NY Times - The Next Frontier Is Inside Your Brain

Illustration for the New York Times' Sunday Review. It's a fascinating piece that looks at a new research initiative into the Brain that hopes answer, among other questions ... 'how the brain generates thoughts, dreams, memories, perception and consciousness...' This was nice, quick job with the turnaround ending up being about 4 hours for roughs and final.

At first I was thinking about focusing on the neurons in the brain but replacing the 'cell' part with faces. Which, although was getting there wasn't quite working. As the art director quite rightly informed me, the neurons looked more like trees or onions.

 

 In the end we went with the classic Head option, with the final image being stretched out to fill the space and the various parts moving around a bit. Normally going from rough to final I would swap over to using gouache and painting it, which can sometimes mean I tighten up and make the image a bit too clean. This time however I was enjoying the pencil marks so stuck with it. Thanks to Alexandra Zsigmond for the commission and great art direction.

Limner Journal #2 Launch

24th January sees the launch of issue 2 of Limner Journal at Beach London, from 6-9pm. For people not in the know 'Limner is a new critical journal of illustration. It's aim is to provide a platform for the exploration, critique and contextualisation of contemporary illustration. Issue #2 takes the form of a 168 page book featuring new writing and illustration.' 

It has some great people in there including 

Jordan Chatwin, Blaise Larmee, Colin David Stewart, Peter Willis, Penny Klein, Murray O'Grady, Stine Belden Røed, Grace Helmer, Jay Cover, Holly Mills, Reena Makwana, Kai Nodland, Reuben Mwaura, Joe Kessler, Liv Taylor, Eric Timothy Carson, Charlotte Mei, Umberto Eco, Ella Mclean, Florence Shaw, Nick White, Alice Lindsay, Good Press Gallery, Joakim Ojanen, Mike Redmond, Jon Pilkington, Chie Miyazaki, Lisa Wilkens, Rose Blake, Megan Woof, Dan Shapiro and Isabella Toledo.

 

If you look closely you will see my name included in that pile of names, this is due to me writing a whole bunch of words in an order and doing a few drawings too. (Though it is mostly writing.) I wrote the words in Limner a wee while ago and was pleased with them at the time. My piece is about Procrastination and the two people who read it said "It's not the worse thing I have ever read.'' Which is pretty high praise and also odd that they both independently said those exact same words. Thankfully there are so many other clever and talented people within the Journal so I am sure it will be great!

I know Peter Willis and the Studio Operative guys have worked darned hard on the Journal so If you live London way be sure to come down and grab* a copy.

*Buy.

The Maestro's Loss

Normally at this time of the year (the start) I would post all the things I forgot to post during the last year but instead I thought I'd start as I mean to go on and post something published in 2012. This Illustration was for the Observer and came out on New Years day which also happens to be the first day of the year. The drawing accompanied a short story by Hari Kunzru called 'The Maestro's Loss' and was / is a great story to try and Illustrate. Go read it over here. The Cembalo Scrivano that the story has at it's centre is a fascinating contraption and you can really imagine a writer having to push down hard on those thick wooden keys.

As you can see the piece was printed up nice and big which was pretty exciting when I opened up the paper on Sunday, though perhaps others were probably cursing me for getting newspaper ink all over their fingers and elbows. 

I also got to include a few chalk drawings of the typewriter as a spot. Noice.

K.K.II + Lmnop Q&A (The Alphabet post)

This saturday sees the second Kibbo Kift event held at The Victoria in Dalston in London. It is a night of musical music spoken spoken word all done by people who normally draw instead of these things. I will be playing some hastily made up songs and then watching proper bands Glow Wing and Fever Dream show me how it's meant to be done. The night is organised by the whirlwind that is Supermundane and features Will Edmonds and Nic Burrows (two thirds of Nous Vous) as well as Sarah Lippett (half of Crayon Legs) and Adrian Fleet (100% percent of Adrian Fleet). There will be a set of limited edition postcards by the performers and a badge for the first 100 hundred peoples.

More info here but not here. Do come it'll be fun.

In more work related news I did a Q & A with the fine people over at the LMNOP Shop who have a lovely shop in Brighton and great online one too. If you want to hear me chat about collecting, artists that I like and other ramblings head here but not here and definitely not here or here.

Recent-ish Editorial pieces!

I say recent-ish as most were done at the end of last year. The top one being for the latest issue of Eye magazine, illustrating a great piece about how graphic design students should be taught information design rather than just making things look pretty. The subject is something I often think about in regards to my work as it can often feel like i am favouring 'style over content' due to my want to put pattern everywhere. But I think what I came up with shows that it's not totally one sided. The piece has been printed up nicely as it features in the 'Uncoated' section of the magazine where surprisingly the paper is uncoated. The whole issue focuses on infographics and looks great thanks to the art direction of Simon Esterson. It's worth picking up if not for my illo but for the pieces on McSweeney's and Chris Ware.

Here it is in all it's printed glory.

This piece was the for the L.A Times review of the new Salman Rushdie book 'Luka and the fire of life' which was written for his son. It deals with among other things a magic carpet, a circus, some animals, some classic video games, somebody called 'Nobodaddy' and the quest to find the fire of life as you probably guessed.

On a quite different note here is the cover I did for a watch supplement for The Spectator. T'was nice to draw with me ol' dip pen for a change.

