Bright Night piece for .M Contemporary Gallery

What an incredible honour it was to be invited along with my other fellow Alexander Bander's and amazingly talented high profile South African illustrators to create a one-off print for the .M Contemporary group exhibition, "The Path Less Deconstructed" in Sydney, Australia, running from the 14th December 2013 to 1st February 2014. 

It is just incredible to think that a piece I created here in Cape Town, South Africa is not even on the same continent but elsewhere in the world!

Following is the piece I created, some detail shots as well as an artist's statement on what the piece is about - I hope you like!

For the topic of “ The Path Less Deconstructed”, I looked to that which inspires me most in my work and my analytical albeit playful nature, namely the city at night. I am fascinated by the architecture that can be found in my city: a contrasting mix of sleek modern and 18th century decorative buildings juxtaposed alongside each other, especially the patterns of windows, façade details and building shapes that become starker after dusk. At night in the city, there is an unspoken air of excitement – the feeling that the evening could take you on an adventure anywhere, never quite knowing what you may discover along the way. I see the city as a playground with the carousel as its whimsical heartbeat, the symbol of childhood dreams that never quite leave you; a place to be explored and re-explored, a place of great excitement, of intersecting lives and unlimited possibility. It is at night in the city that I feel most alive and most at home.

Some detail shots

Some pictures of the piece up at .M Contemporary

Many thanks to Emma Cook heading up Alexander's Band and .M Contemporary for organising such an amazing opportunity!

It's A Shape Christmas 2013

I was very honoured to be selected again to create a piece for this year's It's A Shape Christmas!

It's A Shape Christmas is an interactive advent calender, in which 25 creatives (illustrators, typographers, designers and photographers) are each given a particular shape to work with and give a Christmas slant to it. (I was given a pentagon to work with.) Each day a different creative's piece of work is revealed. There are iPhone and iPad downloads of each image for each day and there's also the option to donate some coinage before downloading to the Wood Street Mission, a Manchester based charity that helps and supports families, especially at Christmas time, so please support a good cause!

Yesterday was the reveal date for my submission! Here are a few detail shots of the final piece.

You can view the full piece online here at It's A Shape Christmas.

My submission for last year's It's A Shape Christmas can be seen here.

Between 10 and 5 Feature

Being an avid reader of Between 10 And 5, I was very honoured to be contacted for a feature on their site! You can read the full interview here.

Featured on The Wall Breakers!

Yesterday I was very happy and delighted to see that I was featured on The Wall Breakers site! Such an honour!

Read their very lovely feature here.

On the Boardwalk

Yet another ridiculously busy month, September has flown by as quickly as it started! There's something about this quarter of the year - time seems to launch into warp speed compared to the slow crawl of time at the beginning of the year. So crazy to think that there are just 12 weekends to Christmas..!

A deluge of posts to still come, but let me kick off with this illustration I recently completed for a soon-to-be-launched Australian dog accessories company. One of the many items they sell are hawaiian dog coats, as pictured. I had so much fun on this and it was so lovely to work with such bright, summery colours especially on some of those very rainy days we had in September!

Some detail shots:

Bits & Pieces

August has been quite the busy month! I've had a lot on the go - a lot which I can't unfortunately share yet - so instead I will share a few bits and pieces of happenings this month.

From top:

- A little snippet of something I'm busy finishing up this week
- A self-initiated piece I'm working on in my spare time
- A piece I'm busy finishing colouring

Not only has this month been a pretty busy, one, but it's been a hugely growing, stretching, get-out-of-your-comfort-zone kind of month!

From left:
- Last week (19 - 23 August) I put on my teaching hat! I kicked off with a talk at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology Cape Town and Belville campuses and then lectured for the rest of the week at the Cape Town campus. It was such an amazing and growing experience!!
- Those who know me well will know that alongside a great cup of coffee, there is nothing better than a good book! So when I heard Exclusive Books was having a huge warehouse sale out in Belville, I couldn't resist! I managed to find some amazing design books at the fraction of the cost!
- Living it up at the Big Bottle Festival! Held at The Cellars-Hohenort Hotel, the festival had a bit of a Great Gatsby feel to it, with guests being spoiled with great wine and food! I'm still dreaming about the most fantastic curry I tasted there, as well as some quality reds..

I'm so excited about some amazing projects in the pipeline that are coming up...watch this space!

Lilla Rogers Global Talent Search 2013

On a whim I decided to enter this year's Lilla Rogers' Global Talent Search. We were asked to design a journal cover with a playground theme and vintage feel. I really hope to take one of her courses in the near future, they look amazing!!

Stanley and the Lucky Book

(Click to view bigger)

Recently I've been very busy working on a submission to this year's Illustrate It, entitled the "Lucky Book".

The story revolves around a very ordinary boy called Stanley who is given amongst many other presents, a book for his birthday. His life starts to radically change for the better after receiving this book.

Cape Town City Hall

There are so many amazingly beautiful buildings with so much character and history in my home town Cape Town, South Africa.

I was especially inspired to create an illustration of our City Hall, with Table Mountain in the distance. Built in 1905, the City Hall is iconic in South African history, as Nelson Mandela, after just being released from prison on 11 February 1990, made his first public speech from the City Hall’s balcony.

