Rotherham Art Space Update

Hello! Here's an update on the work I've been doing with the Stars In Stripes in Rotherham. I've been a bit quiet of late because we've been so busy cracking on. And Uni. And trying not to jump out of windows due to not wanting to do my Dissertation!

Hope you all had a wonderfully Cool Yule and have a great 2011!

x

Rotheram Arts Space - Stars In Stripes Window Painting.

All of us are extremely excited to be painting all over the windows of a 6000 ft sq. Arts space in Rotheram. Despite the cold we have trekked over twice this week already to recon the space and start drawing. It is a first for many in the collective and thus far seem to making excellent progress for our months show in January. This is my piece so far! Enjoy x (PLENTY MORE TO COME!)

KUJI SHOP - WALL MURAL

I was asked to do my very first solo wall mural for Kuji Shop on Ecclesall Road, Sheffield. I was entirely overwhelmed and extremely excited. I haven't got any full finished photos yet, as I have lost yet another memory card for my camera, so will get straight on this an get some finished shots as soon as possible but literally could not wait any long to give everyone a sneak peek! Enjoy, watch this space for full finished photos x (Photos courtesy of Andy Holgate - what a LAD with a camera)

Soyo Live Art - Monday 22nd November w/ Louise Wheeler, Hailey Evenett and Mark Allen.

I've been a little quiet for a while, illness, lots of work at uni etc. Pretty much life has just been happening. Anyway, here's is Monday's Live Art piece. Can you tell I was listening to Modest Mouse whilst drawing various shaped feathers? Well I was. Great song that one. Peace x

FEATURE - THE STARS IN STRIPES ON BALLAD OF...

CRUCIBLE LIVE ART FEATURE ON BALLAD OF...

FEATURE - STARS IN STRIPES ON ILLUSTRATION RALLY

STARS IN SRIPES CRUCIBLE THEATRE LIVE ART ON ILLUSTRATION RALLY

AS ONE DIVEBOMB - Monday 1st November - SOYO w/Louise Wheeler, Hailey Evenett, George Law and Lucy Roberts

BANNERS ARE BACK. Haven't touched on this for a while as I've been experimenting with some other ideas/techniques. It feels good to be back using banners and shield shapes, feels like it's been ages! Anyway, hope y'all like the piece from Monday! x

Photo: Kev Williams

Fright Night Live Art at The Crucible Theatre, Sheffield. w/George Law, Louise Wheeler, Hailey Evenett and Sarah Abbott

We were booked through the Sheffield Arts Council to do some Live Art at the Crucible Theatre for Fright Night. It was a brilliantly put together day with plenty of zombies walking round, almost everyone in fancy dress and a couple of street acts outside. We decided to create some iconic halloween monsters, with Louise painting Frankensteins Monster, Hailey drawing hell hound Cerberus, Sarah painting a beautiful Day of the Dead style skull, George doing a howling Werewolf and myself penning a Headless Horseman. We had a really enjoyable day, creating individual boards rather than creating a mural style piece across three boards, something we seem to be doing more and more of, so was nice to get back to an individual piece of work for a change. Hope you like our work, watch this space for some more big events coming up! x

Finished Articles - Grad 1 Project

So, I am extremely happy at the moment. I have finished a pretty poorly structured project at University with some really beautiful outcomes. I've impressed myself once again with my Lino Printing skills, and with this new found confidence I shall be more adventurous with my ideas. Watch this space for large, metre tall lino prints and repeat patterns galore! x

Business card in it's surround with detail of sticker.

Business card when it has been assembled. Something to stand on the desk, rather than file in your wallet/purse.

Tote bag in action - Modelled by Ashlee Allen.

Finished printed Tote bag. FOX HEAD.

The Presentation Box. Including 5 layer Lino Print on lid. Contents: Tote bag + Business card

BOOM.

Printed Lino Business Cards - Pre Assembly.

So I have printed my one layer business cards and I am extremely pleased with the results. All that awaits now is the printing of the canvas tote bags, printing stickers to hold together the outer surround to the business cards and also generally putting everything together. I'm really excited to see the completed run of prints. Hope you like them too. x

Printed Presentation Box - Final Completed Lino Prints

>I literally could not wait to show this. I'm so happy with how it turned out. It took me an entire day of printing to get all 5 layers down, all in Lino print. Massively chuffed. I hope you enjoy them x

Self Promotional Self Directed Project (University) - Lino Printing Layer Finals

So...University is very exciting in my final year. I have written a brief to do my own self promotional project, as I get asked for business cards regularly when doing Live Art at Soyo. This project is themed around Heraldic Design, something I have been very interested in since Year 13 at Secondary School. I will go into more detail about my project when I upload my final stuff after printing them this week because right now, quite frankly, i'm shattered and want to fall asleep watching The Event on 4OD. Here is the 5 Layer Lino print I have planned for some promotional boxes that I intend to send out. Hope you like it and I'll post the finals as and when! x

