Richard Morden illustration

the one that got away - redux

2012-02-15T15:15:00.000+11:00

I couldn't help myself. Had to colour in the brush and ink linework and put her on Redbubble to sell as a card, print or poster.

the one that got away

2012-02-03T16:56:00.000+11:00

Here's a quick brush-and-ink sketch of a fish and chip loving mermaid.

She was part of a series of rough sketches I drew up earlier this week for a customer who is designing the brand and look of a fish and chip franchise. The pencil sketch for this particular image was rejected, along with a number of others, as it wasn't quite appropriate for the projected demographic :( However some of the sketches I did were approved to go to final draft, and they are now done and FTPed away - huzzah! The customer is very happy with them too - huzzah again! I'll post them here when it is commercially appropriate to do so.

In the mean time, I liked the mermaid concept sketch too much not to paint her up in ink and post her here for you to see in all her abalone-shelled glory. So here she is, the one that was cast back into the ocean of unused ideas.

May her seas be calm and her chips stay firm.

R :)

Tutorial - How to stencil print gift cards

2012-01-30T15:42:00.001+11:00

This is a fairly thorough tutorial for beginners with a step-by-step description of how to print stencil art gift cards.

It is always appreciated when you hand make cards to give out for birthdays and Christmas time, but there just aren't enough hours in the day to make personalised cards for everybody. So as a happy compromise you can hand print cards in batches.

Stencil art is simple, fun, inexpensive, and creates unique art with a lovely hand crafted finished result, so is a great print method to use for making cards. There are three parts to the process: making the stencil, preparing materials and surface for printing cards and printing the cards.

*WARNING* stencil art is addictive! Once you start painting it's hard to know when to stop. You might just start stencil painting every available surface at hand - wrapping paper, walls, pets, vehicles, family members, and so on.

What you will need to make a stencil

a pencil
paper to sketch on
a design concept! - a star, a fish, a face, what-ever takes your fancy.
some 'ezy cut stencil paper' and a ball point pen or acetate and a fine permanent marker
a sharp art knife/scapel or failing that some good scissors
cutting mat or board

What you will need to print the gift cards

your beautifully cut out stencil design
nice thick card to print the design onto
paint - acrylic dries quickly, which is good
some water
a sponge or rag to paint with
a bench or table surface to print upon
old news paper or large sheets of waste paper to protect the bench or table
paper towel to keep things clean
somewhere safe the cards can sit undisturbed while the paint dries
envelopes for your cards

Making the stencil

Use the pencil and paper to sketch your design. It can be anything you like - a star, a word, a flower, a fish, a robot, a face, what ever you like. For my cards I designed a Christmas beetle, as it's a little seasonal without being religious or too tacky.

Remember your design has to exist as holes in a sheet of stencil paper, so make sure you don't design any 'islands'. For instance, if you are cutting out a stencil of the letter 'A' you can't cut out the entire outside shape and then expect to leave the shape in the centre remaining, as the centre shape would just drop out - that's an island folks! Instead, join the centre shape to the outside shape with little bridges. The same applies to all stencil images, not just letters. Have a go, you will see what I mean.

When you are happy with your design, trace it onto some ezy cut stencil paper with a ball point pen (or onto acetate with a permanent marker). Trace using a lightbox, or tape the design onto a window and use the outside light to trace. You will want your stencil sheet to be a fair bit bigger than your design, so you don't get paint on your card where you don't want it. For an average sized gift card your design will fit comfortably on an A4 sized sheet of stencil paper.

Now with your stencil paper on the cutting mat, slowly and carefully cut following your traced design, turning the stencil paper around as you go to make the cutting easier. Hold the stencil paper firmly while cutting with the other. Be sure to cut the corners cleanly, don't just wrench out the almost-cut shape.

A simple shape will take only a couple of minutes to cut out, a complex one can take an hour or more - seriously!

So now you have your beautiful shape cut out of stencil paper (or acetate) and are ready to start printing.

Preparing to stencil print the gift cards

There are a few things to prepare before you start printing.

Make sure you have your cards ready to print on. A5 sheets of thick paper work well as they fold in half to make A6 cards, a common size easy to find envelopes for (use C6 envelopes). To make the folding bit neater and easier I 'score' or put a crease in the cards where they should fold by running the edge of a tea spoon firmly along the edge of a ruler.

