Solo show at SNAP Gallery

An exhibition of my recent work is currently on show at the superlative SNAP Gallery until 19th November. The show features brand-spanking-new pieces inspired by the astonishing and bizarre world of botany alongside a collection of other recent pieces. Come one, come all.

Nature Calendar 2012

Human Empire, a brilliant Hamburg based design and illustration studio, has launched a great calendar for next year. 12 international artists have made nature related pictures for each month of the year, and I'm honoured to be one of them! My contribution is taken from my award winning 2008 picture book "Slapsefjell", published by Magikon, Oslo.

The artists participating are:

Bjorn Rune Lie (No), Vincent Mathy (Be), Mike Perry (US), Anton Weflö (Swe),

Markus Oakley (UK), Human Empire (De), Adrian Johnson (UK), Merijn Hos (NL),

Sergio Membrillas (Es), Karin Rönmark (Swe), Nan Na Hvass/Sofie Hannibal (Dk)

and Adam Highton/Yule Bringer (UK).

http://www.humanempireshop.com/Paper-Goods/Sonstige/oxid-oxid-8.html

http://humanempire.com/about

Strange Fruit

Here's a piece I just did for RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects). It's based on an old editorial I did for People Management. It's gonna be animated (very simply) on their website! I'll add a link to that when it's up and running.

Local Hero

It's been a while since I've painted, but the good folks at Peix in Berlin have yet again asked me to do a piece for their calendar. The theme this time was "Heroes, Gods and Garden Gnomes"... I decided to ditch the Gods and Garden Gnomes, and instead focus on "hero"... My original idea was to do a piece on American Folk heroes....who tend to be thieves and outlaws under a sort of "Robin Hood" guise... But in the end I decided to go for something more playful. Like a reformed "super villain" doing nice things...

Sekret Firmy editorial

Here's a couple of pieces I did for Sekret Firmy (Russia) a few weeks ago. It's for an article about a DNA database that can be used in geneolagy (...) Will post some pictures soon of the actual magazine...It's a pleasure to work for a magazine that's so beautifully designed! The spots below were dictated to me, by the way. Can you tell who those two guys with the glasses are?

Can't see the wood for the trees!

Here is my latest tea towel design for Kauniste, Finland. Trees! Lots of them! Man, I miss the smell of pine trees! I also created an alternative version to be screen printed on fabric...Repeat patterns are really tricky to make, but I'm pleased with the result.

New Studio!

I recently moved to a different studio in Jamaica Street Artists. It's a great room, but the massive windows have proven to be a double-edged sword. I've spent a small fortune on blinds, but it's still super bright! Nevertheless, I'm knuckling down, trying to get some stuff ready for open studios...which is only about two weeks away! Yikes!

Save The Bookworm!

The good folks at Nobrow commissioned me to design a tote bag a while back, and now it's finally available! Before you rush out to buy an ipad, spare a thought for the poor bookworm whose future is in jeopardy! Nobrow of course, are champions of print, and wont give up without a fight. Join the struggle!

Sekret Firmy Cover

Here's a cover illustration I did recently for the Russian business magazine "Sekret Firmy". They wanted looooads of strange details for this one, lots of graphs and charts incorporated into the composition. Quite like the result though! It was cool to write in Russian, although I have no idea what alot of it means!

Nobrow 5

At last another blog post! Not really breaking news anymore, but here's my contribution to Nobrow 5: "Some of my favourite things". The brief was to create a repeat pattern out of 20 of my favourite things(...), 3 spot colours + GOLD! The repeat pattern was extremely difficult to work out, and was just totally against the grain of how I usually make pictures, so I decided to keep the colours as simple as possible, just using pink and yellow to create the black..(or dark blue, as it turned out!) I'm fairly happy with the result, but it got a little bit too technical this time for me to really enjoy the process.

As for the actual image, I decided to take on a different "persona", with a more interesting collection of "favourite things" than I myself have... I chose to be an explorer/botanist/adventurer from the early 1900's, loosely based on the exploits of Col. Percy Fawcett, a renegade explorer of the Amazon jungle, who vanished without a trace in 1925 serching for El Dorado(or the city of Z, as he called it)...The creature in the middle started out a tiger, but morped into a bat. His prize trophy; a golden tiger-bat!