OWLS

Here is a scan of two Owls I drew whilst planning some ideas for some T-Shirt designs I was asked to do for Kuji Shop. I enjoy them very much. I'm not a massively into character design but i think these have the makings to become a potential small moving image piece. (When I get some bloody time). Hoot Hoot. x

Soyo Live Art - Monday 18th October 2010. w/ Louise Wheeler and James Smart

Been a little quiet of late - tonne of University work and Kuji Shop designs getting finalised (watch this space) but here is the Collaboration with Louise Wheeler (Vealy) at last Monday's Soyo Live. This was a REALLY fun piece that we did, starting out as just a general fight, to becoming a "Bitch Fight" between at three nippled alien and a red sports bra wearing Werewolf. Also, James Smart (JXMES) did a lovely piece with his very stylised characters and also creating a great amount of depth. BOOM x

The Wick At Both Ends - 5th October 2010.

Once again the Stars In Stripes have been asked to mural a local sheffield bar and spruce it up a bit. Conveniently for me, more so than the other stripes that took part, our theme was based loosely around heraldic design, which is the same theme as my Graduation 1 project at University. WIN! I wasn't particularly confident going in as I've been a little off  with my live art of late and wasn't feeling too perky for other reasons but I seemingly manned up and pulled an absolute B-E-A-U-T out of the bag. (I genuinely impressed myself - favourite piece overall...so far!) Playing along the idea of fox hunting for our other "Woodland" theme, I created a "Vixens" herald by the ladies toilets, with Louise Wheeler creating a "Hounds" piece by the gents. I love my foxes at the moment. Enjoy!

P.S. We've been asked to, on HALLOWEEN, do live art in the Entrance to the Crucible theatre. The artists participating were hand picked from the Stars In Stripes blog. Really proud that we're starting to get some notice. Take a look at the other artists in our collective here.

Hantu Show Highlights

Leicester Music Scene pages for From Dusk to Dawn magazine

Off the back of the previous work/feature of the Tramlines Live Art in From Dusk to Dawn magazine, Leicester, I was asked to do two background pages for the Leicester Music Scene feature. I went along the idea of having the LMS as the "Heart" of Leicester's music and for the second page going along the lines of "opening the minds of music goers, hence the skull and brain. My client was thoroughly happy with the outcome and I look forward to doing anymore illustration work with them! You can download the Leicester and Derby issues of the magazine on the From Dusk To Dawn website. x

Hantu Cathedral Show - Live Art "Sheffield"

So, Saturday was the Hantu Fashion/Music/Art show at The Cathedral. Literally one of the most beautiful places i've a) been inside and b) done live art in (Soyo is cool...but come one...it's a Cathedral)
We had a little "Versus" with us "New School" Illustrators against the "Old School" Graffiti Writers, headed up by our friend Casper. It was a fantastic atmosphere and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was deemed a "draw" but personally, if a little bias, thought we came out on top as the MC who was trying to get a group shout of which they preferred, kind of lost everyones interest because we all wanted to go to the after party (fair enough really). The theme was "Sheffield" so we use the old iconic image of the cooling towers (you knew you where in Sheffield when you saw them on the journey in) with some of out own personal touches. It looked amazing when finished and I hope you think so too. Collaboration with the usual Stars In Stripes bunch: Louise Wheeler, George Law, Hailey Evenett and Sarah Abbott.

P.S. I'm slightly concerned by the number of "quotes" I've put in...oh well. x

Photo Credits: Georgina Sarah Martin (first two) and Hailey Evenett.

Day By Day Promotions - Poster for Freshers Fair

This poster if for advertising Day By Day Promotions who organise Soundclash at The o2 Academy 2 in Sheffield. Poster for contact information at the Freshers Fair. Paper Planes making an appearance as usual. Also...The tattoos here is something I really liked when i'd finished mocking it up and will definitely come back to either with Lino or Screen printing! Enjoy x

Monday 13th September w/Beards Club and Joe Feather

Another nights Live Art at Soyo. This time I had delved back into an old sketchbook I had and pulled out this nice piece i'd long forgotten about. It was a text typo...whoops! A nice thing was that a girl took a photo of it on her phone. I hope she used it as her phone background like Jim did with the "Be Free" piece from the Tramlines live art. That would be nice. Enjoy x

The Metabolic Bone Centre (Young Persons Waiting Room) - Northern General Hospital

Another commission with the Stars In Stripes to paint a mural on some walls. This time was for the new young persons waiting room at the metabolic bone centre at the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield. This was a really big job as we had a relatively small room but abnormally high ceilings. It was a pretty hardcore day, 10 - 5, continuously painting without any of us eating (except a small packet of Haribo). *Lesson learned - take a pack lunch!*

The theme we discussed for this project was to do "The Seven Hills of Sheffield" with each hill being a different style of illustration. It worked very well and we created a really fantastic piece which was thoroughly well received by the staff at the centre, which made the hunger worth the while

Ten foot of ceiling meant I was riding a ladder all day (good thing I don't have a fear of heights!) The clouds made an appearance again and framed the more important and focussed illustrations of the hills. I left the colour off these because i t would have detracted away from the hills, however i still wanted them to be a visual in their own right as the paper aeroplane had a colossal journey over to the other side of the room where it eventually landed in a hand drawn waste paper basket. It's main aim was to take your eye on a journey across the room and it was very effective.

