Category: Illustration

Frolicking Figures

This weeks fortnightly Kick About over on Red’s Kingdom is the ethereal painting – The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch. I am in the process of a big DIY project at the moment, which is turning a shithole of a room in my shared house that is used for storage and discarded items into an artist’s studio where I can work on creative things such as the Kick-About. In the process, I happened to come across the box where I kept all my life drawings from uni; being the sentimental type I could never throw them away and I always wanted to create this project – so the kick about provides that drive yet again. 

I decided to focus on the busyness of Bosch’s painting with emphasis on the figures and go against my usual likeness towards landscapes. Realising I didn’t need to photograph every sheet of life drawing I dusted off my old hard drive that contains photographs of those life drawings and re-photographed a few that were otherwise of an abysmal quality. I then popped them into Photoshop and cut out each figure from the sheet of paper and collaged them together accordingly. A very sentimental feeling seeing all my uni life drawings in one place together and a fulfilling experience.”

The Artist’s Studio

This weeks Kick About over on Red’s Kingdom is the perplexing painting –  Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez. I loved the self reflection and self insertion with this painting. I decided to focus on the many frames throughout the studio and, in the same manner, interject some of my own self into my illustrations by adding other photography and drawings within the frames themselves, and into a studio only an artist could make sense of.

Tea Time Illustration

A recent illustration – I thoroughly enjoyed getting lost in the maximalist details of this one. When I was in Uni I was introduced and learned of the geometric coloured shapes and loose line art of UPA Animation, I find myself leaning into the style of UPA lately and I am enjoying the nostalgia of it. Prints of this piece can are purchased here if wanted.

Abstractions #1

Recently being introduced to the shapely creations of Charles Sheeler as well as visiting an exhibition of Milton Avery has left me bubbling with inspiration. What was so interesting about Milton Avery’s work and the way the exhibition was laid out, showed that throughout his career his paintings started to boil down to its core essence of pure unfiltered blocks of colour. Avery become inspired by friends such as Mark Rothko and his once detailed paintings were abstracted into lovely shapes as he became noted as a master of colour. Seeing his art in person really feels makes it feel that way. Here is some initial abstracted digital paintings created after absorbing the work of both Sheeler and Avery. I very much enjoy creating this way, sometimes the paintings feel like a jigsaw puzzle with the puzzle being to always work out what colours work well together. It always feels cathartic when the overall composition feels balanced. More on the way and I am also excited to announce that a print store is coming very very soon.