Put down some newspaper or scrap paper to protect the bench/table surface you will be working on.

If you care about how well your artwork is lined up on the card fronts you need to draw a placement guide on scrap paper to help you position your card and stencil paper when printing. On top of a large (A3ish) sheet of scrap paper, line up your stencil art on one of the prepared cards exactly where you think it should go. Trace around the edges of the card and of the stencil paper. You will now have two overlapping rectangles drawn on your scrap paper. Use this as a guide and every print you make will be in the same place.

Put a big glob of paint on a palette. For paint I use acrylic, as it dries quickly compared to oil based paint. Fabric paint works well too and comes in sparkly colours! For a palette I use a plate covered with tin foil, making it easy to clean up when you are finished.

Dampen your sponge with water so it is malleable, but squeeze out as much of the water as possible. You don't want the water in the sponge watering your paint down as it will run under the stencil paper when printing.

Put your first sheet of card in place, and lay the stencil paper over the top. Get it all lined up to print.

Put a swipe of paint on your sponge and dabble it up and down a few times elsewhere on the palette, to spread the paint evenly on the sponge surface.

stencil printing the gift cards

Let the fun begin! Hold down the stencil design onto the card surface with one hand and, using the sponge in a rocking, padding motion, apply the paint through the stencil and onto the card. Don't push down on the sponge too hard as it will push paint under the edges of the cut stencil shape, creating nasty blobs where you don't want them - just pat the paint on. You will get the hang of this quite quickly.

When you have covered the cut out design with sponged-on paint, put the sponge aside and gently peel off the stencil paper. There you go, your first print! Now simply repeat until all your cards are done.

During the printing process use the paper towel to keep at least one hand quite clean, so you can handle printed cards, transferring them to your drying space without getting dirty finger-pints all over them. I use a clothes drying rack to neatly peg my prints up - keeps them neatly in a small space and out of the way. If using acrylic paint your prints will probably only need about a day to dry.

Once the printed cards are dry remember to photograph your efforts! Photographs of repeating printed images always look cool.

Now you only have to fold the cards, write in them (the hardest part of the process) and post them to friends and family - who will all be utterly delighted to receive them.

You will see in the example images I made two-colour cards. This made setting up print registration and allowing lots of drying time quite important, as I had to print one colour onto all the cards, let them dry and then print the next colour over the top and allow them to dry again. I also used multiple paint colours on the sponge at the same time, allowing the paint to mix on the actual surface of the print - bit arty, eh?!

Remember, this is just how I do it. Have a go, play and experiment, and see what works for you. Feel free to send one to me!

This has been my very first tutorial, so if you like it or even if you hate it please leave a comment and let me know. Thanks.

R :)

map of the supercontinent Pangaea

2011-12-03T15:28:00.001+11:00

"Our world long ago, all the lands joined together

When first appeared beasties of fur and of feather"

This is a map of the world as it may have looked around 240 million years ago in the middle of the Triassic period. Drawn with pen and ink, coloured and textured digitally.

Two massive lands Gondwana and Laurasia had just bumped into each other, creating the Appelation Mountains and forming the supercontinent Pangaea.

Although there are other maps of Pangaea around, I could not find any illustrated in an old world style with monsters roaming the land and seas. So I just had to have a go at making one myself. Yep... nerd. I know.

Please note, I am an artist not a scientist. Although I did a fair bit of research to get it as right as I could, there is still plenty of artistic license. For instance, I made up all the rivers - sorry, I just couldn't find reference which told me where the real ones were. A few of the mountains could well be wrong too. And that volcano in between South America and Africa, well it just looked good there. So to any time travellers out there, this map is not to be used for navigation, it is decoration only!

This artwork is available to buy as poster art via Redbubble.

Meet the beasties...

The animals featured are all carefully based on life that would have been kicking around within ten million years or so of that time. I intentionally didn't label them on the map, as I think leaving the creatures a little vague and generic aids imagination. Further more, when these creatures actually existed they didn't have titles such as Saurisichisan or Amonite, instead they would have thought of each other as 'the scaley thing with big teeth it is better not to go near' or 'the tasty little furred critter' or maybe 'the giant winged one who poos from the sky'.

