Lock and Load

I've been working over the past couple of months on a limited edition hand-made alphabet book about different types of beards. I've developed a real appreciation for hand-made things over the years and I've been striving to strengthen the craft element in my illustration and design work.

I think I underestimated the work and precision involved when I started this project. As I designer I'm very used to using InDesign. This makes it easy to make changes and edits to the layout and typography right up until the job is printed. Creating something that is entirely hand-made is a very different process. It's definitely more restrictive but it forces you to really think and plan and make definite decisions before you start. It's a lot more labour intensive but that's what inevitably makes it more satisfying.

The job is well on it's way now. I've screen printed all of the illustrations and have almost finished printing all of the letterpress. Setting the press to align the letterpress with the screen prints was quite an exacting process (I'll never take InDesign for granted again!). Once all of the printing is completed I intend to embroider over the prints and then hand bind the pages.

Sense of Place

Much of my work has to do with the man-made environment and how this landscape is our autobiography. What we build represents who we are, our architecture is our language. Oftentimes the message that this language gives is different from our personal experience of a place. This image is about how memories and experiences of a place colour our opinion of the place.

Playroom exhibition

I've been really busy over the past couple of weeks helping to organise a group exhibition entitled 'Play room'. There's 21 different artists and illustrators taking part in the exhibition which in on in the Dreamspace Gallery in East London from March 10 - 24. It's been really interesting if a little stressful at times getting involved in this project. This is the flyer for the event which I designed and this is the webpage created by Tom.  I've submitted some screen prints into the exhibition.

Urban Renewal

How I work is quite a meandering process. I never really know how something is going to turn out when I start out. I've always been a big fan of collage - it's flexible, you can position and reposition all the elements until it starts to feel right.

Screen printing

These are some screen prints I've recently made. I'm trying to move away from black, grey and silver and introduce some new colours. I've also been experimenting with different transparencies to create more depth and texture.

Cities of the future

I've been reading a lot lately about the future of urbanism and sustainable cities and this image is to do with that theme.

Abraded figures

Now that the research paper is almost finished I can concentrate again on my studio work. Here are some experiments I intent to develop further through screen printing. The original images are come photographs I took through a foggy window. I like the way the textures distort and corrupt the figures, it captures a certain moody atmosphere.