twoducksdisco

Learned to Surf

2011-12-01T09:15:00.004Z

Last year, Superchunk released what has become one of my favourite ever records, 'Majesty Shredding'. When I learned they were coming to play their first show in the UK in 11 years I knew I had to be there. Sadly, I am now unable to see them due to a rescheduling of Jeff Mangum's ATP festival but I still managed to design a poster for their headline show at The Scala in London.

Since this is a poster I've dreamed of doing for about a year, the actual design concept fell together quite quickly. I basically wanted their mascot 'Tube Guy' riding some waves with a reluctant cat. Simple...

Here is the original sketch and how it progressed to being the final design in Photoshop.

Without further ado, here is the print process for the Superchunk poster; starting with a picture of the transparencies, which are then 'burned' to the screens using chemicals and UV light.

The first screen in place, ready to be printed.

The first colour to be printed was a 'dusty' pink.

The first colour being pulled over the screen, transferring the paint through tiny mesh holes and onto the paper below.

Here are the posters, having had the first colour printed, drying and awaiting the second colour.

Whilst mixing the second colour, I discovered a face on the spatula... Creepy.

The second colour is down.

The posters on the drying racks, waiting to be signed and numbered.

The posters came out great in the end and I managed to produce a run of 62, 30 of which will on sale from the band at the show tonight.

I do of course have the remaining 32 for sale from my online store. So if you want one, head over and grab one before they're all gone. They go 'live' at 10pm tonight!

The Beat that my Heart Skipped

2011-10-21T13:00:00.000+01:00

Here is a new poster for Her Name Is Calla; a band I have known for ages and have enjoyed their music for many years. So it was nice to be hired outside of the band (by Aim Low Promotions) to continue working with the post-rock troop.

I tried to continue the theme which I established in my previous poster for HNIC by illustrating an atmospheric yet minimal scene. This design progresses from the Left Bank poster by uniting lovers and creating a romantic setting. Aww...

The line-up is sound and who knows, if you're single you could just find love there.

When the Tide Creeps In

2011-10-20T09:34:00.002+01:00

If you're into records and you've ever visited Leeds, then chances are that you've been to Jumbo Records. I have picked up some amazing vinyl from there over the years and am always appreciative of the helpful and friendly staff.

I got an email from Ellen and the Escapades last week, asking for a last minute poster design for their in-store performance as part of Jumbo Records' 40th Birthday celebrations, which also coincides with Ellen's last single release. Of course I jumped at the opportunity and came up with this little poster.

It all starts at midday this Saturday (22nd) and if you're in Leeds, you'd be daft to miss it. My chums in Lanterns on the Lake are also playing, as is Corrine Bailey Rae and the ever-reliable Serious Sam Barrett.

On and On

2011-10-18T10:51:00.006+01:00

Here is a new t-shirt that I designed for Leeds-based folk-rock dudes Fossil Collective.

The specifications for the design were to include a stag and that was about it, so it was a fun project in which to interpret in my own style. I decided to develop the stag's antlers to create a constellation, adding a grand feel to the design - reflecting the grand sounds of the band.

Here is the video for the track 'On and On', which was put together by Broken Pixel, who has recently collaborated with my good friend Graham 'Army of Cats' Pilling on this Opera North promotional short.

Myself and Graham will be running a print workshop in November at WYPW, Mirfield. More details on that to come soon.

Gracious Tide, Take Me Home

2011-10-14T10:23:00.004+01:00

When asked by Lanterns on the Lake to design a whole new range of merchandise for the forthcoming autumn and winter months I got very excited about creating something for a band I'd admired for a long time. You're Almost There by Lanterns on the Lake

Their debut LP 'Gracious Tide, Take Me Home' was used as the main theme for the designs and we decided to explore the themes of being lost at sea and trying to feel connected with a world in which we are not familiar with. You can see the full range in their Big Cartel store, as well as a poster of the same design. Hopefully we'll be able to reveal more designs as and when they are printed but rest assured, there is more to come.

They're about to go on tour around the UK with Yann Tiersen and then do their own UK jaunt, as well as a trip around Europe, so if you go out to see them, then do be sure to pick up some new threads to keep you warm in these cold months.

Trouble and Strife

2011-07-06T07:28:00.006+01:00

Here are some pictures from the second exhibition I was involved in this weekend past.

You can see more of the pictures here, c/o the venue.

Here is a video from the launch event (Saturday 2nd) with Jamie Portch's and my works at 1:16.

The month-long exhibition is being held in the SNO!Lounge at SNO!Zone, Milton Keynes, so if you're in the area why not pop in, absorb some nice art, then go snowboarding...

Pictures at an Exhibition

2011-07-04T09:37:00.003+01:00

On Friday 1st July I travelled across the width of northern England, to Middlesbrough. The reason; my debut solo poster exhibition, which also featured collages by Graham Hutchinson.

The exhibition was curated by Henry Carden, so firstly I would like to thank him for making this all happen. And for taking me to the Empire club, wow!

Here are some pictures from the event.

A blast from the past.

Here are a few of Graham's awesome little collages.

And finally a shot of Henry at the desk on Saturday.

On the Friday launch, there was music from Algiers and Ankles, both of whom were awesome, so thanks lads! Also, thanks to all those who came down and chatted, I had a reet good time.

Hopefully a video to emerge soon from Algiers performance, which was cracking.

Pictures in an Exhibition

2011-06-29T15:29:00.004+01:00

This weekend see's exhibition season taking off into full flight with not one but two exhibitions that I will be a part of.

The first being 'The debut solo poster exhibition by twoducksdisco', which will be happening in Middlesbrough at the Pop-Up Gallery.

It all kicks off at 7:30, Friday night and will have some special guest bands in the shape of Algiers and Ankles. I will also be there in person giving mini-seminars about screen-printing and the life & times of a poster artist. Plus i'll have stuff for sale, so bring your monies! Here's a Facebook event for it.

Secondly, I am also contributing a few screen-prints to 'Parkstrife'; an exhibition in the Sno!Lounge at Sno!Zone, Milton Keynes. Yes, you read that correctly, Sno!Zone.

This will be more a permanent exhibition for the lounge, where functions and other such events are held. There's a Facebook event for that too. Plus, a little interview that I did with Jibber Jabber; a snow sports blog at Sno!Zone.

Pictures from both events to follow next week.

Gotta Keep Movin'

2011-06-18T10:42:00.004+01:00

Here is a new poster for Leeds based promotion team Hide & Seek, who are spreading their folky wings South-bound to Sheffield.

Apparently they'd be trying to book American folk singer Willy Mason for quite some time, so I wanted to create something special to mark the occasion for them.

Willy's first album feels like an extensive road trip on foot, so I wanted to create a triptych-style story board depicting his journey across Americana.

I know the H&S lads were pleased with it, so hopefully Willy is too...

Elk River

2011-06-13T09:39:00.003+01:00

When I was asked to design a poster for the Six Organs of Admittance show at the Brudenell I instantly wanted to create a screen-print for the event. For the design I had a definite idea that I wanted to create a scene that illustrated the moods within Six Organs' sound palette.

When considering the screen-printed version of the poster, I decided to alter the design slightly by elongating the height of the poster, giving it a more dynamic impact. With regards to the 'empty space' at the top, with this I wanted to reflect the emptiness of Ben Chasny's music, where much of it is stripped back to guitar and voice.

I also decided to change the colour from a pastel-cream to a mint-blue / green. This was mainly because I have a lot of posters with cream / yellow in the palette and fancied a change. So here's a print process of me making the posters, starting with the first screen with the image burned into it and ready for print

Getting the first colour down.

The first colour on the posters, drying on the racks.

Printing the second colour, a soft pink.

The posters on the drying racks with the second colour completed.

The third image on the screen, depicting the temple and landscape to white the river runs, ready to be printed.

The third colour being printed on the posters. You can just about see the image through the ink.

The poster; cropped, signed & numbered, stamped and ready to be sold at the Brudenell.

A couple of close ups of the poster.

The posters sold really well at the gig and are now available in my Big Cartel poster shop. I've also put in the art print version of the design, which is the exact same height and width; just without any of the text.

So quick thanks to Nath at the Brudenell for letting me have the opportunity to print the posters, Kate at West Yorkshire Print Workshop for tips and hints during the printing process, Alex Steward for being a total dude; playing his first solo gig and it going really well and finally to Ben Chasny; for being a total stand-up dude and playing an incredible set.

Sirens

2011-06-03T10:53:00.008+01:00

The mighty I Like Trains got back in touch recently, asking me to design their latest single 'Sirens'. I accepted and got thinking how best to illustrate the song.

My previous design for the band focussed on scale and the over-powering force of nature, which I wanted to explore with this design. So after watching the video, I was inspired at furthering the story told within.

iLiKETRAiNS - Sirens from The Progress Film Company on Vimeo.

The focal point of the the video being the 'abusive man' seemed like a good figure to use and I wanted to convey his shame and banishment from the shores for his actions. To illustrate his sense of failure as a human I encapsulated him within an 'sea-clock', which is a nautical-based version of the more traditional sand-clock. This links with themes studied through I Like Trains's latest LP 'He Who Saw the Deep'.

So now you've read about it, here are pictures the print session for the special edition 10" inserts:

Firstly, here are the tracing paper sheets, having been greased up with vegetable oil (to make them more transparent for the print process) and hanging up in my shower.

After the tracing paper had become suitably transparent I headed to WYPW to prepare the screens.

The next stage involves me coating the screen in Azocol and then burning the image (using high voltage UV light) to the screen.

A close up of the image.

Then it was time to mix the colour for the prints. Since i'd had to alter the design from being a multi-coloured / multi-layered design to a one-colour print, I had to create a colour that would be striking enough to work on it's own.

This is the paint on the screen after the first print. Hope they turned out OK...

Here they are lined up, ready to be cropped.

And here is the final cropped version, ready to be signed, numbered and stamped.

Close up.

Hopefully that's given you an insight into how I go about designing things and screen-printing. Unfortunately if you want to own one of these limited edition screen-prints they have all sold out but there are standard editions left over in the I Like Trains shop.

A Sailor Lost Around The Earth

2011-05-24T18:08:00.007+01:00

A few posters to show and tell, the first being for ~~Danish~~ Italian band Valerian Swing.

This was a really quick turnover, which is always nice. Also, always fun to work on anything with a slight nautical slant, which their album 'A Sailor Lost Around The Earth' obviously possesses.

Next up is a poster for the legendary Six Organs of Admittance for his show at everyone's favourite small Northern venue, the Brudenell Social Club.

My brother's solo act umber is playing this show too, so all the more reason to come along and see a great show. I also recently wrote and recorded a song with him in under two hours, which you can hear here.

Fingers crossed I can free up some time to print these, as I think the design is something that would appeal to Six Organs fans and to people who like pastel colours, elks and winding rivers to mystical temples...

And finally my poster for the Art for Blind Records all-dayer at the Temple Works in Leeds.

The design is of the Temple Works in Leeds, where the gig is taking place. The building is grade 1 listed and over the years has been host to a number of gigs, exhibitions, workshops, etc.

Ceolchoirm promises to be an incredible day of DIY goodness, featuring a wealth of awesome punk bands, cheap vegan grub and local cheap drinks. Not much more one could ask for really... Go to the website for details and put it in your diary.

The Crawl

2011-05-02T14:36:00.004+01:00

Here are some pictures from this past weekend's Poster Roast at Camden Crawl. The weekend was amazing (as expected) and great to hang out with all the poster wieners again.

My posters [I Like Trains / The Black Keys / Wolf Parade] sat in between Drew Millward's and Diego Mena's.

L - R :: Andy [Tape Ears], Tom Lacey and Luke Drozd.

Bobby [Telegramme]

Some dudes checking out Kate Prior, Graham [Army of Cats] Pilling and Adam Pobiak's fine craftswoman / craftsman-ship.

