Filipina

Kalinga

TwinsUK 21st Anniversary Party

So I haven't blogged for awhile! Lazy me, I haven't got an excuse apart from being away for 3 weeks on tour but I've been back for almost three now! anyway a few weeks before i went away I went to the Twins UK 21st Anniversary party and was working there as a "Portrait artist". I had a badge and everything - It was a surreal experience, I felt like I was missing something, a twin!

As you can see from the above picture I was charging £5.00 per portraits

And here are some seriously small business cards I made, I mucked up a bit on the size.  They were almost impossible to read but I guess they're quite cute.

Josephine and Jennifer

Susan and Debra

Christine and Janet

 I found being a portrait artist a bit intense...well, doing it on the spot anyway.  It was so disconcerting having people there watching and judging you as you drew, although on the whole, everyone was lovely and really encouraging.  But I tried my best under the pressure.  I didn't have time for a break as  a lot of ladies wanted their portraits done but some twins very kindly got me some food from the buffet so i could at least try and eat something, I can't remember their names and I forgot to take a picture but if you two read this thank you very much!

So, anyone for a portrait......?

Vegetable Garden

One of my housemates has been really getting into gardening lately and our conservatory has been filled with pots and trays of sprouting seedlings all veg!  Some have grown quite a lot so they'll probably be ready to plant in the garden soon. 

vegetables!

Tea

I started this just before easter hence the hot cross buns but only finished it yesterday as i was working on some illustrations for The Carton.  The dresser is vaguely inspired by one owned by my grandma that now sits in my mums house,  I remember having afternoon tea with her and helping to make salmon pate sandwiches.  Our favourite treat though were the jelly shaped mice which had a chocolate drop nose and a squirty cream tail.

Island sisters

When i was doing some research for a character i found a nice picture of three girls, i'm not sure when the photo was taken but it could of been 30's,40's or 50's ?! anyway the first picture is just a copy of that photo and the one below is part of a larger story idea i've started to have for these characters.....

Reveille and Halo Halo Tour 2013

Yay! Halo Halo will be touring France with Reveille in late June early July!!! here is a poster i made for the tour, one day i want to get tattoos like this although maybe not all over my arms.  

Moss

A new Character, i should really finish a story rather then creating new half finished idea,  ahh Ok that is my next goal! ^_^

Little Island

Drew this after watching a lovely documentary about Tove Jansson , i must work much harder!

Ifugao

I've been doing some research on tribes of the Philippines as i wanted to do a series of prints, i haven't made any prints yet but i have done a little drawing.  I really wanted to go to the Banaue rice terraces when we were in the Philippines but we were kind of in the middle of the country and the Cordillera region where the terraces are situated is way up north,  we got to see Mayon Volcano which was pretty awesome but next time i'm gonna go here   \/

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The people that have cultivated and looked after these terraces for 2000 years are the Ifugao and their culture revolves around the planting and harvesting of the rice.  Their clothes are similarly coloured to those of the sami people that i was researching before although they wear a bit more red.

                                         The Rice terraces have grown out of her headress

 

Strange thoughts

Under the sea

When we were in the Philippines we spent a few days on the beach and I managed to get a good haul of lovely shells and dead coral. I'm going to give them away as presents but in the meantime I have two big jars of them on my desk. So i've turned some of them into fabric prints.   

The turtle was an idea i got from a Japanese story that my band Halo Halo have written a song about. Its one of the earliest tales about time travel, we're into things like that. The story is a about a fisherman named Urashima Taro who rescues a turtle and is then taken under the ocean to meet the turtles father. The turtle turns out to be a Princess of the sea called Otohime. She gives him a wooden box as a gift and tells him that it will keep him safe but that he must never open it. After a few days he decides he needs to go back to see his ailing mother but when he returns to land everything has changed and his mother is gone. He asks someone if they recall a fisherman called Urashima Taro but he is told that there was a fisherman of that name but that he had disappeared many years before. In shock he opens the wooden box and a cloud of white smoke bursts out. All of a sudden he is very old, with a bent back and a long white beard. He hears the princess' voice whisper to him, "I told you not to open that box  for in it was your old age"!

So Voila! A turtle with a castle on its back. I think I'm going to do more pictures for that story so back to work!

                           

                      

               

Happy new year!

Wow a whole year has past and i have still been pretty dreadful and posting i have one excuse for not posting for the last month as i have been in the Philippines visiting my family and doing christmasy things, it was lovely but now im back home to face the snow and the real world and now that i am unemployed and a professional pauper i am determined to make drawing my bread and butter so this blog will now become a regular thing! hurrah!

   Anyway here are two drawings i did before we left the first is a portrait of the famous occultist and magician Aleister Crowley and the second is a new tree person but with some added tarot imagery.  I have been getting into tarot recently, reading promethea by Alan Moore and watching Alan moore documentaries! Well enjoy ^_^