Linden Village, Pan, Skunks, Kingdok

The Temple, the group show of work by me, James Kirwan and Christian Reeves opened last friday in Monster Truck Gallery in Temple Bar. It was welcomed by a raucous crowd and featured such highlights as a visit from plain clothes Gardai telling us to control the crowd and unsavoury gentlemen in tracksuits testing a can of linden village cider tied to the end of a fishing rod to see if it was empty. Classy. The show runs till tuesday 27th. Go see and bring your wallet. I'll put up photos of the show on flickr very soon. Here's a bad scan of one of mine, a religious icon of an image-conscious emo kid:

In the meantime some photoshop eyecandy. Here's a poster I did a while back for a production of Peter Pan featuring a cast of children. Unfortunately due to my tardiness the run of the show has been and gone but for more info on DADA, the organisers, go here.
Coincidentally just after getting the job I was in London so I went to see the statue of Pan by George Frampton (with extensive help by J.M. Barrie himself) in glorious, sunny Kensington Gardens. My poster is based on my sketches of it. Very enjoyable research indeed.

More recently I worked on a private commission for Jennie McGinn, one of the contributors to fashion blog extraordinaire What Will I Wear Today. I worked with Jennie before creating illustrations for a report on children's libraries for Kildare County Council. This time round the brief was basically whatever came to mind! After a pint with Jennie at which it was revealed to my surprise/ horror that bum bags are apparently back in fashion, I decided to do it on unlikely trends. Balaclavas, jodphurs and skunks anyone?

My recommendation this month is Comic epic 'Bone' by Jeff Smith. I bought the whole run of this in one 1000 plus page tome about 6 months ago but whizzed through it when I choose it to be my read while minding the exhibition. It's an amazingly charming, exciting and hilarious mix of old school goofy comic character capers and Lord of the Rings style fantasy epic with some very witty philosophical musings on life along the way. The pacing and artwork is practically a guide to how to use a comic book page. Here's Kingdok one of my favorite creations from the world of Bone. Poor old Kingdok.

Also go see Inception, it mightn't be quite the water-tight classic that some are proclaiming it but it is by far the cleverest most idea-laden mega-budget blockbuster ever. A big hollywood film that doesn't dumb down to it's audience deserves success. I rather see the equivalent of Inception each summer than Predator vs Shrek 8 or Aquaman: The Movie.

Bye Bye