Appalachian Power!

Yee Haw have made a big calendar with my owl illustration on it. Looks great I reckon! Nip over to Yee Haw's etsy shop and place an order!

Open Studios 2010

The annual "Open Studios" exhibition at Jamaica Street Artists (my office) went ahead a couple of weeks ago. They just keep getting better. Lots of people swung buy and I sold quite well.

After a year dominated by digital work, I managed to cut loose and experiment with pains and varnishes, which I had wanted to do for a long time. Very refreshing! The time pressure forced me to make bold decisions, making it harder to over-work the images (some would say "finish the images", probably...) I want to do more of this actually...Putting up stuff of various degrees of completion. Some times there is beauty in the incomplete. And it's more interesting. I'm very into primary colours at the moment after seeing the "Van Doesburg and the International Avant Garde" exhibition at Tate Modern. Such an amazing exhibition! Couldn't help being inspired!

Save the polar bear!

It's been a while since I've posted anything on this here blog. Guess it's a good thing really. The weather has been amazing lately and I've been exceedingly busy with various projects and exhibitions.

I recently finished this map/game for the Norwegian recycling company "Grønt Punkt" . It's a big wall chart, 100x70 cm, that will be distributed to primary schools around Norway. The main objective of this game is to encourage classes to recycle all their milk and juice cartons every day and to raise awareness about environmental issues. After a year of recycling and learning, classes can enter a big competition to win a cash prize and polar bear adoptations.

This is one of those jobs where you kind of have to put your own preferred "style" to one side, and just to do what the brief demands. The client has been really nice to work for and sometimes it's nice to be able to just do a job. I enjoyed researching old maps anyway!

Summer Fun!

Here's some spots I just did for Baltimore Magazine in the US. They're gonna be printed very small, and shouldn't have taken me as long as they did...Oh well. I think they came out all right in the end!

The Gold Heart Mountaintop Queen Directory

These funny old skirts are now on sale over at Yee Haw's Etsy Store. Go'get'em girls! I really recommend having a good old browse while you're there. Better than the Argos catalogue!

By the way, this is a redesign of an image I originally did for a limited edition Monobird 7".

Cheating you say? Nah! Good to get a bit more mileage out of it!

Log drivers

Here's another piece I've done recently. It's called "Log drivers on the Drammen River" and is another "homage" to the old river workers of my home town. It appeared in my local newspaper as part of a series called "Drammen Illustrated" which each week features a picture by an artist who either lives in or have some connection to the city. Drammen has undergone some dramatic changes in recent years. Traffic has been diverted through hillside tunnels, opening access to the river for the first time with promenades, artificial parks and beaches. A very costly facelift I'm sure, but it has definitely given the town an air of optimism.

With this piece though, I wanted to remind people that the city wasn't built by sipping cappuccino in a riverside cafe, but rather by the toil and work of thousands of workers with soggy feet and calloused hands!

Topsy Turvy!

Nobrow no.3 is out! Which means I can finally post the picture I did for it. Once again, the guys at Nobrow are encouraging creative use of spot colours, and once again, they've managed to gather an impressive bunch of artists to do so. Pretty chuffed to find myself in the company of Olaf Hajek and Johnny Hannah I must admit. I haven't seen the magazine yet, so I can't wait to get my filthy hands on it!

The theme this time was "Topsy Turvy", which means "upside down" or "inside out". Saturnalia was an ancient Roman festival where the social order was completely turned on it's head; slaves and masters swapped roles, feuds and arguments were put on hold and people gave each other gifts and basically just had a massive party. I really enjoyed this one. Spent ages researching it, although it's by no means historically accurate!

Who We Were and What We Meant by It...

I just finished this album sleeve for My Two Toms, a Bristol band I've been a fan of for years. They play a stompin' kind of lo-fi country/bluegrass. 100% instrumental, but fully fantastic! Banjo, guitar (sometimes with ridiculously sloppy strings) and the occasional ukulele with maracas duck taped to their shoes. If this sounds like your kinda thing, check them out here: http://www.mytwotoms.co.uk. It's gonna be a 12' vinyl release, so I can't wait to see it printed! Should be out in a few weeks time!

The idea for this image is based on the old way of transporting timber; floating it down stream from the forests to the shipment harbours, saw mills and paper factories. The town I grew up in, Drammen, was built on this trade, so in a way it's a little homage to the log drivers of my home town.

Set Your Body Free!

Here's a job I did last week for the Norwegian Directorate of Health. It's a poster for "Verdens Aktivitetsdag 10 mai", a campaign to encourage people over 65 to start exercising (however moderately) as a way to prevent various illnesses. A nice bread and butter job!