'Baked'

I recently did this illo for the LA Times for a review of 'Baked' by Mark Haskell Smith. The book is about cannabis, a special kind of cannabis called 'Elephant Crush' and gangsters. Hence the gun, the cannabis leaf and the elephants in suits. (Wow I am clever.) For a more thorough review head over to the LA Times.

It made me think as to whether this was really the first time I had drawn a cannabis leaf. Surely I must have drawn one with tippex on my school bag as a 14 year old boy? Or if I told the 14 year old version of myself that in the future - you / I would get paid money to draw a cannabis leaf coming out of a gun would I believe the future me? Would I be impressed? Should I be impressed? I suppose I'm having these thoughts as it is a ridiculous thing to draw. Isn't it?

All I know is that the 10 year old me would probably be slightly impressed with the gun at least. Though perhaps would recognise that it's not even a proper hand gun but an air pistol. Not that I was obsessed with guns as a child but when my brother and I first joined the library next to Safeways in cheltenham the first books we got out were two giant books about guns that contained hundreds of pictures of guns. We then took these books home where our mum was hugely unimpressed with our dad for allowing us said books while we snuck off and carefully reproduced these guns in pencil in our sketchpads. I think I cockily started to copy a large, meticulously detailed photo of the insides of a hand gun and then subsequently gave up when I realised I hadn't left enough space for the trigger or something. So in actual fact I think Rich and I were only obsessed with guns for a weekend at the most and probably went back to copying super heroes from Marvel comics. My mum was even less impressed when she had to take the mostly unread books back to the library where she was greeted with substantial late fines.

'People I've never met and Conversations I've never had!'

Holy Moly! 'People I've never met and Conversations I've never had' is the name of my first published book and my debut solo show.

The book is a 32 page hardback monograph featuring all new work and is published by the great people at Nobrow. The guys have done a great job putting it together and I'm real excited for people to see it. You will be able to buy it at their website very soon and at....

The Private view / launch on Thursday the 17th September at Concrete Hermit (5a Club Row, London, E1 6JX) from 6.30pm - 9pm.

To run alongside the launch of the book I will be exhibiting the original artworks from the book, a number of Limited edition screenprints / posters and several hundred heads. The show will be on from Wednesday 9th September to Saturday the 19th September.

I just finished putting up the show and am pretty darn pleased with the result. I'll post some pictures soon. I was helped out with the install by the Gent that is Sam Bevington who has been interning at Nobrow. He was indeed a great help as i'm pretty sure I would still be sticking Heads to the wall now.

As you can see the Launch / private view is quite a bit after the day the show opens, this is because the books are only being sent over from Belgium this coming weekend. Therefore the book will not be in the gallery / shop until at least Tuesday the 15th Sept. Fingers crossed sooner!

See you at the Launch I'll be the one smiling lots and posing next to the pictures and making sure no ones knocks anything over.

Below are some sneaky peeks at the inside of the book.

Nobrow Magazine 'Gods and Monsters'

A wee while ago I was invited to contribute to an exciting new magazine being published by an up and coming new publisher called NOBROW. The first issue of Nobrow printed in two colours and exploring the theme of Gods and Monsters showcases some brilliant artwork from some great artists and Illustrators. I got my copy last week and it really is beautifully designed and printed. It also smells amazing.

The launch party for the magazine's release is this thursday 14th May at Jaguar shoes in London town from 7pm and will exhibit large scale versions of the pages. Following that Nobrow will be available to purchase from a number of bookshops and galleries. For more info go to www.Nobrow.net

Below is Nobrow's press release for the launch!


Nobrow-JaguarShoes Press Release

To celebrate the release of our first publication ‘Gods and Monsters’ we will be exhibiting the work from the edition in large scale format at Bar and exhibition space; DreamBagsJaguarShoes.

Private View: Thursday 14th May, 2009
Exhibition: 15th May – 28th June 2009
DreamBagsJaguarShoes,
32 Kingsland Road, E2.

Nobrow Issue 1: Gods & Monsters. Printed in two spot colours in a limited edition of 3000 numbered copies it gives a high quality platform to artists and illustrators both new and established. The diverse contributors were hand picked for their unique styles and all were invited to generate work based on the theme. Some are up and coming, others are plucked from unexpected places, all are talented.

Contributors are: Dave Taylor, Alex Spiro, Sam Arthur, Jordan Crane, Emiliano Ponzi, A. Richard Allen, Jens Harder, Reuben Rude, Benjamin Guedel, Eda Akaltun, Matthieu Bessudo, Caspar Williamson, Toby Leigh, Alex Bland, Ben Newman, Nick White, Stuart Kolakovic, Sarah King, Leah Hayes, Paul Blow, Bjorn Rune Lie, Brett Ryder , Carl Johanson and Blexbolex.

It will be available for the super special intro price of £9.00 in the following shops from the 15th May: Magma (Clerkenwell & Manchester branches), ICA, Gosh Comics, Beyond The Valley, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Koenig Books, Camden Arts Centre, Arnolfini Gallery, Here Gallery, Soma and many, many more...

Vincent!

I am involved with a great exhibition with three other great drawers / Illustrators which is opening next week at The Flea Pit on Columbia Rd, London. The exhibition is on until 24th May and the private view is this Tuesday from 6.30 - 10.00. Come on down and say Hello. The excellently designed website www.Vincent-Steinbeck.com has some links to the other artists and venue.

See you there!