stuff and yet and at the same time things

so here are some in progress pictures of the mural I did in the summer, still don't have a good image of the whole thing finished with the toucan and the palm tree and stuff. It was very fun, 

I plan to somewhat muralise my childhood room in my parents house, when I finish painting it white, in, you know a tasteful way which will not impinge on the agenda of making it a usable guest room or diminish the saleability of their house. And yet and at the same time possibly include zombie hands. 

Apart from inappropriate, my most overused word is Serendipity.

you may have seen it in my work like here

and here

My mind is constantly boggled by self evident facts about creativity, like how on any other day of your life, you wouldn't have painted EXACTLY that picture, or written that exact poem or song or whatever. How even if you have had an idea bubbling away in the back of your head for years, the day you finally put it to paper a hundred things in your life, or on your desk, or in the news, will effect it's outcome. Even though I am as ever in the land of the busy bees, I am trying to find room to make more serendipitous work. 

Like yesterday I found this phrase and cut it out and then I made this

It's a precursor to my 2012 Christmas cards which I am now half way through making which will be here soon. I want to find more ways to combine the drawing/painting with the collage.

I've also been working on a fair few pet portraits like this one

And have decided to separate this business from my illustration, you know, brand, as it's a bit messy and confusing to have too many things in one place. To this end, I made a website for my pet portraits, it is here 

blessed

the blogger dashboard has all changed and stuff. so the buttons are in different places and the box i'm typing in is all big and blank.

it's vaguely unsettling.

But enough of that. This is a positive positive positive blog post.

Because despite having been ill all week, and repeatedly getting lost in the Barbican, I am feeling very blessed.

Partly this is because I have been doing a lot of stuff, having a lot of 'cultural experiences' shall we say. I am blessed and lucky because in my life I have a lot of awesome friends and family and editors who regularly invite me to attend things that are awesome. All I have to do is say yes. Like that man who says yes, what's his name? the YES man?

So yes, I have done lots of cool stuff in recent weeks, lots of cool stuff I would never have had time for when I was being a full time teacher type. Horay.

The first thing I did was go on a HELICOPTER RIDE!

Also I went to see the Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble play in the Southbank Centre. They were very good, especially the dancey fun bits. (that's my preference in life, I like the dancey fun bits of life) here are my sketches of them:

the singer who performed for a couple of songs with them was super creepy and doll like. which worked, you know, with the music.

Mere days after this I was sketching live portraits at the Movember UK launch party as part of the Gallery of Mo team. I wrote the whole thing up here for Storyhands.

the whole thing is to do with growing moustaches for Men's health, raising of the money and the awareness and stuff. I'm not growing a moustache sadly, but will be drawing people with them on for said charity at the rate of £1 a minute on the Gallery of Mo website, 
here's the self portrait I did for the promotion of said portraiture. 

It was a fun party.


Later in the week I went to a fashion show in Soho, it was probably the most exciting and ridiculous fashion show I have ever been to, and I have been to several. It was for Sorapol, and included epic creepy masks, excess, novelty motorcycles, and Ruth and Vince off of the Voice!!!

here is a drawing I did of 3 of the creepy celebrity characters, and here is the rest of my drawings and writings on the topic I did for Amelia's Magazine

The day after that I got to go see Chilly Gonzales with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican (where we did get very lost), I wasn't even going to do any drawing on account of I drew him this one time before, but then I did. He was much more fun this time, plus I learnt stuff about music.

The best bit was this bit, which is probably why it's turned up on the youtube

So that's some of the fun, cultural stuff I've been up to recently. 

tata

vintage teatime

I did the above logo design for the wonderful Teatime Vintage last week, if you are in the Sheffield area and fancy an amazing vintage style tea party (not the American kind with the politics, more the scone kind) you should definitely look them up

So, I was going to write a blog post all about the Ohh Deer cushion competition shop, show you a few of my favourites, and talk about how confusing a world we live in, where the job of helping the consumer find the talent is so varied and shot in the darkish. And how very much amazing arty talent there is out there, but that that shouldn't put you off, because you have to remember that there are still billions of people in the world, you just have to somehow find the ones that like your work and happen to have a disposable income, and about how it's still a cop out when web based competitions turn into popularity contests, and if no-one loses no-one really wins. And trying to work out whether I think that matters. 

But I've been ill, and busy, at least a little lazy, and the shop closes at the end of today.

So just in case you like my work and have disposable income, and aren't turned off by the above arts graduate angst, you still have today to buy my cushion, which looks like this

and also to look at all the other awesome designs that people submitted that then all got put up for sale. There are some really really cool ones, so try and think of who might want a cushion for Christmas k?

so it's looking like summer is pretty much over right? Although that didn't stop me from drinking Pimm's in the Southwark Cathedral courtyard on Saturday, all be it in tights and jacket. (not just tights and jacket)

My first few weeks as part time teacher, part time all the other stuff have been hectic busy land, but today I have a little breathing space. 

Me and June were up all hours writing a proposal for the StoryHands Collective, (you know, I blogged about it here) which may have caused me to be a slightly less than awesome teacher after 4 hours sleep, and is not something I want to do every week. But you know, it felt really good to be exhausted from doing work on something that I really care about. Not that I don't care about the kids. *backpeddles*

But you know what I mean. busy = good. And June is very good at the graphic design stuff.

In facebook project news I have completed the Gs. Gee, what a G-Star I am. 

Greg

Glenn

I also got all up in the London Fashion Week that is S/S 2013, well, in that I did some writing and drawing.

The writing you can read here if you feel so inclined, it is mostly me being intoxicated by colour and amused by pretentious fashion silliness. 

like these comedy fashionistas I sketched in the Somerset House Courtyard

here are some S/S 13 actual fashion illos I did for Amelia's Magazine (who else?) 

Holly Fulton (what's better than blue roses?)

Jean Pierre Braganza

 Dans La Vie

And finally for your viewing pleasure, here are some huskies in party hats I drew. I entered them in the

 Ohh Deer cushion competition, but I'm pretty sure I did not win.

Horay!

I'm starting my new teaching job tomorrow (excited and scared) and have loads of prep work to do.

So obviously I decided to spend half the day doing a (not really) random fashion illustration based on the Baroque A/W2012 trend. Here it is. It is here.

It's not really random because it's for a fashion fringe competition, in association with the fantabulous Zarina Liew, who we (me and my teddy bears) at my words fly know and love.

Wish me luck intimidating my new classes.