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Silent Foxes – the making of
12th March 2013
Areas: for sale making of textiles
As part of Refound’s most recent collection I up-styled 4 teak dining room chairs, which I named ‘silent foxes’.
The silent fox design came from my desire to compliment the natural colour of the wood with a visual that would hint towards a forest.
Below I’ve included pictures of the processes I went through to create the ‘silent fox’ chairs.
Autumn shore
22nd November 2012
I think autumn is the most beautiful time of year with its colours of yellow, orange, scarlet and red dominating the landscape.
Below I’ve included a recent painting inspired by the autumnal colours along with a speed painting video of how I painted it.
Kings of Concrete 2012 - Fresh Meat
5th October 2012
Areas: making of sketches street art
Back at the end of August I was invited to do another street art piece as part of the Kings of Concrete
four day urban art and sports festival, held at the Hanover Quay, Dublin.
Below I’ve included some sketches, photos and a time-lapse video of the final piece ‘fresh meat’.
Portrait workshops
26th June 2012
Areas: making of paintings portraits workshops
Last weekend I facilitated a series of portrait workshops in Downpatrick as part of the Down Community Arts art space project. The project aims to offer everybody the opportunity to try art by providing a series of free art workshops taken by professional artists located in public areas.
Below I’ve included the portraits of Katy Perry and Kiera Knightley I did for the workshop along with a speed painting video of how I painted the Kiera Knightley portrait.
The next free portrait workshop that I will be facilitating will be at The market Square in Ballynahinch on 21st July from 10am till 3pm.
Titanic Lockdown
4th April 2012
Areas: making of paintings portraits sketches street art
Last weekend I was invited to do a street art piece as part of the Titanic Lockdown all day boutique festival, held at T13 in the heart of the Titanic Quarter, Belfast.
Below I’ve included some sketches, photos and a time-lapse video of the final piece ‘creation’.
Crane View Kitchens mural
4th April 2012
Areas: making of paintings street art
I was recently commissioned to create a mural for Crane View Kitchens, a shipyard themed eaterie based at T13 in the heart of the Titanic Quarter, Belfast. The eaterie offers people the chance to lunch like a docker supplemented by Titanic themed live theatre.
The eaterie is enclosed on two sides by false walls that recreate the curved hull of a ship. With that in mind, I decided to create a faux one-point perspective mural that would extend the walls of the hull out into the shipyard with a view of Cave Hill and suggest that the customers are working on and eating in a ship that is currently being built.
Below I’ve included some photos and a time-lapse video of the final piece.
ReFound and Restyled
2nd March 2012
Areas: exhibitions for sale making of paintings
Next Friday night (9th March) at 6pm, The sixth ReFound pop up shop opens its doors to Belfast, showing the latest collection of restyled one-off pieces & ‘works of furniture’ by local artists and makers.
As part of the sixth ReFound pop-up shop, I was invited to restyle 4 stools comprising of wooden seats and metal legs.
I decided to utilise the rich texture and colour of the original wooden seats as the main colour and inspiration for the four designs. Each design was based upon an animal known for their brown colour, with the tint of each wooden seat directing the design placed upon it.
Below I have included pictures of the final pieces along with some work in progress pictures.
The ReFound pop-up shop will continue until 31st March at:
9 Wellington Place, Belfast, BT1 6GA
Open Tuesday – Sunday, 11am - 6pm daily; 11am - 7pm Thursday – Friday.
The business of comics: thumbnails
27th January 2012
Areas: comics making of storyboards viewpoint
Over the past 2 years I have found that I’m doing more and more sequential illustration based upon a piece of music or script .
If I were to give myself advice several years ago on how to work in sequential illustration this would be it:
Always work out the story in thumbnails first before you even consider doing a final illustration.
This seems obvious, but for me the urge to get started on a finished illustration (to show the client how good I am) can sometimes overshadow the practicality of making comics.
Thumbnails not only conserve your effort and time for the final illustrations, but especially in the case of sequential illustration they ensure the story works visually before you get started.
For me a thumbnail takes about 2 minutes whereas a final illustration can take anything from 1 – 3hrs. Therefore for the same time frame as 1 final illustration I can have 30 attempts at choosing the right layout, composition and viewpoint for a panel.
So how polished do you do your thumbnails need to be? Will a line drawing do or do I need to spend a ton of time on a thumbnail that the client may not like?
First of all the thumbnails are there to help you work out the best way of presenting the story in the least amount of time. Once you are happy with the story you can spend a bit more time on developed roughs from the thumbnails, which you can then show the client.
If possible, I’ve found that it best to go through the roughs with the client face to face, so they can get an idea of where you are coming from. In addition I’ve found spending some time developing character sketches of the main characters helps the client visualise the characters within the roughs.
Below I’ve included a few thumbnails along with their roughs and final illustrations taken from a project I’m currently working on.
Ulster Museum Tags not Labels - demonstration
16th December 2011
Areas: making of paintings sketches street art
Last weekend I was invited to do a street art demonstration in the Ulster Museum as part of the opening of Victoria and Albert Museum, London touring exhibition of Street Art and Tags not Labels.
I named the demonstration “Something out of nothing” as I like to create characters out of commonplace things. In this instance I liked the idea of creating something from the shape of a few clouds.
Below I’ve included some sketches, photos and a time-lapse video of the final piece ‘cloud monkey’.
Ulster Museum Tags not Labels - proposal
9th December 2011
Areas: making of paintings prints sketches street art
A few months ago I sent in a proposal to do some street art in the Ulster Museum to accompany the opening of Victoria and Albert Museum, London touring exhibition of Street Art - showcasing the work of some of the biggest artists in the street art community such as Banksy, Shepard Fairey, Sickboy, Pure Evil and D*Face.
The Ulster Museum was looking to showcase four of Belfast’s local street art talent in an exhibition called Tags not Labels. Whilst I wasn’t selected as one of the main four artists I was given the awesome opportunity to do some live painting in the Ulster Museum on the opening night.
Below I’ve included some sketches and the final piece for the proposal to give you an idea of the process.
