London Calling

Last Wednesday I made a quick trip down to London for the opening of an exhibition put together by the agency who represent me, Eastwing. The show was great and it was nice to meet a few of the other illustrators on Eastwing. I haven't really mentioned the whole agency thing on here yet (its still very early days for me!) but here is my page on their site. There's some new work on there to peruse including this bear who was made into a rather nice giclee print for the show and will soon feature on tshirts by Scotland's own Oddities.
If you're in London go and take a look at the show! Its on till Thursday at the Framers Gallery on Windmill St (round the corner from Goodge St tube station.)

Richard Sanderson

Not content with being a thoroughly nice chap with an eye for a good stationary shop Richard Sanderson is also a top notch illustrator with some mean pencil skills. Check out his website for more awesome work.

Student Guide

I did some illustrations for the List's Student Guide 2009 which is now out! If you're not a scottish fresher then you can see them online here. Above is Edinburgh and below is Glasgow.

I did a quick drawing today whilst watching a slightly mediocre BBC drama called Land Girls. The show might be a bit dull but the high waisted trousers, pin curls and head scarves are not! Hurrah! If I had a better knowledge of WWII I'd love to write a kid's story about the Land Army Girls. Maybe I should do some researchin'.

Another What I Wore Today drawing. Today I was feeling girly and summery (its september! Edinburgh is a bit slow on the sunshine uptake!).


We're off to Salisbury tomorrow in preparation for End of the Road festival this weekend. Very excited (especially as the weather looks like it might hold out and stay warm and sunny) and looking forward to seeing bands like Shearwater, David Thomas Broughton, Alela Diane, Okkervil River, Blitzen Trapper, Neko Case, Magnolia Electric Co., The Dodos and a fair few more. Camping! Trees! The SOUTH! Yeah!
(I might be a little over excited about getting out of Scotland for a bit!)

Lobachevsky

A quick doodle for my friend's band. They only have one song on their myspace but its nice. Give it a go.

His other band are a bit more energetic. They're doing pretty nicely at the moment.

What I Wore Today

Last week illustration star (and pug authority) Gemma Correll started a flickr group based on the tried and tested Wardrobe Remix idea BUT with one important difference. All submissions MUST be drawings. Needless to say plenty of people have joined eager to share their sartorial choices without the stress of posting photos of themselves (myself included). Here is my drawing for today and here are all my drawings thus far. Check out the group to see all manner of exciting wardrobe doodles and join in! Its good fun and a great way to get a wee bit of drawing done everyday. Perfect.

Boots!

Dear Shuh. I would very much like these boots. Please make them in a UK9 for me. KTHXBYE. X

(will post properly later. apologies for erratic/flakey blogging)

Jane!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Jane Austen is flipping awesome. 

Growls.

Nine Dangerous Mammals. And yes badgers are dangerous.

Rope & Waves

Shawn Sheu takes beautiful photos. His portraits are lovely but his landscape work is astounding. To me this looks more like a Turner painting than anything that could exist for real. (via Amy Borrell @ All the Mountains)

Love love love this rope knot bracelet from Tanya Aguiniga

Forgot to mention that there's a wee interview with me on Paper Shelters. If you've ever read an interview that i've given before you'll see that I haven't said anything groundbreaking...i'm not a very exciting interviewee.

Catch Up/Sum Up

(I am seriously never going to tire of our new view)

Oops. Totally neglected this blog recently. It has literally been the craziest month ever. What with going back and forth to London, moving house, Edinburgh Festival, having friends to stay, impromptu lodgers, my sister visiting and trying to do work I've barely had time to pause for breathe! Hopefully things are finally back to some semblance of normality now and I can get on with things a slightly more leisurely pace!


First up a new (ish) project that I've been working on with my very good friend (and lexicography magician) Jane Solomon. I met Jane when she studied in Edinburgh back when I was a first year (she has no returned to Chicago. Boo) and we've stewed on various projects since then (the ill-fated period drama review blog, kid's books etc) but finally got going on one we both enjoy. Sum-Up Stories is a blog in which Jane writes rather charming flash fiction and I try and come up with an illustration to go with it. We've done a few (and there are some i'm yet to illustrate) so far and you can see them here. The goal is to do things quickly and instinctively and to try not to lose interest! Hooray for that.

Second head over to the awesome FormFiftyFive to see the banner I drew to celebrate their 3000th post (thus the MMM not FFF)



I think thats it for now. See you soon!

Waiting

Still waiting on an internet connection in our flat so in the meantime I'll be hard at work at my nice new desk! Back soon!

New Print!

OK OK I'm on hiatus till monday BUT I have a new print in my shop. Its a super fancy digital one rather than a gocco or screen print but its still signed and numbered.

Hiatus

We moved house this morning. At 8.30am. From a third floor flat to a fourth floor flat. I am shattered. Moving all of our stuff would have been challenge enough but the 19 boxes of Friction books really tipped it over the edge. Anyway just wanted to say that due to to being in a new place in amongst a thousand boxes, it being the Edinburgh Festival and thus everywhere being swamped and hectic AND having no internet connection blogging will be suspended for the next week. After that I'll be back and on top form I hope. Hello to all the people who've started following my blog recently. There are 131 of you know and thats amazing. Slightly bewildering by amazing nonetheless.

