Created in Birmingham » Illustration

rainbow_donkeys

Chris Unitt — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 21:15:04 +0000

How can I not post something about someone going by the name of rainbow_donkeys?

I was in Cybercandy (a sweet shop on Bull St, the same street John Cadbury opened his first grocery) on Saturday when I spied a flyer for Teeth’s upcoming gig at the Sunflower Lounge on 28 October. This is the one:

If I’ve got this right, rainbow_donkeys is Kris Jones who describes himself as “a freelance illustrator / doodler / designer based in the West Midlands”, specifically Birmingham, according to his Twitter account. He’s available for commissions, should you be interested.

He’s notched work for Fused and Area Magazines, has a T-shirt for sale via www.cutoutshop.com and Mouldy Loaf’s shop, featured in the recent Inkygoodness Exhibition and, as seen above, has a nice line in gig posters. Heres’s the one for Capsule’s upcoming Efterklang gig (29 Oct at The Asylum – ):

(PS – I’m not entirely certain whether that underscore is meant to be in there or what the deal is with capitalisation. Or whether it matters. I’d be happy to correct what I’ve gone with if someone wants to put me right).

Fox/Colour/Ruth Green

Chris Unitt — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 09:56:29 +0000

Colour is the night run by Cib alumnus Katie Spragg and it returns to The Victoria on Thursday 15 October. Back in February (that long ago) they brought Charlie Parr along – there’s a video of him performing a fantastic version of ‘Cheap Wine‘.

This time round they’ve got a Commercially Inviable special starring World of Fox with support from James Summerfield, Friends of the Stars and Richard Burke.

Pixie Sixer’s already written all about it on More Canals Than Venice so check that for more info. I’m really posting this for an excuse to post Ruth Green’s artwork for World of Fox.

Ruth is a recent addition to the Love to Print collective – a project explained on the rather wonderfully named Shoulder to Crayon. Most of that collective are also involved with Girls Who Draw, including Karoline Rerrie and Sarah Ray.

There seems to be quite a tangled web of ladies out there producing pretty, quirky illustrations. See also i heart joan and the Inkygoodness folks.

Girls who Draw

Kate Spragg — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 20:42:33 +0000

Girls who Draw is an international group of female artists and illustrators, including 3 of Birmingham’s finest: Jane Anderson, Sarah Ray and Karoline Rerrie. For those of you who are planning a trip down to London town before 3 March I urge you to check out the ‘MISFITS AND MISCELLANY’ exhibition at The Exposure Gallery.

The exhibition is to celebrate the production of the ‘Girls who Draw’ book which was printed by Tuckey Print Limited in Birmingham.

The girls have chosen some of their favourite images from the book to exhibit alongside an eclectic mix of their illustrations and artwork.

Lizz Lizz

Kate Spragg — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 14:58:33 +0000

Lizz is an illustrator from Birmingham who likes black tea, knitting and cats. She works in a similar way to other illustrators, such as Sarah Ray and James Nash, creating personal small press comics and working with others to produce animation. All three illustrators exhibited their wares at the Alternative Press Fair in London last sunday.

On her website you can devour some Comic Sushi: Tales of German cats, hairy midget elves and Mr Lemon. Takeaway titbits include badges and postcards. You can pick up a copy of her comic Tofu and Cats at the Ikon Gallery shop.

Charity idea, help needed please!

Kate Spragg — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 17:40:58 +0000

I was really touched by what Chris wrote about Baldy’s Blog in his thank you post last Thursday. It got me thinking that if we could harness the huge support of the creative community which made it possible for CiB to win an award, what could we do if we used that support within project which would affect people who need it most, for example a charity?

When I was looking at Ben Javens’s website shop yesterday I had a flash of inspiration. Here is my idea:

Brum’s best known 2D artists donate an original image, drawing, photograph etc. to CiB
CiB sets up an online shop using a website service like Cafe Press.
CiB sells limited edition t shirts, canvas bags, pin badges etc which sport the original images
All the profits go to a Birmingham based charity suggested by you, the CiB readers.

So, that is the bare bones of an idea which could be made into a rather nice charity project, with a bit of your help. What I am asking you, the readers is:

Would anyone like to offer an image / illustration to be used?
Can anyone recommended a Cafe Press type service?
Most importantly: What Birmingham based charity could the proceeds go to?

Answers in the comments please! Any other ideas / comments gratefully received.

Ben Javens’s Capsule posters

Kate Spragg — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 17:47:27 +0000

When running any project/ festival/ organisation one of the most difficult things to get right (and one of the most important) is the visual identity or dare I say it, ‘brand’. When putting any publicity together: flyers, posters, website etc. it is so important that the visual elements speak to your intended audience and tell something of the ethos of the organiser. When I have put together publicity for projects in the past I have found that the finished artwork is sometimes missing that magic ingredient, which for me is illustration.