But for the curious, and for a closer look at all the detail going on, here is a list of what the beasties are meant to represent. (You are allowed to scroll quickly through this bit. I am being a little self indulgent)

Cynodont - mammals evolved from something like this. Guess what.. you and I are all Cynodonts! They probably had fur and whiskers.

Eoraptor - a small, very very early dinosaur. It's descendents are still around - we eat them as parmagianas and they like to poo on our cars.

Nothosaur - a swimming lizard, not a dinosaur. Some later evolved into Plesiosaurs.

Stagonolepis - a big herbivorous armadillo-like reptile

Coelophysis - early dinosaur critter. This one looks quite happy.

Placodont - imagine a giant flattened out marine iguana.

Pterorynchus - a crested Pterosaur.

Pterosaurs were flying reptiles and were not related in any way to birds, and they weren't dinosaurs either!

These critters start showing up in the fossil record of the Late Triassic as fully formed flying animals, so they must have been around earlier in some form - surely - so I featured them here.

Thalattosaur - another 'ocean lizard'

Rutiodon - looked like a crocodile, but wasn't a crocodile. Was actually a type of Phytosaur.

Panphagia - one of the earliest dinosaurs.

Cynognathian - just look at him run! A bear sized mammal-like critter. Probably furry.

Ichtheosaur - not a dinosaur, but a kind of swimming lizard which looked quite dolphin like. Gave birth to live young!

Have you noticed how much convergent evolution is going on here? Form follows function I guess.

Eudimorphodon - another early Pterosaur. Looks happy about it too.

Amonite - a prehistoric squid which wore a shell!

Eoraptor - one of the fist dinosaurs. I bet they tasted like chicken.

Rauisuchus - not a dinosaur, more of a big long legged crocodile. One of the top predators of the time.

Dicynodont - a hippo sized mammal-like reptile.

Helicoprion - a weird Triassic shark with teeth growing in a spiral.

Temnospondyl - a very large toothed amphibian, just think crocodile-like frog.

Lived on in Australia 100 million years longer than elsewhere. That kinda thing just seems to happen here.

The Triassic plants featured are fern trees, ferns, conifers, giant club mosses, quillworts and cycads.

As you can see this artwork has an extraordinary amount of texture and detail. It is designed to look its best when printed at poster sizes. It would be ideal educational artwork for a classroom or decoration for a kids room.

R :)

Lulamae shop fit-out illustrations - A theatrical collaboration

2011-11-17T14:02:00.001+11:00

"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players"

The curtains have just opened on Lulamae's new fashion boutique in Melbourne Central. There was a cast of highly talented players involved in its production and my illustrations took a supporting role.

Lulamae is a fashion boutique of unique, handpicked designs, shoes and accessories from around the world as well as jewellery from local Melbourne artists. The Melbourne Central outlet is their third permanent store, and a follow up from their Melbourne Central pop-up shop. Like the other Lulamae boutiques this shop provides a fun, engaging and unique customer experience through well designed shop fit out and great stock. This one is styled as a live theatre set!

Lulamae delivers a marvellous performance as a theatre set, taking the customer on a journey past the stage front and across the boards, to where they can browse, try and buy amidst the glamour and drama of the backstage environment. Then dressed in a splendid new outfit the customer is ready for their cue to step forth and appear on the great stage of the world. Bravo! Bravo! What a show.

The concept for this exciting customer experience came from the owners of Lulamae. The elegant, playful shop fit out was designed by Breathe Architecture and built by Ficus Constructions. My role was to work with both Lulamae and Breathe to illustrate and create digital artwork to be printed as the theatre front, stage prop trees, and the backdrop.

The base art for the design was drawn with pen and ink, using supplied style reference of an old Czechoslovakian toy theatre. With some serious digital tinkering and collaborative design input from Lulamae, Breathe and myself this ink drawing was extrapolated into psd files of large pixelated folk art motifs and trees. The resulting art is contemporary and exciting, maintains a warmth and humanity, and is graphically honest about being digitally printed. The artwork speaks of taking inspiration from the old and interpreting afresh for the present day.

