pick me up 2015

Pick Me Up at Somerset House is an excellent opportunity to keep up with the current trends in illustration. I've been every year since it started and there's always fresh and interesting work to see - this year I picked up on quite a bit of an 80s vibe! From the 2015 show, here are my favourites:

Plates from Lazy Oaf

April by Lizzy Stewart

Jack Cunningham's 3D printed dinosaurs:

Fashion models from Nomoco

A happy house by Elliot Kruszynski

And finally, these Russian dolls are fab - sadly I don't know who made them:

guitarist #1

The first in a series I'm working on at the moment.

domaine dujac

I illustrated Domaine Dujac for the latest issue of Noble Rot.

picame 2

Following on from the header I designed there's a feature on Picame about me and my work. Picame is a website offering a 'daily dose of creativity' in the form of news and artist features. You can see the full feature here.

picame

I designed a header for Picame, an Italian visual arts web magazine. Each time you refresh the page you get a new artist-designed header. Look out for the llamas!

the grand budapest hotel

Hurray for The Grand Budapest Hotel’s Oscar success last weekend. Wes Anderson is one of my favourite film directors. His films always look incredible, so it’s not surprising that illustrators and designers have found inspiration in his work. For my birthday last week I was given a print by Maxime Pecourt which based a pattern on some of the imagery from the latest film. Here are some more pieces inspired by the Magnificent Grand Budapest Hotel ( from top to bottom - Maxime Pecourt, Thibaud Herem, Peter Strain, Bartosz Kosowski, Kim Chapman)

valentine

soppy by philippa rice

I was given this as a Christmas present. I loved it so much that I wanted it to last but I almost read all the way through in one go! In Soppy, Phillipa Rice documents her relationship with her boyfriend as they move in together. It's a really sweet, funny and warm book, full of all the little details of a relationship that can often be overlooked - I think most couples would find elements of their own relationships among this collection of comics. It's drawn beautifully in black and red and if you're interested in how she made it watch here.

edition hilde

I came across this simple but wonderful tumblr this week. Edition Hilde is simply a collection of portraits by illustrators Verena Herbst and Anne Baier. There are just a couple of pages at the moment but I hope this is a work in progress and that more will be added. Here are some of them:

2014 round up

I'm a bit late getting round to it but here are some of my highlights from the world of illustration in 2014:

Book

Shackleton's Journey by William Grill: I love this book! The detailed factual account alongside the delicate yet powerful illustrations make it compelling reading. There's a wonderful mix of imagery: portraits, scenes, equipment, maps and vignettes, which can give it the look and feel of a sketchbook, but at the same time make it so much more than that. The immensity of the undertaking and the experience of the explorers comes across wonderfully in the sheer volume of illustrations, alongside the expansive, sweeping landscape spreads.

Event

House of Illustration opens! I confess, I have yet to visit. But, I am delighted that illustration has a home now! It's increasingly being taken seriously as an art form: Somerset House's illustration showcase Pick Me Up has proved itself as a hotly anticipated annual event. And just look at the proliferation of quality, illustrated, independent magazines that have hit the shelves over recent years. With the opening of a dedicated space for illustration exhibitions, and it's commitment to showcasing new illustrators with it's illustrators fairs, the opening of the House of Illustration is really cementing illustration as a credible medium. I'm gutted to have missed the Quentin Blake exhibition (which apparently was rather excellent) and the Paddington show, but I'll be visiting Granary Square as soon as I can!

Discovery

I've come across a ton of fantastic new illustrators in 2014, but if pressed to name a favourite I would have to go with Nancy Liang. She first caught my eye with her 'midnight games' illustrations (see earlier post) and she's since added a whole bunch of new work to her portfolio. I especially like her monochrome images, which have a calm, mysterious quality about them. I got particularly excited by her GIFS: