occupying (my kitchen)

Been on Facebook lately? Then you won't have failed to notice the internet's latest meme - “Casually Pepper Spray Everything Cop” - famous works of art photoshopped to include the image of the pepper spray-wielding UC Davis police officer. His presence in these iconic paintings is absurdly incongruous and profoundly disturbing. And for that reason they're brilliant, because that's exactly how I felt when I watched the video footage. I'd say a degree of outrage is being expressed in these images. They're the visual, viral equivalent of the protest song.

More on the American (based in Edinburgh apparently) artist who started it here and here.

P.S. I'm also quite taken with this poster, created by sympathetic graphic designers after the OWS Zuccotti Park eviction. As someone texted me recently, 'mon the 99%.

P.P.S. Nonplussed by the current crisis of capitalism? (I know I am). Then here's a theory, complete with cartoons...

zen-like-ish

The indecipherable scrawl above is a teeny section of my latest illustration for the winter edition of Juno (I have promised the editor I won't show the whole image until the magazine has hit the stands, so you'll have to take my word for it - it is actually very zen-like-ish). Ok, so it probably didn't warrant a whole new post but the fact is this tiny flurry of illustrative activity gives me an excuse to pop back here after a sizable absence - um, drinking lovely coffee from lovely cups is very lovely, but let's face it, doesn't really make for a very interesting blog post, and aside from that I really haven't been doing very much of late...

up close and observational

It's been lovely to have my evenings back for a while but I miss the creativity now and, more especially, the drawing. It keeps me sane. I have a fabulous botanical illustration book and stretched paper drying but meanwhile, for the purpose of this post, I raked out these old chestnuts (well ok, they're actually apples), done way back in college. Not quite good enough nor detailed enough for professional botanical illustration (I need to get me a magnifying glass for that apparently) but sometimes it's good to have a point of reference. I want to see how much (if any) I have improved in 20 years...

nice surprises

The world of full time work has left little time for blogging recently and anyway, unless you want the lowdown on what a drawing of an oil rig sea deck looks like, there's been nothing much to report. Until today that is.

As a contrast to the computer rendering I've been doing all day, I'm getting the paints out to try my hand at some botanical illustration, partly because it's something I've been toying with the idea of for ages but I figure it'll be super useful for the Growing Boy too. It'll be therapeutic to take my time and focus purely on composition and the painting process for a bit instead of always rushing to an end result (usually to meet a deadline I've left until the last minute). This time there's no deadline, give or take the risk of shrivelling... The bad boys above are chilling in my fridge (for freshness!) as I type.

But what are the surprises? You may remember some of my work has been at the Hung gallery in Inverness for a while now. I hadn't, it's been so long in fact I'd forgotten it was there. But yesterday I got a surprise email from owner Kevin to tell me he's sold a Highland Cow print and the original Black Dog illustration "Both of which went to customers who instantly fell in love with them and have been given pride of place in their homes" Which is very cool.

But even cooler still is my new shiny sunshiny yellow FrancisFrancis! coffee machine - a fabulous [birthday] surprise which I'll be using to make my coffeecoffee! of a morning.

wake up you sleepy head

Maybe I've not had much time to blog of late, but now comes the reward for all the technical illustrator hours I've been working - payday, whoop! And given my new v early starts, I reckon making my bleary-eyed mornings chirpier is a totally sound and worthwhile investment no? I could do the obvious here and add a link to Pretty Things, but what the hell, I'm listening to King Creosote on a loop at the mo and on a mission to spread the word.

going global

If you've noticed I've been a bit thin on the ground lately, that's because it's week two of full time work. These days it's mostly taking all my energy to get up in the morning and that's despite not even working a full week last week! Hard to believe I did this before for almost 15 years - I must have had way more energy in my youth...

Anyway, I've gone global how exactly? Um, truth be told, and obviously not counting my one night of inexplicable and since unrepeated popularity in France, I guess it's actually more Italian American. Having (somewhat alarmingly) found myself regularly video conferencing with Houston courtesy of the day job (who knew I could do corporate?!), in addition to dispatching another Blessings print to Pittsburgh I'm also planning what will be a well-earned trip to Venice in the autumn and mulling my submission for the upcoming Italian exhibition.

There's nothing quite like a deadline to get me moving (let's face it, it's practically the only thing that does), so it was fabulous to get an invite for the 2011 I Colori del Sacro exhibition, remember Beltane, above (oh, and the Jumis Tree almost ran)?. For 2011 the theme is air and I have until September to submit so plenty of time to start thinking about the illustration (I must, absolutely must not leave this until the end of August to put pencil to paper).

what is not but could be if

Some sneaky previews of the latest illustrations for Juno, hot off the drawing board. I have promised the editor I will hold fire and not post them in their entirety (alongside the versions that nearly were but now are not) until the upcoming issue has hit the stands. If they look a teensy bit familiar, I guess sometimes when I'm in certain frame of mind it's safer not to stray too far from the path.

(When I was mulling on a title for this post, this was the song on repeat in my head).