Once designed the pixelated folk art and tree imagery was split apart into 1200mm x 2400mm sized files and printed by bubble-jet onto large plywood sheets. The printing was handled quickly and with professional ease by a can-do crowd called Prologica. The printed plywood shapes were then cut by saw and by CNC router, and assembled on location.

As far as the architects or I know this is the first time anyone has used bubble-jet on large ply sheets - thrilling, yet nerve wracking, as until our test prints came back we weren't sure what the quality of the outcome would be. Fortune and careful file construction smiled upon us - it printed beautifully from the first.

The project was highly challenging and lots of fun thanks to its developmental, experimental nature. It was a real treat working with the aesthetically savvy staff of Breathe Architecture and their smart, constructive feedback. It was also exciting working with Lulamae's well thought out customer experience.

Collaboration - it is so where it's at.

Lulamae can be found on Level 2 Melbourne Central. So if you happen to be in the area pop in for a look and perhaps a little retail therapy.

R :)

Illustration Friday - stripes

2011-11-10T18:32:00.000+11:00

A little while ago there was a great documentary on tv called 'Cuttlefish - Kings of Camouflage'.

One of the cuttlefish featured in the documentary was a Broadclub Cuttlefish which has the remarkable ability to bamboozle its prey with a crazy strobing stripe pattern. Truly bizzare stuff.

If you want to see a real one in action here's a link I found to a clip from the documentary.

Cuttlefish are so cool.

R :)

buy Christmas cards online

2011-11-04T15:28:00.000+11:00

Did you know I am selling Christmas cards featuring my artwork online via Redbubble? Buy online and have them delivered straight to you!

Three fun, non religious and mostly tasteful designs.

The Christmas Cephalopod

(Cephalopod is a fancy way of saying octopus)

Deer Cat - a reproduction of a stencil print on a retro style paper background

The Christmas Wink - a reproduction of a 2 colour stencil print on a retro style paper background
featuring everyone's favourite 50s pin-up model Bettie Page

Discount of 30% on every order of 16+ cards
Superior writing surface for your words of wisdom
300gsm card with a satin finish
Greeting cards supplied with envelopes and optional cellophane sleeves, ideal for reselling
Standard Greeting Card - 100 x 150mm / 4” x 6”
Large Greeting Card - 125 x 190 mm / 5” x 7.5”
Postcard - 100 x 150mm / 4” x 6”

If you have recieved a Christmas card from me sometime in the last few years these design may well look familiar...

R :)

Window Frames - art along Sydney Road

2011-10-20T16:57:00.000+11:00

Sydney Road Brunswick has been turned into an art gallery for a couple of weeks.

If you happen to be wandering along Melbourne's greatest shopping strip in between Albert Street and Brunswick Road have a squiz in the shop windows and you will find an assortment of art works. This is the Window Frames exhibition organised by the Sydney Road Brunswick Association.

I have a piece in Mocca Gigi's window, 165 Sydney road - a reinterpretation of the cover art I did for the Shopping and Visitors Guide to Sydney Road, Brunswick. As it is presented in the window as an artwork I had to write an artist's statement to be displayed with it. First time I've ever had to do one of those!

'An illustrated response to a commercial brief, intended to appeal to an aesthetically literate Brunswick audience. Hand inked line-work, and confident, optimistic colours combine with the guide's tattoo iconography to present an adventurous visual experience.

Like a modern day Hansel and Gretel, a couple embark on a journey of exploration, seeking fashion, food and fun in an enchanted retail environment. Fortunately they won't need to rely on bread crumb trails to find their way home, thanks to the Shopping and Visitors guide they have a map!'

My favourite art works along the road are:
Lights Out by Brendon Taylor - a timber and resin angler fish in the window of Rommelik 141 Sydney Road
and Crochet Fruit by Cherry Collins in the window of Olive Grove 159 Sydney Road.
Both beautiful, fun pieces, and well worth a look.

There are plenty of other very cool artworks, so well done to all the local artists who participated. And a big thanks to all the traders who gave up some window space for us.

The Window Frames exhibition is on until the 31st of October 2011.

R :)

velocirapture

2011-10-10T16:30:00.000+11:00

I created this for the Illustrators Australia 9x5 exhibition 'rapture', opening this Friday. Click the image to go and vote for it (if you like it) for the 'peoples choice' award. Clicking the image will take you through to the exhibition web page where you can give it the star rating you think it deserves.