A couple more..

Here are some strange characters I did for an exhibition called "The Elephant Graveyard", which features a nice bunch of fresh faced (though in my case: old and haggard) illustrators at Urban Outfitters in Bristol. Thanks to Liam and Adam for putting on the show!

And yes...This is work in progress on another piece...(I got it framed and sent off before I got it scanned...What a dork!) I'll hopefully post a better version soon! I've always been intrigued by Victorian greenhouses.. And I love the prints of German biologist Ernst Haeckel. This is probably the most time consuming piece I've done...possibly ever! And I was supposed to be loosening up!!

Free stylin'

Phew! Finally managed to squeeze in a blog post! Things have been pretty hectic lately...

I've been doing quite a lot of self initiated stuff though, which has been incredibly liberating... No art directors, no size restrictions, no narratives that demand continuity, no deadlines, but time to experiment with new techniques and take risks......

I have a vague theme that I'm steering towards, but I'm sort of just "free styling" a lot of the time. The pieces can end up completely different than originally planned, by throwing in a strange character or suddenly turning the background into a jungle for example. The work I've been doing recently seem to be snapshots of some bigger story. My hope is that if I keep doing this long enough, they will start coming together somehow.

The History of Children's Playground Games

Here's a project I did at the end of last year for The British Library.

It's an "interactive" illustration for a website dedicated to the last 100 years or so of children's playground games. It features lots of old footage of what kids used to do before they had computer games and mobile phones.

Unfortunately I had to alter the composition to make it easier to navigate, but never mind!

Wedding Invitations

This summer my lovely sister is getting married to Tim, one of best friends! It was with great pleasure I got to design and print their wedding invitations!

Here's a goofy picture of me from the screen printing sessions at SNAP. A big thanks to Ben Newman for helping me out big time!

Tim is a really good songwriter, by the way, and I've had the pleasure to play drums for his band "The Weary Band" on a number of occasions...Check out some demos and stuff here.

New York Chili Festival

Happy New Year! I know it's a bit late, but hey! I've made it through January without getting the English Winter Blues! Yey! Although my studio is still like a deep freezer, I now have a wood burning stove in my house to keep me warm, so I can get through the days just thinking about chucking logs on the fire, pouring a glass of whisky and putting on a black and white film...Ah..My life is kinda complete now!

Anyway..Here's an illustration I did for Yee Haw a few weeks ago. A poster for a Chili Festival, where 30 odd chefs compete to make the most devilishly nice chili! Should have been there!

The Future of Science Education

Just did this piece for Futurelab. The article is about making Science education seem more exciting and relevant to kids. Whish my old teachers could have read it back in the day!

The Grand Prize

Here is a painting I recently did for Edition Peix in Berlin. Really enjoyed a bit of hands-on painting after months behind a computer screen! The theme I had to work on was "Der Grosse Preis", which I think means "the Grand Prize", and will be printed on a promotional 2012 (2012! German efficiency!) calendar alongside great illustrators such as Atak, Olaf Hajek, Martin Haake and Martin Jarrie.

Buzzards and Dreadful Crows

Here is a tea towel I designed a while back for a lovely Finnish company called Kauniste. Even though "birds" isn't the most original theme, I do like drawing them, at least when I can make them a bit odd looking. Inspired by Indian folk art, North American Indian art and Inuit art, I hope it's not too twee! I've even thrown a couple of communist agitators in there! Anyway, the design is called "Song Birds" or more exotically; "Laululinnut" in Finnish.

The Wolf's Whistle

Hello there! Sorry it's been so long. I've been really busy the last few months working on a new picture book called "The Wolf's Whistle". It's the story of what happened before the well known fairy tale of the Three Little Pigs. Turns out there's more to the story than previously thought, and that the wolf might not be such a bad guy after all! The book will be published by the Nobrow Press in mid November. It'll be printed in three spot colours; Red, Blue and Yellow, and hopefully the result will look a little something like this:

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!