I forgot to get any pictures of the collaborative poster, which was screen-printed live by The Positive Press but will show & tell when I see a shot.

Big thanks to Mr. and Mrs. White at We Three Club who put the whole thing together and it all ran so smooth and as ever, was lots of fun.

Whilst I was at the Roast an old friend dropped by, which was obviously great to see him but also because he brought along some business cards that I designed for him.

We also discussed the possibility of creating moustachioed characters / objects / anything to be included across the site, with the addition being this duck:

So, lots of fun things to look forward to soon.

Way Down Hadestown

2011-04-19T09:30:00.006+01:00

Hello there.

In less than two weeks time I will be London bound for this year's first Poster Roast, taking place on Saturday 30th April and Sunday 1st May. It's co-exisiting alongside Camden Crawl and looks set to be another fun weekend of posters, music and cider (it's sponsored by Gaymers).

Like last year all the exhibiting artists have contributed a bit of artwork which is to be included on a collaborative poster. This will be printed live before the eyes of the Camden Arms (where the whole Poster Roast is going down). The brief this year was to illustrate your favourite dish of a roast dinner. I selected cauliflower cheese because I love the melted chesse seeping into the florets of the cauli... Sorry got carried away a bit there!

To keep the poster-orientated theme of this blog, here is a recent poster that I completed for Leeds folk promotion team Hide & Seek.

Being familiar with Anaïs Mitchell's album 'Hadestown', I wanted to illustrate the story that is told across the record. It's based on the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus embarking upon a quest to the underworld to rescue his wife Eurydice.

Naturally I wanted to create something a bit darker to reflect the story but also create a striking and intriguing image.

Now this is a tenuous link but in keeping with the roast theme, here is a logo that I recently completed for a friend's new film production company, Boo Said The Goose.

Roast goose?! Like I said, tenuous... Anyway, the chaps wanted a bold and colourful logo made up of simple shapes to give it a classic logo feel.

See you spoon.

What's In It For?

2011-03-21T10:18:00.002Z

Hi.

Here are a couple of recent posters i've completed for the Brudenell Social Club and Late in the Evening promotions. The former being for jangly-poppers Avi Buffalo.

This poster is based on their video for the single 'What's In It For?', where alien flowers blossom and the band run around on a summer's day without a care in the world. Lovely...

The second poster is for synth-noise band Teeth.

Being a bit more on the darker tip of the electronic music spectrum I decided to create a more sinister design. They are also obsessed with aliens so I created a sort of alien invasion vintage sci-fi poster but attempted a more subtler aesthetic to benefit the support act, worriedaboutsatan.

Adios.

A Mountain Lullaby

2011-03-01T07:29:00.004Z

I've been working with the charity We Heart Arts for years now and I'm really excited about their latest project, a fully illustrated (by yours truly) children's book.

That's the cover above and to help promote the book they've put together a number of special pledge options where you can get your name printed in the book as well as a plethora of WHA merchandise. The latter includes a couple of new t-shirt designs i've done exclusively for the pre-order / pledge, which you can do by visiting the Mountain Lullaby website.

So the above t-shirts (titled Nerdasaurus and Up in the Air respectively) are both available in the £35 pledge package and Up in the Air as part of the £25 offer.

Apparently the pre-order is already receiving some high-profile mentions and tweets from the likes of Patrick Wolf and Charlie Higson (this chap from the Fast Show). Awesome!

Of All The Times

2011-02-23T10:46:00.005Z

A few new bits of work to show and tell.

First up, a poster for Ellen & the Escapades. It was nice to work for these lovely sounding folky dudes again, especially for a Record Store Day poster.

This will be available in strictly limited quantities at their RSD performance at Jumbo Records in Leeds, so if you want one I suggest you get out and support some local music in an awesome local record shop!

Next up a poster for some old chums of mine Her Name Is Calla and their show at one of Leeds' best kept secrets, Left Back Church.

I can totally imagine the band being suited to such a space; their soft whispered tones creeping through the stone arches before giving way to monoliths of noise rising up through the rafters. Lovely stuff...

Hopefully there'll be more new work to show and tell at the end of the week. It's obviously great getting to work on so many awesome projects but frustrating having to hold off on unveiling them to the public.

Maybe one of my new years resolutions should have been to be more patient...

The Impossible Song & Other Songs

2011-02-04T10:53:00.004Z

Quick update today because it's Friday and things are very busy at twoducksdisco HQ. I thought I would post the new design i've done for Roddy Woomble's solo show at The Brudenell Social Club in April.

Since I designed the poster for Roddy's previous visit to the Brude, I wanted to continue things in a similar vein by creating a stark and minimal poster that echoed his music and Scottish heritage.

Really happy with how the design came out with the palette being so muted and the text being pretty loose. I think i'm just about getting to grips with the Pentel Pocket Brush now and it's especially good for script-like type.

Hope you all have good weekends!

Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft

2011-02-02T09:58:00.004Z

Last Summer I was interviewed by an incredibly pleasant chap called Joe, who was studying Graphics at Liverpool John Moore's University. He was putting together a dissertation which would focus on how promotion effects design and the community around it and vice versa.

This was something I was more than happy to help out with as it's something that I find very interesting as I am a part of the scene where promoters and artists rub shoulders and help each other out.

After compiling all his research he presented his work in a wonderfully bound book, of which he was kind enough to send me a copy. And here are the pictures of the pages I feature on... lovely stuff.

A double page spread of my God is an Astronaut and Sky Larkin posters.

The front cover of the book.

My Born Ruffians and The Acorn poster.

Close up.

A little background info...

The whole book was beautifully presented printed on heavy recycled paper and with stylish little border doodads.

Thanks very much to Joe for sending me a copy plus asking me to help out in the first place. As an artist it's always nice to see your work printed on nice stock and presented with as much care as it was created. Plus it's a very insightful read, so a complete package really...

Chocks Away

2011-01-31T13:05:00.004Z

Hi all

So if any of you happen to follow my twittering's (or tweets as they're better known) then you may have seen this painting process evole over the past week or so.

Quick back story: It's was my sister's birthday on Friday (HB sis) and I decided to paint her a picture of a few of her favourite things; baking, skydiving and moustaches.

The first stage: painting the sky gradient.

Next I taped out the shapes of the parachute and the cupcake. I just used masking tape to get fine edges and painted white onto the canvas. I then added some pink detail to the parachute and frosting to the cake.

Here is a detail shot of the cupcake after i'd painted the rest of the colour.

As with most things that I do, I like to inject some extra cute and so I decided to paint a little face on my cupcake...

And then for the finishing touches; I cut some shapes out of felt and glued them to the canvas. Here is a detail shot of the felt moustache on the cupcake and a felt cloud wandering out of focus.

So, here be the finished painting titled 'Chocks Away'. And if you were wondering, my sister loves it!

Hope you enjoyed that little process. A little bit different from my normal screen-printing ones...

House of Low Culture

2011-01-24T09:40:00.003Z

Hi folks

Apologies for being a bit quiet on the western front. I have been insanely busy these past few weeks and have lots of projects to show you very soon. In some good news, I Like Trains sold out of the posters I screen-printed for them one week into their three week tour. Nice one lads!

On to something I can show you. Since Poster Roast Leeds I made friends with a lovely Leeds-based collective of media types called Low Culture. Recently they asked me to design a poster for them, promoting their services and aiming to recruit some newbies into the fold.

Hopefully next time you tune in there'll be more exciting news. Some things that I can't wait to show you include; Cover design for a Children's book, new t-shirt for We Heart Arts, Identity for new Brighton-based record label, the list goes on...

Stay safe!

A Father's Son

2011-01-12T09:50:00.001Z

Hi forks

So last week I got to do some screen-printing for the mighty Leeds post-rock giants that are I Like Trains. This was also my first session at Manchester's Hot Bed Press. Added to the fact that the band went on tour at the weekend and needed the posters delivered by then, the pressure was on...

So to the speedy nature at which the poster was printed, I failed to get any pictures of the acetates, which were burned to the screen, so here is a picture of my mixing the blue, which would be the first colour I printed.

Here is the screen for the first colour, awaiting it's fate... blue!

The first colour printed and drying on the racks.

Here's to fallen comrades.

The second colour printed, which is the lighthouse, ship and tour dates.

The final poster, cropped, signed and numbered and ready to be shipped (no pun intended) to the band.

A detail shot of the lighthouse, searching for the lost ship.

So apologies for not having the most detailed of print processes but the session was more stressful than anticipated. But I am happy with the outcome and I hope you've enjoyed a little insight to the world of screen-printing.

Ta ta.

Camelback Cinema

2011-01-03T14:04:00.000Z

Happy new year y'all. Hope your festive holidays were warm and joyeux!

Due to the popularity of my '100 abandoned houses' post that I blogged about last year, I thought it would be worth contributing this little follow up. It's an article I stumbled across on the Guardian website and features stunning photography of a post-industrial Detroit city.

[Photograph of Michigan Central Station by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre]

It also reminds me of an incredible documentary (one of the best i've ever seen) 'Requiem for Detroit', which is all about the rise and fall of the motor city. Really fascinating and quite dark.

Anyway, on to some work. Here is a flyer / poster design I recently completed for a Leeds-based collective who show independent films at one of Britain's smallest cinemas.

I've yet to attend but will hopefully get along at some point this year. I mean tea, cake, intimate setting and independent cinema are a few of my favourite things. Here's a facebook link for more information.

More things to come soon including a screen-printed poster process (yes, another one) for I Like Trains and much, much more.

Kindle My Heart

2010-12-20T10:51:00.007Z

Good morning lovers

First thing I'm going to mention in this blog today is something that I don't often come across with my work but every now and then, something of this nature does crop up. Now this might be pure coincidence or there has been some fishy doings afoot but Amazon's recent 'Kindle' logo does appear to be quite similar to a design I did for a festival compilation earlier in the year.

It may just be me looking into this a bit much but the similarities are there, though my guy does look a bit more Iron & Wine-esque and is sans book.

I've got lots of projects that i'm sitting on at the moment and will be announcing in the new year (i'm not lazy) but for now I guess i'll just wish you a very merry christmas! It's been a great year for twoducksdisco with lots of exhibitions and screen-printed gig posters amongst making new clients and keeping busy with old ones, so let's hope that 2011 is going to be just as good, if not better.

Thanks to everybody who reads this blog, or likes my facebook group, or follows me on twitter, or browses my big cartel store. It all means so much to me. So I hope y'all have a great christmas and incredibly joyous new year!

Peace!

Heart Monitor

2010-12-06T11:14:00.004Z

Hello

Well, it looks like the snow is starting to melt, so to keep the memories of chilly things alive the lovely folk at Roxbury Industries (who distributed Ice Cream Man for me earlier this year) have a selection of iPhone wallpapers available for download. They've been awesome enough to include Ice Cream Man in set 2 of this, which you can download here. Oh yeah, it's totally free!

Apologies for the slightly tenuous link there but moving on quickly to some new work i've finished.

First up is a new t-shirt design for old time buds worriedaboutsatan. This was a fun one to work on for a couple of reasons... It was the first piece of work i've done for the duo since their EP02 release. For this design I looked at how their music has progressed over the years and took the tree motif from the 2007 designs and experimented with new ways of presenting the old theme.

I decided to illustrate a cut tree trunk, to emphasise the 'out with the old...' theme but also in keeping with the stark nature of their sound and previous designs, I kept the design quite minimal and abstruse.

I also recently completed a logo design for a friend who is starting up a music journalism website / blog that specialises in jazz reviews.

Again. another fun one to work one as I wanted to create a subtle and delicate design yet be able to hint at the fact that Rosie's blog would be quite specialist.

Oh and one last thing before I go, since it's that time of the year again and you're probably struggling for gifts for loved ones then you can always pop over to the twoducksdisco online shop and pick yourself up a bargain there. Plus from now until the 25th of December (end of advent) you can get 20% off all orders when you put in the special promo code: ADVENT2010 (clever, huh?).

