This is the cover illustration I have done for this years Bristol Green Companion. The last couple of years I have provided cover illustrations for the Bath Green Companion which have been dinosaur shaped. This time I have gone for a miniature world, a green globe featuring wind turbines, solar panels and electric cars.
There is a bigger sized version of the piece without text and stuff around it over on my blog.
This is my illustration for edition 2 of Biteproof magazine - ''cybernetics, dianetics, and a hypodermic of mutant genetics''. Available early September.
This is my new piece around the theme of 'Boys Who Draw'. It features myself drawing a couple of dinosaurs for my baby boy Felix to play with. The dinos are made up of lettering, pattern, symbols and pencils. The bottom one is based on Styracosaurus and the top one surfing on top of it is a Theropod type beastie. It is carrying baby Felix in his travel seat. Baby Felix is saying 'Hey! Heay!' as thats what he says alot at the moment along with 'E E EE'.
I did the piece using pencil, pen and paints. It's nice to get away from computers.
People often ask me whether I do any illustrations that don't feature dinosaurs....well the answer is yes. I do alot of dinosaurs in my work as, of course, I like them and other people seem to like them, so I get asked to do them a fair bit. I do quite a few illustration projects that don't involve dino's or making images up out of lots of smaller things. These are my bread and butter jobs - local council recycling schemes, internal company website thingies. I don't tend to put them up online very often as they are often restricted or I just think that they won't be of that much interest to people.
I thought that a sneak peek at a recent batch of illustrations that aren't what I am usually known for might be a bit of fun. I probably shouldn't be sticking them up here, so SHHHHHHHH!
I got a list of character names and details on where in the world they are travelling to. Some of them are more interesting than others, but then I found it made it more fun to make up little stories about them and what they look like. Mrs Council has been a great help with these funny people...lets meet some of them!
CAROL & BARRY Carol takes all the luggage while Barry concentrates on taking his snacks in a plastic bag. In Barry's bag - cans of Fanta, Yorkie bars, Bakewell tarts and deep fill sandwiches from Asda.
KERRY Kerry loves pink and all things fluffy. She wears a friendship band. I hate her.
JASON Jason is too cool for school, although the amount of time he spends on Facebook talking about all the clubs and gigs he goes to probably means he is actually a sad lonely man.
STUART & BARBARA Stuart is very organised and has an itinerary of all the places they are going to visit. Barbara likes beige.
TREV & TEL Trev and Tel are a couple of Stella swilling dick heads. I couldn't get their sunburn any pinker as would match the red on their Saint Georges flag.
JONNY Punks not dead OK?
JIM Jim is off round Europe to do Woofing, felching or whatever it's called mkay? Who knows, he might end up in Thailand and get more added to his tribal tattoo.
I don't buy clothes and stuff very often but had to get this Ltd Edition Kev GreyRoyal Stock Heart T shirt when I was up in Sheffield recently. I bought it from a great little place called The Old Sweet Shop. The shop specializes in selling works by independant artists from the Sheffield area. There was an exhibition of work by Rocket01 up at the time whose spraypaint work is well worth checking out. Unfortunately I didn't get any pics as baby Felix was with me at the time and was getting a bit shouty!
This is my latest poster design for the Play It By Ear club night in London. I decided to go for an ice lolly (based on a Fab) melting in the sun for this one as one of the bands is called Sugar Crisis and is a summer gig. The ants are carrying off bits of the lolly that form the lettering of the poster. I hope it looks like chocolate with hundreds and thousands on it and not poo!
There is a close up pic of one of the ants on my blog if you fancy a gander....it's not that exciting really. More posts soon, but have been feeling a bit lazy since my break away in Steel city so might not be straight away.
Seeing as this is the Boys Who Draw blog, thought it would be fitting to put a few exclusive pics of the studio I share up on it - 'Boys Department'. I don't share it with the Boys Who Draw collective, but with another bunch of old boys who prefer to paint more. The studio is a kind of secret location in Bristol, bit like the Batcave. We like to keep it that way so that we can get on with our business and sit around drinking shitloads of tea undisturbed.
Loading bay in the background full of boxes of art to be dispatched around the world in the special Boys Dept Helicopter.
View from the stairs.
Part of the underground storage/dungeon labyrinth.
So, there you have it. I'm off away now for a few days, but when I get back I will continue to post stuff that I feel is relevant. Maybe even some pics of my drawings!
On the subject of the show in LA, I'm taking part in another group show in the US. It's a while off yet - not until May 2010! It's at Bold Hype Gallery in Orlando and features some amazing artists -
Adam Alaniz chinamike Andy Council Heisuke kitazawa (pcp) kozyndan Travis Lampe Sean Morris Sidney Pink Skinner Deth P. Sun Ayiana Udesen Kirsty Whiten
I doubt I will be able to afford to go out to to this one either....ah well.