Hope you like!

Het Bos by Alain Grée

I've been meaning for a long time to share with you Alain Grée's amazing book,  entitled "Het Bos" which I was super lucky to win last year!!

For those of you not aware of Alain Grée's amazing body of work, he is an acclaimed French illustrator and author, having published over 300 books for a variety of editors primarily in the 1960's and 1970's, with each of these books in turn having been translated into 20 languages all over the globe! 

Born 21 July 1936 in Eaubonne, near Paris, he studied at the Ecole des Arts Appliqués and Beaux Arts de Paris in Paris. He has worked as an illustrator for "Pomme d'Api" and "Journal de Babar" magazines, produced children’s broadcasts on the French national television for two years and is currently working as a graphic designer and editor of advertising publications. 

Interestingly, he has a huge passion for sailing, having owned sailing ships and also having gone on many sailing trips around the world while working on his children's stories and illustrations on board the ship! He even worked as a journalist for "Voiles et Voiliers", a sailing ships magazine for 20 years!

I love how he makes such great use of vibrant colours to bring even the most mundane subjects to life and makes them absolutely fascinating to read about!
It is also so beautiful to see how much longevity Alain Grée's work has.

I'm so grateful to have won a signed copy of his Het Bos and for the beautiful postcards he sent along with it! So gorgeous!

Here are a few of his many gorgeous illustrations I found floating around on the interwebs:

A few of the many books he has illustrated.

Some spreads from his Trains book. So very beautiful!

One of the many desktop wallpapers he created! I love this one of France!

A beautiful fabric pattern entitled Paris / Indians, 8.00€ available at Mes Habits Chéris.

And finally, two beautiful Alain Grée prints, entitled Happy House and Elves in the Forest available for £10.00 each at the Anorak Magazine shop.

Alexander's Band

So in recent news, the brand new South African independent illustration representation service I was invited to join is LIVE!

Named after an optical phenomenon, Alexander's Band is the brainchild of Emma Cook, a well established and well known Cape Town illustrator with over 6 years experience and know-how in the field of illustration and business. She heads up a formidable list of Cape Town illustrator heavyweights including Adam Hill, Jade Klara, Simon Maclennan, David Maclennan, Joey Hifi, Alice Edy, Ryan de Carte, Hanno van Zyl and Gareth Jones.

I'm SO very honoured and privileged to have been asked to join such an amazingly talented group of illustrators - both humbling and SO very exciting!

My profile and body of work can be seen here.

The Nobles - Pitfalls of Earth Life

> Click to view large.

Earlier this year I was contacted by The Nobles, an indie rock and jazz band based in San Diego, California to illustrate their album artwork for the launch of their fourth album, entitled "Pitfalls of Earth Life". Their music is light-hearted and quirky, yet underpinning each song is a form of fable, each alluding to a different trapping of life. To capture this, I illustrated what at first looks like quite an interesting island, but on closer inspection, is one filled with much disaster - representing some of the trappings of life.

Their lead singer, Allen Sulzen had recently just returned from a sabbatical in Mexico before returning to start on the new album, and so the artwork has some Mexican influence.

A huge shout out to The Nobles for contacting me to work on such an amazingly awesome brief and for being absolutely winner clients! It was truly such a fantastic experience working with you!

Here are some more details of the artwork.

Take a listen to The Nobles' fine music here and head over here to get your hands on their latest album!

You can also connect with them on Facebook and Twitter!

Joseph Fipps by Genevieve Godbout

A very, very belated post, but I still wanted to share with you a gorgeous children's book that I won last year, entitled Joseph Fipps, written by Nadine Robert in French, and illustrated by Genevieve Godbout.

Genevieve is a HUGELY talented illustrator currently working at Disney. She has done amazing and brilliant work including illustrating the Poketo x Disney range (so very gorgeous!), collaborated with Nadinoo for Anthropologie, collaborated with Audrey Grace boutique by illustrating Up the Wooden Hills' dresses, a Swedish clothing label available at the boutique, and has illustrated a number of children's books, including La longue marche des doudous and Où s'est caché le sommeil?.

Here are some photographs of Joseph Fipps! :)

Genevieve was VERY kind to not only sign her book and leave a lovely message, but also drew a lovely picture of Joseph Fipps in it for me!

Some more beautiful illustrations from the book, as seen on Genevieve's blog. Her beautiful and wonderful illustrations shine through in every page!

So gorgeous! Head over here to purchase Joseph Fipps!

Lily & Her Favourite Crocodile Squeaky Toy

This is an illustration of our always happy-go-lucky, sweet and sometimes naughty dog, Lily. We adopted her from DARG early last year (1 May 2012 - she was born 22 November 2011, so she was just 6 months old when we got her!) and she has quickly become very much a part of the family and a great late night buddy whilst I'm working. She is very besotted with her new favourite toy, a green squeaky crocodile, so we can always hear when she's coming!

Ididthatad Week #14

Recently, I started uploading some of my work to Ididthatad and was thrilled to see my work highlighted in this week's Ididthatad emailer! :)

Work In Progress

Some sneak peeks of something I've been busy working on lately.