Friction Prints

So these are my images for We Are The Friction. If you like they are available to buy as high quality digital prints for £20 (about $33) + P&P. Prints are 14 x 21.5 cm plus border for framing. Contact us at sing@singstatistics.co.uk to order.



BUY A BOOK

My two cents

So I've plenty of time to think on yesterday's revelations now and I guess here's what I want to say. It's a long 'un and sadly image free, normal posting to resume shortly.

When i first opened my emails and read about Samantha Beeston presenting Lauren Nassef's and my own work as her own I felt a bit sick. It was a real sudden punch in the gut and sat in the middle of a starbucks on Marylebone high street it was one i wasn't expecting. One of the things I worry about as an illustrator who has a website, a blog and a flickr is that my work is accessable to anyone and that is both a blessing and a curse. Whilst it allows me, and thousands of other artists, to present work and connect with people all over the world it also throws my work into the public domain where anyone can find it, post it, print it, or copy it. The internet is a largely anonymous place, sites like ffffound although often enjoyable and useful, regurgitate images, often without crediting their creator which renders them orphans to many viewers. They appear totally without origin. As a result it is far too easy for people to take their 'inspiration' that bit too far.
In this case the culprit was clearly aware of who created the images concerned (the handwriting that was lifted from me was posted only on my blog which is a far from anonymous source and the images from Lauren's 'A drawing a day' project are only available on her personal site) which sadly makes it a far less innocent crime. It is one thing to copy someone's work and keep it hidden in a sketchbook, (when I was at school I loved drawing paintings from The Art Book, it seemed like good practice) but it is quite another to present it as your own publically and then to enter it into a competition. Alas short of her tutors and the competition's judges following every illustration website and blog going how on earth were they ever going to know? I guess that is what made this all so easy. I'm sure that there are hundreds of people out there presenting other people's work as their own. In fact I know a fair few people who have fallen victim to it recently. I can consider myself lucky that someone spotted this when it could quite easily have gone unnoticed. In that respect the internet and the community of people who follow illustration blogs like my own are invaluable.
This whole thing has raised many questions (not least over at BBIC) about copyright and ownership. As someone just starting out professionally I am hardly equipped to answer them (but Julia Rothman is!) however it is safe to say that if you are taking heavily from someone else's work then you are likely in breach of copyright. It is never ok to rip off other artists, especially if you intend to make that work public.
My advice, though no one has asked for it and I am not really licensed to give it, would be to look at things other than illustration if you are an illustrator, look at fine art or film or read some good books that way you can feel safe in the knowledge that your inspiration has come from an emotional reaction rather than a desire to ape something you've already seen. Listen to conversations on buses, draw in unlikely places and avoid the internet when trying to start work!
I would also emplore people to put notices on your blogs claiming possession of your work...when posting to flickr make sure it is clear that this is your work and not for other people to copy. It seems anal but it could well help. I know that from now on i'll be making sure I tag everything I ever did as my own!

OK. I'm done. Apologies to those who come to this blog for cheery posts about drawing bears. I assure you this is a one off musing and hopefully we'll have no more of this nonsense! Thanks again to everyone who has contacted me about this and offered kind words of support. Knowing that people are keeping an eye out for each other is the only reason I am happy to keep on posting my work online.

Hurt

I'm away in London and on a bit of a timed internet connection BUT i had to post about this.

GO HERE

and then HERE before you read the rest of my post.

I'm feeling pretty hurt by this. The fact that someone believed they could trace my work is pretty awful but that she then went on to enter it into a competition which she won is devastating. As most of you know I graduated at the start of the month. I am likely the same age as Samantha Beeson and with a similar amount of professional experience, to start my career with this is pretty disheartening. My heart goes out to Lauren Nassef who is an incredibly talented illustrator and absolutely doesn't deserve to have to had this happen (who does i guess?)
I will post on this properly when I get back. Copyright is a difficult issue and I need to have time to process all of this and then try and sort something out.
Thanks to everyone who has contacted me about this. It is good to know that there are so many people looking out for each other on this here internet.



On a lesser note she also stole my handwriting. Who doesn't have even enough creativity to write the word 'hello'? Urgh.

Festival Build Up

(jez enjoys our new rooftop view)

Evenin' all. Its very nearly festival time here in Edinburgh. The tourists are flooding in and the streets are filling up. It takes progressively longer to get from one end of the high st to another and its only going to get busier! argh! Saying that the festival is always an exciting time up here and we've got tickets to a few exciting shows. Are any of you heading to the fringe this year?

Anyway here's some nice stuff.....

Animation 1 from jaakko ghostbuster on Vimeo.

Jaako Pallasvuo does amazing work. I love his recent animation experiments. (via AAA)


I would really like this supercool bathplug please (though it is perhaps a little pricey. for a plug). From Panik.



King of all he surveys Stuart Kolakovic has just done this AMAZING book cover for 'Along the Enchanted Way' by William Blacker. If you don't check Stu's blog go and have a look at all the awesome work he's being doing lately.

