Stage Actor

Actor on Stage

Faces, portraits, head and shoulders are endlessly compelling but don't crop up too often as subject matter for the commissioned works I receive, so I tend to work on them in my own time. There is so much scope in the abstracting of shapes and features while still retaining the sense of a character. This imagined portrait image developed from a simple pencil outline of a face and evolved into a more mask-like interpretation with echoes of an actor on stage.

Save

Continue reading
2655 Hits

Rising Healthcare Costs

Rising Healthcare Costs

The Wall Street Journal got in touch requesting an illustration for their health section about the rising costs of healthcare and how those costs are being hidden. This was the finished illustration selected from a couple of sketched concepts.

Continue reading
2499 Hits

Colour Variations

Colour Variations

Perhaps there is nothing that affects the mood of an image more than colour. I was taught to 'use colour sparingly and only for a special purpose'. It is a maxim that has somehow stuck with me over the years despite it being rendered redundant at the merest glance at any period of art history or indeed contemporary illustration. Nevertheless I do tend to work with a restricted range of colours. This is a little graphic experiment I worked up running a simple image through different colourways to see just how differently it could be perceived.

Continue reading
2522 Hits

Pollination

Pollination

This is the realisation of one of those images that sometimes just seems to appear, fully-formed, from nowhere. Stylistically the figure is a throwback to the kind of scuptural forms I used to illustrate over twenty years ago, gender-free and without the encumberance of hands or feet. Could probably work well in colour but I so love black and white!

Save

Continue reading
2584 Hits

Solving Labor Shortage

Logistics Management

Wendy from Logistics Management got in touch to request a cover illustration for the June issue of their magazine. The cover story is about how there is a recruitment shortfall within the logistics sector and how managers are working to circumvent that gap.

Below is the finished cover with two of the initial pencil ideas, one is 'bridging' the gap while the other is a visual depiction of 'absence' within the industry.

Logistics Management

Sketch one was the preferred route but we agreed to drop the bridge and have the figure stepping over the gap instead which was a little more interesting visually. The illustration was also repeated on an interior spread, as seen below.

Logistics Management

Continue reading
2647 Hits

Veiled

Veiled

Many years ago I used to have a small photographic darkroom that would be periodically set up in the kitchen so I could make my own black and white prints. I also liked to experiment with photograms - making images on photographic paper with objects or drawings on tracing paper with varying degrees of thickness. Areas of the photographic paper that would receive no light appear white while those exposed through transparent or semi-transparent objects would appear grey. Although the process was exciting the equipment was crude and it wasn't too long before I focussed instead on working with traditional illustration materials. However the photogram process itself has always stayed with me and these days the technology offers the control to realise the kind of images I could only imagine back in the day. This image is based on that process, decreasing the transparency on selected areas.

Continue reading
2535 Hits

Imagined Anatomies

Imagined Anatomies

Although I am not a medical illustrator (which is a specialism) I do get to illustrate medical topics quite often. The point of those illustrations is usually to convey an important health issue to the reader but equally they often provide an opportunity to include anatomical detail. I do enjoy the rendering of organic shapes, hence this small ongoing series of 'Imagined Anatomies'. Essentially an exercise in the grouping of various organic elements and presenting them in a harmonious composition.

Imagined Anatomies

A selection of three from initial pen drawings/studies.

Imagined Anatomies

Continue reading
2620 Hits

Imperfect Evolution

Imperfect Evolution

This illustration was made for The Wall Street Journal and a piece about how evolution has not perfected our species with the result that we now have all sorts of physical problems. I was asked to predominantly depict a stylized male body with a knee brace and cane, tissues and vitamins.

Save

Continue reading
2628 Hits

The Vanguard

The Vanguard

Marc from Casual Astronaut got in touch and asked if I would be able to create a cover illustration for the first issue of The Vanguard, a magazine highlighting cancer research and treatment at UT Southwestern in Dallas. The brief was to illustrate the theme of transformative care from lab to patient. I supplied three sketches and this was the one chosen by the client. A request was made to subdue the visibility of the internal organs and to use a green/blue palette for the final artwork.
 

Save

Save

Save

Continue reading
2755 Hits

Protecting Chemical Facilities 2

Protecting Chemical Facilities 2

Protecting Chemical Facilities 2

In addition to the cover image below, Tyler at Security Management magazine asked me to also create a full page illustration and spot to accompany the article on chemical plant protection.

Continue reading
2663 Hits