Velocirapture was done with 6B pencil and shellac on 9x5 inch plywood.

She's based on the well known dinosaur 'velociraptor', which would have actually looked a bit like this, with the obvious exceptions of the bunch of flowers and ludicrous expression.
'What's with all those crazy feathers?' you cry. 'The velociraptors on Jurassic Park didn't have those!'.
Well, it's recently been discovered that these dinosaurs had bird-like feathers. They would have looked a lot like large aggressive birds with sharp teeth and four fast running limbs ending in huge claws. Just imagine Big Bird with pointy teeth. Kinda scary, if you think about it.

Here's the exhibition details if you want to pop along for a look. All pieces are 9x5 inches on ply, in reference to the Heidelberg School cigar box lid exhibitions.

If you can't make it to the exhibition you can see all the other pieces on line here

and you can click on a star rating and vote for my piece 'Velocirapture' here :)

Illustration Friday - mesmerising deer-cat

2011-09-20T21:44:00.000+10:00

Look into the eyes of the deer-cat. Look deep into its eyes.

Feel the mesmerising power of the deer-cat.

The deer-cat wants you to leave a comment.

You know you will...

This is a scan of a stencil art Christmas card I sent to friends and family. The original had glow in the dark eyes! For this weeks illustration friday theme 'mesmerising' I scanned a print and gave it a slight animated tweak.

Its okay. The deer-cat says you can look away now.

the Shopping and Visitors Guide to Sydney Road, Brunswick

2011-09-07T18:41:00.000+10:00

Recently I had the chance to illustrate two maps and a cover for the Shopping and Visitors Guide to Sydney Road, Brunswick.

The cover and maps are designed to be casual, engaging and informative, to deliver a sense of adventure and excitement, and to appeal to the aesthetically literate Brunswick population. For my fellow font geeks out there, the typefaces used are Singapur Heavy (the tattoo typeface) and Urgent Telegram (the typewriter typeface). Both very sweet typefaces.

The guide was published by The Sydney Road Brunswick Association and laid out by Beyond the Page.

If you are living around the Brunswick area you can expect to have a copy delivered along with the Leader paper sometime in the next few weeks.

They say Sydney Road is the best thing to ever have come out of Sydney (that's a Melbourne joke folks), so here's hoping the guide inspires some exploring adventures of Melbourne's mightiest and most culturally exciting shopping strip!

Cheers
R

the Brunswick Show 2011

2011-08-30T17:02:00.002+10:00

I have a print in this years' Brunswick Show - a showcase of Brunswick artists.

The opening is from 6pm to 10pm this Saturday night (3rd Sep). All welcome! I'll be going for a little while.

The show runs from 3rd September until 13th September
at the Donkey Wheel House,
673 Bourke Street, Melbourne
(near Southern Cross Station)

So if you are around that part of the city pop in and have a squiz!

R :)

happy wanderer

2011-08-02T14:59:00.002+10:00

I was at a loss with what to draw over the weekend, so I had a look in the garden and discovered the happy wanderer is flowering.
Oh, and here are some dugong sketches too.
R :)

Illustration Friday - remedy

2011-07-08T17:13:00.001+10:00

When I have a cold - and right now I do - I find a lemon, honey and ginger tea helps.
R :)

Pix by Richard

2011-07-05T16:39:00.004+10:00

Did you know I have a Tumblr blog too? Pix by Richard - feeding though an image a day of art, illustration, photography, or whatever.

The blog you are reading at the moment is intended to feature recent illustrations, work related news and deliver a consolidated, recognisable style of art, whereas Pix by Richard gets to feature any art, craft or style which i have played with in the past or present - so it's a lot more diverse.

If you haven't looked at Tumblr before, its worth a squiz. Zillions of pics, text, music, quotes and videos all in bite sized easy to take in chunks - ideal for a surfer with an attention span of half a second. Set up an account, follow someone cool like rides a bike or monkey punch dinosaur or hey, why not follow me! Blog, reblog, favourite or just soak up the mad insight into humanity that it provides.

Lets see how long I can maintain the feed of an image a day!

