Norman Rockwell's America

The Dulwich Picture Gallery, located just outside of central London, seems to be favouring some great American artists lately. Last year they had an exhibition on the Wyeth family (N.C. Wyeth, Andrew Wyeth etc) and right now the gallery has a special exhibition on America's probably most well-loved artist, Norman Rockwell.

Apart from original paintings the gallery has covered a long stretch of wall with ever Saturday Evening Post cover Rockwell ever did. It's the work of a lifetime spanning four decades. Seeing them all hanging there side-by-side gives you an impression of what a prolific illustrator Rockwell was and how with-the-times he must've been to capture the American heart and imagination in the way he did.

Rockwell's mass appeal probably hasn't done wonders for his gallery presence so it's a real treat to see a gallery putting the spotlight him. Despite what critics have to say about his depth and choice of subject matter I think that each Saturday Evening Post cover is a little delight in itself, and on the whole his body of work reflects a nation's attitude of an era. His pictures are idealistic to be sure, but without truth they could not have touched the hearts of so many. He chose simple, everyday situations to portray, yet through the artist's lens we see these moments in a new and beautiful light.
The ability to make people see things with a fresh pair of eyes, giving them a new perspective, is one of the greatest things about art.

Norman Rockwell's America at the Dulwich Picture Gallery runs until the 27th of March.

Ross Noble tour poster

Last Friday, comedian Ross Noble was performing  in the Cambridge Corn Exchange. I'm not generally that into stand up comedy but in this case we had a particular reason to go and see him.

Earlier this year I got the gig to do the artwork for Ross' Nonsensory Overload tour poster. I didn't know much about him before this so I had to do some research. Ross' shows seem largely improvised and he constantly feeds off little oddities and quirks that he finds in the audience. That unfathomable mind of his manages to make the most unconventional associations, of which he will happily paint you a vivid picture, usually resulting in surreal hilarity. This makes for a very random and bizarre comedy experience and it was this randomness that Ross wanted to show in his poster.

The idea for the poster was wholly Ross'. He already knew that he wanted a picture of his face with his long, crazy hair twisting and morphing into all kinds of random objects from past jokes.

In the beginning it was important to get a clear idea of what Ross had in mind was so I sent over a few different sketches with different levels of stylisation of his face. I felt that since he has such a distinctive look it would be a shame to make things too stylised, and indeed, the version that we decided to go with in the end was the most "realistic" one. After that it was just a matter of watching through a bunch of Youtube videos and noting down the random things said that could be used in the artwork. It was an unusual but fun experience to find yourself drawing owls in nightcaps, squids with foam fingers, feather-duster emus... not to mention the bum-faced kids. Gotta' love 'em bum-faced kids.

Rough and cleaned up drawing.

The colouring was probably the most challenging part since there were so many separate elements that needed to stand out. Normally I gravitate towards more muted colours so it was hard to figure out how to use a bright, crazy palette. I ended up going in circles and getting nowhere, but luckily there was a colour lover in the house. Chloe Citrine, my housemate, is great at coordinating bright colours and she quickly spotted the grave that I had dug myself into and suggested the solution.

The artwork was finished in April and to be able to see it used as intended now, towards the end of the year, is a great treat. Apart from posters and flyers, an animated projection of the artwork was shown on the curtains before the show started. When the curtains dropped, so did my jaw. A giant, colourful air castle made up from Ross' joke topics had been erected (or rather inflated) on stage and I could spot some of the elements that were used on the poster.

I was thrilled to see that the artwork was also printed on all sorts of merchandise. Signed posters were sold at the show for the charity  Riders for Health (Ross is a big motorcycle buff). I hope that the art helps to sell them lots of posters!

After the show we got to go backstage and meet Ross, which was awesome. I didn't communicate with him directly as the artwork was created so being able to get the approval from the man himself was the ultimate closure. It turned out he had even used parts of the artwork on the shoes that he wore on stage, how awesome is that?

Me, Ross and house mates/ fellow artists Chloe and Anna!

I really appreciate the time that Ross and his crew made for us after what must've been an exhausting show. Ross is practically doing a performance every night in what must feel like a maddening marathon. He's a super nice and, despite what you might think based on his comedy, down-to-earth guy when you get chatting to him and seemed quite interested in comics. Do check him out if you get a chance, it's a surreal experience. :)
I feel incredibly lucky and privileged to have been trusted with bringing Ross' idea to life. It's not the type of commission that comes knocking every day and it's turned out to be an incredible experience. Freelancing might have its downsides, but it certainly also has it perks!

MCM expo haul

This last weekend was another MCM expo and I shared a table with John Aggs on Saturday (who has a just started a new developmental blog for his personal comic, Liquid City) and Belinda Leung on Sunday. I met Belinda at the MADE art symposium in Berlin this summer and hadn't seen her since so it was particularly nice to catch up. :)

Last expo didn't leave me any time to do shopping so this time I wanted to correct that, but still managed to fail at planning and ended up having to cram all the shopping into the last 45 mins before closing on Sunday. Thus, the expo haul is not big, but oh so sweet. 

Firstly, I need to plug Paul Duffield's new self-published artbook/visual poem/narrative Signal. The artwork is beautifully emotive and captivating. If I could I would want to stick every spread on my wall. The book is a string of wordless narrative - part comic, part artbook, all gorgeous.

I also bought some beautiful art prints and postcards from Zarina Liew and Yuri Kore, both whose art I absolutely adore.

Nikki Stu is a new discovery who amazingly lives just up the road from me. Her comic was packed in a brown envelope and reminded me of why I love home-made stuff.

And here's another great find, Kenji from Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boy. Spot on dude! 

Big thanks to everyone who came by and bought books, prints and commissions. Love you all! :)

Cambridge Coffee'n Sketch

Last month saw the first Cambridge creatives' meet happen at Clowns café for the first time. The original idea was to get those of us who work from home a good reason to put on some decent clothes, leave the house and go out and interact with other humans at least once a week but of course, anyone is welcome! :)

The meets are on Wednesdays, from 2-6pm at Clowns Café in King Street. People can drop in or leave when they feel like it, it's quite informal. :)

For updates on the meets, see the Cambridge Coffee´n Sketch Facebook page.

Sidetracking... That photo was taken with my new DSLR which was broken in at today's meet. It's a Nikon D3100, fitted with a Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 lens. It's a marvellous little piece of technology! I'm loving being able to take pictures with short focus and play around with the light settings.

London Expo & Dino-Saw-Us!

London Expo is upon us once again! I'll be there both days this weekend (29-30 May). I'm bringing copies of Twelfth Night which I'm happy to sign and sketch in, prints and a few very limited edition postcards made from the Chinese New Year and the Showgirl pics I drew a while back. Of course, I'll be doing commissions and portraits as well. 

Now, let me give a plug to Dino-saw-us, a super fun sticker collecting game that will be run at expo for the first time .
You play by simply picking up a blank passport booklet at Expo (or print one out yourself) and then you find all the people with stickers. I hope there's time for me to go sticker hunting as well... I really want some stickers... Gotta catch 'em all!!
Hopefully this will become a reoccurring Expo activity that will yield a different collection of stamps each time. I can see the passports becoming collectors' items, and it's a great way to make some new friends!
Find out more about how to participate and who's got stickers on the Dino-saw-us blog.

My stickers arrived today and they look great! I almost want to keep them to myself but I'll give them up if people come and say hi at our table!

I'll be sharing table C17 with Amanda in the Artist Alley. There are quite a few new names on the list so it will be fun to see this incarnation of the Artist Alley. Floor plan here:

Hope to see lots of people at Expo!

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London Expo - Link
Dino-Saw-Us - Link
Previous post: Expo portraits - Link
Table buddy: Amanda Elanor Tribble - Link

London Book Fair

Yesterday me and Emma Vieceli spent a few hours in the new Comics area of the London Book Fair drawing on giant A1 sheets of paper. This was the first time attending the fair for both of us and despite empty stalls due to the volcanic ash cloud, the scale and diverse offerings of the event was pretty impressive.
Throughout the day there was a steady stream of people stopping by to look at what we were doing and to chat about comics and illustration.

It was interesting to meet people with different backgrounds in publishing and illustration. There's certainly a big world out there outside of comics and manga.

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Emma Vieceli - website
London book fair - website

Leeds Thought Bubble 2009 wrap

This was my first time attending Leeds Thought Bubble festival with fellow Manga Shakespeare artist Faye Yong. I had heard good things about the show by people who'd caught it last year so there were certainly expectations but the show managed to be everything I'd hoped for and more!

The convention part of the show was a Saturday-only event and was held in the Savilles hall. Most of the day was spent at the SelfMadeHero table. 1st gen Manga Shakespeare artists Sonia Leong and Emma Vieceli took time from their own tables and popped by to do short signings for their titles (Romeo & Juliet and Hamlet/Much Ado respectively)around mid-day.

Doug from SelfMadeHero hooked us up with giant pads and markers so Faye and I went about sketching out crossovers of our characters from Twelfth Night and Merchant of Venice.

Despite getting only about 4 hours of sleep the night before the Saturday evening party in the next-door casino was something that couldn't be missed. Apart from great people and a bar that was open until the early hours of the morning, they also arranged for comicker DJs and a burlesque drawing session.
Sadly I lost my camera at the casino so the few pictures that were taken seem lost forever. :( The only records I have left now are in my sketchbook.

The Sunday program consisted of workshops and talks. We went to one where Frank Quitely talked about his art and influences which was every interesting. I wasn't very familiar with his work before this but when he showed us a few sample pages with mind-bogging paneling it reminded me of how flexible the comic medium can be. The guy deserves serious respect... :)
Did a sketch of the man in the talk and as he was being interviewed by some students.

And that was the end of Thought Bubble. Many thanks to the wonderful organisers who made the event such a great show to be at! It will be the place to be this time next year so make an effort and GO! :D

London Expo 16 over!

And so the 16th London MCM Expo is over with yet another record breaking attendance number. This was also the first proper event where people could pick up our new Manga Shakespeare titles Twelfth Night and Merchant of Venice. :D
It was fantastic to be able to share a signing session with fellow Manga Shakespeare artists Faye Yong and Emma Vieceli in the afternoon. Huge thanks to everyone who came and got some books!! When I was told that Twelfth Night had sold out before the end of Saturday I was convinced someone was pulling my leg for sure.

This was also the launch event of Fehed Said's anthology Talking to Strangers, in which I illustrated the short story 'Box'. Since then I've heard rumours that it has caused various degrees of unease, to the point of nightmares so I imagine that Mr Said must be satisfied.

Saturday is always the busiest day and this time the air conditioning system seemed to have reached the limit of its capacity. It was very hot in the convention hall but that didn't seem to get people's spirits down... much. 

I spent most Sunday exploring the convention and the Comics Village was definitely the place to be. Not that the rest of expo wasn't exciting but nothing beats being able to meet creators and check out their work. My favourite purchases this day were probably an original watercolour drawing from Sarah McIntyre and an amazing drawing of Rock Lee on cardboard by Will Kirkby which is now decorating my wall.

Sunday ended with a surprise offer to help out with the judging of the cosplay competition which was great fun. There were some fantastic costumes in there!

It's been a crazy weekend! Highlights? The art and the people! :)

Norwich workshop at The Forum

This is a bit late notice, but I will run a workshop in conjunction with an East Meets East event in Norwich tonight. Pop by if you're in the neighbourhood! :)
Location: The Forum, Norwich, Norfolk
Time: 5.30 pm -  9.30 pm

Summer on Gotland

At the moment of writing I'm in Stockholm, sitting in the home of an old acquaintance of the family which is where I've been sleeping for the last two nights. Stockholm is just a intermediate stop. Tomorrow I'm off to Visby and the University of Gotland, where I'll be taking a 10-week course in Life drawing with Pernilla Persson. At the same time, I'll also be doing the long-distance course Concept Art II, led by Leo Sandberg. Looking forward to both!

I didn't use to think that Sweden had much to offer in terms of education for entertainment art, but you never know what a little digging can yield. The great thing about Swedish education is that it's free, and I don't think you need to be a Swedish citizen to benefit from it. Compared to the complicated UK UCAS system, it was so easy for me to register for these courses - a few clicks for the mouse and that was it. Although, that might be because I do in fact have Swedish social security number.


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University of Gotland (HGO) - link
Life Drawing at HGO - link
Concept Art II at HGO - link
Pernilla Persson - link
Leo Sandberg - link

London Expo portraits

Last weekend (23-24 May) was the May edition of London MCM Expo. I shared a table with Kat and Dave from Studio Two Sides Wide on the Saturday. Since I had literally only just finished Twelfth Night a few days before Expo, there was no time to prepare anything new to sell. Kat came back from a three-week-long trip to Ghana for her university project the same morning of Expo so she didn't have much time to prepare either. To earn back the table cost we started doing on-site commissions, of which "manga portraits" proved the most popular. There was hardly a moment to spare on the Saturday, but the Saturdays are always extremely busy.

Here are a few that were drawn that weekend:

There were also few which I didn't have time to finish during the Expo so I drew them back home. This also gave me a chance to scan the artwork properly.
This group of lovely ladies were cosplaying characters from Negima.

Something I must remember to do next time is to ask people for their eye colour. It's very difficult to see in a blurry photo and since manga eyes are so big, it becomes quite an important piece of information.
For anyone who might be waiting for their portrait and might be reading this, I mailed them out today. :)

There were quite a few people who asked me about my tools. I tend to use Copic Ciao markers for my convention sketches. Copic had a stall at Expo for the first time this year so it was easy to point them in the right direction.

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London MCM Expo, website.
Studio Two Sides Wide, website.
Copic Markers, website.

The Shop - Cambridge Open Art Space

The Shop is an open art space and meeting point for artists in Cambridge, run by a group of volunteers. Apart from life drawing sessions (which is linked to the Cambridge University Architecture Society) it hosts other workshops (Cambridge Comic Creators Collective, a.k.a. C4, for one) and also yoga and dance classes.


It's a great art space and for a insignificant membership fee of £6 (£12 if you've got a steady job) you can use the venue and the materials it freely. The life drawing sessions are by far the cheapest I've been able to find in Cambridge.

I was told by one of the people behind The Shop that the premises are owned by Jesus College. It has been let on a short term basis until it will supposedly be turned into a hotel in two years time.
The place itself is not huge. As far as I've been able to gather, there's only one main work area, but it's large enough to accommodate for a life drawing group of 20-25 people quite comfortably.

Did I mention they have a tea corner as well? What more do you need?


The address is:

18 Jesus Lane,
Cambridge CB5 8BQ

It's located smack in the centre of Cambridge which makes it very easily accessible for people in the area.

More information about The Shop and an activity schedule can be found on their homepage.

The Shop

Space doll and V&A workshop

The futuristic designs in this sketch wasn't intentional at first, but as the figure was laid down I realised that it couldn't hurt to brush up those scifi sensibilities since I'll be co-running a workshop on the theme of 'future' later this month.

Scifi is not really a genre I'm very invested in (being more of a fantasy-person) so there's not much I can say about the designs. There are enough second skin suits out there for inspiration.
To get something useful into this post, I'm looking at the composition instead. These are two ways in which I think this composition works.



The first one is global and similar to how you would plan a comic page - the path of the eye. The positions of the elements in the image form a smooth path from the top left corner of the image, brings the eye across the figure and down to the bottom right corner, so that the entire image is swept. At the same time, the dome on the right hand side of the girl forms a stopper which keeps the eye on the page.
The central figure rests in a compositional valley. Just like a ball set to roll between two hills, the eye will tend to return to the valley.


Another example of the same compositional trick. This landscape painting is hanging in the Irish National Gallery in Dublin. It's possibly by George Barret, but I'm not entirely positive. The shrubbery forms stops on either side of the painting and brings your attention to the woman on the road.


The second composition has to do with the figure at rest. The pyramidal structure speaks of stability. There's a good reason the Egyptian Pyramids have withstood the sands of time!



The workshop I'll be co-running with my house mate, the talented Faye Yong, is on the 22nd of November in the V&A museum, London. We're doing two 40 min workshops, one at 11.30 and another one at 15.30.
The event is called 'Big Create, The Future' which features a whole day on the theme of 'future', with other workshops as well apart from ours. It's a free drop-in session so there's no reason not to check it out if you're around London and have the spare time.

Wokingham workshop

Last week me and Susan Golton did a manga workshop at Wokingham library. The library had an impressive collection of manga, all thanks to the manga enthusiasts in the area - especially those working within the library!
Many thanks to Elizabeth and Ben who made us feel right at home and to everyone who attended!