J.

Jason, ipod wearer and the dude of hook ups from S.A.

The next step..

So here we are. I said back when I started writing this blog that the aim was to make the move from a suit to a creative. That was in March and as we approach Christmas I'm about to take that next step. I've taken voluntary redundancy at work and I'm about to run headlong into the New Year with the aim of pulling a portfolio together and becoming a freelance illustrator.

It's both a scary and exciting idea. A cunning plan..hopefully as cunning as a fox who's just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University..

Wallpaper - Just for Fun

So I'm sat at my desk and the editor of Wallpaper calls and says "will you design this month's front cover?" And I'm like, "Yeah, why not..".

Reportage Project

This is my final (three illustrations around the same subject) CSM project. I headed back up to Manchester the day after the course, so City seemed the ideal opportunity.

Illustration Class 101

Here's an illustration I've been working on as apart of the CSM course. It's from a newspaper article (last Saturday's individual project) about how eating fruit, mainly apples, and studying helps fight off dementia. Then it's a case of taking our ideas, drawings, scanning them, create various backgrounds, and use layers within Photoshop to get the finished illustration. This is my take. 

The first is my rough idea sketch (the one I had to get initially approved as you would with a newspaper) and the second is where I'm currently at in Photoshop. I need to add the extra drawn scans for the speech bubble and apple = 2+2 and work on them. But I'm happy with the progress. Working in layers and having the ability to change, adapt an idea is making my ideas/illustrations more three dimensional.

I'm also really enjoying the course. My drawing/painting style is definitely working for me. The guest illustrators are inspiring, offering advice and real life illustration work. Exactly what I was hoping to get out of the course. It's also cool to be in a space with other wanna-be-illustrators, seeing their style and sharing ideas. Sounds a bit wanky I know, but there you go. Next step is to look at getting a scanner.

Illustration Friday: Transportation

This is how I spent my half hour lunch break today. More fun than working.

Thailand sketchbook

Just a couple of small quick sketches from Thailand. The first one is the view from the Tonsai bungalow in semi darkness during a mini monsoon. The second is from the beach.

Thailand Chang

Time flies when you're the driver of a train. So three weeks chilling in gorgeous Thailand with the Chang gang is..so..like yesterday.

Still, important things to note. Bangkok is full on crazy wild, especially the side streets and the food markets; suits are easy to buy down the Khao San Road; Tut tut taxi's are hilarious even when they dump you in the middle of nowhere on your first day; also they have three wheels, so going round corners at 2am on two is interesting; never stop to pick anyone up in the jungle; iPhones don't cope so well with monsoons; riding a scooter can easily make you think you are Paul Weller; falling off said scooter quickly dispels this myth; ping pong balls won't look the same again; neither will the phrase "all around the world"; wandering from beach to beach; snorkelling with the fishes; sitting in warm seas at 3am with mates; watching the sunset..again; street chang, beach, train, scooter, ping pong, pool chang is the name of the game. Hook it up!

Illustration Courses

I'm finally booked onto two courses at Central Saint Martins between now and March. I've been looking around for a while but they've either been too expensive or have been cancelled at the last minute.

CSM has a great reputation and the first one Enhanced Illustration - Pencil, Pen, Paint And Pixels, starts in early October on five consecutive Saturdays. The second one, Illustrating With The Mac is between February and March next year. I'm looking forward to them. They will be good purely at a technical level, and being in a classroom sharing ideas with people should be fun. 

Illustration Friday: Immovable

Three weeks on the bounce. This is starting to become a regular occurrence. Last time I looked rainbows were pretty immovable.

Illustration Friday: Atmosphere

I've been listening to a lot of Doves and The Black Keys recently. It's a good thing, honest.

Illustration Friday: Star gazing

Illustration Friday has a different subject each week. Thought I'd have a quick go for the first time.

Refait (Remade)

I love this remake of the penalty shoot out between Germany and France in the '82 World Cup.

It reminds me of growing up, particularly this game. A French team full of flair and quality with Michel Platini and Alain Giresse against the goal-scoring machine that was Germany's Karl-Heine Rummenigge. Jumpers for goalposts, concrete pitches, basically just playing football with mates anywhere I could.

Room with a view

Skateboarding Hip Hop

The idea of a Grizzly Bear listening to Jay Z just got me thinking.

Burqa Banning

I like David Mitchell's column in The Observer. Not only is he funny and intelligent, but he appears to be successfully carrying off the kind of mid 80's haircut that made my first year at sixth form a nightmare. Talking to girls just didn't happen. I played a LOT of football.

Combine it with a pair of large glasses and you really can see how much fun I was having.

I've never been one to wrap myself in the flag, even during the World Cup. It's always been from my left of centre perspective, something I associate with the right wing. Fashion and faith are among a number of things that help identify your personality. Underneath everything we are still French, British, Iraqi, Catholic, Muslim. Anyway, it got me thinking, especially after France partially banned the burqa about how some people's perceptions might change if rather than just coming in plain black, burqa's came in the Union Jack.