In my opinion promoters Capsule utilize the magic of good illustration just right. Each piece of design they commission is executed with full force, and this ballsy, risk taking approach is one reason why they run some of the most well recognised events around.

Ben Javens has created these posters for Capsules Jan / Feb events and they are quite typical of the bold, hand printed style you can see on his weblog, he has some lovely bits for sale in his shop too.

Colourbox

Chris Unitt — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 20:54:12 +0000

Colourbox is Joe Rogers, a freelance illustrator who trained at BIAD. His new portfolio website has been designed by Tak! and isn’t yer normal run-of-the-mill kind of thing.

He also has a blog here and is on MySpace and Facebook too in case you want to pledge your allegiance.

MeeNoKawaii

Chris Unitt — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:48:24 +0000

MeeNoKawaii (lit. Me Not Cute), also known as Annalise Francis, is an illustrator and animator who:

takes inspiration from the Oriental and traditional children’s illustration amongst other things

Karoline Rerrie

Chris Unitt — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:33:26 +0000

Karoline Rerrie is an illustrator who makes art like this:

She did the album covers for Matthew Herbert’s ‘Doctor Rockit’ project and has also developed a comic called ‘X-Rated Animal Hospital’ at nursepussy.com, a website which I imagine gets a lot of accidental visitors.

Winnie O’Brien

Chris Unitt — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:08:09 +0000

I mentioned Winnie O’Brien back in May thanks to a tip off from Supercool but bemoaned a lack of information.Â I’m pleased to say Winnie’s website is now up and running, from which we learn that she produces animation, design and illustration for an impressive, international client list.Â What’s more:

Her work has received many awards including a Broadcast Designers Association Silver Award and an Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Design and Animation

Dave Gaskarth

Chris Unitt — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 09:27:54 +0000

Dave Gaskarth, or Gas, is a Birmingham-based illustrator and designer and part of the Cyrk collective and he’s just put up a new portfolio website.

Over the past couple of years he’s amassed an impressive client list that includes 7 Inch Cinema, Flat Pack Festival, Supersonic, Birmingham Uni, Jibbering, Moseley Folk Festival, New Art Gallery Walsall and others.

As well as traditional design and illustration he’s also designed DVD interfaces, built websites and sold his own original artwork.Â You can see some examples on the Dave Gaskarth website and including these portraits, from a set of 12 produced for 7 Inch Cinema’s showing of Gangsters last year:

Antony Collins

Chris Unitt — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 12:43:36 +0000

Flicking through the flyers in The Kitchen the other day I happened upon a pile of business cards featuring one of these little chaps:

The card belonged to Antony Collins who does graphic design and illustration, presumably on a freelance basis.Â His email address, if you want to get in touch, is on his Deviant Art profile.

I’ve been wondering for a little while if there’s any sort of Birmingham community on Deviant Art.Â The site can be a sod to navigate but there’s some great stuff on there.Â One day I’ll have a trawl and come up with some names.Â In the meantime, if you know of anyone Birmingham-based with a profile on there please stick their name in the comments.

New Large Cow

Pete Ashton — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 00:13:14 +0000

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:

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

Pete Ashton — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 03:57:50 +0000

click for context

Outcrowd Flatpack

Pete Ashton — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:50:36 +0000

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

Pete Ashton — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 09:29:17 +0000

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

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

Pete Ashton — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 16:47:11 +0000

Click for context.

Ben Javens

Pete Ashton — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 20:31:16 +0000

Illustrator Ben Javens has a weblog.

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

The Midlands Loves You

Pete Ashton — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 09:00:24 +0000

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 worldâ€™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

Pete Ashton — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 17:52:21 +0000

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 Â£3.00.

Newtasty

Pete Ashton — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 05:41:22 +0000

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

Lucy McLauchlan’s new site and London show

Pete Ashton — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 19:07:09 +0000

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.

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:

Expressive 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 artistâ€™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. Lucyâ€™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

Pete Ashton — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 16:52:30 +0000

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

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

Pete Ashton — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 09:22:13 +0000

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

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

Lewes’ Gilded Mountain

Pete Ashton — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 19:05:07 +0000

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:

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

Graphic Auteurs

Pete Ashton — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 11:21:06 +0000

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

Pete Ashton — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 17:55:39 +0000

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

James Nash

Pete Ashton — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 14:40:47 +0000

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

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

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

Pete Ashton — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 14:14:26 +0000

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.

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.

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

Pete Ashton — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 15:07:27 +0000

Illustrator and designer Jane Anderson has a weblog.