Clean

I've had 11 days without drawing, and observe: how clean the fingers! Even as I type this the middle finger is already blackened with ink under the fingernail from the first morning back 'at work', and the matching finger on the left is already nicely blackened from a pre-Christmas car door incident.

So, welcome to 2010! What shall these stained little digits produce this year, I wonder?

Gocco Christmas

What enormous fun! The annual Inkymole seasonal greeting was produced this year on a recently-acquired Gocco PG-5, a tiny all-in-one Japanese printing machine.

It's a cross between rubber stamping and screenprinting, and my initial results are amusingly oafish - a big loud Christmas greeting rendered in chunky colours which started off neatly contained in their own spaces, but soon bled excitedly into one another making some of the cards outrageously 'spontaneous'. A hefty amount of ink is required, but this little creature can produce up to 1000 prints from one screen. Seeing them pile up over every available surface in the studio, with gaudy Christmas lights bouncing off them, was truly delightful.

I've been moaning ever so slightly over the last eighteen months or so that I don't do enough print, and so in a year where we seem to have received far fewer 'physical' cards, and more 'e-cards', I was proud to be lugging bagfuls of hand-printed, slightly wonky things to the post office. Actually...that sounds like last year. Come to think of it, the year before, too...and...

I think I finally appreciate now that if ever the year comes when I don't send something hand-made (or at least hand-drawn) out into the world in December, there will be uproar.

Thanks little lavender Gocco monster. Can't wait to see what I do with it in 2010!

Prepare, as I geek out most publicly. Here's how the printing was done:

The artwork has to be drawn in one take onto thin non-reflective paper, using a carbon-heavy tool - a pencil, the special RISO Gocco pen, or you can use a photocopy. After an initial disaster using the original art (bottom left) which revealed the Special Pen to be Not So Special, I went for an old-fashioned sticky-with-carbon photocopy.

Gocco lid open, ready for action:

You put the artwork down on the sticky pad, press the lid down and expose the screen using these amazingly glass-fruit-like bulbs, which pop like 70s flashbulbs and die after just one screen. Ahhhhh....

Then you cover the reverse of the screen with as much ink as it will take, blocking off areas you don't want to bleed with ink blocking foam. I only used a bit of this, as I wanted to see just how amusing the bleeding would be.

The screen looks like this after a while - completely smeared with ink:

Press down and clunk to print...

Print again...

Till you can't print any more...

And get your Mum to stamp and label them! (Note starring sprout being coy behind prints drying in cute Gocco rack.)

Gocco mentalism!

LINKS:

http://www.savegocco.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gocco

Girls' Night In

Not that many people know about all the 'chick lit' books I do, as there isn't room to get them all on the website, but I've worked on an awful lot of this particular genre. I found this as I was stomping through WHSmith today: a bargain 6-book 'Girls Night In' Collection (whatever did the apostrophe do to offend them?) for the silly sum of £4.99.

Can you tell which are Mole's?

It Wasn't Me.

The other day we were sitting discussing the heating system for the new studio (we're aiming to make it as off-grid as possible, not an easy task) when a text popped in. 'Hi, in London. Just saw (insert Ad Campaign/Poster/Book Cover), did you do it?'
Now, often the answer to a query of this nature would be 'yes', but this time it wasn't.

A quick Google revealed both client and illustrator. Nice folio. Lovely job. Did I teach them? Seems familiar. Really nice work. I can see why they thought it was me. Yeah, I can definitely see why...hell, this is practically studied. In fact, if there was an Inkymole School of Illustration, this person had to have put in at least a couple of years graft. I was due for a run that afternoon and, feeling unsettled by the similarities in the work, I ran and ran and ran further than I have for months. It felt good.

See, there is no Inkymole School of Illustration. As I've had to tell a few curious emailers lately, my (current) style wasn't taught in a certain specialist class, nor did I do an extra course, and neither is there one you can enrol on now. Every time someone gives me a platform to pass on some of the wisdom I've gleaned from a few years doing this, I tell students the same thing: keep evolving. Keep moving. You absolutely, cannot, ever sit back and rest on your laurels - there's going to be a litter of pup illustrators yapping excitedly around your feet every twelve months, and good luck to 'em too, because we've all been one - and probably taught a few of them.

Illustrator X doesn't know how heavily they've referenced my work (or maybe they do), nor should they. They're just getting on with 'getting on with it'. When things like this come along it's a reminder that it's time to apply the same thinking as in my run - push a bit further even if the limbs ache a bit. Work it off. Evolve. And take the whole thing as a ginormous compliment. If I didn't...I'd be a grumpy old fool, and the illustration biz has absolutely no room for those.


'Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us'.
Albert Schweitzer
(oh, and this one was me).

Must. Try. Harder. Always.

I love looking at other people's work, especially when it's really, really good. And specially when it's by people who don't know they're that good. Makes me want to be a better illustrator. Like this fella:

I like this font:

A font created using items from the Mitchell Library’s (The State Library of New South Wales) broad and eclectic collections, to celebrate its hundred year anniversary. If you go to the library you can click on any letter and see the elements it's made from.

My Life In Macs.

The other day I found a photo of my friend's baby, 'tapping away' on my keyboard. I emailed it to her and wrote, 'Hey look Jules! It's George on my Mac!'
She sent back the message 'actually, that's Isabelle.'
To which I, gormlessly, replied '...are you sure?'

Of course she's sure - it's her daughter. I on the other hand remain confused about exactly when the PowerMac 4400 was replaced by the G4 (which was like a thousand Christmases at once) and when the 4400 replaced the Quadra 950. The Quadra my Mum and I bought between us - not realising this was a super-powerful server machine capable of running a vast network and built like a tank - and the 4400 was bought with my own money. Gosh.

Every Mac I've owned has been passed on to a family member, sparing me the pain of 'recycling' it or (shudder) 'harvesting' it for parts. The Quadra stayed with Mum. The G4 went to Dad. The 24" iMac went to my sister. The MacMini went to my other sister, but has come back home now for use as a music station. The only one I sold was a little black Powerbook, which ran my other company's* office for two years.
*and that's another story.

I've loved all of them and it's no secret I'm horribly sentimental about them, as each one is irrevocably connected with life events. The Quadra meant leaving college and moving into no. 6. The PowerMac was buying my own house, and George and Isabelle coming into the world. The G4 was finally earning enough to buy a brand new one. And so on.

But there is only so much the house can take. The PowerMac 4400 and the Quadra have to go. They still spring into life when I switch them on.

2 x Classic Macs, a colour Apple monitor, a modem, keyboard, mouse and assorted cable madness plus various geeky bits where I've upgraded.

Anyone, by any chance, want to adopt?

Pia-piano

In the unlikely event that anyone's on the lookout for one, I'm selling my lovely Eavestaff piano. Back in the day it was Art vs. Music. Art won, but I still have my piano. It's got to go to a loving home, in order to make space for the new studio, and it's a beaut.
See it on eBay here.

Central Illustration 'ACE' Calendar 2010

The new Central Illustration calendar is out! Printed on recycled Colourset Light Grey 120gsm stock, with Trojan Whiteback and Tridon Greyboard card stand, with vegetable based inks, except for the 'Holo' effect foil on the cover. Limited edition of 600 only, 14cm x 14cm.

£7 UK / £12 elsewhere inc. postage

Get one now before they're all gone! (And I'm told they do go quick)

Letter Playground

Type fans will love this. I've contributed some of my letters to Letter Playground run by Nate Williams.

Delicious piles of As to Zs by fellow type geeks! Send some in, why don't you?

Here are some of mine!