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Ogri

2014-11-14T06:31:00.002-08:00

When I was a boy two things consumed the majority of space between my ears- comic books and motorcycles. So when I came across Paul Samples "Ogri" in Ride Magazine naturally I became obsessed.

Ogri is the story of a fictitious cartoon biker of the same name. The comics focus on the day to day on goings of Ogri's life and dealings with his friend Malcolm, his dog Kickstart, his girlfriend Mitzi and the various trappings facing the modern motorcyclist.

The thing I always liked was the mixture of detail and humor. Looking at the larger images, for example, if you look closely for a while you see that in each scene, aside from the main story, there are lots of different stories unfolding in the frame, sort of reminiscent of Martin Handford's wheres wally.

Mostly the stories revolve around similar themes with key elements- motorcycles (obviously), pigs (the police), danger, alcohol and sex (the last three best served together). Samples depictions of women in his strips have a Robert Crumb feel- that same honesty that reflects the artists interests and offers male readers something to relate to.

Sample

Crumb

Since becoming a motorcyclist myself I understand much more about the way that these comics are written, the roads are a different place from the perspective of the strange minority group known as motorcyclists. Ogri really embodies the spirit of this rather unusual ilk.

Sure the roads react differently in bad weather, road debris is a deadly foe and motorists are trying constantly to kill you. But those things aside There is a vision of a biker embedded in the conscious of society, it is a tired idea of an easy riding tear away but underneath that over used cliche is a very simple idea that still rings true, before all the Marlon Brando, Evil kanevil, leather jacket wearing studded codpiece, harley davidson, tassles crap. That idea lives in the heads of all motorcyclists, we know this from the displays of comradery to each other, our talk of roads and rides or that we nod at each other when we see another biker. Its because we understand that feeling, that feeling is escapism, we can close the door on our lives and all of the nonsensical stress of modern living. Leave the work, kids, dogs, parents, girlfriends, wives or whatever behind, step out into our garage's onto our bikes and just fuck off.

Victo Ngai

2011-12-17T18:58:00.001-08:00

New York Based- Hong Kong born- world wide wicked!

Personally I find Victo's work gives me a slight Utagawa Kuniyoshi taste with a tinge of modern day but I could be way off, tell you what judge for yourself, you can see her work here: http://victo-ngai.com/#javascript or on her wonderfully candid and honest blog

Paul Blow

2011-12-17T18:34:00.000-08:00

This is of course the work of illustrator Paul Blow. I first came across Paul's work at the

Pick me up exhibition at Somerset house. Paul's work is often witty and humorous but nearly always touches on deeper subject matter- which works as a perfect taster for topics that are usually too dark for imagery.

However, don't let me tell you that his work needs text to justify it as you can see from examples on his site or in his beautiful prints, Paul is able to express the intention behind the pieces clearly using only simple visual tools (perhaps best illustrated in his piece on Internet pornography). These elements form your intellectual stimulant but far from being a one trick pony his use of color and line make a decent aesthetic impression too.

feast your eyes on Paul's goodie bag here: http://www.paulblow.com/

Matthew Green

2011-12-17T18:07:00.000-08:00

So theres this guy, Mathew Green and he's f**king awesome! anyone who says otherwise is a liar.

Told you so

Illustration Podcast

2011-12-17T17:02:00.000-08:00

I found this little gem whilst searching for something to listen to whilst doing a spot of drawing. It is the
Escape from Illustration Island podcast and you can pap it on your itunes by clicking here and following the links. From the variety of usefull episodes you can check out talks with leading critics, historians and a multitude of artists, editors and illustrators. My favorite is episode 74 - intermission where you can hear musical hits such as "i might have to get a day job" and "illustration high coo".

Paine Proffitt

2011-11-29T15:16:00.000-08:00

"Whyyyyyyyyy whhhhhhhy whhhhhhhhhhhhy Delilah?" the roar of a working class generation over the freezing terraces across the country on a grey Saturday morn- the real britannia- an inspiration?
The latest addition to our visual melting pot is the work of one Paine Proffitt an American artist currently residing in the city of Stoke-on-Trent perhaps best known for his vintage-'esk' imagery surrounding British football culture.
For a few hours this week Proffitt was good enough to allow me through the door of his studio- a veritable treasure trove of painterly canvas creations to get my teeth into.
From his commercial pieces to his darker personal projects Proffitt's style is bold and consistent.
I was especially interested to see his growing collection of match programs that form a series of commissions by Proffitt, in years to come collectors items- i'm sure.

