All Blog posts

I decided to do a month-long online artists residency. It went as well as could be expected – here are my thoughts on the final day! ‘Working-class, Artist, Mother’ – Feels quite impossible.‘Artist’ is a hard thing to do anyway, I won’t elaborate on that. It’s also well documented that the numbers of working-class peopleContinue reading “WAM Residency”

I was asked (I volunteered) to give a talk at the most recent Mother Other artist networking event – held in Middlesbrough. It was an event for artists who are also parents, and I recently had a baby – this is relevant context. I wrote a talk called: ‘How to be Creative between the HoursContinue reading “MotherOther Artist Talk”

As a navigator north studio holder, I was naturally obliged to take part in the group show ‘Cluster’ I was thinking about a few things: My art installation was simple – I simply painted a vase of flowers in traditional oil paints, except instead of painting the flowers, I painted the individual colour pixels, givingContinue reading “Virtually Art – Middlesbrough Art Weekender”

I like the positive attention I get from painting little doggies

If you DID enjoy my post-it animation, then congrats. I bet you don’t get enough sleep.

My painting is on tour, and can be spotted at the South Shields Customs House summer exhibition. So that’s nice

Our studio is full of flies, an exhibition update

I saw the phrase “twice removed from reality” the same place that I get all my news and culture updates – on a meme. For poetry in particular, or art in general, Plato argues that art is twice removed from reality, because it’s a copy of an idea Art imitates idea and so it isContinue reading “Twice removed from reality”

As part of the Stockton Arcs series of projects (PART 2) celebrating northern artists, and the concept of Home – I created this gouache painting based on the theme of ‘Family’ I painted it using a 90s childhood photo of my brother and I as reference. It was taken in Scotland on Halloween. Our facesContinue reading “Northern Gothic”

The Arc, Stockton is running a project over the next few months to celebrate working class northern artists. I agreed to take part in a brief which explores what ‘Home’ means – this meant filling a sketchbook around the theme of ‘Home revisited’ I decided to explore ‘over the border’ of Middlesbrough. The part ofContinue reading “Home: Revisited”

I opened up my ‘Do not sit on the chair’ illustration to feedback from a very dedicated and active online group – the uk Rare and Unusual Houseplants Facebook Group. I wanted their feedback on what plants my plant-loving naked ladies would have in the living room I got overwhelming comments and pictures of peoplesContinue reading “More on plants”

I’ve been playing with the concept and styles of advertising, mostly for products / events / businesses that don’t exist. I’ve been making retro-inspired posters for fake events and brands, using various online models, to convey different ideas. I like that they’re not advertisements at all, but fakes, with elements of the surreal and absurdContinue reading “‘Advertisements’”

Psychic LanguageThere is a psychic languageThat exists between our mindsWhere senses have collidedSpace seems to swallow timeInvoluntary voyagesStarboard subconsciousnessGives to you a snapshot giftCherish it before it driftsAs we go back in timeI’ll meet you in the psychic discoThrough your eyes I will read your mindI will wait for full dilationBefore we travel back throughContinue reading “Illustrating song lyrics”

Back on my ‘Draw me nsfw’ Illustrations – some of them aren’t really that NSFW (digital illustration) I mentioned in a previous post about people posting themselves online to be drawn, or to just share themselves. Why are they doing it and why am I looking? Exhibitionism and voyeurism obviously. But a lot of themContinue reading “Humans doing stuff online”

I circle around once again to Minotaurs – with ‘willing’ life models gathered online, I’m sketching my naked mythical creatures You’ll noticed the body types I picked aren’t monsters, and they are weirdly aesthetic – I’ve changed the proportions a bit so they’re not quite human. I also gave them cows heads, which is theContinue reading “Back on my Minotaur thing”

Upcoming exhibition

I’ve been thinking about vignettes or compartments….possibly apartments. Isolation, and what everyone is doing in their homes on their own. I mean…not like that. Maybe kind of like that I did wonder a bit about compartmentalising both ourselves and parts of ourselves and what that might look like in relation to lockdown. And how thatContinue reading “Isolation”

Lockdown art illustration Practicing line work with a simplified illustration. I have a few variations of the same basic idea, it changes from a fox/rabbit, fox/butterfly, then dog/mouse. Same concept – a stretched jaw devouring something delicate – the delicate thing being unconcerned about this fact. When I moved from black and white I triedContinue reading “Lick / swallow”

We all submitted recipes and did interviews for the covid artist support cookbook last year – but they didn’t add the Interviews in them – which is a shame because it’s nice to know a bit about artists who made the images (There’s a copy of my interview below) – I’m not sure if IContinue reading “Artists cookbook”

The lockdown art challenge either never ended or has started up again. And there’s nothing to do but sit about practicing styles. This is a portrait of local Teesside musician Micheal CG in the style of Aubrey Beardsley. It’s a simple black and white illustration (actually black and beige to mimic paper colours) with elementsContinue reading “Lockdown Art Challenge – Aubrey B”

I’ve become mildly interested in ladies with animals and I don’t know why. I just like them holding each other – coexisting in the same space I pondered on this, reading scraps about it here and there. I did a bit of research and found a lot of classical portraits of women holding animals inContinue reading “Ladies and Animals”

Yeah so would I – but here we are. Doing the best we can under time limits with only a phone camera and a photo editing app. I want to represent ‘eco friendly’ products, but not in a sea-green, natural, Kraft paper way (I’m not a fan of that) but in a more… ‘The FutureContinue reading “Would you like to be better at product photography?”

I’ve been playing with a few images that interest me – specifically Medusa and her snakes. Everyone knows the main story of Medusa (turn people to stone), and then everyone will correct you on the story of Medusa to highlight the female misery aspect. You’ve got rape, then being cursed, then killed etc. etc. ButContinue reading “On the subject of snakes”

As more health food #zerowaste shops move towards the seagrass green and cream colour scheme – I’ve been using this shop rebranding to move away from it. Partly to make the shop more distinguishable online from a quick glance on the social media pages and website, and partly because I hate it. It was okContinue reading “Rebranding the Jartree”

A very quick simplified outline drawing of Patti Smith from the cover of the 1975 Horses album. Tattoo request – just do the outline and block colour of the hair and shirt (maybe some of the jawline) I listened to the album once I finished drawing – it was listed in Rolling Stone‘s “500 GreatestContinue reading “Quick Outlining – Patti Smith Line Drawing”

Working on large format printed boards to signpost people to products/reductions/instructions etc. And you need a surprising amount of them I was experimenting with simple illustrations to add a bit of playfulness online and in the store The below images of scales and jars illustrate how to buy refill food when bringing your own containersContinue reading “Icon and signage illustration”

Creating space / playing with a flat illustration – learning digital drawing in lockdown Listless minotaurs – this is a quick digital drawing of some pensive minotaurs. I was trying to create a sense of cold distance between them using the colours/ background, with varying degrees of success

I don’t know what else I can say about this, I’ve been photoshopping animals together for fun and relaxation purposes. I spent an amount of time (unspecified amount of time ago) looking through old D&D Monster Manuals, then making stat cards for my own monsters – which I would design, and were mostly dragons. It’sContinue reading “Photoshopping animals to make them marginally more interesting”

This was in no way my project, and all done by the volunteers of Community Champions Middlesbrough The photos are mine, unless specified, or clearly not mine, because they’re from 1979 I did help out with some painting, because the dinosaurs are near my studio. I even got to paint a small triceratops, which hasContinue reading “Teesaurous park”