Illustrative Young Illustrators Award 2009

Have you bought a copy of 'We are the Friction'? No? You should. Its well good.

Sisters

New sketchbook drawing. I quite like this one. I've really enjoyed getting back into keeping a sketchbook this year.

We had a book launch!

The 'We Are The Friction' launch was last Thursday and it went swimmingly. We set up an Exhibition at Analogue of all the illustrations from the book as well as having a pile of books for sale at the event. You can now order your copy from our site. Be sure to check out all of the illustrators and writers involved as they're all incredible and well worth investigating. We both feel very proud to have been able to work with such an exciting array of artists and we just hope that those of you who buy the book can see all the hard work that everyone has put in.



(sorry the photos are a bit pants. better ones will appear on flickr very very soon)

Shaun O'Dell

The internet is a funny thing. I can, and very often do, spend lots of time trawling blogs for nice things to look at, to be inspired by and, of course, to blog about. There's tonnes of great stuff out there and I'm constantly amazed by how many super creative people are out that that I'm still discovering. Anyhow very occasionally I'll find something that transcends that 'oh thats cool' reaction and really hits you in the gut and makes you want to make things. I guess that is what happened when I found Shaun O'Dell.

There's so much stuff on his site that I'm impressed by. I wish I could see it for real, it seems like work for which scale is important. The 2007 series 'We Remember The Sun' is the kind of work I'd love to make. I don't and probably never will BUT if I could I would. I love the rainbow colours mixed with the inky blacks and greys and blocky, awkward shapes. Equally the contrast between really constrained line, really neat and ordered with those big fat brush strokes. Really nice. Anyway I love it all and thoroughly recommend you have a look. Apologies for the slightly gushing post. Its exciting to find something new I guess.

Best Lion. BEST!

I am totally flipping in LOVE with this Lion by Kevin Waldron. Its amazing. I want to meet him. He will sit in an armchair and puff wisely on his pipe and tell me stories of the sea. And then he will yawn and we'll go to sleep. What a great lion. Kevin Waldron's stuff is ace by the way. Have a look! His 'Owl & the Pussycat' is a winner.

Prints & Plates

Its sunday! Lets look at some awesome stuff!


This rocking horse print from tsk tsk would be so sweet in a child's bedroom. Or indeed mine.

These scandinavian retro inspired melamine plates are a dream (albeit a very domestic one!). There are a tonne of awesome designs to root through on Millamella's etsy store.
Totally incredible illustrator (and Friction contributor) Jon Klassen has does some wonderful stuff for Red Cap Cards. I would send these to everyone I know if I could bear to part with them myself.



also! I forgot to mention that the print I was giving away this week is now in my shop.

Beautiful Book Covers

I just came across THIS site and had to share. So much beautiful, inspiring stuff. Be sure to check it out if, like me, you're a fan of old book design and elaborate lettering. There's some pretty tasty colour schemes going on there too.

We Are The Friction LAUNCH (and pre-order)

For the past seven months Jez and I have been working on the second volume of our collaborative writing/drawing experiment. Like last years 'I am the Friction' the basic premise is that someone writes a story and someone else draws a picture and then they exchange their work and do something new based on what they have recieved. Easy. And this time rather than Jez and I doing all the work we've opened it up to 12 awesome illustrators and 12 awesome writers. And my have they done an amazing job!
Anyhow thats what we've been putting together for the first half of this year and now, at last, its all done and it launches next Thursday! Yay! If you head to Sing Statistics you can check out the list of illustrators (the writers are still a secret) and pre-order your copy (all pre-orders will come with a wee gocco print). Go and have a look. If thats peaks your interest keep your eyes open for pictures and things next week (though there are some teasers here). And if you're in Edinburgh this summer head to Analogue books to see the exhibition.

Giveaway Winner!

Competition closed. Time for a winner. I used random.org to generate a number between 1-61 and the winner was...number 13. Flora! Hurrah! Thanks to everyone who entered and for all the lovely lovely comments you left me. Hopefully I'll do another one soon.

Print Giveaway!

It's sunny, we had tasty sushi for lunch and I'm feeling good so to celebrate I'm going to giveaway one of the above screenprints to one reader. All you need to do is leave a comment on this post and I'll select one at random and that person will win a print (and maybe a couple of added extras). You have until Wednesday at 6pm (GMT). Go go go!

Edinburgh Again

After an exhaustingly intense 24hrs in London meeting with various exciting people I have now returned to (sunny) Edinburgh where I intend to remain for a while (I've spent far too long on trains). It was nice to be at home even though (as this photo shows) the weather was a dismally pants most of the time. Got a couple of projects to get done this week as well as sorting out stuff for the Friction launch and finding a flat! Its a going to be a busy summer I think. In the meantime time for some nice things....

Beautifully simple image by Clare Owen. I saw her stuff at D&AD t'other week. Lovely quiet drawings.



I am crazy for everything in Anna Bond's portfolio. This is a pretty great bear. And her design work is ace too.

I LOVE Vanessa Jackman's street style blog, such lovely, summery photos. I've been stewing on starting an Edinburgh street style blog for a while...any Edinburgh types fancy helping out?