Who Cooked The Planet?

A prime example of the previous post. A simple and a very quick drawing from a New York Times article about climate change. Not the best laid out idea but it does what it says on the tin.

Busy Girls Buy..

So. It's been a while. How have you all been?

I've been playing around with a few ideas over the last month. Some have worked and others have been well, terrible if I'm honest. The thing I've realised is that I've got so caught up in making everything perfect I started self policing, second guessing and judging what to upload. In the long run, it's stifling creatively and not what I had in mind as the aim of this blog. So with that out of the way, I'm back on track. This is a Billy Bragg song, an early classic about shopping commercialism, and way before all the glossy magazines.

Brokeback Poetry

Another idea, this time about Elko's annual Cowboy Poetry gathering. I've tried to make the last couple of posts a little more illustrative in that they reflect an idea, however basic, that relates to something I've read. Almost like a commission, and yet, not quite.

Budget 2010

I guess you reap what you sow. Or in this case, vote for.

Bafana Bafana

Just a simple drawing of the lead singer from Bloc Party that I've fooled around with so it starts to resemble something that might look like an illustration.

Dr Who

I'm starting to find a bit of a niche that is working for me at the moment, which is mainly pencil and watercolour. Maybe it's the way forward, who knows, but I'm going to stick with it for a while. I saw Marco Klefisch's work on the Carhartt ads a while back and thought they were really vivid, striking, awesome.  Anje Jager has a similar style that I love. Thing is, I'm not that great at drawing faces so this drawing of Matt Smith was meant to be a quick attempt that ended up becoming something more. My geekiness has already been exposed earlier on this blog, so my Dr Who thing shouldn't be a surprise either.

Northern boys rock

Having spent part of the weekend fooling around with collages, my floor looks like the alphabet zoo from Sesame Street.

Affectionately referred to as 'the Pout', amongst other things by the majority of my girlfriends, I'm not ashamed to declare my thing for Keira. She looks stunning in this photo.

Day 5: Delays expected on..

It’s been just over a week and I’m still not quite sure if I should be gutted that despite my best efforts, there’s a coalition government with a Tory PM or happy that Labour didn’t get completely mashed at the polls. Common sense tells me that a Lab-Lib government didn’t have enough votes to make it work, but a CON-DEM-NATION still leaves me distinctly unfulfilled and disappointed.

I've been annoyed and frustrated with Labour, but there's certain values that I'll always believe in. So unless I vote tatically, I'll be in that side of the box if you ever need to find me. Unfortunately the first actual opportunity to change the system and get real electoral reform, is I think, dead in the water. My only hope is that Labour under a new leader brings it to the table with some imagination rather than seeing it as a death bed conversion.

Day 4: Stop me if you think you've heard this one before

Okay so I stretched the idea of a Post-it a little today. Online dating is the new way of finding someone. Love it or loathe it’s out there. Every time you join up or place your details you open yourself up. Share information about yourself, your personailty. What your favourite colour is, what you like to do at the weekend, which movie you want to share with someone. All your likes and dislikes. In it's basic form you leave pieces of yourself out in the ether. On the keyboard. Online. A fingerprint. It’s as simple as that.

Day 3: Mix Tape

Side A:

1. Take Me I'm Yours - New Young Pony Club

2. Kiss of Life - Friendly Fires

3. Revelry - Kings Of Leon

4. Ready For The Floor - Hot Chip

5. Only If You Run - Julian Plenti

Side B:

1. Black Cherry - Goldfrapp

2. A New England - Jamie T

3. Things Ain't Like They Used To Be- The Black Keys

4. All My Friends - LCD Soundsystem

5. The Cave - Mumford & Sons

Bonus Extra Track:

2 Atoms In A Molecule - Noah and The Whale

Day 2: The Angels wanna wear my red shoes

There’s something about red shoes, but that could be because it's one of my fave Elvis Costello songs. It's certainly very Dorothy, very Wizard of Oz, and yet, we're-not-in-Kansas anymore. Especially since I was on the Victoria line to Finsbury Park. Anyway, I saw a girl in red shoes on the tube yesterday, dressed all in black but with her clickable heels to keep her happy. It made me smile. Of course you have to nick them off the Wicked Witch of the East first.

Day 1: The Clark Kent look

There’s something about life that involves looking but not actually seeing. Every day brings its own "constants" that you become attuned to, ignorant or just plain forgetful off. In the same way I noticed over the weekend how my face has altered and changed. Subtle lines are no longer, well subtle. I've got used to seeing it on a daily basis.
 
