Archive for the 'Illustration' Category


New Large Cow

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After many years of a lovely but slightly out of date website, Hunt Emerson has relaunched Large Cow where he’s selling artwork and archiving cool stuff from the past. Of particular note are pieces from the Birmingham Arts Lab which he was heavily involved with in the 1970’s such as this print:

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There’s shockingly little online about the Birmingham Arts Lab other than a few mentions here and there. It’s be good if someone could write a decent history of it, or if one’s already written, stick it online and send me a pointer.

Digital Fuzzy Felt

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click for context

Outcrowd Flatpack

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More great photos from the Outcrowd Collective’s archives, this time from their installation for the Flatpack Festival in the back room of the Jug of Ale (commissioned, as noted in the comments, by Capsule). Apparently it might still be there.

King Alfred Promotions

Paul Geary introduces King Alfred Promotions, a new-ish outfit run by David Bunn and Anthony Harper for whom he did the following:

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They launched last April and are apparently working on establishing themselves a bit more in the city. The MySpace, it be here.

Bunny Does Wrestling

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Click for context.

Ben Javens

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Illustrator Ben Javens has a weblog.

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via TAK but I’m sure I’ve seen his name before…

The Midlands Loves You

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From the Midlands with Love is a postcard book put together by BCU’s Media Content Lab brought to our attention by TAK! (who have a card in it).

Media Content Lab felt that too much of the design world’s attention is focused on a handful of London companies, so decided to do something about it. We put together a postcard book featuring the artwork of graphic designers, illustrators, web designers and character designers based in the West Midlands. The best computer artists from across the region were invited to submit their work before a final selection of the top designs were chosen to go into the book.

It’s currently winging its way to 100 PR, marketing and advertising agencies along with publishing companies and agents. If you’re not one of those lucky people and you’d like a copy ask Dom nicely and he’ll see what he can do.

Amok

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Simon Peplow has produced the 18th issue of Amok, “a series of zines produced purely to showcase the work of artists, illustrators and designers who’s work excites us.” Available here for £3.00.

Newtasty

Newtasty - an illustration / design company to investigate in the new year…

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Lucy McLauchlan’s new site and London show

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In a somewhat natural development the Beat 13 website has been completely taken over by Lucy McLauchlan showcasing her paintings and selling her prints. I particularly like the scrapbook page showing the wide variety of mediums and situations her work has appeared in.

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She also has her first solo London show, Expressive Deviant Phonology, starting on Friday and running until January 19th at LAZ.inc, 8 Greek Street, Soho, W1D 4DG which, I have to say, is a rather impressive location. From the press release:

ittakestwo.jpgExpressive Deviant Phonology will present a series of new, unseen canvas work alongside a site-specific installation. The collaborative work will involve the participation of musicians whose music will affect the artist’s drawings while her visuals will influence their playing.

Lucy McLauchlan has always had a fascination with the driving forces that generate social networks, our attempts to fit in with one another and the hidden agendas we carry around with us. The artist creates distinctive characters and freeform organic motifs. Her confident brush strokes become entangled with intense monochrome imagery, rich in graphic elements. She often paints with little or no preparation and engages her instinctive approach to smother spaces with paint, creating chaotic and seductive environments. Lucy utilises different surfaces to work upon, including canvas, walls, metal, wood, cars and breasts. For this exhibition, she will be working in black and white with Indian ink. The use of this medium provides the desired dense line with one fluid stroke, creating a fast and continuous method. Lucy’s drawings create a black and white world ruled by instinct. Its characters interact with each other and the viewer to reveal the more intricate inner workings of the individual subconscious.

Hat tip to Surely

Dave Hilliard

The Whining Wench draws my attention to Dave Hilliard. He’s an artist and here he is with some of his art.

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That photo was taken from a long-ish interview conducted by Thomas Moronic earlier in the year. Worth a read.

Captioned Pictures at the Library

Picked up a rather strange looking flyer the other day for an exhibition at the Central Library called More Captioned Pictures by Robert Geoghegan.

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It’s on the 3rd floor in the Arts and Lit dept and runs until the end of the month.

Lewes’ Gilded Mountain

Lewes Herriot has been consistently uploading art to his Dark Inventory blog for months now and deserves another mention. This one’s title’s The Gilded Mountain:

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His artwork is for sale and he welcomes inquiries for bespoke design for album sleeve, book cover design and posters.

Graphic Auteurs

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The Graphic Auteur - Expressive Graphic Design is a show at the BIAD Department of Art on Margaret St curated by David Osbaldestin and Paul Slocombe.

The Graphic Auteur presents a diverse range of creative approaches and graphic responses, to contemporary graphic design and politics. Through a series of personal issue-based communications and expressive graphic design. second year students from the BA (Hons) Visual Communication course, become both author and designer, taking responsibility for the ethical direction of their messages, leading to the emergence of a personal style and graphic signature.

The private view is tomorrow evening (Tuesday) at 5.30 and it then runs until the 16th.

Illustration above by Laura Davies taken from this gallery.

Fused Art

Fused have posted some artwork from their current issue on their blog. Lovely stuff.

James Nash

He’s from Wolverhampton but I won’t hold that against him.

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There’s a small portfolio on Dazed Digital and here’s his MySpace

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I also understand he’s involved with the Colour night at the Quadrant Lounge in Wolverhampton, which has me somewhat intrigued. “The primary space for music and thought in Wolves” they call it. Really must pop along sometime.

Promoting Thyself

The Fine Art of Saying “Hello” was a presentation given by TAK! to young illustrators on how they might promote themselves. In a smart piece of meta-promotion Dom’s put the PDF of the talk online so everyone else can benefit from it.

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This act is an example of something I’m very much in favour of - that by sharing your skills and knowledge you not only benefit the community of which you’re a part but you show yourself to be an important player in that community. Added to this, the sharing forces everyone to up their game as common sense becomes common knowledge, pushing that community above other more closed off ones. Small companies and individuals get this. If only it would peculate to the bigger orgs then maybe Birmingham could become the powerhouse it deserves to be.

Anyway, the talk was part of a Creative Alliance program of sessions and produced 7×7, a series of seven inch circular flyers where artists illustrated song lyrics. A bunch of these were on the flyer table at Plus and I picked up three by Joe Rogers, Karoline Rerrie and Ruth Radcliffe.

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Considering the quality of work on display at Plus the fact that these just jumped out and said “take me now” is credit indeed.

Currentstate

Illustrator and designer Jane Anderson has a weblog.

Cure Zone

If I was being cruel I’d say the title of the latest exhibition to take place at Curzon St Station is an indication of some shark jumping, but I’m not and it looks pretty cool.

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The Cure Zone is:

An exhibition by a group of international visual communicators. Fusing ideas of European, Asian, North and South American students discovering their individuality through their studies at UCE’s BIAD. […] A mix of diverse influences, oozing concepts articulated in photography, animation, moving image, illustration, graphic design, scenography, visual identity and branding.

The private view is on October 1st from 6-11pm and the exhibition runs from the 2nd to the 5th from 11am-8pm.

Jane Anderson

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Watch - Pencil on linen

Jane Anderson is an multidisciplinary artist who frequently uses paint, pencil and digital-based media, to explore themes around identity.

[…]

Jane has also run workshops in education & business settings for clients such as the BBC. She has curated several exhibtons to date and is a founder of Periscope (Birmingham artists project space) taking a lead for all web and design production.

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Thai school kids - Digital Media

Art © Jane Anderson. Hat-tip to Russ L who says she sells at the Custard Factory’s Sunday Flea

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