I will no doubt blog about this offer again... Thanks for reading.

Kankouran

2010-11-30T14:21:00.010Z

So, I have a few new things to announce in twoducksdisco land.

Firstly, I have created a Facebook group page, where you can view pretty much all of my work in one place. You can even 'like' it, if you're that way inclined... Secondly, I went and got myself a Twitter page, where I will update planet earth with anything twoducksdisco-related, along with a bit of nonsense but that's what Twitter's all about right?

And on to some work which I recently completed for a chap called Tarek Musa, who approached me for a poster design but with one of the more interesting briefs i've had in quite a long time...

The brief was taken from a series of stories called The Atlas of Curiosities. The story tells of a village where upon a certain morning all the young male residents have to stay in their homes and await a 'harrowing' visit from a devilish spirit named Kankouran. Upon arrival of the individual homes the spirit takes a sacrificed leg and eye from each male, so that they can pass into manhood. Scary but inspiring stuff...

This project was very interesting to work on and allowed me to experiment with darker imagery that my regular approach to illustration. Plus that tale is one of those chilling stories that sticks in your head for a while, so you can tell all your friends when you stay up late telling ghost stories...

Savoir Faire

2010-11-22T10:45:00.005Z

G'day

Another update today of some projects recently completed and just to wet your appetite, massive news coming next week. Well, fairly big anyway... oooh.

So, moving on quickly to a t-shirt design I did for London-based singer / songwriter Pete Hickman. This was a fun one to work on as the brief was essentially to do anything I wanted. So after listening to Pete's music and in particular the song 'The Master' I decided to go with a literal interpretation of the opening lyrics to the song due to the striking nature of the introduction.

I also wrapped up a logo for a friend and her new online zine entitled 'Mind Over Matter'.

The purpose of the blog is to allow people to post about medical experiences whether professional or not and help give support to people in similar situations.

Good stuff.

Hit the Switch

2010-11-18T11:58:00.005Z

Hi folks

Another spell of quietness from me for which I must apologise but it was due to organising a massive poster exhibition as part of Poster Roast Leeds at Constellations festival. It was a lot of great fun and a photo-filled blog is being assembled to document the madness and will hopefully be presented to you early next week!

To keep your eyes satisfied until then, here are a few pieces of work that have recently been signed off, the first being for Leeds City Council. I was asked to create a series of posters for LCC who promote Christmas Light 'switch on' events around Leeds' many boroughs, including Morley, Pudsey, Rothwell, Yeadon and pictured is the Farsley version.

I was also asked by a Leeds-based badge making company called Beardo Badges to create an identity for their new badge-venture (sorry). Being bearded and having been a resident of Leeds for 7 years (alas, no more) I jumped at the task and created a simple one-colour design for the company.

And finally a company who I have worked with very closely for the past few years (because they do great charity based work) asked me to create a design for a new fund-raising promotion of theirs.

The company being We Heart Arts (I have also created their new logo on the site) have come up with the concept to print limited edition posters for local up-and-coming bands. The first band in the series are Our Lost Infantry and below is the design.

If you fancy purchasing one of these and helping out a really good cause, then follow this link and get involved.

So there are more things to come but I have made an executive decision to limit the content of these blogs, otherwise your head would probably explode. And we wouldn't want that...

Head Rolls Off

2010-11-03T14:36:00.003Z

So whilst trying to better last months number of blog posts I've already succeeded with this very entry. It's a poster that I did recently for Frightened Rabbit.

It's primarily based on ideas taken from the song 'Head Rolls Off', which has references to death and religion. I wanted to create an image that would illustrate the religious undertones of the song but not come off as cheesy or cliche. I also looked to their recent artwork, which contains images of crosses and illuminating light and decided that the best way to execute such a poster would be through basing the illustration on religious literature.

With an image of the bible being the focus of the poster, I wanted to add a more personal touch, which would suit the sound of the band. The water coming from the book draws reference to the song 'Swim Until You Can't See Land' and also emphasises the themes of loss and isolation which frequently occur in FR songs.

Hopefully the design came across something like that to you. If not, then hopefully you just like it...

Bye

Tighten Up

2010-11-01T09:23:00.002Z

Apologies for it being nigh on a month and no updates, moving house is a long and arduous process as many of you may know...

On to some work then. Recently I was asked to be part of The Black Keys tour poster series for their jaunt across the British Isles in which they played some rather large venues.

Obviously I accepted and here is a process (I know you love them as much as I do) of me screen-printing the batch that would be sent of to their show at the O2 Academy in Newcastle.

The first screen.

The first layer printed and waiting for the second colour.

The second screen ready and raring to go.

Whilst printing some test runs I came across a sheet of purple paper and thought that the design may look cool on it. And it did...

The second colour now printed and drying on the racks.

The final poster all cropped, signed, numbered and stamped.

The poster with human hands to give you an idea of scale. A2 is big!

Close up.

Another close up.

Massive thanks to Kate Desforges at the print workshop for helping me out with the near-catastrophic acetate scenario.

They are also now available from my Big Cartel store, so head over and pick one up today, yeah!

Many more things to be revealed soon, just need to get this house is some sort of order...

Ta ta.

Oh What A Circus

2010-10-04T10:22:00.003+01:00

Hi there

Hope you folks all had pleasant weekends. Mine was spent experiencing the sights and sounds of Manchester's vibrant nightlife and looking for kitchens. All very nice...

At the end of last week I announced I had a couple of pieces in an exhibition in the heart of Manchester as part of the cities' week long free arts festival. Well, the exhibition was fantastic. The space was huge and lots of people came and looked around and drank free Peroni.

With the brief for exhibition being based around emerging artists who are working during the socio-economic conditions of the recession I felt I would create some motivational pieces to encourage artists and their practise. The first of these being a doormat entitled 'Welcome Failure'.

The purpose of this work being that an artist should not be afraid of trying and failing and to a certain extent, 'welcome' it. It's based upon the old as time saying that people learn from their mistakes, and failures. The piece also acts as an actual doormat where people can interact with the art and wipe their feet upon entering the gallery, therefore wiping their feet on failure. Take that!

The second of my contributions was an acrylic painting on canvas. I titled the piece 'Whole Hearted' as a representation of the effort's of an emerging artist needed to be made and in the interest of furthering themselves; giving their all. There's not really that much too it but I wanted to do something with bold colours that was striking and interesting. The circular canvas also suited the repeating 'tear drop' pattern, adding further depth to the work's aesthetic.

The rest of the exhibition was great, with a really interesting range of artists on display including; Taneesha Ahmed, who had curated the event.

Lydia Meiying's custom wallpapers and greetings card range

Gareth Brew

Sam Venables

Alex Moore and Annie Carpenter

And here is a picture of the stall where various artists had items for sale. The front of the stall was lavishly decorated with literally hundreds of Taneesha's post-it notes. Well done to Sarah (leg's pictured) for putting them up... phew.

Definitely safe to say that a good time was had by all and hopefully we can do it again soon. So, major thanks to Taneesha Ahmed, for putting it together, inviting me and making everything run like a well-lubricated machine!

And before I sign out, here is a poster for Drever McCusker Woomble's show at the Brudenell Social Club in November, which promises to be a folking good night.

Over and out.

Love Between Men

2010-09-30T22:05:00.008+01:00

Hi there

So first things first, I am in an exhibition that starts this afternoon (Friday 1st October, not Sept 30th as the date above suggests), exciting! Its going down between the hours of 4 and 6pm at The Triangle, 37 Exchange Square in Manchester (the arcade next to the big outdoor BBC screen and the Wheel of Manchester).

The exhibition runs throughout the week, so if you can't make it tonight you can find the opening times here.

I've also been in another exhibition this week, in Switzerland!

[edit] New official picture uploaded.

Over the summer I produced a one-off painting on a blank record cover (above) for a chap called Amos. This was part of a huge project organised by a lovely German named Gregor Samsa. Basically he sent 300 blank record covers to 300 artists to create a unique piece of art, which would go on to be included in exhibitions across Europe. My artwork is based on a song called 'Love Between Men' and painted using old acrylics from left over screen-printing sessions.

Hopefully soon my cover (along with the other 299) will be photographed and put in an online gallery, which will be nice and made available to the world.

And last things last, here's a poster I recently completed for Ellen & the Escapades EP launch show in Leeds at The Brudenell Social Club.

Ta ta.

Constellations

2010-09-15T16:53:00.002+01:00

Oh, hello there.

Although announced on Monday across various web platform's like NME, Drowned in Sound and The Fly it gives me great pleasure to reveal that the travelling poster art circus that is Poster Roast, is Leeds-bound.

I have joined the Poster Roast team to assist in co-ordinating the exhibition, which will be taking place in conjunction with the utterly fantastic looking Constellations Festival.

If you have a look at some pictures from past Roasts, you'll get the idea of what can be expected at the University for the exhibition. There'll be live screen-printing, original screen-printed posters on display by a wealth of UK artists, who will be on site selling their goods and able to offer further insight into the world of screen-printing.

The festival looks too good to be true too, since I love Broken Social Scene and Les Savy Fav. Not to mention having soft spots for Four Tet, Liars and Spectrals, it looks like a real winner of a day!

So, see you there then?

Next onto the poster that I screen-printed for Wolf Parade for their gig at the Brudenell Social Club last week. Well, the show was fantastic and the band were really super friendly.

I sold quite a few posters at the show (which is always nice) and now you can buy them from my Big Cartel store for £10.

And if you're the sort of person who loves to buy posters but doesn't really like trawling through the high street trying to find frames, then these are cropped to perfectly fit in the very affordable 16" x 20" Wilkinsons frames, as shown above. Gee, ain't I good to you?

This week, I'm going to be turning my attention to producing a couple of pieces for an exhibition taking place in Manchester called Customer Circus, curated by Taneesha Ahmed. Its part of a week long Festival taking place at various venues in the city between Friday the 1st of October and Friday the 8th.

The brief for the exhibition is very relevant, relating to emerging artists who are working during the socio-economic conditions of the recession. So I'm currently putting together some ideas which I'll try to reveal later in the week but needless to say, I am rather excited for the event.

Just a news barrage today then. Now, back to work!

Still Windmills

2010-09-08T20:54:00.005+01:00

Hi folks.

Let's start things off with some good news, I have just been made a guest blogger over at the Poster Roast site. It's going to be the start of a beautiful relationship with some exciting news and events to happen towards the end of the year but I'm to keep hush on those for the moment.

So if you pop over there now you can see a screen-print process for this Wolf Parade poster that I printed last week.

I'm pretty excited for this show, having already met Mr. Krug of Sunset Rubdown at their gig at the same venue last year. Oh and the fact that Wolf Parade are really good!

They'll be available on Friday 10th September from my Big Cartel shop.

A couple more posters to reveal and as you can see, I've done a lot of posters this Summer. Next up is Sky Larkin.

These Leeds based scamps are so much fun and this poster is based on a song called 'Still Windmills' from their latest album. The colours and style of the poster lend themselves to Jack Hudson's awesome design for their new album 'Kaleide'.

I was also recently asked to do a poster for The Acorn and Born Ruffians double headline show at The Brudenell (again).

This poster is based on a couple of jams by both bands; 'Hummingbird' by Born Ruffians and 'Flood' by The Acorn. I found it interesting to combine different themes and make a poster for two bands who have a very different sound and aesthetic.

Cheers for hanging out!

Surprise Hotel

2010-09-02T10:35:00.003+01:00

So first off, this blog is titled for the Fool's Gold song. It's not related to anything in this post but I pretty much can't stop listening to them after last week's show... magnifique!

Anyways, so onto some work. Here is a design I recently completed for screamy scamps Rosa Valle.

This design was fun to work on as I don't get the opportunity to do many one-colour merch designs. I fancied experimenting with patterns and shapes a bit with this and trying to incorporate these elements into 'my style'. I quite like it, so I think it worked...

