Too much stuff for one title

Hello all, a variety of stuff and nonsense to post up this time round.
To start off I'll go back in time in the Electric Picnic festival at the end of August. I finally have a couple of photos of stuff. Both are of the same fellow I drew on the back of a pink boat in the middle of a field. Crazy festival hijinks, whatever will they think of next. Anyway I did do other stuff but this guy was by far my favorite. He's a kind of victorian swimmer. His best feature were his little legs which were actual bits of the boat that stuck out at the back. There's more shots over at the flickr page of the inimitable Emma Price, who was also doodling for a free ticket AND actually took photos of her stuff. