A, by pen

As a lover of typography, it's been too long since I dappled in the art myself. This is a simple, yet elegantly styled font I created today. It was created with a 0.05 and 0.1 uni pin and then scanned in to Photoshop where I then added the background and the colour seen in the 2nd example. Hope everyone likes the style!

The Splinter Tree (The Broken Treehouse Club)

Two more poster designs, this time including a hand drawn illustration I did and hand drawn text (bottom). I used a very linear, hard edged style as if to represent a splintered piece of wood, as I find that image bears well with the title of the series. Plus the splinters I got from that tree back in the day were unbelievable!

The Broken Treehouse Club

These two poster designs are inspired by my childhood days (and the new logo) and the treehouse my friends and I would rebuild at least once a week after finding it broken and trashed on the nearby field. We never did find out who it was causing the damage but I have some great memories sitting around with my mates on upturned logs we snuck out from my mates house and having a laugh, the odd argument and growing up together. I hope to make this a series and am planning a few hand drawn illustrations to add to it so keep checking!

Winter Memories

So after far too many months, I finally managed to get out with my camera again. Me and my mate took a trip to Sefton Park, the first time I'd been back since a brilliant college trip a couple of years ago (that long?!).

The surroundings were stunning; the colours, the smells, the wildlife. It was teaming with squirrels, some coming right up to us and posing for pictures. I love when the air turns chilly and has that snap of cold, for some reason I seem to remember them times the most, maybe because your senses are alive due to the harsh weather. Whatever the reason, I love winter and I hope this year is another one to remember.

The Forbidden Garden

It's my favourite time of the year; the air turns cold, the days are dark, the nights even darker and Halloween is approaching. How I loved trick or treating and sitting in my front porch scaring my friends shitless deep into the night with my dark imagination.

Directly facing my porch was, and still is, an absolute eye-sore of a house. At 21, it still looks creepy at night- at 12 it was fucking terrifying. There was an old woman who partly lived there, visiting every few days. I've lived in my house now for around 15 years and the house is still in the exact same state as the day I moved in. Same rotted curtains, same pieces of loose plaster which had peeled off the exterior and fell to the floor, the same sickly green trim and the same wild patch of grass outside.

As a kid, my friends and I would literally play football in the street morning til night. We loved it, until someone kicked the ball into the garden no one wanted to enter. I did it once and, thus was the unofficial rules, had to retrieve the ball alone. I reluctantly walked to the peeling yellow-white gate and tried to carefully lift the squeaking latch. I kept my eyes firmly set on that horrible green door, looking for any movement. No lights were ever on now I think back... anyway, after opening the gate I stood still for a few seconds, friends watching in silence and suspense. The door remained still. I creeped forward and trod through the wild grass searching for the ball. As I bent down to collect it, I heard my mates running away. Shit. I froze for a second, not wanting to look up. But I had to. I looked at the door and in the deep inky blackness could just make out a sizeable strip of black with a dark, withered hand feeling round it like a huge grey spider. My eyes travelled further up where I could just make out the outline of a hooded face. The face was unrecognizable but I knew whatever or whoever it belonged to was focused on me. With that, I bolted out the garden with the ball in one arm and straight over to my house, where I seen my friends hiding behind the car, in the porch and behind the fence.

A proper haunted house if ever there was one and still unchanged to this day. I haven't seen her for a few years, maybe she died. Of course she wasn't this ghoul we all made her out to be, just an old woman pissed off with them kids kicking the ball into her garden again. Still, I'll never forget them days, they were absolutely amazing.

Cataluña Recuerdos

It's been a while! I've been so busy with work and life in general I've fell guilty of not making enough time for my art in the past three months. However, last week gave me an unexpected opportunity to flex my photographic muscles when I flew to Spain and visited the beautiful, and very Parisian like, city of Barcelona. This would be the opportunity I've been waiting for; to finally brush the cobwebs of my trusty Nikon D60 and give the old boy a workout. It is quite predictable then that in the frantic swing of packing and getting the airport I left him behind :(

However, not all was lost! My girlfriend brought her 7MP Sony digital so I had to make do with that. Obviously, it was bright pink to add salt to my wounds. Nevertheless, I snapped a good number of shots and have only now reviewed them properly. These four were my favourites so I edited these by tinkering exposure, cropping etc; the usual. There are probably more photos suitable for this article but for now I'm sticking with my four favourites (I may upload the said others at another time).

A truly hectic yet beautiful city, this is my thanks to Barcelona.

Just Right

No alarms, just quiet.

No horns, just birds.

No traffic, just waves.

No rushing, just relaxing.

No never ending motorways, just never ending currents of tranquility.

No wrong, just right.

Inspired by my last drawing, I produced this. This image is the ultimate depiction of true tranquility and easy living (in my mind anyway). Usually I may add little snippets of colour but I felt this just worked better as it is. No editing at all has been done, only the positioning of the boat. No contrast etc., just left as authentic as possible. 

Hope you like :)

(Sketch only version inside post)

Little Boat Hilda

I drew this using both my left and right hand, alternating between hands every minute or so. The idea came from a design I have on a t-shirt as well as  my own personal memories of Cornwall, where wise fisherman are in abundance.

As I started drawing I could hear the waves gently beat the rickety vessel, creaks and groans emanating from the old girl as she gently rocked a midst the calm summer tide off the coast of Looe.

Working from memory, I drew swiftly, finishing the drawing in around ten minutes. I later added colour through Photoshop. I have added the original sketch inside the post.

Step Away From The Chicken Leg...

Another week, another program on Channel 4 about the growing number of kids that are obese. Cue shots of the little (or very big) blighters gleefully munching on a family bucket from KFC whilst slumped in front of the tele watching The Cube or Deal or No Deal.

I watched as the kids shoveled chips, pizzas and burgers down and then confessed how sad it makes them feel being fat. If you want help and it makes you so upset then stop. Simples. Easy for me to say. Most of these kids don't know any better and haven't even hit puberty yet. When this is the case surely it's down to the parents? The kid doesn't go to Asda and buy the chips and crisps.

My feelings turned from annoyance at the kids for being so oblivious to near hatred towards the parents. Surely this is a form of child abuse? Granted, my poster may be slightly light hearted but this is a real issue, not just in the UK but worldwide.

We've all seen the fat kid in school get bullied in the yard and it's not nice. We've seen these kids with dieases and immobile. The parents can stop that but most are sitting on their arse watching Jeremy Kyle and couldn't care less what Jonny learnt at school today.

Just give them an apple instead of cake. Don't like it? Tough. They'll thank you when they're older.

Note: Working on some variations of this design; alternative colours etc. Will post them soon!

A lonesome cabin

This idea stemmed from a few sources and ideas. Firstly, I've had this plot idea for a book in my head for a few weeks and this scene sort of reflects a scene relevant to the story. Secondly, I seen a brilliant piece that is very similar on Dribble. (I've looked for it since and can't find it, but if I do I'll post a link here.) Thirdly, I decided to make the style slightly more quirky and less formal than usual. Bizzarly, I was flicking through the TV channels last week and came across Johnny Bravo (I loved that show!) and noticed the whacky backgrounds in certain scenes; straight jagged edges and 'wonky' buildings and trees.

Rolled into one big mega inspirational ball, this design developed...

I wanted to keep the colour palette simple and minimal. I experimented with different blues, greens and yellows but finally settled on a monochrome selection. A small window was added to give that spot of variety. Design done.

But, as usual, I had one final tinker with it and, out of curiosity, changed some of the harsh straight lines to curvier ones (below). The outcome was surprisingly good and served as a worthy alternative to the original...