Illustration Friday: Messenger

Life Online Illustrations

So this is my first post in a very long time. I've taken a bit of a hiatus from illustration for the past six months due to being super busy at my day job. I've been working on a new gallery at the National Media Museum in Bradford called Life Online - it's a permanent exhibition that tells the story of the internet. There's been a lot to do and it's kind of taken over my life but recently we needed a few little illustrations doing at short notice so I got the chance to dust off my pencil case.

We have commissioned a couple of other illustrations and animations for the gallery so it's been interesting writing briefs and working ideas up with other illustrators. When we needed a few other illustrations quite last minute I was reluctant to offer my services as I was so close to the project and was keen to offer more work to other artists. But tight deadlines and dwindling budgets meant I got to work from home for a couple of days and do something different.

These three illustrations will be included in a part of the gallery exploring how search engines work.

This first one is to help visualise the dark web - the hidden bit of the web that search engines don't venture in to.

This is to help illustrate different top-level domain name extensions.

And this comic strip aims to explain how the semantic web might be better at understanding human requests and working out relationships between different bits of content.

Life Online will open in March 2012 and hopefully then I'll find some more free time to get back into the illustration.

Saltaire Arts Trail

This weekend I exhibited some of my work in one of the Open Houses at the Saltaire Arts Trail. I think I drew one of the long straws and was lucky to exhibit at 4 George Street - the owners had recently renovated the living room and cellar which made a fantastic gallery space. This was the first time I'd ever exhibited my work and really enjoyed it - even sold a few bits of work!

The Arts Trail is a great event - really buzzy and a great way to see the village and meet the artists behind the work. I also enjoyed having a nosey in people's houses and found new bits of the village I'd never seen before. It's a very well organised and friendly event - thanks to everyone involved who helped make it such a pleasure to be a part of.

Albert Terrace, Saltaire painting

Albert Terrace, Saltaire, pen and watercolour.

Near Wingfield

Bruno's Big Trip - Children's Book Idea

These are a few sample spreads I produced for the 2011 Puffin Digital prize. The brief was to come up with an idea for a new children's book that had interactive elements and could work on the iPad. My story was called 'Bruno's Big Trip' - a tale of one little beaver's quest for acceptance. My entry didn't make the cut but I thought I'd post it up here anyway to show you what I've been working on recently.

Salts Mill Illustration

Shipley Glen Illustration

Here's a new illustration of Shipley Glen, a piece of woodland just outside Saltaire in West Yorkshire. Sorry for the severe lack of updates recently - the day job has kind of taken over and at the end of February I spent a lot of time working on an entry for the Puffin Digital Prize 2011. I'll post some pics up here soon when I know if it's been accepted or not.

I'm looking forward to exhibiting some of my illustration work at the Saltaire Arts Trail at the end of May. I'll have a few pictures in one of the Open Houses so if you find yourself in the locale, come along and say hello.

Saltaire Triptych

Et voila! Here is the latest picture in my Saltaire series to complete the triptych. I've also joined Society 6 so prints are available in my online store.

Saltaire illustration

This is the second picture in a series of Saltaire inspired compositions.