This week I have also been screen-printing that Wolf Parade poster. It's come out pretty intense, so I'll be putting together a vibrant process of how this went down next week! Plus still need to reveal Sky Larkin and FRabbit posters... phew.

Out!

Your Cousin's On Cops

2010-08-27T15:22:00.006+01:00

Howdy. So if you lasted the working 'Disco Poster Week', well done. I may continue things over the weekend, it all depends on how well I celebrate my birthday weekend... At any rate there's still posters to come.

Here is my effort for Rev. Peyton's Big Damn Band. Not based on any song in particular so I just named the blog after my favourite track title of theirs.

They're a total party band and I'm sure the gig will be lots of fun, so that's why I drew a bloke playing a washboard and having a bit of a dance. Simple.

Thanks for stopping by, it's been fun to do. Keep those eyes peeled for future posters for Sky Larkin and Frightened Rabbit.

Ta ra.

Solid Ground

2010-08-26T14:35:00.005+01:00

Good day all

So we've made it to day four. Is this going to go on over the weekend? Well, if enough people demand it, then I can make it so... Anyways, today's poster is for Chicago's mighty Maps and Atlases, who I have done not one but two posters for before, so it was nice to get to do another.

This poster is based on the lyrics 'I slept on the solid ground near your house / and the frost looked like a castle wrapped up in tin'. So there you go.

The gig should be rad too, as the lovely tropical rapscallions Loose Talk Costs Lives are playing and if they're anything as good as they were last night (when they played with Glades and Fool's Gold, who was also both utterly amazing too), then it should be a blast!

Not sure which poster to upload tomorrow. Life is full of surprises...

Age of the Fifth Sun

2010-08-25T12:18:00.004+01:00

Welcome to day three of the 'Disco Poster Week'.

Today's poster is for Irelands post-rock monsters God Is An Astronaut.

Inspiration for the poster is based on the title of their latest studio album 'Age of the Fifth Sun', which like their previous recordings has a grandeur rock feel to it, so hopefully I captured that.

So just a quick update today (I'm very busy y'see) and tonight I shall be going to my first gig in near two months; Fool's Gold at the Bodega in Nottingham. Which is great obviously but two bands who I have done artwork for will be supporting; Loose Talk Costs Lives and Glades. Jolly lovely.

Hasta la pasta.

Stars

2010-08-24T09:35:00.005+01:00

Jello.

So in keeping with 'Disco Poster Week' (yep, couldn't come up with a better name) here is a poster for the LA band Warpaint.

The concept for this poster was mainly based around 'Stars' a song from the band's debut EP and after listening to (and really enjoying) I decided I wanted to capture the band's soft sound and naive / innocent songs.

From there I basically drew a lion as although they can be aggressive animals, they also have a soft side (have you ever seen Christian The Lion). So here is a little animation to show how Chris went from being a sketch, to being inked in, then coloured and textures added in Photoshop.

Thanks again for stopping by and don't forget, its 'Disco Poster Week' all this week, so there'll be another poster here tomorrow. Isn't it exciting?

All Around The World

2010-08-23T10:29:00.003+01:00

Good day all.

Recently I have been doing quite a few posters for Leeds-based promotions agency Futuresound. It's been quite an exciting past month or so completing posters; some with a week to knock out, others just a couple of days.

So with the wealth of work I've been doing I will be uploading a new poster everyday this week as part of 'Disco Poster Week' for bands such as Maps & Atlases, Frightened Rabbit, Get Cape Wear Cape Fly amongst others but today I'll unveil the poster for Leeds' very own Nu-Grunge masters Dinosaur Pile-Up.

Tune in tomorrow for another exciting instalment of 'Disco Poster Week', where I will upload another poster and try to think of a better title for this process.

Stay Classy.

Brainwashed

2010-08-06T16:53:00.006+01:00

Good afternoon forks.

Every year in Leeds there is a mini-fest called Brainwash. It generally features tasty line ups and in the past has had Efterklang, Jaga Jazzist, Adem, Unsane and Olafur Arnalds (to name but a few) grace various stages in Leeds.

Every year is lots of fun, so I was especially chuffed to be asked to do the artwork for this, their fifth festival.

There will be posters and flyers up and about in Leeds pretty soon (and t-shirts at the fest) but the line up is looking right good thus far with Melt Banana, Dosh, Tweak Bird, Nitkowski and a wealth of local talent. Tickets are cheap and the cash goes to worthwhile local charities. Go chick it out!

In other news, last week I finally got to go to Spanky Van Dykes in Nottingham, which if you recall I designed some logos and typeface for earlier in the year.

So it was cool to see my typeface on menu's, flyers and totebags but it wasn't until we left the establishment that I noticed one of the designs in the window.

I can almost definitely say I've never had one of my design's put in neon lights before, so this was a lovely little surprise.

Also worth a quick mention that at Nottingham Contemporary, until October there's a quirky little exhibition by Gert and Uwe Tobias. These Romanian twin brother's deal with fables and folklore as inspiration for their huge woodcuts and paintings and their typewriter drawings have to be seen to be believed.

Anyways, that's their poster for the exhibition and I can strongly recommend it if you fancy being whisked off to their weird, mythical and slightly comical world.

Thanks for reading.

Vice Magazine Has a Lot to Answer For

2010-07-22T21:41:00.005+01:00

Hiya

Let's set the scene a little bit here. Back in December 2009 I finally got to meet Tobias Hayes, he of Shoes and Socks Off, Shield Your Eyes, Meet Me in St. Louis, I could go on (fame). We recorded a little session in the upstairs of The Cockpit for the currently-resting Tapes podcast project.

Anyways, we became good chums and he said that at some stage in the next year he'd like a twoducksdisco and Shoes and Socks Off collaboration of sorts and a couple of months ago, such an opportunity arose.

Above is the image that Toby sent me that he wanted incorporating into the poster. It's by his lady friend, whose frankly awesome work you can see at her website.

So after working through a few ideas we arrived at our final design, which meant off to the print studios again. Below is the design printed on the acetates, ready for burning to the screens.

Printing the orange layer.

Rows of posters.

Oops, I did it again. I forgot to take pictures of the printing of colour number. All shall be clear across the third colour in the process but to keep you enticed, here is a picture of a screen with emulsion, drying in a cupboard. Wow!

The third and final colour was to be yellow and here is a shot of me mixing it with acrylic medium, which helps it go that little bit further. Basically it doesn't dry out as quick.

I applied in a slightly different approach to screen-printing, the wonderful technique of stippling.

Stippling is fun!

I had to cut a few flame stencils of as the paint would bleed through and underneath the paper after a while and this made splotches and other not so nice things.

The final poster; printed, stippled, cropped, signed, numbered and ready for action.

They will be available on the Shoes and Socks Off tour, which starts this weekend. So get out to a show, see the SASO band, love it and then maybe pick up a poster. Go on, he'd like that and so would I.

Cherry bye.

I Am a Cider Drinker

2010-07-15T14:27:00.009+01:00

Hello.

So, no posts for a month and then two in two days. You lucky... you.

This morning the postman brought me a little package containing a CD wallet that I designed a couple of months ago for the 2000 Trees Festival compilation Cider Smiles. If you've followed my blog for a while you'll understand my excitement in saying that the wallet's were printed with an uncoated soft matte finish and look (not to mention feel) wonderful.

The compilation will be available for sale from the 2000 Trees Festival website shop and at the actual festival. Which will be playing host to a shed load of fine bands like; Future of the Left, Pulled Apart By Horses, Shoes and Socks Off, The Xcerts and loads of others.

In other news a few of my posters shall be being exhibited at The Sage, Gateshead as part of the Summertyne Americana Festival, which runs from 22nd to the 25th of July.

As you can see a whole host of awesome Americana dudes will be playing including a personal favourite of mine Howe Gelb, he of Giant Sand fame. So I'd strongly advise going along, seeing some awesome acts play and maybe grab a poster or two.

Remain distorted folks!

Riser

2010-07-14T20:42:00.012+01:00

Hi dudes.

So I said that a few weeks ago I'd be posting lots of exciting news; screen-prints and an interview amongst other 'exciting' things. Well, they all happened but I've just been a bit too busy to show them off on here.

Enough rambling and on to this little project that I completed for my now-Canadian buddy Paul Elam, better known as Fieldhead within the ambient / noise scene.

I was contacted by GZH records and Paul to screen-print an insert to accompany Fieldhead's upcoming release 'Riser'. The 10 inch EP would contain five tracks, each based around vocal recordings made by five female vocalists. With this in mind I wanted to create artwork that would represent the five female vocalists, a repetitive minimalist aesthetic (to illustrate the genre of music) and ultimately something that would look nice and that you'd like to get.

Enough rambling, some pictures please...

So above is the acetate for the print. Due to size of the print (having to be inserted into a 10 inch sleeve) I was able to print 4 to a sheet of A1, saving me a hefty slice of time.

I then burned the image onto a screen. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of this, so here is a shot of the screen with azocol emulsion drying... exciting!

Whilst this was doing it's business I got mixing the paint. When I made the file in Photoshop the print was intended to be pure black but upon arrival at the print studio I found some silver, which would give the print a nice metallic finish. Oh and yes, I am sponsored by Lucozade. It makes me go the extra mile, etc.

Printing the inserts, big and good!

Rows upon rows on the drying rack.

After the prints had dried, they were cropped to fit inside the 10 inch record sleeves.

A little close-up detail shot, showing the textures from the screen-printing process.

The Riser EP sleeve (designed by Rich from GZH records) and my print, side by side. Aww, nice...

Hope you enjoyed that little process, it was certainly an enjoyable and stress-free printing session.

If you fancy ordering a copy of Fieldhead's warm and fuzzy soundscapes (which comes with my personal stamp of approval) then you can do so from here. It of course comes with my screen-printed insert and download codes for MP3 heads, though it obviously deserves to be played on your record player to hear it in all it's glory.

Coming soon; that interview, posters for Dinosaur Pile-Up, Maps & Atlases and Esben & The Witch and a painting for a limited record release / exhibition but more on that soon.

Take care my little cherubs.

The Horizon is a Beltway

2010-06-21T10:37:00.005+01:00

Hi folks.

I am now in my last week of being a Leeds resident, which is a scary thought since this place has been my home for 7 years. But we grow older and we move onwards and upwards. As of September I will be calling Manchester my home and I can't wait... A new city and scene, new ventures and opportunities. Bring it on!

I will be returning to Leeds however for this magnificent event.

Basically across the second week in September Leeds will be brimming with Americana and Alt-Country talent including the marvellous Low Anthem, Felice Brothers, Old Crow Medicine Show and many more. One can only imagine the amount of hoe-downs that will be happening... Brilliant.

More news to come this week including a couple of screen-prints, an interview and probably some more exciting things.

Chow

Call It A Ritual

2010-06-04T14:33:00.007+01:00

Af'noon all.

So, monday past my lady friend and I managed to get along to the Send exhibition as curated by Sarah Abbott.

The event took place in a really nice space in the upstairs of a pub / bar called The Riverside in Sheffield and I was asked to submit something for it. Due to lack of time I didn't manage to get anything new together, however I recently reclaimed my framed Gallows poster which I thought would look nice.

So here are a few pictures from the event. Sadly no shots of the exquisite tea and cake selection, a personal highlight...

The main wall with my Gallows poster plus others including Tom J Newell, Sarah Abbott, Daniel Mendoza and Clare Owen.

Flower amp!

The second wall with Lord Bunn plus others...

Tom J. Newell's rad face plates and some lovely bits by lovely Sarah Abbott

That was all very nice then. Sheffield (the city) was good to us too as we got to have a few beverages in Bungalows and Bears (awesome bar / restaurant / venue) and bumped into the dudes in Silver Hips and Loose Talk Costs Lives, which is always a pleasure.

