Illustration Friday - "Missing"

Missing teeth

Variant 28

Here are a series of images I did a little earlier in the year for independent free arts magazine Variant, for a piece on Climate Change, Natural Resources and the Future of Capitalism. For more details see http://www.variant.randomstate.org/issue28.html

I used it as an opportunity to try out a few new techniques, including the use of brass-rubbing crayon and stencils/ paper cut-outs. It was also a great chance to work closer with a more graphic use of ideas in conjunction with my partner N, as a prelude to further collaboration in the future. Watch this space!

Click on any Image to enlarge

Vin de Noix

I am currently in the process of decocting a large batch ( 20 L or so!) of Vin de Noix (Walnut Wine).

It's basically red wine ( le gros rouge qui tache) fortified with spirit ( brandy in this case), preserved with sugar and honey, and flavoured with green ( wet) walnuts and spices, all left to macerate and steep ( with the occasional shake) for 4 months or so in a cool dark place.

The end result, if the alchemy has worked, is "christmas in a glass" (and half my presents solved).
For now, all I can do is wait and hope and agitate the huge plastic container when the mood takes me - and let Time work its magic.

Here's a label I've created for the resulting liquor.

Observation: Boy Eating Crisp

I did this sketch the other morning , sitting in the l'Hirondelle Café on Hoe St. Being the summer holidays the place was jammed to the rafters with mums, buggies, pushchairs, babies and kids.
One small boy was eating a packet of crisps, and, rather than wolfing them down as you might expect, he was placing each one far back into his mouth with an almost liturgical solemnity, as if carefully placing them on a shelf at the back of his head, and almost dislocating his jawbone, snake-style, to get the snack passed his teeth without breaking it. Very funny to behold and done completely unselfconsciously.

( I am here continuing my exploration of the simplest use of colour and line - I have, in the past, had a tendency to "over-egg"!)

Computing Which? Commission: Sept '07

Just completed a job for regular client Mark Massey at Computing Which?

The brief
"Basic idea:
It's for a feature on Free Security Software, and the main aspect we want to highlight is that they are all FREE.

So, a shop front with 'SECURITY SOFTWARE' as the main name of the shop, with lots of brighly coloured stickers and signs plastered all over the shop front. Sign to say things like...
FREE!
NADA!
GRATIS!
NICHTS!
ZILCH!
etc etc"

Normally ( and particularly recently) I might have used a more restrained palette but here the job called for bright colours, so thats what I've given them. The figure was an optional extra but for me really helps to pull the whole thing together and affords the composition a certain dynamism that it would otherwise lack.

My Anniversary

August 2nd '07 marks 10 years to the (very significant) day when first I clapped eyes on, and grabbed the hand of, my Lammastide lover N - the absolute love of my life and the best thing to ever happen to me by the longest of chalks. You are my world and everything in it!

Doux présent du présent
Fraîcheur de la nuit
Chaleur de ma vie

Jacques Prévert, 'Alicante'

Illustration Friday - "Moon"

Here's my first attempt at an Illustration Friday topic - now I've just got to work out how to upload it on the IF site.