PICTURE HOOKS

I thought it was about time i mentioned that i have been given a place on the picture hooks mentor programme. 5 illustrators were selected and paired up with an industry pro who will act as a mentor throughout the course of this year. The idea being that we focus on developing our illustration skills and come out the other side in a position to sit down with publishers and present our work. We are developing concepts for picture books which is something of a baptism of fire for me; It would be fair to say that im learning a lot on the job!

 I am in the expert hands of Natalie Russell who has already given me a great deal of insight. The exposure will be excellent and there are plans for an exhibition in the National Gallery in Edinburgh in November 2013... standby for more news and developments!

Here is a link to the schemes website...

Here is some of the art work i submitted in my application for the scheme;

CAOS

i am thoroughly ashamed about the lag between posts here. almost a year! anyway here is an image i made for a friends fundraiser. its to go on tote bags which will be hawked at a gig to raise money for CAOS (if he goes for it anyway!)

TROPHIES

Here are a few photos of my most recent show 'Trophies' at the Lansdowne in Glasgow. it'll be up for a few weeks if anyone is in the area and fanciers a closer look...

TROPHIES

TROPHIES

veneer

Dawn has been on at me to play with some veneer for a while so i finally relented and got some off-cuts. i was intending to look into the prospect of printing on it (which i still might) and hadn't really considered using it in a more conventional way. i had a bit of creative block at the studio trying to come up with ideas for new prints so i thought id have a go at inlaying the veneer in birch printing ply. it went better than id expected and im going to experiment more with this technique. the process sparked an idea too which im going to have a crack at. stay tuned!

Northern Something.

here's a new woodcut. its a reduction print which means that the same block is used for each of the colours and after each colour is printed, more of the block is cut away to print the next colour. this is achieved by working from the lightest colour towards the darkest. for example, in this instance the lightest colour is the white of the mammoths tusks and eyes (the paper.) before any printing, everything we want to keep white is cut away from the block and the first colour is printed; in this case yellow. next, everything we want to keep yellow is cut away i.e. the background, and the next and final colour, black, is printed.
et voila; a three colour reduction print (if im sly and include the white!)

'northern something' is a track by tortoise which was echoing around my head when i made this print. i think there is some significance in it.

buy print
play 'Northern Something' by Tortoise (loudly!)