You may have noticed that I haven't blogged as much recently but trust, it's just due to being crazy busy and there are so many good things to show soon.

I have literally just had this Wolf Parade poster signed off for Nath at The Brudenell. This will be screen-printed for the show in September but there will be more on that closer to the time of the gig.

I hope you enjoy the weather and the weekend all. Tonight, I'm off to see Teenage Fanclub. Perfect way to end the working week!

Cheery-o!

Major Leagues

2010-05-12T16:47:00.005+01:00

Hello. Hi

Recently, Harry (ex Old Romantics / current Dinosaur Pile-Up) Johns came round to my house desperately needing a super-quick poster doing for a show he was promoting. Whilst he was over he discussed that his new band (Wingman) needed a shirt doing and if I'd like to lend a hand. The brief; "we like bears and skateboarding, anything with those things would be rad!"

I love it when I don't have to think too much about a design...

They will be for sale this Friday from the Wingman Super Party, which looks amazing and door fee's go to the British Heart Foundation. You'd need a good excuse not to go...

I won't be there as I'll be in London after watching Pavement the night before. I think that's a pretty good excuse.

Cheery-bye

Don't Look Back

2010-05-10T09:22:00.011+01:00

Hello all. Hope life is good not gloomy.

So the bank holiday weekend of May was one of celebration and joy. I went down to Camden to exhibit my screen-printed wears at Poster Roast / Camden Crawl.

As expected, it was great fun; hanging out with my cuz, getting to see old friends and making new ones and a fair bit of drinking... Here are a few photos by the brilliant Owen Richards from the exhibition that took place at The Black Heart pub.

Some of Adam Pobman's, Luke Drozd's posters and mine (this picture was taken by me, I don't want you to think that Owen took this duffer...)

Some of Chris '3D Glasses' White's posters

A massive thanks goes to Chris and Alex for putting the whole thing together. I can only begin to imagine the amount of hard work and effort that went into organising the event.

They have also been struck with some bad news this past week, that their cat had been knocked down by a vehicle and the vet's fees are going to be slightly insane.

To help them out, you can go the 3D Glasses shop and buy one of the limited edition posters (pictured above), which features artwork from myself, Chris and Alex, Drew Millward, Graham Pilling, Dan Mumford and many more.

Back to Camden and I did actually get to see some bands. Five in fact. Though four of them were from Leeds, oh well... I did however get to see the mighty Teenage Fanclub who loved the posters that I screen-printed for them, which co-incidently are now on sale from my Big Cartel shop.

This is my view from the side of the stage at Koko and pretty terrible photos

And these pictures are by Berto Garcia, whose magnificent capturing of the Camden Crawl weekend can be viewed here.

So as you can see that it was quite some weekend, thanks to everyone involved.

On to the next big thing and at the end of this month I am going to be exhibiting some work at The Riverside in Sheffield, which promises to be quite exciting. I think I may do some new work for that, if I can find the time.

Here is the poster by the brilliant Sarah Abbott, who is curating the event, so thanks to her for inviting me.

I have so much new stuff to post here this week to let you know that I do actually do some work but thanks for reading all of this, hope you found it interesting and insightful or just enjoyed the pretty pictures.

Sparky's Dream

2010-04-30T10:06:00.008+01:00

Hello there

So as I may have definitely mentioned before, I shall be exhibiting a selection of my screen-printed posters at Poster Roast at the aptly named Black Heart Pub in London. This event coincides with Camden Crawl, an event which features over 200 bands playing at over 40 venues.

As an exhibiting artist at Poster Roast I was presented with the opportunity to design and print a poster for a band playing at the weekend. From the selection I picked Teenage Fanclub, although only being familiar with their 'hits'.

After doing some research into the band, turns out I love them, bonus. So I set about creating a poster based around the lyrics from one of my favourite jam's of theirs; 'If she lived in space, man I'd build a plane' from Sparky's Dream.

So after creating the image, I set off to the West Yorkshire Print Workshop in Mirfield to get my screen-printing face on. Watch, as the story unfolds...

The acetates lined up, ready to be burned to the screens

When printing I usually have an idea of what I want the colours to be but if they deviate from my mental images then it's generally OK. This time however I wanted the colours to be precise to the digital file that I'd worked on, so I printed it off and constantly referred to it, getting the colours just right

Printing the first colour

The first colour printed, this silver-ish, grey has a slight metallic tinge, which is always nice

The second colour being printed

Light blue is down

I then managed to run out of time in Mirfield as the joint was closing... Mad panicking ensued only to be relieved by the ever-lovely Calum Harris whose work you can see here. So the next day I went to 'The Grungeon' to print the final colour

The final screen in place for the third colour

The third and final colour is finally down

All the prints drying out

The final print, all cropped (34cm x 25cm), signed & numbered, stamped and ready for their epic journey to see the Fannies on Saturday and then from my Big Cartel page from Monday 3rd May.

A close up of the poster

Another close up of the poster

Thanks for reading / looking at the pictures / both / all three. Hope you all find it as interesting to read as the process is to complete. As always each poster is completely unique due to the methods involved in screen-printing, which is what makes it all so much fun.

That just leaves me to say I can't wait for the weekend. Seeing old friends, relatives, Teenage Fanclub, Pulled Apart By Horses and general merriment. I hope y'all have a grand weekend too, whatever mischief it is that you get up to.

Adios

Thunder Road

2010-04-09T10:52:00.008+01:00

Hello world

First off, the title of this blog in no way relates to the post, its just the sun is out and it seems fitting to be listening to Bruce Springsteen whilst I sit in my shaded room.

Moving on swiftly, I have recently completed a few things for a new venue in Nottingham called Spanky Van Dykes. From my pitch that I sent to them they selected my hand-rendered type face as their main logo. They also picked an illustration from the batch to use for their menus, which was a bonus. Hopefully I'll be able to head back at some point to grab some photos of the joint but their opening party sounds like its going to be a riot...

Whilst you're down there I can strongly recommend the Star City exhibition at Nottingham Contemporary. The exhibition is dedicated to the art that fronted the Soviet Sphere's race to the moon and their complete fascination with sci-fi and space. The exhibition combines a nice mix of poster-art, sound and film installations, sculpture and photography, so there is something for everybody.

That leads me nicely onto my next segment; my friend and No Culture Icons head honcho Liam Henry has just uploaded a sweet new selection of photos onto his Blogspot. I'm not sure if I was aware of this as another output of Liam's great work but this blog is well worth a quick visit. Do that by clicking here.

And finally, I purchased an old camera a few weeks back and have finally gotten around to sorting out some film for it. It cost me £20 with 2 lenses, a flash, a case and some creative filters that look like they're from the '70's. All this from Leeds finest charity shop; Poverty Aid. Thank you old friend... This weekend I'm off to Knaresborough and after looking at Liam's photography, I'm feeling quite inspired. I doubt they'll turn out any good but I'm looking forward to going a bit snap happy.

Hope y'all have a good weekend!

Blood of a Dove

2010-04-01T09:29:00.007+01:00

Well hey, the sun's out

So a few months back I was asked by Ash of Iron Wagon to design and screen-print a poster for the mighty Kong. I was already familiar with Kong's noisy output so I wanted to create something a bit outside of my comfort zone.

I printed the posters at my good chum Calum 'No Trust' Harris' house after a mix-up with bookings at WYPW. This also lead to paper stock issues and so I ended up printing on 130 gsm paper. Now this is a bit thinner than what I usually print on, as paint has a tendancy to make thinner paper / card bend when printing large areas of colour.

Below depicts our day printing in the 'Dungeon'... Here's Calum and myself drying the screens out with the images burned onto them. Good to see men at work... The first screen in place Mixing the first colour, which after inheriting some gold of Mr. Drew Millward, I decided to make a gold / copper metallic hybrid The second screen ready and in place for the black paint. This is actually quite terrifying... ''You're telling me they're lined up for a slaughter-house?'' The final poster, cropped and ready to take to the show tonight So there you go, they came out quite nice but due to the paper crumpling the way in which it did I will be selling them for super-cheap at the show and if there's any left, then they'll be online next week. That's the way screen-printing goes though, lots of lessons to be learned along the way... ho-hum.

Next up in my screen-printing schedule is ~~Belle & Sebastian~~ Teenage Fanclub, which should be good fun as they're playing at one of my favourite venues; Koko, as part of Camden Crawl 2010.

Cheers for reading. See y'round!

Ice Cream Man - Reprise

2010-03-29T10:59:00.005+01:00

Hi there

Quick bit of news to inform y'all that Roxbury Industries are now featuring mine and Many Nice Things' Ice Cream Man for sale from their website. I'm still distributing them but it's nice for the little guy to get a second lease of life and to see him gloriously displayed on their website. Go check him out.

Whilst having a rummage around at home I also found the first sketch that I did for Ice Cream Man. This was when Sarah and myself sat down and 'mind-mapped' all our ideas for the print. Hopefully you'll find some interest in this, I thought it was cool to see his humble beginnings... Not much else to report really, except this week I shall be screen-printing a poster for masked brutes Kong for their one-off show with Chickenhawk this Thursday at Nation of Shopkeepers in Leeds. Here's a sneaky peak... Obviously the actual print won't be animated... that's just silly!

Have a good week y'all!

We Are Underused

2010-03-25T11:33:00.005Z

Hi there

First off I've been working with a chap called Tom, who is planning on launching a new fold-out zine soon. So, as well as creating the logo (above) and helping with the layout of it, I've also been interviewed and that will appear in the first issue, which will be nice.

In other exciting news, I will be exhibiting along with the UK's finest poster folk at Camden Crawl this year as part of Poster Roast 2010. I can't wait for this, as the previously attended Roast's have been lots of fun and this year looks set to be equally as amazing.

As well as displaying our lovely posters, there will be live screen-printing to give peeps an idea as to what goes on behind the scenes. The live screen-print in question will be a collaborative effort featuring a letter of Poster Roast illustrated by all the designers exhibiting. I was given the first letter, so I thought something 'interesting' was required... For more info on Poster Roast 2010, just click on this link and you'll be whisked off to a magical land full of skulls, nipples and lots more things you probably wouldn't approve of...

Hats well and truly tipped to the lovely Chris and Alex for putting it all together, it promises to be a weekend of fun, frolics and maybe a little bit of drinking. Roll on the bank holiday weekend in May, yeah!!

Yo Yo Bye Bye

2010-03-17T09:38:00.015Z

Happy St. Patricks day all.

So yesterday, the Drew Millward and myself popped over to Mirfield to print our collaborative poster for Berkeley's alternative hip-pop group, Why?

Before all that though, we had to come up with a concept and then design the thing, which proved trickier than first imagined. So I asked Drew to throw together a 'geek' face in his crazy style and then I'd see what inspired me and work from there. After toying with the idea of having quite a text based poster, I decided to go with a geek-come-superhero approach (hence the cape clad action sketch). From there we kept adding bits and eventually building up a poster that resembled the classic Marvel comic covers from days of yore.

So without further ado, here is the printing process that we completed yesterday with the aid of Mars bars and cans of Coke in worryingly heavy consumption.

The acetates lined up ready to be burned onto the screens The first screen, burned and awaiting colour Mixing the first colour, which getting it spot on to our digital file always takes a while and generally brings out the perfectionist in me Action shot of Drew printing the first colour of the poster The first colour down The second screen burned and ready for print The orange layer down, which came through quite thin due to a slight over-estimation of Acrylic medium. This ended up give the poster's a washed out / authentic faded feel, which looked really cool. The final screen Done and done Here are some detail shots of the final printed poster Look out! The poster measures at 50cm x 68cm (which means its pretty huge) and will be on sale at the Brudenell Social Club tonight at the gig. They will also be available from Drew's site and my Big Cartel store as of tomorrow, so if you haven't got a ticket for tonight's sold out show then tomorrow all your dreams will come true.

