raw Shark Texts in which our protagonist is chased by a conceptual shark that eats memories. It's very good, my story isn't.

(If you can't make the story out on the picture, here it is in text form too:

So there i was, alone on the living room floor, in a box, the clear and unbroken horizon stretching out to all around me. At first i just sat there, bobbing gently on the imaginary waves, the ceiling light beating down on my bare neck like a hot unrelenting sun. I'd taken a broom with me by way of a paddle and took a flew exploratory stokes to nowhere in particular. The air was fresh and salty and a faint breeze tousled my hair. I hadn't noticed it at first but the furniture was starting to move away from me, the bookcase and the TV had already nearly drifted out of sight and i could just make out the table and a couple of chair disappearing over the horizon. i watched as my plant and small shelving unit were sucked under by the current leaving behind nothing but a couple of DVD's in the eddy. Panicked, I struck out with my broom towards the sofa but couldn't get any traction on the parquet flooring. I realised i'd soon be stranded if i didn't do something so I tried desperately the think of some real world task to escape the fantasy, dishes, washing, income tax returns,  something solid and banal, something i actually needed to do. But I'm too far out, i won't be doing those things today... )



Saturday 15 June 2013

Jellyfish


























This post could have been "The Sea: It's big and cold and everything in it hates you Part II" but idea of a jellyfish hating anything just doesn't quite fit, it's a bit like the idea of porridge feeling resentment or a section of drywall falling in love. They have no brain, no heart, no blood, the fact that they are alive boggles my head.

I'm pretty pleased with how these pictures turned out (i might do a some more, the idea of doing a whole show of jellyfish appeals to me!) and so I've included some pictures of my development. First I pooled water on mount board (you need to use mount board so it doesn't warp), I then added a thin ink solution and drops of ink. I let it dry unevenly, occasionally changing the tilt of the board. I scanned and printed blobs on different sheets of paper and drew over with pencil then a bit of photoshop jiggery pokery and pow, jellyfish.













Monday 10 June 2013

The Sea: It's big and cold and everything in it hates you





I love the sea. I love living by the sea. I love the smell of salt on the air and sound of crashing waves, I love harbours and beaches and gulls and pretty much everything else about being near the sea. I am not, however, crazy keen about being in the sea. I'm intensely aware that I am a land creature and not well suited to submarine life. I'm slow and cumbersome in the water and it's not my favoured medium for breathing. There are things in the sea which are much better adapted than me, strange alien creatures, cold unfeeling things that circling incomprehensible depths, huge fearsome behemoths that dwarf anything found on the land. They live there, it's their home and you're not welcome....