Glasses are my big thing; I just don’t like wearing them. Never have really. They tend to make me feel a bit geeky, not in itself a bad thing because at times I’m definitely a geek. Glasses wear me rather than the other way around. Anyways, for the next few days my glasses and I are as one, hence the introspection. The thing is..they make me feel thirteen again. 1981, Ashes to Ashes style. If I had to choose a year to go back too, well, it wouldn’t be that one. They also make me act differently. Without my contacts, I tend to be more introvert, nervous, shy. It’s like everyone is looking at me, my very own Truman show.

And yet, on the super plus side they seem to be the Superhero disguise of choice. Peter Parker = Spiderman. Superman = Clark Kent. Anyway, this is my Superhero moment.

Post-it heaven

My place is a bit of a mess at the moment. It’s littered with half finished sketches and ideas written on bits of paper. Not a bad thing if truth be told. At least it shows I'm working on being creative. Think I’ve been trying to rush everything in my eagerness to get to the finish line as soon as possible. Still, I’m learning to be patient, and to take things at a steady pace. It's not easy, but the simple fact is that I'm making time to do the things I want. With that in mind, I've decided to do some small, quick and easy projects, and post-it heaven is just the first.

It’s as simple as this: five days, five different ideas, each posted as my facebook profile and here, each the size of a post-it. I know, living life on the edge eh? So anything that jogs a memory, happens that day or smacks-me-in-the-face is in. Simples.

Girl with a red earing

It's been a long time since I messed around with watercolours. With that in mind, here is something from the weekend, just adding colour and depth to a line drawing and to show how I changed my mind a little between the start/finish. The Illustrator knowledge is coming along, but it's happening slowly. More importantly, this blog, along with this process is about exploring my creative side in more than just one form. Next, paper mache?

Sketchbooks

I'm playing around with a few ideas at the moment, just trying to give myself projects to work on and see where they take me. These are a couple of initial album cover ideas for The Cavalier. The second one certainly fits the brief, although it's not complete, more than the first. Both work on differing levels. I'll probably repost them when they are complete. But for the moment here they are.

Don't watch that..watch this

Love this. I think it's kinda cool for those Space Invaders amongst us.

Chris Ofili at Tate Britain

Balls of elephant dung. Not your first choice of things to place on a canvas maybe. But why not? My taste in art is varied and wide, like most people. I first saw Chris Ofili at Sensation in 1997 just before he won the Turner Prize. His paintings are intensely rich, colourful and vibrant. Like some of my staples, Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollack, he uses differing forms of media to layer his work. Art is often vibrant and uplifting, but I also think it can be beautiful when it's moody and in your face. Especially when it captures moments in time, something that Tracey Emin often does in a way I love.

Anyway, I'm off to see the new Chris Ofili exhibition at Tate Britain next weekend. Can't wait.

Above image © Chris Ofili

Sketchbooks

Planet Claire

A before and after sketch of Claire that I did for her birthday last year. The final version is my first real attempt at pulling something together in Illustrator. Looking at it now I can see where I'd change some things but I think it works rather well. I liked the idea of using Claire's words and phrases around her face to make it feel more personal. In a perfect world I'd have used them to shape her features, but I'm not there yet by any means. I do like the freshness of the original sketch though.

Michael Gillette

This is Michael Gillette. As with everything at the moment, I'm finding people whose work I admire by chance as I wander the web searching out differing styles. Illustrating Emmanuel Adebayor, as part of a four piece ad campaign for MCFC, will as anyone who knows me certainly grab my attention. 

But it's his diversity I admire the most. Apart from the fact that the Adebayor illustration covered a large concourse in the Manchester Arndale, he opens himself up to a variety of media depending on the brief. He paints, sketches, cuts block prints, and uses chalk. Anything goes if he thinks it will work and he wants to do it. Rather cool. I'm not so sure I can draw or paint as well as he does, but that's part of the challenge. Find a way. Be something different. There's a really interesting interview with him on his blogspot where he discusses what he loves about being an Illustrator.

Above images © Michael Gillette

Seanne

So the cat's out of the bag. I've taken the plunge and I'm in upto my neck. I guess there's no point wanting to make the move from Marketing into Illustration without putting something on the line. So with that in mind, I'm going to start posting things I've either drawn, created or am fooling around with at the moment. I'm teaching myself Illustrator and learning the basics of design, type etc. I'll try and make it eclectic while I find a style that works for me. So to start the ball rolling, here is a sketch of Seanne. It's a couple of years old but I like it. I'll post more from my sketchbook as I get to grips with this blogging malarky.

The end always has a start

Since this blog is about my initiating over the next twelve months, a move from being a suit to a creative, I may as well start somewhere. And it's here. The blog title comes from a Delphic song. As fellow Mancunians, it has a nice symmetry. And it fits, amongst other things, alongside my Joy Division, Doves, Radiohead and Interpol cravings. Expect more of the same, along with illustrators/design I like, anything creative I find, and various things I design, make, draw along the way.