Thanks as ever for reading and looking at the pretty pictures, hopefully that'll give an insight into all the time and effort that goes into the screen-printing process. As you can see it's a cool but long and tiring process and not one print comes out the same, making each and every poster totally original and individual.

I think after all that a well-deserved Guiness or 4 are in order for tonight. Believe.

The Wave Ballet

2010-03-10T11:16:00.006Z

Hello there

For the last few months I've been doing some work for Leeds based label Leaf. They're really cool dudes and have put out records by bands who I love including Efterklang, Caribou, A Hawk and A Hacksaw to name but a few.

This year they've turned 15 years old and to celebrate their progression through adolescence they will be staging events across the year featuring bands from their roster. Here is the identity I've created to mark the occasion. Its even up on the Camden Crawl website and everything.

More things will emerge around this project across the course of the year, so stay tuned for those. I've also just acquired an album called Eggs by Oh No Ono released by Leaf and its truly amazing. Like if Emerson, Lake and Palmer got high with The Beatles and Animal Collective. Yep.

Also, I recently completed a poster for 'folktronica' legends Tunng for their show in Brighton as part of their mini UK tour before they head out for Europe. And just before I sign out I thought I'd drop a little reminder for this Sunday's No Culture Icons exhibition at Nation of Shopkeepers in Leeds. My little 'something new and exciting' thing is coming together slowly but will involve this record. Plenty of more things to come in the next week or so. Crazy busy times are good times.

Hips Don't Lie

2010-03-06T16:16:00.006Z

Good day.

You may recall that a couple of months ago I posted the artwork of Sam Airey's debut EP 'Season's Change'. Well, Sam was kind enough to give me some copies of the CD and the packaging looks amazing, if I do say so myself. Sam decided to get the wallets printed with an uncoated soft matte finish, which nicely accentuates the folky qualities of his music. Plus it looks [and feels] awesome!

I also recently completed a new flyer design for the Leeds club night Silver Hips. Like Sam, these dudes are interested in pushing the diversity of print finishes and these flyers are printed on 280 micron uncoated pulp-board.

It really pleases me to see different and innovative ways of promotion and packaging and definitely makes a difference when you see the finished article in the public sector.

I also popped into Hyde Park Records earlier and can highly recommend it if like me, you enjoy flicking through stacks of records trying to find that hidden gem.

Plus the walls are lovingly decorated with Brendan [shop owner] Docherty's magnificent photography amongst other vinyl memorabilia. Brendan has a great eye for photography, so I'd recommend going to check out his Flickr page, especially the Monotonix set [pictured above] as its pretty wild!

Arrivederci

Put the Needle on the Record

2010-03-03T09:19:00.010Z

Hi there.

If you haven't heard, there is a record shop that is now officially open in Hyde Park (Leeds). This is obviously exciting news. Its on Hyde Park corner and looks lovely and cozy and stocked to the rafters.

I was lucky enough to be asked to do some promotional items for the shop, including this flyer. I have yet to make it along to the shop yet but intend on doing so this weekend and taking all my hard earned pennies for a bit of a spree!

In other news the fabulous No Culture Icons collective have asked me to exhibit at Nation of Shopkeepers in Leeds city centre. I will showing off my posters / wears / something new and exciting on Sunday 14th March alongside awesome dudes such as Liam Henry, Sarah Abbott, Callum Harris, Jon Stanley Austin, Clare Owen and many more. You should come, it'll be right good. This poster was done by Sarah Abbott. I told you she was an awesome dude...

So much more work to come soon...

Ta ta for now

Dead Man

2010-02-20T12:54:00.006Z

Wow, having a full-time job plus doing art and keeping things updated is tougher than I imagined. Though last night I had a night off from everything and watched Dead Man's Shoes and I can safely say it's one of the most moving and powerful British films i've seen in many a year. Plus the soundtrack is totally amazing!

In other news, I no have a small artist's page on the fantastic little collective No Culture Icons, which showcases an array of photographers and artists from around the world. Pretty chuffed to have been asked to submit some bits of work and you can see my little page here.

Onto a bit of work then; here is a t-shirt design that I completed last year for the children's creative arts program We Heart Arts, for which I also completed the site's header. You can purchase them over at their Big Cartel site.

Also recently completed a little logo for a chum of mine called Andy but is probably better known for being Atlum Schema and an all round good guy. Anyways, he's started this podcast / blog thing called Sheep Dressed Up As Wolves, which is very good and probably worth a listen / read.

Wow, link heavy!! There's a weekend's worth of reading for you with all those. Hope that was OK... Also, currently loving anything by The National and the OST for 'The Straight Story' by Angelo Badalamenti and reading 'High Fidelity', which is good but I wish I'd have read when I was a touch younger.

Life, comes and goes.

Super Disco Breakin'

2010-01-31T17:58:00.005Z

Hey folks.

Apologies for the serious lack of updates, thats no way to start off twenny-ten! Having a full-time job is quite a stressful thing, especially if you wish to take part in any extra-curricular activities.

I have found some time to work on a few new projects, including a new night thats starting this very week in Leeds called Hello Nasty. This was a fun project to work on, as I needed to 'ill'-ustrate the range of music that the night would play. So I'm pretty pleased with my lo-fo b-boy. I've been working on a few other things which hopefully I'll be able to show you soon but also worth mentioning that a while back someone nominated me for a 'Sunshine Award', which was awfully nice. So that's that.

Hope everybody has been well, I am currently listening to lots of alt-country / new folk-ish stuff and as naff as those sub-genres sound, I whole-heartedly recommend The Fitzgerald by Richmond Fontaine and Shallow Grave by Tallest Man On Earth. Lovely stuff...

The Blizzard's Never Seen the Desert Sands

2010-01-08T14:01:00.003Z

So, Happy New Years are in order? Hope everybody celebrated the festive period in style. I got a shiny new computer and although I'm still getting to grips with its sleek keys and bizarre mousepad, the real treasure is getting to listen to music on my computer again. I think I went for about two and a half years without any sort of sound coming from my work station (not even that sound when you do something wrong on a PC and it honks at you).

Anyways, enough of my rambling. Though there is not too much to report here is a picture of the recently completed front cover for Sam Airey's little debut EP. I'll get some snaps up of the printed product when he gets them back from the CD manufacturers.

Hopefully my next post will be full with exciting news and pictures of things that I've been working on. Until then, enjoy the snow. And if you don't like snow, wee on it.

Fin.

Handmade Hard Times Handed Back

2009-12-14T10:16:00.012Z

Crikey, another update! You'll think I've gone blogging crazy. Well, I do have news to tell...

Yesterday the lovely Many Nice Things and I had a little stall at the Handmade craft fair, which went down at the ever-cozy Brudenell Social Club. It was a very pleasant afternoon with tea and free cake. Lots of people came down (thanks) and we sold a few items, which is always good! Also big chants and cheers to Amy, who put it all together!

Here are a few pictures from the event (sorry they're not very good, the Brude is dimly lit) So now our lovely little friend 'Ice Cream Man' is available from my Big Cartel store. Just click here to go and purchase the print and felt brooch package. Get him while he's hot! Or cool, since he is an ice cream after all...

Ciao

Date w/ Ikea

2009-12-11T10:35:00.011Z

Hello folks.

So, First Draft (the exhibition) happened last night and was what I would call a success. Lots of people came down and mingled and munched delicious mince pies and sipped hilariously strong coffee.

My five Ice cream man got a girlfriend, awww Matt Hodson Nic Burrows Gareth Brew Thanks to the Nous Vous for putting it all together, people who came along, plus Nic, Matt and Gaz for making my stuff look crap.

And a friendly little reminder that the Handmade Brudenell Craft Fair is going down at (unsuprisingly) The Brudenell Social Club this Sunday between the hours of 1pm and 5pm. Come along and get all those crafty Christmas presents and avoid the classic last week before Christmas feeling, where you think 'Crap! I haven't got anything, for anyone, ever', then go make some wild purchases from Amazon!

Take it sleazy

Ice Cream Man

2009-12-09T13:11:00.016Z

Hello. Sorry its been a couple of weeks since my last update, been rather busy you see...

So, lets get started. Everyone loves Tom Waits right? Well to celebrate the great man being... um, great, I have printed these cheeky little chappies (who's better than a swimming pool) named for the song 'Ice Cream Man' from Wait's Closing Time LP.

And here is a process thread to walk you through just how the little dudes were printed.

Here are the images burned onto the screen at the print workshop in Mirfield Printing the first layer The blue layer drying on the racks Apparently though, it all got a bit much for Susan Boyle... poor lass Printing the orange layer I printed the orange layer onto tracing paper, to ensure that the registration was spot on for the print to be at its most ice creamery Drying on the racks After they were cropped they were then signed and numbered... ... and stamped The final product A couple of detail shots So there you are, another process post to give you an idea of what goes on behind the scenes of screen-printing. This print will be debuting itself at the 1st Draft exhibition tomorrow (Thursday 10th December) at The Merrion Art Market and will be joining another secret friend on Sunday 13th December at The Handmade Craft Fair at the Brudenell Social Club. The latter of which will have mince pies and other festive delights! Come along and say hello at one, or the other, or both, or all three!

In other news, last night Copy Haho were amazing and I totally can't wait for their album. I'm also really enjoying Richmond Fontaine and The Pelican Brief by John Grisham.

Au Revoir

You Are My Coal Mine

2009-11-23T10:48:00.002Z

Good day to you all.

So Christmas is fast approaching right? And to help save you time and money i've been festive enough to put up a tasty mincepie of a sale at the twoducksdisco Big Cartel store.

Christmas presents for everyone! Hurrah!

In other news I have an exhibition coming up at The Art Market in The Merrion Centre, Leeds. Its the first installment of a Nous Vous curated event called Draft, which aims to exhibit some of West Yorkshire's finest illustrators, designers and artists.

This all kicks off on Thursday 10th December between 6 and 8pm, so come along if you can as its a one night only affair. However, if you are incapacitated for the evening then you can pop along between December 11th of 2009 and January 9th of 2010 to see the work from the evening at the Opposite Café, which is opposite the Parkinson Building at Leeds Uni.

And to round things off, here is a new poster I just completed for Oxford folk-poppers Stornoway. Toodles.

Girl You Have All The Fun

2009-11-10T10:10:00.004Z

Hello. A couple of posters i've just finished.

Firstly, The Old Romantic Killer Band are having a single launch in Leeds at the end of the month and this is for that. Plus I used the word 'super' twice on this poster, a personal best... I also finished a poster for Railcars who hail from San Francisco, which I hope to visit again at some point in the next couple of years... Literally being one of my favourite cities in the world! So, just a quick post this time around but new things to come soon for Never Ride wakeboards amongst other exciting projects.

Also I'm running out of interesting ways to sign off, so from now on i'll be referring to this site.

Sayonara.

Carbon Dating

2009-10-27T09:39:00.009Z

Hello my friends. Come in and get warm.

So its come to my attention that my blog posts of late have been on the minimal side in terms of content. Well, just to prove that I am in fact a real human being, here are a few things that I currently love:

Jon Stanley Austin

This is my friend from my Leeds College of Music days who has a little blog and has just created some amazing 3D photography, which I pretty much can't get enough of!

Jon Stanley Austin's Blogspot

100 Abandoned Houses

My next obsession is a fantastic website called 100 Abandoned Houses. Its pretty much what it says on the tin, as a chap called Kevin Bauman has gone around Detroit photographing derelict and dilapidated houses and the results are beautifully depressing / depressingly beautiful.

100 Abandoned Houses

Musically i've been enjoying plenty of things as of late but my cream of the crop award has to go to Rilo Kiley's album The Execution of All Things. This is something of a pop masterpiece but masked in a really cool indie fashion and yes, I am aware that i'm behind the times but better late than never, yeah?

