After the trials and tribulations of last weeks illustration, this one was incredibly relaxed and actually a lot of fun, the factory part especially. I created this illustration by doing lots of drawings of different factories, then selected my favourite parts to be cut together to make a ‘mega factory’!! This image is also 100% Mono Print, which is probably why it was such a good image to create, it’s a pretty fun medium to use (if a little messy.)

See the full article HERE

It seems like every time I do a blog post about another FT job, I’m always writing about how its was my shortest deadline ever. Well, again it was, but I can confidently say I wont be breaking this record. 6 Hours from start to finish, that includes doing the rough. Normally I always make sure my illustrations are finished the Wednesday night, no matter how long I have to stay up, nice and ready for me to hand in at 8am Thursday morning. This time however, due to a complication with an American writer, they had been let down. So 8am comes around on Thursday but still no copy! Surprisingly I was still pretty relaxed, even though I didn’t get the copy until 12pm. Thankfully they moved my deadline back to 6 instead of its normal place of 3pm. So the race was on, 6 hours to go, now I’m speaking directly to the Editor of the paper as well which did speed things up a lot, although I did have to watch my P’s and Q’s. In the end I would say it worked out well, maybe its a little rough around the edges compared to normal but they were happy with it nonetheless. I would liken this experience to trying to make a decision whilst being really, REALLY desperate for a wee; Tense and awkward, but very pleasurable once you had finished.

See the full article HERE

It’s been quite some time since I last completed some personal work of my own, due to an overload of commissions for 2013. So as a bit of a change from my normal posts I thought I would pop up my latest self initiated image, along with the inspiration behind the idea. At the top of the post you can see a small selection of excellent pieces that helped inform my artwork. Once you have looked at all of the examples you can start to see a bit of a pattern emerging, not in the medium that they were created, but in the focus of the models themselves. “What are they looking at” I hear you ask, well a better tomorrow of course! I suppose the point was that it’s something to aspire to, “this forward thinking, upward looking group of people that look like me, I can do this too”. I can’t help thinking there is something a bit ‘Disney’ about them, they all look real yet at the same time completely unrealistic. Maybe it’s my typically British out look, but somehow I cant help but feel really uneasy and pessimistic about them. However, ever since going to china I have been fascinated by the culture and have always wanted to create artwork about it.

I think my image could be viewed in two ways. The first is from the point of view of the people who created the original Chinese posters. You can see the comparatively ugly, western views and ideologies seeping their way into the Chinese poster style hero. The suspiciously Ai Weiwei looking character appears to be up to no good promoting chaos, disorder and darkness onto the chinese people.
In contrast the image could be looked at in a softer way, seeing this influential figure (Ai Weiwei) taking part in a western game called Chinese Whispers. No irony is lost as you can plainly see that both people are in fact of chinese origin. From his shadowy position in the image you can see that all is not well, he is almost hiding behind the radiant girl in red, who we can only assume signifies china itself. So it starts to become clear, from everything we know of Ai Weiwei with his political views of human rights in china, this is about him and others slowly breaking down the barriers of old china that we see in the posters, by pushing freedom of speech. I suppose you could see the image is a reflection of how I see China changing, with the use of modern technology free speech will inevitably creep it’s way in.
Whichever way you look at the image it evokes a certain amount of mystery and although only loosely based on the Chinese Propaganda posters, it successfully hits on the subject I was aiming for.

There is a cheeky twist relating to the article in the front of this weeks Diary illustration for the FT. It was an exceptionally good article this week, great subject. I have no idea why, but I love drawing oriental people, yes, this is the weirdest thing I have ever written in a blog post. Please enjoy

See the full article and illustration HERE

If I could describe this weeks Diary illustration for the FT as a race, this one would very definitely be a sprint. I had my rough ok’d at 11pm wednesday night with the final piece due in 9am thursday morning. Originally the “Famous British sculptors” name was written in to the article, but when I was told it was going to be removed it really helped with freeing the image up. Which did make it a lot easier to complete the illustration in such a short time. I dont necessarily think that it being a very short deadline diminishes the quality of the image, I think it just makes me a lot faster at thinking of ideas.

This weeks illustration for the FT comes with a pretty good story. On Monday 8th the art director contacted me to ask if i wanted to illustrated the diary for them, no stress there I thought. Then I look up from my phone to realise I am not sat at home, I am in fact 200 miles away sat in a motorway service station with my partner and friends. I read on to learn this isn’t the only reason I should feel the pressure; the article is written by the top dog, chief editor, Lionel Barber. Luckily my holiday didn’t interfere to much as on wednesday morning (24 hours before the deadline) I would be racing back done the M40 to get into the studio and finish off the job. My saving grace is that i have brought my newly brought laptop, which I got for this very reason. I could tell things were going well when I got an email to say Lionel is “Very, very impressed”. Surprisingly I actually felt quite stress free and it was a pretty joyous experience with very few hurdles. Hopefully I wont need to travel 600 miles on my next job but at least I know I can do it to good effect!

Allow me to introduce Michael Sandel, the American political philosopher and my subject for the ‘FT Lunch’ this week. I sent a few choices this time, but thankfully they chose my favourite!

see the full article HERE

There are a few ‘firsts’ with this image. One being that there are no people to be seen, which is pretty huge for me. The 2nd and probably biggest thing is that it was 100% completed using mono-print. It has been moving that way for a while now, due to a few factors within the printing process. The main one being that the end product or professional finished quality is so much nicer than pencil. I am a big fan of it’s organic line quality, it’s use is set to grow even more from here.

Its 9pm on wednesday 20th, I’ve finally finished all the drawing and scanned it all in. All that is left is to arrange it on the computer and slap on some colour, I’m thinking 2 hours maximum, then i can get to bed! At the blink of an eye its 3.30am, where did those 6 hours go? Progress on the image has completely stalled, its going nowhere. Something is wrong with the image but I just cant seem to work out what it is, nothing will fit. It’s that dead, still time of night where I cant have a break, no time to rest and think. Even Itunes has ran out of ideas and become silent, all 30gb of it! As I look at the screen blankly my eyes begin to shut, I can feel the screen’s warm glow. As i open my eyes im no longer sat at my computer in cold dark England, I’m there, I’m in Brazil, I can feel it, I can smell it, it’s all around me. I have it, i know what the image needs, it’s like Zeus himself has sat down beside me, patted me on the back and said “Alright mate, you thought of trying this?”. As i blink, its all gone, the buzz of happy, joyful people all around me has turned into the buzz of my computer. Zeus is nowhere to be seen, all I’am left with is an idea. Oh ok, so its a bit of an exaggeration, but we all like happy endings!!

Read Janan Ganeshs full article here

A most excellent article this week by Tony Hall. There were so many points in the piece that I could have chosen to illustrate, however I couldn’t miss the opportunity to draw so many people. Any excuse to knock out a load of mono printing. The final print out is some what different in the colour strength but that is something I have gotten used to now, it being newspaper print and all. I have included a few individual drawings in the post this time to show my process.

read the full article here