R :)

a frog with a bouffant

2011-06-14T19:07:00.002+10:00

These illustrations are for a short educational narrative featuring frogs living in a polluted pond. I finished them only a couple of days ago.

It was important I make it easy to tell the characters apart, which is a bit tricky with frogs - they all look much alike. The solution... big hair and hats!

Strangely enough I don't think the bouffant looks too out of place on the mother frog. What do you think?

R :)

cover art for the MSFC mag

2011-06-09T15:36:00.006+10:00

portrait of Herbert George Wells and his Martian walking machines

As a member of the Melbourne Science Fiction Club I get to use their magnificent library, listen to author talks, and meet other like minded nerdy sci fi types. In return I like to occasionally contribute art for the club magazine.

Here is a collection the cover art I have contributed.

As the club magazine is called Ethel the Aardvark you will note a recurring theme of aardvarks. I don't know why they named the magazine after a Monty Python sketch (Ethel the aardvark goes quantity surveying), but I suppose it's as good a name as any other and it gives me the opportunity to create fun and absurd sci-fi homages with aardvarks.

Triffid on Sydney Road

Science Fiction iconography

The road aardvark

Aardvader

Illustration Friday - asleep

2011-06-01T18:39:00.001+10:00

Not extinct, just asleep!

The dinosaurs in this picture are kind of based on ones that roamed Australia and Antarctica.

Illustration Friday - safari

2011-05-20T15:59:00.001+10:00

Gavin felt it was time for safari suits and lime green skivvies to make a come back. Gavin was wrong.

featured on Redbubble homepage

2011-05-16T12:33:00.003+10:00

A few days ago Redbubble featured an image of mine on their homepage, which is rather flattering of them. Wish I'd noticed at the time! It's the pic down the bottom on the left - bicycles outside the Union Hotel.

Redbubble is an online artist community. If you are into writing, illustration, photography or anything visually creative you should check it out.

Oh and here's my stuff on Redbubble

R:)

Beginner

2011-05-14T18:01:00.001+10:00

At school there were always smarty pants kids who could do all the fancy tricks, but sadly my yo-yo tricks were limited to a very short span of 'walk-the-dog' followed by 'rewind-the-yo-yo-by-hand'.

Mind you the kid in the pic isn't me - my hair was never that groovy. The image was actually intended as an Illustration Friday contribution under the theme 'beginner'.

And in case you are wondering, that mottled texture in the background is a photo of the base of an old baking tray.

R :)

the journey redux

2011-05-06T13:37:00.002+10:00

A couple of weeks ago I did a quick line image for Illustration Friday of a cockatoo driving its friends around on a hotted up thong-trike. I couldn't leave it uncoloured, so here it is in all its Aussie colour palette glory.
R :)

Illustration Friday - bicycle

2011-04-28T12:36:00.004+10:00

Around where I live a lot of people like to ride their bicycles, and we are blessed with many great local pubs. These things combine very nicely.

Though I do recommend some moderation if riding home from the pub, and a helmet.

R :)

Illustration Friday - journey

2011-04-22T15:29:00.004+10:00

A journey on a tricked up thong-trike being steered by a velocity crazed cockatoo.

In case you didn't realise thongs are what we call flip-flops in Australia - weird huh?

The footwear driving parrot was a character concept designed to take readers on a journey through an Australiana puzzle book I was putting together a couple of years ago. The publisher wasn't keen on the character concept, so the book was published sans the highway touring cockatoo. Which I thought was a terrible pity.

With this weeks Illustration Friday theme I finally got an excuse to draw the little feller and his friends.

R :)

Illustration Friday - bottled

2011-04-14T17:25:00.001+10:00

Praise to the Celtic monks of old,

Who first the water of life bottled.

Distilled of grain mash frothing frisky,

Uisge beatha! We call it whisky.

I was originally going to do a preachy piece about the evils of bottled water and how we should use filtered tap water instead, but who wants to be preached at? Not me. Instead I went to our old friend Wikipedia and did a little research on the history of my favourite bottled substance - whisky.

'Uisge Beatha' is Scottish Gaelic for 'water of life' which is the name monks of the time gave to pretty much any distilled spirit. Over time 'Uisge' became the word 'whisky'.

Is it a bit much suggesting 'old' and 'bottled' could rhyme? Hope not.

