Butterfly House Details

Butterfly House

A recently published painting for The People's Friend Magazine. This brief was just begging for a painting packed full of detail and I'm pleased with how it turned out.

  I'm never sure how much is even really visible once its printed but I just can't help myself. Click on the picture to enlarge.

Star Wars T-shirt Art

These proposed Star Wars T-Shirts were done to try and get the attention of Ashley Eckstein over at www.heruniverse.com

Ashley does amazing work voicing the character of Ahsoka Tano on the TV show 'Star Wars: The Clone Wars' and I wanted to be the first person to depict a 'realistic' Ahsoka in her latest incarnation. It only seemed right that I should base her likeness on Ashley herself.

 

 I got a great response from Star Wars fans with this-  I maintain hope that Ashley got to see it & that it made her smile...

 

Star Wars Sketch Cards

 I have been intending for a while to try and break into the Sketch-Card industry. I think its something I could do but its very competitive and there are some absolute geniuses working there already.

These are my trial run- a variety of Star Wars characters in a variety styles.

June Wedding

This was where I felt I was starting to hit my stride with my work for The People's Friend. I also managed to sneak my recently married friends on to the top of the cake!

Oziana Stamps

 These were actually an additional contribution to the Oziana issue. There was a great article about Oz stamps and I got the change to reinterpret several of the great John R. Neill's illustrations and make a cohesive set.

 They were actually printed in black & white but I couldn't resist making them green just for the sake of it.

Oziana details

My cover is now featured on the Oziana website and also got a mention on the editor's blog:

www.ozclub.org

www.www.ozandends.blogspot.com/2011/04/two-issues-of-oziana-back-to-back

Oziana

This is something a bit special to me. As a lifelong Oz fan I was happy to submit this cover to Oziana magazine for their 2010 issue. I very much like the idea of something of mine being out there in the Oz world- and maybe a fan coming across it in 10 or 20 years and liking it.

 The colours looked great when it was printed too.

Grandma

 

My Grandmother died recently. I am from a small family & we were very close. I wanted to put these up and explain a little of her significance to my work.

 

 She was 96 when she died and as she was getting older I knew there was one thing I could do that I knew would make her very happy- and that was to get my work published in The People's Friend. She got the magazine every week without fail for as long as I can remember and if there was one topic of conversation you could count on to bring a smile to her face, that was it.

 Happily for me the magazine is one of the few that still regularly use illustrators & it had been my driving long-term goal to get something published in there. Eventually I succeeded and got a great deal of pleasure from showing her my painting and name in the magazine and letting her show it off to her friends. It was a pleasure I got to experience several times as the magazine continued to offer me work. I am very very thankful that I got that chance.

 

These paintings are birthday and Christmas gifts I did for her over the last couple of years, they stayed in her room and I hope they made her happy.

The Beatification of Cardinal Newman details

The Beatification of Cardinal Newman

 This painting is one of the biggest projects I've worked on. 

In 2010 Pope Benedict XVI made his first Papal state visit to the UK- and one of his reasons for being in the country was the beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman.

Cardinal Newman is an important figure to thousands of people around the world and there are many people praying and campaining for him to be canonised. I soon learned it was also a personal cause of the new Pope, which is one of the reasons I chose this composition.

(Click the image to enlarge)

 

 

 It represents a spiritual meeting of sorts between the two against the backdrop of the Oratory at Birmingham (which Cardinal Newman helped found) and I thought it might bring The Pope some joy seeing himself connected in this way to Cardinal Newman's legacy.

The painting includes elements of gold leaf which you may be able to see in the close up & their respective coats of arms are included in the corners of the border.

 

I am told that when Pope Benedict was shown the painting he described it as 'Wonderful' and the Vatican website coverage of the trip includes several of photographs of The Pope looking at my painting with a smile on his face.

 It was printed on the cover of the prayer sheet for the mass (which every last person took home with them). Subsequently I have been lucky enough to have a couple of articles written about the painting printed in a worldwide Catholic publication, after which I have received both kind words and requests for prints.

 

 The original now hangs in The Oratory and Pope Benedict took a print home with him, for which I recieved a letter from The Vatican (on special Vatican paper!) thanking me.

I owe a lot to the man who commissioned this painting and thought of the whole venture, & to all the people who have been incredibly kind and generous to me throughout.

 Its not often you get the chance to do work that means something to people.

The Love-Letter Quilt details

The Love-Letter Quilt alternate

 I was still going for that super saturated colour and I think I prefer the pictures seperately as it allows for more focus on the detail in the quilt.

The Love-Letter Quilt

This is in fact a pair of paintings that slot together. The brief called for both indoor and outdoor scenes to be overlaid and I did my best to find an elegant way to transition across the different colour palettes.

Miss Havisham details

The idea of a piece that you notice more the closer you look always appeals to me- its worth pointing out that her 'earrings' show the clock stopped at 'twenty minutes to nine' as they should.

This is piece is now being made into a (very affordable!) print, the perfect gift for a Dickens fan. Just click the 'Shop' tab at the top of the page to find out more.

Miss Havisham

This is Miss Havisham from Dickens' Great Expectations. She is a character I have always loved the idea of & offers a wealth of inspiration.

This is piece is now being made into a (very affordable!) print, the perfect gift for a Dickens fan. Just click the 'Shop' tab at the top of the page to find out more.

Two Hands On The Tiller details

I think my favorite part of this one is the girl's skirt. I restarted it half way through because I thought the scene needed more life.

Two Hands On The Tiller

Another painting for The People's Friend. I'm always keen to get clothing and setting period-appropriate, this was a bit of a tricky one as I know nothing about boats and this was set in a bit of a transitional time technology-wise. I did my reseach & I can only hope there is nothing that looks too odd to an expert!

Oz Character Concept Designs

Another one from the archives. Oz, Star Wars and Superheroes have always been the things closest to my heart and so when I felt I needed some concept work in my portfolio, Oz seemed like the obvious choice.

 

The differences between the two age-ranges have more to do with the my approach to visual language than the concepts themselves. I think this means the strongest concept (Scarecrow) and weakest (Tin-Man) are the same in both cases. Although the oil-can head has potential.

Why Am I Sad pages

Why Am I Sad

This is probably the only University work that I will be putting up on the blog. There was often such an emphasis on the graphic-design side of things that when this brief came up I jumped at it. The brief was to create a small book based on the concept of 'Why Am I Sad?' I tried to create a relatable concept of a little boy clown who just found it hard to see the bright side of life.

I was very proud of this little book and I still toy with the idea of re-working it someday.

Old Experiments

Another piece of older work.  A writer friend and I had been discussing an idea of a project based around a world of Imaginary Friends. This was something I put together inspired by that.

 

To look at now its horribly amateur looking (that photoshopping!) but I spent long enough on it and there are the kernels of some good ideas there that I thought you folks might like to see it.

First superhero post

This was designed as a backdrop for a superhero-themed fashion show. Really I'd just been looking for an excuse to get something comicbook-y into my portfolio!

A SatNav Called Agatha details

A SatNav Called Agatha

My first official brief from The People's Friend. I was going for a slightly retro postcard look here but ended up more just crazily colourful. Keen to impress I painted this one unnecessarily HUGE so there was at least some nice detail hidden in there.

Petrushka

These two paintings are a similar story. My 'original ideas' part of the early portfolio.

They were inspired by a brief I once did based around the Russian story of Petrushka. I think I wanted the poor guy to have a happier ending so he was re-imagined as 'Pete' and gained some new pals.