So thanks for listening to my ramblings, I think I may try and do this more often... Oh and I suppose I should also show you this poster I just finished for my budsky Sam Isaac. If you are unaware, Sam Isaac (the man / the band) is breaking up! Well, he's taking some time off doing music, which is sad, sad news...

Over the past 3 years I've known Sam he has become a friend instead of a client. We hang out, play gigs together, chat on the phone, its lovely. If you haven't heard his music then you really should go and do that as he creates the most gorgeous, honest, warm pop music.

So it'll be sad to say ta ta but I hope to make it to one of these shows... and maybe you should too.

'So let's just say, so long'.

His Master's Voice

2009-10-20T09:27:00.003+01:00

Have you heard the Monsters of Folk album? Well, its a bit of a grower but after some listens its pretty darned nifty!

Anyways, why I've really dropped by is to tell you about a t-shirt I just done for Luxembourg based record label Lili Is Pi. Just a couple of colours, a whole lotta love and E.T. They should be available through their website soon enough.

Catch you on the flipside!

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

2009-10-13T09:55:00.005+01:00

Hello folks. Hope you're avoiding colds and the like...

Quick update for some music packaging that I have recently signed off. The first of which being for Atlum Schema and his 7" single. Next up, the new self-released single from my bro's new band Glades And finally, the debut CD single for One of Twelve. In and out, just how we like it! Ta ta for now

Chips Ahoy!

2009-10-08T09:45:00.006+01:00

Good day people of Planet Earth. Quick update on things...

I have finished my inventorying and filled my Big Cartel shop with lots of goodies. Some things I have less of than I thought I did... So if you fancy throwing some cash at me, then head on over to the twoducksdisco store.

I have just finished a terrifying t-shirt for Pandy Cane clothing which should be all set for scaring small children come Halloween... or not. And more pictures are emerging from Flatstock 23 including some nice... And some, less nice... And I'm sure there'll be plenty more to come.

Tatty bye.

In Our Talons

2009-10-01T14:49:00.004+01:00

Well, hey...

So I made it back from Hamburg in one piece (barely) and managed to have a great time hanging out with all the Flatstock artists and German dudes. Plus I also managed to sell a few posters, which is always a bonus. Here is a picture of my print 'A Hard Days Night' in The Beatles museum, which was ace and I also sold a few of these whilst I was there. I've just put them up in the twoducksdisco Big Cartel shop, so if you fancy picking one up just slide on over. And just for you there's a special 20% discount if you enter the discount code upon checkout. Its 'Lennon' by the way...

So, I finally get around to posting my Bowerbirds poster. I like the Bowerbirds, I think I may go and see this gig. And thats it for now, next week there will be better photos from Hamburg so you can judge us as the drunken maniacs you've come to expect... plus some new works, hooray!

You say goodbye...

Anchorless

2009-09-22T17:39:00.005+01:00

In the morning I shall be Hamburg bound for Flatstock 23 and the great times that lie at the end of my 14 hour solo journey. So I've loaded up my iPod with all The Weakerthans albums and got a couple of new Bill Bryson books for company.

I will be taking a fair amount of posters ready for the hard sell plus some kooky little business card wallets as illustrated above and below. I'll surely come back with crazy pics a-plenty from the weeks proceedings and be talking in some code that us 'poster weiners' have concocted to further distance ourselves from the real world.

I'll also post the new Bowerbirds poster up on my return but until then, have a great week!

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

2009-09-17T15:27:00.009+01:00

Guten Tag. So you may or may not know that next week I am off to Hamburg, DE where I will be exhibiting at the mighty FLATSTOCK on the Reeperbahn. If its half as good as last year it'll be the greatest thing ever as I get to hang out with some good old friends and hopefully make some new ones.

Whilst i'm over there i'm also contributing an art print to The Beatles (you may have heard of them) museum in Hamburg, Beatlemania.

Here is a quick process of the art print being made, starting with a sky blue colour for the first layer. The second colour down. The third colour, which although Elle described as a bit poo-y, is actually more Jamaican Ginger I think... Here I needed to make sure that the paint had an exact level of transparency so that the colour behind would be visible, creating extra detail and depth to the print. The fourth colour is a dark salmon and again having to make sure that the paint was transparent enough to show the colours which I was printing over. So, a bit more of a tricky one this and it took ages but they'll be up for sale shortly from my Big Cartel store but I can't wait to see these up in the museum!

Loads of updates to come next week and hopefully i'll have time to show you them before I sod off to Germany. Until then, auf wiedersehen!!

Idiot Heart

2009-09-13T12:04:00.014+01:00

Along with the Magnolia Electric Co. posters that I printed for the Brudenell show (which apparently featured a man dancing in his underwear), I was also asked to screen-print my effort for Sunset Rubdown. I wanted to make a series of the two posters, giving people something to collect and basically something that looked pretty cool.

With this in mind I made a sketch based on the cowboy / horse illustration from the Magnolia poster. I wanted the image to relate to SR's recent album 'Dragonslayer' and so I drew some dude riding a dragon... genius! I then inked in the illustration using my tried and tested Pentel Pocket Brush. And then I went about doing all the fancy Photoshop things like adding colour and then making the separations ready for screen-printing. This time I added a moon as opposed to a sunset, as they've got a track called 'Silver Moons'. This also gave me the idea to actually print silver when it came to the screen-printing process. The acetate for the white layer of the print. Printing the white layer. The white layer down on the navy card, looking all nice. The acetate for the 'split (yes, another) fountain' layer. Printing the 'split'. The finshed poster on navy card. Detail on tan card. The finished poster on black card. So there you go, a little insight to the design and print process, phew!

Also worth a mention is that Tubelord's Rainboliatric project got blogged about on the Rock Sound website, where you can see a few of my efforts littered amongst the hilariously great artwork from other great UK illustrators! Way to go dudes!!

Lonesome Valley

2009-09-03T14:06:00.015+01:00

I believe I promised to show you some 'funky-ass screen-prints' for some posters that I did for the Brudenell Social Club. Since I am a man of my word, here is the poster process for the Magnolia Electric Co. gig going down tomorrow night at the Brudenell.

The acetate for the white layer. Printing the white layer. White layer down. The white layer down on the two brown card variants. The acetate for the 'split-fountain' layer. Doing the splits (not literally). Testing out the split layer, to achieve an authentic looking sunset. It worked! Detail (plus look close enough and you can see the metallic gold sparkle in the top of the sunset). Not all the prints registered perfectly but I kinda like this, as it makes each print completely unique. The finished poster, on Ruby Red card. So another month, another process thread. Hope you enjoyed it again.

There will be a super-limited amount of these posters available at the gig tomorrow night from the merch stall and from Monday 7th September they will be available from my Big Cartel store. Hopefully you might want to buy one.

Tatty bye y'all!

A Simple Hypothetical

2009-09-01T11:09:00.003+01:00

If you hadn't heard, one of the UK's finest bands Dartz have decided to call it a day. Obviously this is very sad news but to celebrate their marvelousity, they are playing a couple of fare-thee-well shows and this is my effort for the Middlesbrough date. I was happy to be involved in some shape as to their sending off due to the fact that I can't make the gigs (mega bummer). So, to Henry, Will, Phil and Nico, thanks for teaching me to dance.

Yeah!

2009-08-27T11:45:00.006+01:00

G'day. Here is a quick-ish illustration that I done for Radio 1 approved Belfast dance-punks Not Squares. The illustration is based on Robert Crumb's Mr Natural character, except I got him drunk and convinced him that his almighty beard was a musical instrument and here he is trying to play it... Good luck buddy!

This was done on tracing paper and will be inside one copy of their debut single, 'Aye Yo Pa'.

Yeah!

Propeller

2009-08-17T10:25:00.010+01:00

A couple of months back I received an email from Jo Tubelord, pitching to me a rather interesting project in which he wished for me to be a part of. At first I was going to sack it off but he did put 4 x's at the end of said message and i'm a sucker for the digital love.

The challenge that lay ahead of the band was to assign a set amount of 7" sleeves to a bunch of 'art weiners' for their upcoming single 'Propeller' and so I took 30 of 500 to help out.

After receiving my 30 sleeves in the post along with a heart breaking tale of a moose who whilst out on a casual jog falls in love with a bear yet never gets the beautiful ursidae, who is oblivious to the poor moose's affections resulting in loss, confusion and resignition of chasing an impossible zeal.

With the above story as inspiration I created my image which I chose to screenprint across the 30 sleeves and the below pictures document the process in which the sleeves were printed...

The sleeves, awaiting their fate (plus killer mug). The acetate for the first layer of my print. The first colour (metallic gold) being printed. The gold layer complete. The acetate for the second layer of the print. Second colour (intense pink) being printed Both colours down, drying and looking like a delicious army! The final sleeve. Hopefully that has shed some light on the screenprinting process and how my sleeves for 'Propeller' were put together.

If you want to see more fricking ace sleeves for this project then head over to the Rainboliatric blog. There's some seriously great work there, so go, go, feast your eyes!

The Stars Are Projectors

2009-08-15T12:04:00.006+01:00

Good day. Quick update with some fresh new t-shirt designs of the one-colour variety.

First up is a design for pop-punkeroos The Auteur. This design gives light to the mystery that surrounds as to why cats have such bad breath... Secondly is a slightly 1960's Batman inspired picture for Kid Cosmic, of some innocent little dude on a gameboy... uhh, thats it. KAPOW!

When Day Chokes the Night

2009-08-12T16:13:00.006+01:00

Hello. A while back I was asked to do some design work for a new pub that is opening in Brixton later in the year. I came up with some rough drafts and turned out they love wolves and were happy with what I'd sent them, which was cool. So today I was in Nation of Shopkeepers (a rad little bar in Leeds city centre) when on picking up a little zine / listings I discovered that very logo on a half page spread, sick! So that was a nice little surprise before I went and spent a small fortune on groceries in Sainsburys...

That's it for now, hopefully soon I'll be able to show you something I've done for everyone's fave Kingston-based rapscallions, Tubelord.

Over and out.

Dreamer

2009-07-23T18:24:00.006+01:00

Good evening folks. So things have been traditionally busy over here at twoducksdisco studios including getting hacked and robbed (again, sigh) but retrieved (hurrah, woo)!!

Things have been poster heavy these past 2 weeks, as i've completed things for Magnolia Electric Co., Sunset Rubdown and Tiny Vipers. The latter of those can be seen below.

I'm holding off on the MEC and SR ones as they'll be appearing as funky-ass screen-prints in the next month or so. But if you do want to see them, just pop down the Brudenell...

Just a small post today but I figured it had been a while since the last. I've just signed off another poster that I'll put up next time, plus a logo for Rest is Noise, which will be appearing across various bits of promotion for Field Day... killer!

Catch you later my brother.

Oats We Sow

2009-07-09T11:04:00.006+01:00

Hello there. So i'm back up and armed with our familiar friend the Internet after my move deeper into Leeds' Hyde Park last week. So now I am able to show you some things that got signed off during the move.

Firstly is a t-shirt titled 'Cat Beard' for Luxembourg's indie-poppers Miaow Miaow, which essentially does what it says on the tin. Next up, the cover for Dinosaur Pile-Up's summer smashing EP. The brief behind this one was to make it look shit and nineteen-nineties, hopefully its just that.

Also to round things up, I just finished the artwork for my good friend Alex Hel. He's just about to release this debut mini-album, which promises to be loaded up with mega-pop... goodtimes!

Until next time, have a banana!

S Is for Evrysing

2009-06-24T11:18:00.006+01:00

Hello there. So apparently I'm getting better at these blog updates, latte's all round!

Firstly, i'm part of this lovely little collective known as Feral and last week I did a quick Q&A for them. You can read that here, if you like.

I have just finished a new t-shirt for Pharaohs. They're from Otford, they're really nice and sound like a poppier, brasher Bloc Party. I also recently finished a poster for a gig that promises to be a blinder.

