Category: Art & Design

Louisiana Art Museum, Denmark

I was tidying up some old photos and found some from my trip to Denmark in 2015 that I never posted. These are of the Louisiana Art Museum. It’s a modern art museum and sculpture park just up the coast from Copenhagen.

Sophie Woodrow sketchbook page

I’ve really been in a creative slump under lockdown. All that time, no motivation. I forced myself to do some drawing today- just some simple sketches of some ceramic sculptures by Sophie Woodrow that I’d admired. I think it did me some good.

Mycenaean Grave Goods

I was tidying up and found some bits from art school ten years ago. Here’s some preliminary sketches I did for a project based on Mycenaean artefacts. Rather than draw direct, I drew various motifs on some acetate with marker, and then held it on the cyanotype paper with glass to expose the pictures. These prints were not the final project, I don’t know where that has gone. They were more preliminary exploration work.

Tim and the Hidden People

Tim and the Hidden People is a series of children’s school reading books from the late 70s/early 80s that a lot of schools had. They have a strange, bleak folk-horror atmosphere, and the illustrations in the first three collections are a little uncanny valley. Tim is always walking along lonely canal paths with strict instructions to not look over his shoulder and tie the silver string around a particular tree or else.

Ink Master Copies

I had a whole folder full of artwork masters, so I decided to stick them into sketchbooks this afternoon (these kraft paper folio-sized books are around £6 from Muji). I tend to draw the line artwork by hand with a non-photo blue pencil and posca marker, and correct mistakes/add the colour digitally.

Ivan Bilibin

I thought while stuck at home I’d do regular posts showing things I like which other people may not have heard of. Ivan Bilibin was a Russian artist most famous for his lavishly illustrated books of fairy tales taking inspiration from Japanese wood prints, Russian icon painting and Ye Olde Slavonic script.

Street Signs of Vienna

Vienna has strong rent controls for shops, meaning that many of them are in the same location for decades, leading to lots of vintage shop signs around town (along with stylish new ones like the brewery one above). Here’s a selection of different ones I spotted on this trip.

Architekturzentrum Wien

I also visited Vienna Architecture Centre- I’d never been inside this small museum before, but the entry was thrown in free with the bundle ticket I bought for the other exhibitions.

Vienna Academy of Fine Art

On a rare day off in Vienna I went to the Open Studio day at the Vienna Academy of Fine Art. This is the top art school in Austria, and also the same institution that famously rejected Hitler twice for his lack of creativity. The studios are in this impressive building, the Semperdepot, which was originally built to store theatre scenery and props.

Kunsthalle Wien – Nina Vobruba/Malte Zander + Time is Thirsty

The Kunsthalle Wien holds temporary exhibitions- I caught the last day of this show. It definitely isn’t the best thing I’ve seen there- I’ve previously been to blockbuster Basquiat, Haring and Švankmajer shows there, but it was included in the Combi-ticket I bought for the other museums, so I made sure to see it.

Post Club

Get a nice surprise in the post every month- sent out on the 22nd of each month. Zines, mini-prints, postcards, stickers. It’s a surprise.

Slovak National Gallery

The Slovak National Gallery was also open late- it was free that day too because they were changing the exhibitions and only two rooms were open. From the website it seems like there’s a lot of interesting stuff in the museum, and it’s a pity I didn’t get to see it, but I enjoyed the small section I did get to see.

2020 Calendar

I’ve made an A5 calendar of my illustrations – the calendar itself is £7, and the artwork is also available as prints of various sizes. UK postage is free, and international postage is automatically calculated by weight.

Photoshop Digital Colour tutorial

Multiple people have asked me for a tutorial of how I do colour in Photoshop. A lot of people think my prints are analogue screen-prints, but they’re actually mostly digital. I draw the ink lines by hand, but all the colour and texture is created in Photoshop.

Magic Stories From Around the World (1986)

Here is another scan of a vintage book I have had since I was a child. This is a collection of myths and legends from around the world. It was originally Czech and translated to English, and has a large selection of central European stories less known in the UK, along with stories from places like the high Arctic and Polynesia. There are also lovely illustrations by three prominent Czech illustrators.

Psychic Rat print

New print over in the shop- Psychic Rat. £6 for A6, £12 for A4, £24 for A3.

Extinction Dome print

Here’s another print- price in the shop varies from £6-£24 depending on size. You can order one here. Features a plesiosaur, a nautilus and a coelacanth for your pleasure.

Nervy Betters poster

I designed this poster for my friend Henry, based on Ware landmark Scott’s Grotto, but forgot to post it here. It’s tomorrow if you are in the area.

2012 sketchbook

While clearing up, I found an old sketchbook from 2012. Here’s some photos of some pages.

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