HMS Belfast

A poster I recently completed for HMS Belfast, have a look at Arena's Blog for a break down on the commissioning process including sketches and examples of work in progress. If anyone spots this on The Tube over the summer can you let me know!

Cycling in London Competition

This was my entry into 'The Cycling in London Competition' run by Transport for London and The Association of Illustrations, mine was one of the 50 chosen from over 1000 entries to be displayed at the London Transport Museum, pictures from the opening night are over at my agents Arenas blog.

More Monotone

Below are some more experiments with limited colour ways and type.

Finley

Images from an idea for a children's picture book that I will probably take in a different direction now, but I thought it would be worth posting them here.

Gobal Contexts

Sorry about the poor scans, my work has recently been featured in book called 'Global Contexts' by Mark Wigan, I've been following Marks work since the 80s when I remember his paintings on the walls of Kensington Market, and the Scala Cinema, so I was really happy to have my work in this book along with some other really great illustrators. It is published by AVA and should be in book shops now.

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.