And that's it. Currently working on things for Big Box Little Box, Alex Hel, One Of Twelve, Sam Isaac and Spaghetti Anywhere. Or alternatively; very busy...

Just Kickin' It Like A Wild Donkey

2009-06-19T11:13:00.003+01:00

Hello. Yes you are reading things correctly, two updates in one week! Hopefully this will keep the ever brilliant Elle off my back, haha... (oh, in-jokes don't really work on the world wide web).

Anyways, i've been really quite busy recently and out of that comes these two new posters. One for Collisions and Consequences and t'other for Trespassers William.

The Trespassers one should be emerging as a limited edition screen-print for their tour which goes down in October, more on that soon.

I also did a few designs for Leeds band Loose Talk Costs Lives a while back. They're rad, sound kinda like Maps and Atlases. You should probably go and check them out.

New things on the horizon for Grammatics and Blue Roses, which'll be nice. Plus a t-shirt for Pharaohs and still to come, the elusive Dino Pile-Up EP.

Party hard!

My Lady's House

2009-06-15T12:34:00.004+01:00

Good day all. Hope lovely weekend's were had by dudes...

Quick update of something that has been done for quite some months but has picking up some online-press momentum as of late.

So, above is the design that I did for t-shirt company Pandy Cane and over the past month or so Tom (Pandy Cane founder) has sent me links to props that the design has been receiving, which are always nice to read.

There is one by Pop Culture Tees and another from Hide Your Arms. Lovely stuff.

Also, last week I completed a quick poster for Lisa Hannigan. She of Damien Rice accompaniment fame has rather gorgeous subtle and rustique folk tendancies of her own and i'm rather happy with how the poster worked out.

Stay fresh!

Yeah Sapphire

2009-06-04T18:16:00.011+01:00

Hello

So i've realised that i'm pretty poor at keeping up to date with things that I do here. I can't promise they'll change but maybe...

Anyways i'm listening lots to The Hold Steady at the moment, so thats keeping me positive. And i've been working pretty hard on lots of things that are creeping along steadily.

Below is the CD cover that I did for this rad little zine called Backlash and that should be coming out soon. Its going to feature personal faves Tellison, along with The Paper Chase, Fake Problems plus some other hot stuff!

I also realised that I never poster my effort for Tapes volume 2. I got lumped with My First Tooth and came up with what you can see below.

If you want to see more of that you can head here, where you'll find the podcasts of vol. 1 -3 plus all the e-zine's too!

Cheers for reading. Coming soon, new Dinosaur Pile-Up EP art! Lightning Strikes!!!

London is the Reason

2009-04-28T16:58:00.033+01:00

Hello, so I mentioned in the last post that i'd be putting up my poster that I've completed for Gallows. Not only am I going to do that but i'm going to show you how I printed it aswell.

It all started when Chris '3D Glasses' White (a sexy chap from Landan tan) asked me to be involved in the Gallows tour poster series volume 2, to which I was more than happy to agree to. After contributing to last year's series I quite fancied following on a theme within my posters, so I had a rough idea of how my poster was going to end up.

I wanted the poster to be based around a silhouetted character, much like my previous effort for the Manchester Academy 2 date. So I popped over to their MySpace in order to gain some inspiration for the visual. This first sketch was done before I'd investigated album articles and stories and was based around the idea of a wolf stalking the streets of a London that has reverted back to looking old and dilapidated. The album is a pissed off bookmark in Britain's current crisis with regards to politics, the economy and society and so I wanted something that better conveyed what the album is screaming about. With constant references to death throughout the album 'We are ready to die' it seemed more fitting to exchange the wolf character for the grim reaper. This added a more sinister angle to the poster, as it shows death prowling the streets of London, ready to collect his debt.

With the album being called 'Grey Britain' it would have been an obvious choice to use that as a colour and theme guideline. To make the poster appear more striking I decided to add a sunset, which would help set the scene and create a more menacing atmosphere. After adding a blackletter font for the show details I was pretty happy with the outcome and ready to print them up. So I printed the acetates and took all my materials and equipment to the West Yorkshire Print Workshop, where the poster was to be screen printed.

With the screens prepared, I had to go about printing a 'split fountain'. This process involves printing 2 colours on one screen but through spreading the paint in the way illustrated below, I was able to achieve a smooth blend and create a skyline that resembled a sunset.

In order to achieve a successful 'split' the paint needs to be pulled through the screen numerous times, allowing it to mix and blend.

Once i'd experimented enough and was happy with the blend I began printing onto the Snowden white 300gsm paper, which I would build up the individual layers and thus creating my poster.
Here they are on the drying rack.

Then I printed the second layer... the blackening. This worked well as the black boldly stood out from the blended layer before, creating a striking contrast between the 2 layers and creating the perfect scene in which I wanted to depict.
After cropping all the posters down I was ready to sign and number.

Now they are sitting in my room, waiting to be unveiled at the gig at Rock City on May 12th and needless to say, I can't wait for the carnage!
So thanks for reading, I hope that offered a nice little insight into how I go from designing a poster to printing.

You Are Free

2009-04-19T12:22:00.013+01:00

Hello. So things have been busy over at the twoducksdisco camp recently. Mainly my time has been taken up with the epic packaging for Sam Isaac's debut album. I don't think I can show all of it yet but I can tell... and its going to be awesome. 16 page booklet (all hand-written), moonpack packaging (whatever the heck that is) and lots of stars and constellations. Here is the front cover...

I also got a couple of t-shirt designs signed off last week for the awesome Mutiny on the Bounty. They're from Luxembourg and sound a bit like a proggy Cap'n Jazz... Anyways, they went with a natural disaster vibe.

New things to come soon including a new screen print for the mighty Gallows and a t-shirt version of this poster that I designed for an exhibition that i'm... well, exhibiting at.

History is made at Night

2009-04-01T20:49:00.009+01:00

Sup. So, in a previous blog i'd mentioned that I was doing some recording with Sam Isaac and The Old Romantic Killer band plus others. It was for an exciting podcast and e-zine project thing that i'm doing with my chum Ash. Well, that went out today and I must say that i'm very impressed with it all. If you go here, then you can download it and that'd be nice. To co-incide with the podcast there is a downloadable PDF featuring original artwork by a bunch of artists including myself and here is my offering for the Old Romantics.

I also said that I was going to post another little somethin' somethin' for a new zine called Feral. My effort is a 2-page spread that features Ken, an unruly orangutan with an eye for mischief. Here he has just eaten a lemon. Like I said... unruly

Fanfare for the Common Man

2009-03-27T17:00:00.014Z

G'day Its the weekend! This is something to be very excited about. I'm meeting up with an old chum tomorrow for lunch, which shall be nice as we haven't seen one another since October... In other exciting news, my good friend Mr. Rob Lynch (aka Lost on Campus) has just released a new batch of t-shirts featuring a design of mine. Apparently, they are killer, dude!

I have also completed another thing for a friend, this time in the form of a poster for Ms Gem. Prout. She does gigs in Leeds and pretty good ones at that.

So its an aadvark-type thing... Why? Well, Hot Club did a cover of the Paul Simon song 'You Can Call Me Al'. Al is very close to Alf. Alf is a rocking aadvark-esque creature from outer space. And since its Gem's birthday gig, he is wearing pants, busting some moves and sipping a strawberry daiquiri... as we've all done at birthdat parties. Just me? More things to be posted soon, including things for alphabet books, zines and the mega-awesome Old Romantic Killer Band. Enjoy the weekend y'all!

Meeting Across the River

2009-03-24T17:25:00.007Z

So last night I pootled along down to the Tunng and Tinariwen gig at the Irish Centre, feeling generally quite excited. On arrival, I set up my posters along with the band's merchandise and manned the merch stall along with Tunng's tour manager.

The music from the on-stage collaboration was nothing shy of awesome. The Tunng influence on Tinariwen's African blues gave things a more contemporary feel with synths, blips and samples and went down a treat. There were loads of dancing middle-aged ladies... awesome!

On the poster side of the gig, that was also a success. I sold 35 of my little babies and even got myself a copy signed by all the bands, nice! (Apologies for the naff camera phone shot.)

So that means that they are now on sale from me. They are £10 and you can follow this link to my myspace page, where they are available from. Oh and there are only 11 left...

In other news, whilst in town on Sunday I popped in the Vans store and caught a glimpse of my flyers I did for a friend who runs a night at the Hi-Fi club in Leeds, called Silver Hips.

This night is a whole lot of fun! The music is old school hip-hop, motown and (decent) indie. There are goody bags, face painting sessions and cakes all thrown in the mix too. Basically for £3, its a jolly good night out! The link for mo info is here. Oh and I actually don't work for them...

So, more things to come soon including an aardvark having a bit of a boogie in their underwear... no lie.

+ Updated whilst on a Bruce Springsteen marathon.

Spring

2009-03-23T14:19:00.000Z

Judging by the mega sun fest that is going on outside and the daffodil's that have bloomed in my garden, its fair to say that Spring has arrived. To assert this season, I felt the need to blog to the soundtrack of Rites of Spring... clever. Here is an advert that I did for Heineken that will be featuring in the Live at Leeds guide. Was a fast and fun project to work on. I have also been asked to contribute a couple of works for a new zine called Feral. The theme is animals and so I went with the classic 'what animals would say if they could...' The Feral blog is here and the facebook group here. I will reveal my submissions soon enough but its organised by Elle Teague, who is great! Her work is here. Go and tell her how great it is, oh and wish her happy birthday too. So tonight is the Tunng with Tinariwen gig and it will be undoubtedly great! I will be there along with my posters, going for the hard sell. Hopefully see you down there. TTFN

Listening for the Weather

2009-03-18T16:32:00.001Z

Spring is in the air! Just look outside, it must be true...

So the weather is good, i'm listening to the summery sounds of Bic Runga (made famous for having a song in American Pie... awesome/shame) and yesterday I printed the Tunng and Tinariwen poster for their gig at the Irish Centre on monday 23rd March.

Here is a very quick (but covers the bare necessities) process of the printing.

They just need to be signed and numbered and then they're ready for next monday, where they will be on sale from me at the gig.

If you can't make it, fear not for they will be for sale online from tuesday 24th March but basically the gig will be hilariously great, so you should go to that.

So thanks for reading and hopefully see you at the Irish Centre with your hard earned cash!

Old Boot Wine

2009-03-05T11:09:00.000Z

Oh, hello there. So, I have proved to be a bad-bloggist in the past (this I believe will be my first in about a year) but I intend to right some wrongs and keep the blogging world up to date on most of the happenings in the twoducksdisco camp. As one will have gathered, I have been busy (hence, bad-blogging) for ages... I've had odd jobs all over the place but now as unemployment looms it will be nice to return to doing artwork as my primary day filler. ------------------------------------ Here are a few things to keep your eyes happy for a while. This is part of an illustration for Futuresound, who commissioned me to design a 'club card' for local alternative club and venue; the Cockpit. Type-treatment/logo for Leeds based Indie-electro lovelies, April in Paris. Front cover of an A6 booklet for Uncle Albert's (Middlesborough venue) gig listings, featuring none other than, Uncle Albert. You plonker Rodney, etc...Also, completed some posters for The Durutti Column (Factory Records) , Earth (Doom legends) and will be screen-printing the Tunng and Tinariwen 'illuminati peacock' poster, which will be nice. Those can be viewed along with most of my other posters at GigPosters.com.

------------------------------------

Its also worth mentioning that a friend and I are putting together this little monthly subscriber podcast project, which is going to feature our most likened bands in the United Kingdom. Mainly on the underground tip of course, we have confirmed Sam Isaac and The Old Romantic Killer Band for the first show. Pretty excited about this...

You can subscribe here for that and go here for our occassional ramblings and rants... ------------------------------------

That just about brings you up to date with things, thanks for reading and go tell your friends how much fun you've had hanging out here...

This was updated whilst listening to 'Acid Tracks: The Dawn of Phychedelic Folk' by the Owl Service