Quirkyjoe

I’ve been working with artist and writer Greg Allum, developing illustrations for his story ‘The Anteater That Didn’t’ – a tale of love, loss and cake. I’ve included some Anteater images below, along with my collected daily doodles from March. Greg’s last illustrated work, The Sail, is now available in store at Brighton Waterstones and online here

My Drawing From The Imagination course starts again next Monday at Evolution Arts. It’s a course that uses various prompts and starting points to develop ideas through drawing and imagining rather than through observation. I’ve found it has served as both a confidence boosting path into drawing for those who have felt intimidated by the idea of learning to draw and also a refreshing and fun challenge to those who are experienced drawing course attendees.  Students on the course described a freedom in drawing they hadn’t felt before. The course is divided into five themed sessions, each with a series of starting points that build a path from which images develop and ideas are explored. More information about the course and Evolution Arts here 

I went to a double book launch last week for two books published by Brighton Nightwriters. I picked up copies of these two books and a third I’d missed the launch for, having designed the covers for all three.

The Shorelines anthology is available here

A Feeling For Crows is here  

And A Gallery Of Husbands is here

Yesterday I attended the Big Draw’s award ceremony at two temple place in London. It was an afternoon of celebrating the innovative and inspiring activities that made last October’s big draw events so successful. I felt very privileged to be collecting a ‘highly commended’ award for the Big Draw event I’d organised with Natalie from Bexhill’s De La Warr Pavilion. And I was pretty pleased to get my hands on a certificate designed by Big Draw patron, Quentin Blake (see image below). I’ve continued my own drawing project, a daily doodle, and have included February’s efforts here.

This was probably the biggest and most challenging  illustration project I had last year. A set of 32 Illustrations for two books in Gary Wassner’s ‘The Adventures of Cristopher and Erica’ series. The first book in the series had already been published with the work of another illustrator (the awesome Adam Gustavson) and originally the client was looking for someone who could match his light, painterly, naturalistic style. I was concerned that it would be a struggle to try and fit my work to someone else’s style. But I was soon encouraged to explore the mystery and drama in the stories and found that my responses to the adventures of Cris and Erica were very much my own.

Five illustrations from books two and three in The Adventures of Cristopher and Erica are below and the books are also available on Amazon

Oh! It’s my first blog post in over a month. I have been very busy, mainly working on BMX-based animation sequences for this - One Way Up 3D – but unlike last year, I’ve found that the busyness hasn’t overwhelmed me. I haven’t had to drop everything else to focus solely on animating (although I have dropped quite a lot of sleep). I’ve been making time for other things and other people to fit along side the demands of an animation project.  On Monday’s I’ve been delivering this course – Drawing from the Imagination – and every day this year so far I’ve drawn a kind of ‘daily doodle’. It’s been challenging to be so disciplined to do this kind of drawing everyday (especially on days when I’ve already done 100 or so drawings for animation), but also it is so relaxing, letting go and drawing without expectations, finding a path into an image and exploring. It is like yoga. I expect.

Below are my daily doodles for January, collected together in all their chaos

Recently I’ve been doodling more. Some of these drawings have been little notes or sketches expressing how I feel about something (like when I was excited about the Big Draw – I did the sketch with the pencils and big eyes below). It’s made me wonder if I could do a sketch like that every day, a kind of doodle-diary. Also below, some development images for The Boy Who Lived in Rainbows cover design. The book is now available here 

In the last couple of months I’ve been very much involved in developing an animated dog called Gus. He’s the narrator of a proposed ‘dogumentary’ about the doggy obsession booming in New York City and around the world. The animated story of Gus will run alongside the main story points of the real-life contributors, providing commentary and a something of a dog’s-eye-view. Director, Rani Khanna, has set up a KickStarter to provide funding to ensure the project can be continued and completed in the New Year. So if you are interested in the project or can even spare some money to see it to fruition – have a look at the links to the trailer, website and KickStarter page and some of the development images below…

Oh My Dog! Trailer

Oh My Dog! Kickstarter

www.ohmydogmovie.com