I've included some images of the illustration process. I like it when other do so and thought I should follow suit.

Here's the rough concept sketch

The image traced onto some good drawing paper and three quarters inked

My usual drawing tools.

I colour everything digitally, as it is fast and I can change my mind about colour schemes without having to redo everything. My digital colouring process shall be posted another day - promise!

R :)

illustrations which enhance a web-site's visual identity

2011-04-13T12:44:00.003+10:00

Melody Nelson, a local boutique gift and homeware store, have just updated their on-line presence. They commissioned me to create a strong visual identity for their updated site which they could then carry over on to their new online gift shop.

The illustration solution we finally went with was a hand painted border of swirling ornaments, cats, bees and iconic buildings accompanied by their existing logo (I designed the logo a few years ago).

These swirling ornaments are much more than just pretty decorations. They were carefully designed to visually convey the message that the store carries fun, beautiful, quality gifts sourced from Europe and America.

The brief and sample images the customer originally supplied suggested they were after a fairy tale appeal with wrought iron style decorations combined with a whimsical hand painted freshness.

Here's a rough sketch design I sent in response to the brief. Just a quick scribble to get the idea across without taking too long about it.

It was decided that I was heading in the right direction, but the buildings should sit vertically, the vespa should go, and I felt the design should be a little less complex and perhaps less symmetrical.

To produce the final art I began by playing around with typefaces such as woodtype ornaments, which are a range of existing digitised swirly decorations, but they all looked a little too clean and sterile for my liking. So I grabbed out my brush and ink and drew up a bunch of swirls, lines and little characters.

Here's the bee enlarged. As you can see the line work is quite free and unfussy.

The art was scanned in and placed into image editing software with all the items on separate layers. I could then rearrange items at whim until I was happy with the complexity and balance. The resulting art was made into transparent GIFs to float, in careful arrangement, over the parchment background.

And there you have it - a strong, unique visual identity appropriate to the store's philosophy.

Of course I wish Melody Nelson all the best for their new on-line gift shop and encourage all to have a look, and perhaps purchase an item or two.

R :)

Illustration Friday - duet

2011-04-04T13:46:00.001+10:00

More pen and ink coloured digitally. I overlaid a photograph of lichen on the background to give the kitchen a nicely grotty texture, and to separate it from the foreground elements.

Illustration Friday - toy

2011-03-31T12:05:00.000+11:00

Is this image a statement about our possessions ultimately coming to own us, a comment on infantile world concepts and their grip on us, or just a result of having seen the Incredible Shrinking Man for the first time recently? Dunno, but it is vaguely menacing in a fun way, which I like.

The fascinating thing about the seemingly random theme suggestions via Illustration Friday is they lead us to unpredictable illustrative destinations. Which is great fun, and keeps us sharp. This week's quick, but slightly unsettling sketch was brought to you by the word TOY.

weekend sketches

2011-03-28T17:16:00.003+11:00

I spent some time on the weekend sketching random items from around the house. For a bit of fun I thought I might colour them and post them here.

Illustration Friday - cultivate

2011-03-21T14:31:00.003+11:00

Achieving world class excellence with ones facial hair is never simply a matter of ceasing to shave - one must groom, sculpt and cultivate.

Old mugshots provide great character reference

2011-03-17T13:50:00.002+11:00

A couple of weeks ago, over my morning expresso, I idly read a tweeted recommendation to check out a site featuring police mug shots from Sydney in the 1920's. Well I was utterly gobsmacked when the collection of 90 year old photos loaded. They were packed with more character, pathos and culture than you could poke a stick at.

The police photographer of the time had far exceeded the needs of photography for identification, transforming the mug shots into stunning works of portraiture and valuable cultural time pieces. They also happen to make great reference for some play with ink and a brush! A few of the painting efforts I thought I'd post here. I am happy with the results so far (I have to do more), but they are not a patch on the magnificence of the original photos.

Anyway, thought I'd share the reference resource around as it's such a beaut. Oh, and since finding the website I have also found out there has been a book printed with the mug shot photographs - City of Shadows: Sydney Police Photographs 1912 - 1928, by a chap called Peter Doyle. I must keep an eye out for a copy.

Illustration Friday - stir

2011-03-15T14:33:00.001+11:00