Students

Following on from Jeremy Kyle, I am now drawing 'University Challenge' teams.

Co-incidentally, I have been asked to produce an illustration comparing uni students to art students and here are the results, as drawn from real-life episodes. Luckily this week the first ever art school appeared on the programme, making this commission a whole lot easier!

I am proud to be a double art school graduate!

Wee Exhibition in Bijou, Leith Links

My pal of many-a-year Miss Weezil Gribinson, or Liza Robinson as she is actually called, has kindly asked me to adorn the walls of her lovely little bistro 'Bijou' in Leith Links, Edinburgh, with some animals. Always eager to oblige, I am hanging my work on Thursday night. It is a small collection of animals and characters who featured in another exhibition I had last year with fellow illustrator Vicki Gausden.

They are all available to buy as digital prints for a very reasonable price!

Here is a lovely lion.

London Here I Come (again)

WOW! What a busy week I have lined up. After a kind of boring weekend I now have soooo much to do before Saturday, when I fly off to East Midlands Airport. There is a single launch gig on Saturday night to celebrate the release of Superevolver's single 'Viva La Revolution' (OUT ON MONDAY 8TH NOVEMBER, AVAILABLE ON I-TUNES SO BUY IT!) for which I did the artwork, and on Monday I am travelling to London to visit Walker Books. Exciting times!

This is one of the roughs for my book. It is a hedgehogs' equivalent of the side of my fridge where I keep all sorts of unimportant information and photos.

And another fox......

Here is the grumpy fox again. He is searching for Harry and Barry the squirrel twins!

I am working on quite a mixture of stuff at the moment which is great. I am also really loving my time up at the art college with Kate, Casey, Juuuuuuuulia and Via. Haven't actually worked with any students yet but there's plenty of time for that! Just back from a full-on weekend of gigs in Dublin; wont be able to afford to go back there for a while, HOW expensive?!!! Still recovering from that. Time for a nap.......

SUPEREVOLVER ARE SUPER

Best brief in ages....I have been asked to produce the artwork for Leicester band Superevolver's new single, featuring Kasabian's Tom Meighan.

It will be released on November 8th and proceeds go to charity so make sure you download it!

This is the cover, and I am also busy producing a booklet for the inside of the CD when it is released.

I love Superevolver.

New work

I am writing and illustrating a story for children at the moment and this is the very first rough for it! I love drawing foxes. This is a particularly grumpy fox.

I am back at Edinburgh College of Art tomorrow as Artist in Residence and I cant wait! I have a studio space with the Masters students and am planning to spend a lot of time in the Print Workshop (where I will be working with the students 1 day a week).

It will be good to be surrounded by people again after a lonely summer in my studio by myself!

Latest from Jeremy Kyle

As usual it has been ages since I posted anything on here so thought I'd share my latest selection of gentlemen from the Kyle in the past 2 weeks. What an attractive bunch they are too. Still not sure what I'm going to do with my 200+ drawings, I'm hoping for some genius inspiration as ever.

I am getting a website update today so I will add some of these drawings onto that, as well as some other stuff I've been doing (if I can find anything I like enough!).

I have been taking it easy the past few weeks and helping the MA illustrators through their last month of working. Go see their show if you can this week, especially Ms Holly Cust's selection of animals. She is ace.

It's my second big race of the year next week, Glasgow's half marathon. Cant wait for it to be over so I can maybe get a lie-in one day! Until then, I will leave you with Jeremy's lovely men!

JEREMY KYLE, YES OR NO!!!!?

I have been spending my mornings lately swimming a LOT and then (after stuffing my face) drawing all the victims of the awful daytime TV do-gooder, Mr Jeremy Kyle. I am now on sketchbook number 6 and have scanned all of them. I now have the task of putting them together in some kind of amazing piece of work......I feel a screenprint coming on.

DID I MENTION THAT I AM ECA ARTIST IN RESIDENCE FOR ILLUSTRATION 2010/11?!!!

Drawing Book Poster

Hooray! Here is a great poster advertising the Drawing Book exhibition.

I love the drawing of the man and the pencil which I photographed during playtime at one of the schools we worked in. I have to confess that I didn't have many letters drawn by the kids, so I got some of the illustration masters students to help me out by drawing half of them. I think it's hard to tell which ones are which though which says a lot for the talents of Holly and Casey!

It's a lovely sunny day today and I think it's time for an ice cream and a sit on the balcony with the best views in Edinburgh. Lucky me!

Drawing Book

The degree show is going up, students are upset, it's freezing outside and I'm colouring in birds drawn by 10 year olds. These are apparently both vultures, and whilst I have coloured one accordingly, the more chicken-looking one is slightly more open for debate as to its species.

I am meant to be designing a poster for the 2nd year's Drawing Book exhibition, but this was way more fun.

Back to work......

Domestic Bliss

I have been working with the fourth years on a poster to advertise their drawing talents.

Their brief was to draw five household objects from their homes as linear or monochromatic forms. I then took the drawings and created this screenprinted poster.

I went for a kind of seventies Penguin book cover feel, and it's looking quite splendid on the studio wall!

Drawing Book project

I have been working in 5 schools in Edinburgh for the past 3 weeks, alongside eca 2nd year illustration students and author Vivian French. We are working on a project called Drawing Book which consists of the writing and illustrating of one book per school, with the children contributing ideas and pictures. It has been really good fun (and hard work), and the images that we have come away with are hilarious. The students are also writing books, and all the work is to be exhibited in the Scottish Storytelling Centre from June 5th.

Sunset Song

I have no image for this on my work computer I'm afraid, but I have discovered this link to a project I have been working on with publishing students from Napier University. I have produced a book jacket design alongside 6 images for an ebook version of the story. You can see the kind of thing we have come up with on the banner to the blog below.

http://napiersunsetsong.com/about-us/

Quick update

I have been told by my students to update my blog because I am useless at doing it lately.

So here is what I have been doing..........

I recently(ish) went to the book launch for "The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner" at Napier Uni's amazing Craighouse campus. Everyone did a brilliant job organising the event and the book looks great. While I was there I saw a preview of the soon to be published "Thirty Nine Steps" which I also did the cover for. Looking forward to another book launch for that!

I am now working on the next book which is "Sunset Song" by Lewis Grassic Gibbon. I have a lot to do and not much time, as usual.

So what with all this, trips to follow Kasabian all over the place, and my job at eca I am not being very good at updating my blog, or my website.

I will try harder though!