Oh hello. I thought I should let you know what I’ve been up to since the last update…

..where do I start?

Right - on the 30th July I drove down to Swindon with my girlfriend to check out Steve Rack’s Toe Fluff exhibition. I was one of the lucky artists to have their work selected for the show! After a bit of a chinwag with Steve, my girlfriend and I both purchased a toe fluff print each. So many talented artists out submitted work to this, it made it very difficult which to choose!

I’ve now got myself a new (and muchly needed) portfolio website. It’s running on something called Cargo, which basically means I don’t really need to mess around with the coding of a website to make it work. There is now quite a bit of my work on show there. Photos from the toe fluff exhibition can be found here.

Okay… what else? OH YES — I’ve recently sorted out the details of getting some of my art printed properly. On nice high quality paper and not printed out of my rubbish HP home printer. We’re talking proper Gliclee printing. I should have some more details on this in the future, so watch this space as I’m only going to get a small amount printed!!

Finally- I’ve recently finished work on a piece for a rather well known charity. Details of which I can’t really talk about now, but will post more details up when I can.

I’m currently busy with colouring in a black and white only illustration. It’s interesting working out how it’s going to turn out as I’m so used to colour!! I’m sure I’ll post some work in progress over the coming days to get some feedback.

Speak soon!

It’s been a whole month since I put anything up on my blog- appalling! If you’re a follower of me on twitter then todays update will be of no news to you, however, if you know nothing about be, or are just a casual follower of the blog then I have a couple of newish artworks to share.

The first being this:

My submission to the Toe Fluff exhibition by Steve Rack. I really enjoyed working on this drawing. The toe fluff character’s shape really lent itself to my style of artwork and I would say on the whole this has turned out quite nicely. The exhibition is going to take place from 27th July - 11th August at the post modern gallery in Swindon. I can’t wait! Due to the overwhelming amount of support and submissions, Steve is also looking for a London gallery interested in exhibiting the work. Let him know if you have any contacts!

My second bit of artwork to share with you is this:

Another submission piece, this time for a collaborative idea dreamt up by Uberkraaft (aka. Matt Williams) and Lesley Barnes- To design a character who will play in Colonel Windpipe’s Musical Brigade. The two criteria all artists must stick to is that their band member must be marching from right to left, and that their uniform matches the rest of the band’s.

It was great fun to work on something quick and simple for once. I’m so used to working on pieces that easily take a couple of weeks worth of evenings to complete that it felt weird actually having this done and not feeling like I never want to look at it again!

Both the toefluff exhibition and Colonel Windpipe’s marching band are still taking submissions as of writing this, so if you’re interested in getting your work included in either, it’s not too late!

That’s it on the ‘showing off artwork’ front. If you remember from my last update, I mentioned I was working on a poster. I would say to date it has definitely been one of the more complicated pieces I’ve worked on, maybe the most complex. I would like to say it’s finished, and in truth it is, but I’m sitting on it at the moment as I’m not 100% sure about the colour and composition (I know it’s a little late to worry about the latter now that the whole thing has been drawn).

I will get around to uploading it soon. The picture is massive. I originally sketched the idea on an A3 sheet of paper (usually I only ever stick to A4) so when displaying the image at a relatively small size doesn’t do the thing any justice. It has also taken up a huge amount of my time. It’s been something I’ve been going back to and working on in bits for easily the past 4 weeks. I work slowly I guess.

I’ll call a close on this blog post now. I’m starting to ramble again and that’s never good material for reading. Next update shall be the poster.

Talk to you later, sooner, looner, sater.

A work in progress on a poster I’m currently colouring. It’s probably the biggest canvas size I’ve worked on. Been very productive on this rainy saturday! Might post more later today dependent on how it all goes!

Hello hello. I’ve long since finished my contribution to Steve Rack’s Toe Fluff project. All in all it took around a weeks worth of evenings cramming in some time here and there to get it complete.

Steve Rack has invited illustrators from all around the world to customize his Toe Fluff character as they see fit! Go and have a look at the website to see some amazing artwork from some very talented peeps. I’ve already discovered a few new favourite illustrators through browsing the gallery myself!

A select amount of the submissions will also be exhibited from late July until Early August in Swindon.

I shan’t go in to more details than that on here. If you want to find out more then you may do so by visiting the Toe Fluff website!

My toefluff has also been mentioned in this article too!

On a side-note. I do apologise for the general quietness on my blog as of recently. I don’t have much access to the interwebs outside of work at the moment so uploading new artwork to share has been a little troublesome. Internet access should be rectified soon so fear not (as I know you have been fearing lots), I shall supply the goods. Eventually.

Part of my toefluff submission -just finished colouring in this little fella.

This is a portion of the sketch I started yesterday morning for a project called Toe Fluff by Steve Rack. Check out his website for more information and for other contributing artists interpretations of his toe fluff character. There’s some really talented artists that have already submitted their take own take! Very exciting stuff.

I’ve finished the pencil sketch now and I’m currently in the process of cleaning it up on the computer! I’m guessing this is going to be a 3-4 night job so if I’m good I might be able to get this done by the end of the weekend.

Right, I better get on with this before I fall asleep at the keyboard.

Hello! I now have a dribbble account that was kindly donated to me via a very kind person on twitter. The website is still in it’s early phase and is invite only at the moment but looks like a great way for me to expand my audience as well as show off little snippets of progress I make on my illustrations. At the moment there are two screen shots of sections of a piece I’m working on for a friend.

I’ll still update my tumblr account often, but any little “shots” of artwork will be uploaded on to my dribbble account as and when they’re done. It just keeps things on this page neater and allows me to share my work with more people, quicker! Hope you understand!

I don’t have any invites to hand out yet, but when (and if) I get given any, leave a comment below with a link to your work and I’ll send you a invite.

From my basic calculations (ie. checking dates of posts on tumblr) I can tell you that it’s been 2 3 weeks since last finishing a picture! You might think 3 weeks is more than sufficient time to draw. I do too. I’m worried this blog is going to become a list of excuses interspersed by artwork, but I won’t let that happen, by simply not supply any excuses.

I still think I’m progressing and refining my style a little bit at a time. If anything, my confidence is constantly building. I’m starting to like what I draw a bit more and become satisfied with the final product. This gives me motivation to want to draw more so it’s a good thing!

Lunchtime reading - @jeremyville a good source of inspiration!