Check out some genius here- http://www.paineproffitt.com/

Tom Rowe

2011-11-16T08:45:00.000-08:00

cant go wrong. think machines made of candy. website here

mickey duzyj

2011-11-16T08:37:00.000-08:00

Cool work, interesting name- he's got it all! well at least his own style of graphic/digital illustration. nice to look at.

have a gander at his stuff ere: http://www.mduzyj.com/illustration

Brad Holland

2011-11-16T08:07:00.000-08:00

The Illustration industry is widely considered to be in poor shape. This is due to the growing preference for other mediums for their ability to convey a message quickly- mediums such as photography and graphic design. But what (if anything) does illustration offer that these other disciplines don't?
Good illustration to me is the marriage of rich imagery and wit. Images that follow this formula can provoke the viewers fascination, bring a body of text to life and reveal thought provoking truths about almost anything.
Brad Holland is an illustrator who is well aware of this and achieved critical success in the early 90's. His work rather than info graffics, explores the feeling, the artistry behind illustration with his painterly imagery. The message behind the majority of Brad Holland's work is often based on politcal affairs or news offering a satyrical undertone as an extra dimension to his style.

visit his website here: http://www.bradholland.net/

awesome prints

2011-11-16T07:44:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post to say- super duper fantastico woodblock prints available here at Tugboat. look at the detail- lovely

BLU

2011-11-04T15:16:00.000-07:00

Another old one here- Muto by BLU- this piece quite simply raises the bar, you can see from the sheer scale of the frames that a lot of work was put in here making this a short of epic proportions.

I Met The Walrus

2011-11-04T15:04:00.000-07:00

Long overdue post here, I saw this animation about 3 years ago and for my money it's one of the best short animations Ive ever seen.
The premise is based on a lost recording from an interview John Lennon gave in 1969.
Illustrators James Braithwaite and Alex Kurina picked up an Emmy in 2009 for this little beauty and rightly so. It is a great example of how illustration can embody the meaning of sentences to not only explain the message but open the viewers imagination to a plethora of ways that its meaning could be interpreted.

Jonny Hannah

2011-09-01T12:13:00.000-07:00

These are a few good examples of how there is still a lot to be said for hand rendered illustration;

From the simple colour schemes of the lino prints to the naivety of the typography. Within we see a textured, pleasing and retro aesthetic, elements that work as ingredients for a very meaty visual stew.

These pieces are just a few offerings from the great Jonny Hannah, I particularly like the use of text in Hannah's work- I find it free and unrestrained, qualities that are less common in contemporary typography which seems to lean more towards the digital.

Cool Logo

2011-09-01T11:47:00.000-07:00

well done to you Spartan Golf Club

Pick Me Up Exhibition at Somerset House

2011-03-22T15:42:00.000-07:00

Dancing Pigeons - Ritalin from Blink on Vimeo.

Noma Bar

2010-12-20T00:07:00.000-08:00

I just recently encountered some of the work of Noma Bar in an online interview at grain edit.
The images are an embodiment of graphic explicitness in illustrative form. The way Bar expresses a concept in such a visually simple way brings new life to old saying a picture is worth a thousand words. To support this here is a small extraction from the interview:

How did you come to develop this style?

I’m attracted to actors that don’t use words. Maybe it is because I come from a foreign country and I have to do a lot of non-verbal communication. Comedy really influences me. I admire silent films because they have the ability to make people laugh without saying any words, basically doing visual things without talking. My work is like a comedy dialogue, short jokes, short stories. It quite similar to comedy in that it ends with a punch line.

One Dot Zero

2010-11-22T15:27:00.000-08:00

a couple of weeks ago One Dot Zero held thier adventures in motion festival at the BFI Southbank and I was lucky enough to get on the press list for the opening night of the event. the week consisted some of the best animation from the creme of the europian crop, here is the taster

onedotzero_adventures in motion 2010 preview from onedotzero on Vimeo.

You can read my review of the event that I wrote for FAD magazine here

Mark Reeve

2010-11-22T15:16:00.000-08:00

Recently I met with award winning Illustrator/cartoonist Mark Reeve and he was good enough to let me pick his knowlege for an hour as he showed me some illustrations.Some of the more notable tasks of his career are working on charicter design for the television show- Spitting Image, charicter design for ITV's Headcases, comic strips for DC Comics and extensive work in storyboarding for television. Mark is also known for his satyrical editorial illustration for The Mail On Sunday. The topic of discussion was the rise of digitally rendered illustration and how Mark had been teaching himself to use programs such as Photoshop to keep up.

Jamie Shovlin

2010-11-22T14:32:00.000-08:00

Some nice drawing I found from one of the Saatchi galleries featured artists- Jamie Shovlin.

2010-11-22T14:14:00.000-08:00

Milgi Window Drawing from Ben Smith on Vimeo.

Builtbypeople - Yeti from Simon Spilsbury on Vimeo.

I have been asked to paint a window display for madame ettas seafood kitchen in Brixton Village so I had a look at how people generally go about it and these were my favorites

Chris Bourke

2010-11-22T13:49:00.000-08:00

A selection of small thumbnails of prints done by artist Chris Bourke, taken from his website here

The images have a definite appeal due to their stark contrast and graphic line. The content however deals mostly with symbolism of a very typical nature which does undermine the originality of the work. visual cliche's such as sculls, scrolls, sparrow's, daggers and hearts form the majority of the content which on one level gives a taste of the overall angle of the prints but leaves no real lasting impression. Still nice saleable prints.

2010-11-02T08:40:00.000-07:00

Beautiful animation by Istavan Orosz

Charlie Bronson

2010-11-01T13:24:00.000-07:00

I recently had the good fortune of acquiring a Charlie Bronson original or ,as he is now known- Charles Salvador, which I gave as a gift to my father for his birthday. If you think that giving someone a gift that was made by a man who spent 36 years in solitary confinement a little strange then perhaps it is but can you say that you have ever seen a piece of art like it before? its certainly not a pretty picture.
Michael Gordon Peterson AKA Charles Bronson/Salvador was caught in 1974 for armed robbery and was sentenced to seven years imprisonment since then he has only spent 69 days as a free man the rest has mostly been in solitary confinement. The press have labelled him as Britain's most violent prisoner although he has never murdered anyone and it seems that the judicial system has turned their back on him. One of the only joys of his life in recent years has been to produce art- a privilege that was recently taken away. His drawings offer an insight into a life that the art world has never seen before, they tell the chilling story of a man in captivity, a prisoner of his own mind.

Iain Macarthur

2010-11-01T12:17:00.000-07:00

OK now I'm getting to the real juice

Iain Macarthur is brilliant and the only reason I have to justify that is because his intricate illustrations make my mouth water. Is it a question of taste? why is illustration so subjective? when I asked my boss he said that graphic violence in illustration is becoming common and is unsavory.
when I ask friends they appreciate mostly trendiness and graphic design esk style.
I turn it round and round in my head but still all that matters is that these images ignite my creative arousal.

Recently I was told that it is important to strip down my illustrative style to reveal a side to it that is commercially viable and in the process of pondering how to respond to that I see more and more examples of illustrators who seem to share a common goal- to produce rich and giving imagery that contains information from corner to corner and registers with an impact that is phenomenal.

Mcbess

2010-11-01T11:49:00.000-07:00

I was recently looking through a magazine when i was pulled in by imagery that I could only describe as tasty.
It was the work of contemporary french illustrator Matthieu Bessudo aka Mcbess.

Mcbess says "developing your style is a long process, but its rewarding- like growing a beard." the question of someones 'style' is something that is usually frowned upon ,in education at least and I have to wonder why?

I understand that one could be drawn into the trap of becoming pigeon holed like poor old Louis wane who drew cats for the majority of his illustrative career. I also understand that these things often work in trends, hot may one day be not, such as in the case of illustrator Chris Foss who suffered from the overnight shift in interest from airbrush art.

Then I look at the work of Mcbess and think, who cares? his drawings are like ink liquorish. His images are rich with the quirk and the cool, I may well end up buying one of these.