Category Archives: Experiments

Saas Fee

I just came back from a short trip to visit a friend who lives high in the Swiss Alps. My children skied on snow for the first time (and I marvelled at how fearless they were) and I skied – terrified and slowly – and despite all this activity (clearing paths, trying to build igloos)Continue reading “Saas Fee”

Making Charcoal

You could also call this process ‘method illustration’. After the phrase ‘method acting’ of course. I coined that term for the approach to illustration that is strongly advocated and encouraged on the MA. It’s the first semester’s topic and requires students to venture out & about with a sketchbook and draw on location. The ideaContinue reading “Making Charcoal”

Christmas Cacti

I did these for a small pop-up art fair in my home town. I got into the flow of it and PLAYED. Initially I had been drawing cool retro mugs (something else I like) but that just wasn’t going well. Clearly not organic enough. So I looked through some old sketchbooks and found these. TheyContinue reading “Christmas Cacti”

11 December 2017

It’s been a difficult day to know where to focus my energy. The weather was awful, the house was a mess… it was hard to focus. Much of what I was doing did not go well. I had previously been looking through some old sketchbooks, and an image from one of them inspired this littleContinue reading “11 December 2017”

Buildings with Personality

Buildings have always been an anathema to me, well – unless I can draw them in a very scribbly, lazy sort of way (maybe looking back at the Rome sketchbook will show that perhaps I wasn’t ALWAYS afraid of tackling buildings). But to give them personality, play with the reality of them, treat them asContinue reading “Buildings with Personality”

Owning a ‘Pet’

I really enjoyed this ‘homework’ brief. It was set by Jo Byatt, a member of our local illustration group – we set ourselves small illustration briefs each month, the members take turns to set them. As Jo indicated when she set the brief, anything can be a ‘pet’. Hence the plants. I found this toContinue reading “Owning a ‘Pet’”