Hot Rod

Here's one I did last week for the Russian magazine "Sekret Firmy". It's for a feature on couriers.

Foreign Fiction Prize

Here's a picture I did a couple of weeks ago for Standpoint Magazine. It's to go with an article written by one of the judges of this year's Foreign Fiction Prize. He argues that even though fiction translated into English only accounts for about 3% of books published in Britain, this does not mean that they are necessarily any good!!

Some really big Norwegian literary names gets a pretty rough time in this article, and apparently the author will stay well away from any books with the words "Norway" or "Norwegian" in the future! Nice to work with a really juicy and opinionated text for a change, although I'll probably never work for Norwegian publishing again after this!

Narrative Coaching

Here's a job I just finished for "Coaching at Work" magazine. Its about "narrative coaching", a type of coaching which focuses on meaning values and aspiration. It seeks to shape new, alternative and more meaningful stories about client's lives and specific events...I could do with some of that!

Tropical Robots!

Happy New Year! Better late than never. Had a bit of a break from the old blog. Been on strike. Trade union voted for industrial action. Only joking. Here's some stuff I've did for Yee Haw a few weeks ago; Robots! One colour only. The plan is to do eight in this series. Half way there!

Throwing some shapes!

I drew a lot of random shapes  in my sketchbook a couple of weeks ago. I just remembered and  threw them together quickly to se what would happen. I kinda like it!  

Charity Cards!

Christmas is right around the corner, and it's time to get those cards sent out before it's too late! This design is featured in a pack together with 19 other artists including Ben Newman, Peskimo and Jon Burgerman! So why not buy a pack of 20 different exclusive, limited edition cards from here? Only £15! All I want for Christmas Cards is a new festive project in support of the Bristol based charity"Young Bristol" . 

"Sekret Firmy"

Here's a job I did before the weekend. It's for a Russian magazine called "Sekret Firmy". It's to go with a story about a businessman who really wants to pursue his dream to make films, but is afraid to take the plunge because of his responsibilities as a family man...He asks God for advice, and to his surprise receives a letter in return....

Christmas Cards

Nobrow Press in London have been going from strength to strength since they started out in the beginning of the year. I'm really impressed with what they have achieved in such a short time. Take a look for yourself at www.nobrow.net  I really can't wait to get my hands on the new magazine and the Blexbolex book. Also really looking forward to seeing Nishant Choski's new book. What better place to do your Christmas shopping? And while you're at it, why not pick up a set of Christmas cards? Designed by yours truly and screen printed (by hand!) in the Nobrow studio. You can't go wrong! 

9am at Waterloo Station, London

Here's a piece I've just finished for a group show called "Secret Service".  It's hosted by Rotopol Press  in Kassel, Germany, and runs from Nov 21st to Feb 13 next year. 

I really enjoyed working on this one I have to say, after having gone through a long creative slump.  I managed to bring a lot of techniques together in a way I haven't been able to do until now. It kinda looks like an old lithograph, which I reckon is pretty cool...

Robot Owl

Here's a picture that I did last week! 

It is for an article in  Vision magazine about the importance of assistive technology in education. How technology can help pupils with disabilities reach their potential. (Speech recognition software, braille printers etc, etc...)

I was  fairly pleased with it in the end, but I couldn't get it to work for ages. It was driving me mad! 

Storytelling

Here are some spot illustrations I did for a magazine called  RAAK  a few weeks ago. The theme was storytelling, and how it has evolved through the ages. RAAK is an in house magazine for the Dutch company Arboned. Nice little job!

Ariadne's Thread

Here's a painting i just finished. It's for yet another Peix calendar (unorthodox format as usual). Nice to do a bit of painting again after a looong break. The theme for this one is Ariadne's Thread. I'm basically illustrating the myth, with Theseus  just about to enter the labyrinth. I've added a few geometric puzzles and stuff here and there, relating to the problem solving method named after the legend (the solving of a problem with multiple apparent means of proceeding-such as a physical maze, a logic puzzle or an ethical dilemma- through an exhaustive application of logic to all available routes...Phew!) 

Work has been a bit sluggish this summer. Lost a couple of big jobs too, so the morale isn't on top at the moment. Going on holiday soon though. Woohoo!

Industrial Estate

Go to sleep, you weary hobo

Augusta Heritage Center

Julie from Yee Haw asked me a while back if I fancied collaborating on a poster. She wanted to support a place called  the Augusta Heritage Center in West Virginia, which is a non-profit organisation dedicated to preserving traditional music and folk arts. Seems like a brilliant place!  I'm really looking forward to seeing how it'll look with some Julie Belcher typography on it!