My hill of sheffield consisted of tower blocks made from milk cartons. This was going along the obvious (or so i thought) idea of milk/calcium being good for the bones. Yet there were a couple of nurses that did question why I had drawn Milk cartons. I then began to think it wasn't so obvious, but they did laugh at themselves for not getting the idea straight away. So it was fine. I hope. I still really like the imagery i produced, but I enjoyed even more the real collaboration we had going on. It was a really good vibe that monday and everyone was eager to chip in with ideas or jump on a part that they felt needed something without worrying whether anyone had some preplanned or whatever, because we're all beginning to really trust each other and understand each others ideas. I'm really enjoying being a part of this drawing collective and I am hoping for big things to come along.

The participating artists were Sarah Abbott, Hailey Evenett, Jane Faram, George Law, Louise Wheeler and Myself. Enjoy! x

Illustration Rally and Ballad Of... FEATURES!

I'm having a very strange little time at the moment. Not only have I had an amazing summer, but I seem to be hitting a bit of a stride with my work. The Soyo Live Art stuff is going fantastically, I'm doing some designs for Kuji Shop on Ecccesall Road in Sheffield and I've been featured on two online design/fashion blogs! I'm so overwhelmed and ever so grateful!

Here are the Links to the Blogs! Enjoy x

Illustration Rally and Ballad Of...

The Wilderness Downtown

Ok. So. Viral Stuff on the internet generally does not excite me that much. Yes, the occasional video like "Chimp Rapes Frog" and "Worst Cat Jump Ever" video leaves me creasing in stitches of laughter, but really, I can mention nothing off the top of my head that has really blown my mind and left me speechless.

Until Now.

I can't begin to describe the brilliance of this piece of...well...art. Fantastic. You will Enjoy. x

The Wilderness Downtown - Arcade Fire Interactive Video/

Soyo Live Art - Monday 23rd August w/ Louise Wheeler, Hailey Evenett and Alix

Another successful evening live arting at Soyo, as the new residents! Another piece following in my current preferred style, clouds, paper planes and banners galore. Words in this piece borrowed from Yucantan Gold by Throw Me The Statue. Great song, Wonderful lyrics. Peace x

Harley - Wall Illustrations

As "The Stars In Stripes", we were asked to provide illustrations for the walls of the Harley at the top of West Street. It turned out to be a great day with some amazing drawings being created. Top stuff. Check out the photos of my work here, or pop along to the Harley itself, or look at the Stars In Stripes Blog in a couple of days when the work gets posted up there! Enjoy x

I provided some linking illustrations between the larger pieces by Hailey Evenett, George Law, Alix and Louise Wheeler. I used my cloud illustrations, which is becoming something of an old guard in my illustration arsenal, to link together some really fantastic drawings. The paper aeroplanes and token dashed lines really tied the whole thing together really well.

Here I chose to illustrate a Tiki Head, something I had not drawn since being in school. The idea came from Tiki heads being used to protect peoples homes/villages etc, and this being the Harley Hotel reception area, I thought it would be a nice idea to ward off any evil spirits/crackheads.

Rabbit Portal jumped on a piece of work i'd started off once I was comfortable with the amount i'd done. I was blown away by how he transformed the simple crest and eagle claw I did into the final image he created, and also that i got to work with him anyway. His work is absolutely brilliant and it was a really honour to finally meet him after following him on twitter for ages! Sound for now, i'm going off to work on bar at V festival this weekend. Peace x

Soyo Live Art - Monday 16th August w/ Louise Wheeler and Beards Club

Really nice vibe last night. First time at an evening event, meaning i had to work quicker, and produced a piece i am really really happy with! Enjoy, kids. x

The Totem

This is the final, three illustration page in completion. Little bit chuffed. Could be more chuffed. Mother Chuffers. x

Top of the Totem

Finished the last of the three drawings i began last night. Three 10 inch x 4 inch drawings. Chameleon eye was the last one. Would like to come back to chameleons, there is so much fun to be had! Enjoy x

Eagle Eye (cherry)

The second addition to the "totem" i've been drawing this evening (working title only). I'm struggling for animals to think of to draw really. Octopi have really rubbish eyes to draw. I hate reptiles. Maybe a fly?

I'll keep thinking. x