posted: July 7, 2010

In November I had a call from Sheri Gee, Art Director at the Folio Society offering me the chance to illustrate the cover and eight interior plates for a book by the name of Brat Farrar. Brat Farrar? As a title, it does have a certain cryptic appeal. Is it an anagram? (Arab fart rr!), an onomatoepoeia? (trouser rip followed by an embarrassed sinking back into one's chair). Before I get lost in this Call My Bluff riff, I'll just tell you- it's the name of the mysterious protagonist in Josephine Tey's 1949 thriller- a tale of intrigue and identity theft amongst the horsey set.
First I had to prove my mettle with an audition piece- if it didn't pass muster the project was off. I got hold of a copy of the book from the local library (a large print edition with a hideous photographic front cover). I read it and started making plenty of thumbnails and notes.

Thankfully the (right hand) image shown above was approved without a hitch and we moved on to selecting other images.
At this stage the technicalities of book binding came into play and I had to be mindful of selecting scenes at fairly regular intervals and picking captions to accompany them. I can be a rather slapdash reader: deathly-dull financial copy has turned me into an inveterate skimmer- but I impressed myself with my command of detail and my ability to answer the editor's queries over the minutiae of character and setting .

The whole process was both absorbing and painless with Sheri (and her editor) proving to be adept and sympathetic. I had between November and March to complete everything but was so involved with the work that I finished everything by January.
I've not yet received a sample copy of the book so can't post photos but here are the final images- the cover (minus type and spine adornments) and eight interior pieces.

posted: July 1, 2010

What's this? Two posts in as many months?! This takes me back to my giddy early blogging days way back in 2007 when my gauche logorrhea knew no bounds. I was positively proto Twitter-y.
The image above is for the New Republic, AD-ed with aplomb by Joe Heroun; I was given free rein initially and the only comments made were relevant and insightful (crazy, I know!). Granted, it's a rather offhand take on the catastrophic Gulf oil spill- equating it with a dog fouling the carpet- but the thrust of the fascinating article is towards the recent bout of US Brit-bashing, rather than the environmental calamity that provoked it. The author, Geoffrey Wheatcroft looks at the 'Special' (often unrequited) relationship between the UK and the US. The Brits are characterized as being rather needy with the Yanks more ambivalent. The original article should be in the current issue of the New Republic on newsstands now. Or to New Republic subscribers here.
Next up is a piece for SooJin Buzelli at PLANADVISER (their shouty caps, not mine), AD-ed with her usual lightness of touch. Here the key words given to me were 'denial' and 'making problems for oneself'. The appealing Three Wise Monkeys in the roughs were sadly bumped at the last mo but I think the tool (arf) sawing through the branch makes for a more direct image.

posted: June 10, 2010

So I had this long entry prepared (roughed out in Apple Mail for some reason and saved in my drafts folder) but I seem to've accidentally wiped it. It's probably just as well. I can't recall the post exactly but I will probably have been blethering on about 2010 not being the most bountiful year of my decade of freelancing and how- having resisted it for years- I'd being doing a bit of lecturing and tuition work. And I'll have been saying about how impressed I was with American students (in the charm stakes as much as anything) versus their often painfully unforthcoming British counterparts. But it's maybe better that such musings have vanished.

A general thank you to the staff and students at AUCB (The Arts University College at Bournemouth), the University of Plymouth and The Arts Center (visiting London from CA) for giving me the opportunity to reflect on my work and to pass on some of my expertise. Assembling a slideshow was a curious experience; something akin to a near death experience having my work life flash before my eyes.

So a tip of my cap (but of course I wear a cap) to Joel Lardner, Lisa Richardson (at AUCB), Ashley Potter (UoP), the staff and studes at Arts Center LA (including the lovely Paul Rogers, Ann Field and Owen Freeman).

Thanks too to the 3x3-ers for awarding me silver in the books category. It was for the Folio Society bunch and I'll show the work in July when the book's published.

A few recent drawings seeing as that's what we're here for.

posted: March 29, 2010

Circus strongman heroically lifts groaning shelves of animals? Only the masterful, indulgent AD SooJin Buzelli could allow such a willfully obscure metaphor for the overburdened UK public sector pensions funds. Thank you SJB.
Other ADs please note that I'm happy to come up with more straightforward and less fanciful visual symbolism.
Away from paid work I'm hoping to start a printed textiles course soon. That and giving a lecture on my career to date to freshfaced illustration students are my latest efforts to stop becoming Ben Gunn.

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