GROUP EXHIBITION 'Urban Myth' in Gallery 1 & 3 Featuring works by: Pure Evil, Zeus, Mysterious Al, Inkie, Chu, Steff Plaetz, China Mike, Mudwig, MauMau, Eco, Andy Council, Sickboy, and SHOK-1
C E R A S O L I Gallery presents 'Urban Myth' a group exhibition in the front galleries curated by Bristol urban artist Graffiti Kingpin INKIE, representing a cross-section of the dominant forces in UK urban art scene: Pure Evil, Zeus, Mysterious Al, Inkie, Steff Plaetz, China Mike, Mudwig, MauMau, Chu, Eco, Andy Council, Sickboy, SHOK-1. One of Australia’s pioneering street to gallery artists, MEGGS 'Crime & Charity’ will be on view in Gallery two. Opens July 11, 2009, and remains on view through August 1, 2009.
In the front Galleries, Bristol’s notorious urban artist Inkie has curated a surprise show for Cerasoli Gallery, 'Urban Myth' a group exhibition that crosses the pond, like Cerasoli Gallery owner, Freddi Cerasoli’s 2002 ‘Street Wise One’ exhibition, which Cerasoli brought to London to exhibit over thirty American street artists. For ‘Urban Myth’ Inkie has selected a cross-section of the UK’s leading street artists: Pure Evil, Zeus, Mysterious Al, Inkie, Steff Plaetz, China Mike, Mudwig, MauMau, Chu, Eco, Andy Council, Sickboy, SHOK-1. Heralding from the infamous Bristol School of Graffiti, Inkie is one of the UK's leading street artists, holding 2nd place title in the World Street Art Championships, and has been identified as Banksy's partner in crime. A dominant presence for over twenty years on the international graffiti scene, Inkie’s trademark intricate imagery is uniquely striking with styles drawn from diverse inspirations, ubiquitous street signage, the architecture of ancient temples, Islamic geometry, and natural psychedelia. Exhibited worldwide, Inkie’s art has been published in the books Banky's Bristol, Children of the Can, Graffiti World and magazines Graphotism and Dazed & Confused, and featured in the 2007 LA graffiti documentary Bomb It, and the British/Brazilian street art documentary Weapon of Choice.
The thirteen artists in ‘Urban Myth’ make their mark wherever possible, creating atmospheric artspaces united by unique visual languages, quirky characters and colorful, dynamic compositions. Using any combination of stencil and freehand painting to create images, these urban artists have been pushing the role of the artist as social commentator and encouraging reconsiderations of art and society for the past twenty years. Graffiti artist Chu creates large-scale works which encourage the viewer to see the world as your studio. Steff Plaetz is one of the original three Scrawl Collective members Plaetz’s instantly recognizable works are among the first generation to pioneer the use of rough sketchbook drawings in finished pieces of art. Pure Evil, street artist and gallery owner, is interested in media-powered communicating with peers through his spectacular works. Andy Council straddles the worlds of street art and illustration, creating distinctive ‘city creatures’ resembling dinosaurs and gargoyles based on architectural features found in Bath and Bristol.
It's an honour to be included in this show along with all these other great artists. Wish I was over there for the opening, I will be visiting sunny Sheffield instead.
This show opened at Here Gallery in Bristol tonight and I missed it! Shame as it sounds great. I will have to get down there in the next few days...
Curated by The Outcrowd Collective (Simon Peplow, Lawrence Roper, Marcus Oakley, Holly Wales), The Joyful Bewilderment is an international group exhibition showcasing the outpourings of over 100 like-minded image-makers, including: Ben Newman, Christopher Bettig, Cornelia O’Donovan, French, Holly Stevenson, James Jarvis, Josh Petherick, Lucy Mclauchlan, Marcus Oakley, Matthew Feyld, Mike Perry, Nigel Peake, Rob Ryan, Ryan Jacob Smith, Steven Harrington, Stuart Kolakovic, Simon Peplow, Supermundane...
Preview: Tuesday 7th July, 7.00 - 9.00pm
continues Wednesday 8th July - Saturday 8th August 2009
I popped by Bristols smallest galley - Friend & Co the other day and checked out Saintys work. I really like it, it's kind of dark and I like how most of it done in black and white with a few splashes of red. Although Sainty is a boy who draws, he is not part of Boys Who Draw but part of the What? collective.
Here in Bristol we like to have lots of parties and get pissed up on Cider, Red Stripe and Rum as soon as the summer kicks in. The best party of all in my opinion is Saint Pauls Carnival. I only went down there for a couple of hours this year and avoided total carnage. It was great to experience all the sights smells and sounds though on an amazing sunny day.
Reminds me also of this piece I painted a while back which is based on the carnival.
Of course, I've never been so out of it that I have seen a Stegosaurus made of speakers there. It would be cool if there was one though, I'm sure it would be very popular. I also got inspiration from old dub album covers such as this shonky King Tubby one..
And more so this Scientist one...
I like all the Scientist covers. They feature all sorts of weird stuff going on, such as him playing football, shooting space invaders etc. Dinosaurs made out of speakers seems to make perfect sense in that way...
On Friday I did a day long Graffiti project with my mate Dan and the kids at Brislington Enterprise College in Bristol. The theme was of their house 'Jaguar'. Here's a pic of the finished piece with a couple of old gits hanging out next to it.
The kids came up with some wild ideas for what to include in the mural, including this, which sadly got rejected as it is a bit...er mental.
Each month the blog is going to get posts from a different member of the Boys Who Draw collective. First up is me! I am going to try and keep it drawing/illustration based. Quite a few things I am doing at the moment have more to do with Graff and painting, so will be covering that too along with some random stuff too no doubt!
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