Wyrd Sisters interview

I've just located the video interview with director Andrew Nash, filmed on the Lace Market stage during the set build for Wyrd Sisters. I remember this being filmed but hadn't yet discovered it on youtube until tonight. Behind Andrew, you can see one of the cogs I painted on the back wall, along with some of my illustrative Discworld graphics that appeared in the video art shown when Granny Weatherwax did her big spell to move Lancre 15 years into the future, at the end of Act I - ooh, exciting that some of my humble brushwork and illustration efforts are on youtube!

It brings back fond memories of the show too, check it out below!

The Postcard Project

Last autumn I sent off a postcard I'd designed (using one of my Battersea doodles, entitled 'Toast Battersea') to a company called Advertising Exhibitions, who had put a call out on a job site for artists working in any discipline to design a standard sized postcard showing a piece of their work, and write a little about their work or working process on the back. It then asked you to mail your postcard to the company's base in surrey and they would scan all the cards they received for their constantly updated online gallery. The original would then be sent on to a relevant arts company or be available for purchase at a future exhibition, thus gaining the artist some exposure. So I had sent off my postcard a few months ago and, if I'm honest, forgotten all about it! Then my mum happened to be googling me to look up any new doodles I'd put on this blog and she found a search result which took her to this online gallery and - there was my postcard!

You can check it out here: http://advertisingexhibitions.co.uk/blog/?p=44
...and there are lots of other interesting designs up there too.

I like the added texture in this image as I made my postcard using thick watercolour paper. I produced a few other postcard designs at the time, based on my Battersea Doodles, cropping some of the images and using the full versions of some others and quite liked them. I'm thinking of producing some postcards or using my doodles on other media for sale so, watch this space!!

Thanks To His Sister

Earlier this week I had fun creating a poster for Quirksome Theatre's upcoming production of Thanks To His Sister by Robin Acland. The shows will be on in Spring and you can read more details, including a plot synopsis, here. I was able to catch their last production - Joe Orton's The Erpingham Camp - which was a fantastically funny dark comedy, so I'm looking forward to seeing this one!

I had the idea for the poster (directly below) before I produced the thumbnail version to be used as a holding image (below, bottom) and wanted to base it around a theme of paper and daffodils because the play's central character, Brian, is a student struggling with his final dissertation on the poet William Wordsworth.

As his deadline nears, he becomes stressed and obsessed and begins experiencing visions of the historical figures who roam the pages of his thesis. I thought I would illustrate this scatterbrained student on the verge of a breakdown by having the paper stacks which adorn his room (or floor-based filing system, with which I personally am sadly more than familiar) morph themselves into daffodils which start to grow and creep up out of his tatty jumper and threaten to take over.

Good plan?
I thought so, then realised I'd never done any origami before and a daffodil is not exactly the easiest thing to start with. So I went straight to trusty old youtube and found a brilliant tutorial. After a couple of attempts and deciding to combine photography and illustration, I think I got away with it!

Happy New Year!

I can't quite believe it's halfway through January already - or that I haven't posted in over a month! Things got busier toward Christmas, I had some fun helping out with a play in Nottingham and then of course spent time with family over the festive period. But now, January's here, and it is unapologetically freezing. I am working on more Battersea doodle ideas and an Unfortunate Dragon project, but, for now, here's a quick doodle I did today, not related to anything in particular. It just popped into my head earlier when I glanced out of the window at the remaining snow, and I sketched it quickly whilst the image was still fresh in my mind.

Poor little robin, he has no friends in the whole world (...wide web)