Happy Christmas! This is my Gocco hand printed Christmas card.

Observer Graphic Short Story Prize 2009

My entry to the Observer/Cape Graphic Short Story Prize 2009.

Barnsdale Gardens Children's Poster

This is a kids poster I illustrated earlier in the summer for Barnsdale Gardens.

BBC Primary History Website.

Last year I helped in the redesigned of the BBC Primary History website, yesterday after a long wait the website went live. Above are just a few of my illustrations that are used on the site.

You can see the website here: www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory

Also if you look at the time line here you can see my illustrations in beautiful 3d effect, programed by Wolf at Luecker Interactive.

Blue Hare

Another experiment with a more limited pallet, this time yellow and blue. The green is where the two colours overlap. I think is some ways for this to really work the image needs to be simpler, perhaps this is what I will try next.

one colour experiment

This is an experiment in a restricted colour pallet, and Victorian typography. I've been looking at a lot of old music sheet covers on line and this was inspired by them. I'm hoping to find the time to do a few more pieces in a similar vein.

Health Service Journal

Recent editorial job for Health Service Journal.

Brand New Website Site

I've redesigned my portfollio website at www.smallmoonvalley.com I've added new work, and a nice new title page. Hopefully everything should display at a larger size now, as I think the images on the older site were a little small.

Ship In A Box

This was an idea I'd had for a while, I just needed an excuse to do it. (My mothers birthday present). I'd like to go on and make some more now, the most difficult part was cutting out the shapes which are printouts, glued on to mounting board, and then mat varnished. The mounting board is incredibly difficult to cut round even with a very sharp scalpel blade. I'm thinking I could use some sort of foam based product, that would be easier under the knife. Any suggestions greatly received.
The image was inspired by the folk song The Greenland Whale Fishery.

This is a self initiated piece, you probably need to click on it to view it larger as it doesn't really work too well scaled down.

Mackworth

Another snippet from my on going comic project, I was lucky enough to have some time before Christmas to work on it. This section is about my ancestors who lived in Mackworth a small village just outside Derby.

Gocco Christmas Card

This was my second attempt with my Gocco printer, and I found it much more problematic than my first try. I had trouble with one of the bulb's not going off and only half the screen exposing, then the battery's ran out, then my initial design was a little large which meant that the left hand side of the card didn't print very well. So I took a deep breath, tweaked the design and started again. I also discovered that the Gocco doesn't really like large areas of flat colour, especially when mixed with area's of small detail. I guess all these idiosyncrasies, and the restrictions they place on your design should add to the charm of the finished image? I was very tempted though just to turn on my computer and print it out from Photoshop, but I persevered!

Bakewell

I believe I posted the top half of this image way back when I started this blog. I have been so busy with commissions over the last year that haven't done much more to this project, but this last week I went back and looked at it. I had doubts about how I could make it interesting, it always felt a little self indulgent. I enjoyed imagining the faces and clothes of my ancestors, I had dates of birth, marriages, deaths and the occasional will, so drawing them was a way to make them more real to me - I just wasn't sure if any of this would be interesting to any one else. I think these uncertainty's took the wind of out my sails. I'd like to go back to it, but I think in order to have the confidence to take it forward it needs a completely new approach.

Times Educational Supplement.

Three images for the Times Educational Supplement. The illustrations were for a winning short story, about a young autistic boy who gets his own back on some school bullies.

Bare Bums

I've been working on some kids projects most of which are still to see the light of day, hence the reason why its all been very quiet both on here and my website. Above are two books for Random House, I did both the covers and inside black and white illustrations for these, there are two more in the series still to come. I've also been working on a big web project for the BBC which I believe doesnt go 'live' until October. I've been so busy I haven't had a chance to do any print making, so I have no new prints to show unfortuately.

Viking Linocut

The quality isn't great as it was too big to fit under my scanner, so I took a photo of it. This lino cut was inspired by the beautiful music of Nils Okland who plays an instrument called a hardanger fiddle.

How To Draw A Dinosaur

From the comic section of last Fridays Guardian.

Print Gocco

This is my first proper attempt at using the Gocco printer I bought last year. I had to use three different screens to get the colour separations I required. As I bought the cheaper PG5 machine I struggled a little with registration, as it doesn't have a proper system to line up the paper like the more expensive PG11. However I found this didn't bother me, and like the fact that the prints aren't perfect (the one above probably lined up the best out of all of them). I want to do a series of prints - most likely in hand made book form - inspired by old photos found in charity shops and flee markets - anonymous people. The first one I have done though is from an old Daugerotype that belongs to my Aunt, we can't be sure exactly who she is, most likely Sarah Collumbell my great great great Grandmother. The first Daugerotype studio opened in Derby in July 1843.

Boats

Happy New year! An update at last. I've been working on some kids books and therefore haven't had a lot I could post recently. I thought I'd group these three images together as they are all based around the same boat shape. The first one was an editorial job for Credit Magazine and the other two are lino cuts from an Owl and Pussy Cat illustration I did a couple of years ago. I'm going to be doing some more print making this year, and I've had time over Christmas to work on a new image which I hope to print in at least four colours.

The Guardian

A rather poor scan of an illustration I did for The Guardian a couple of weeks back.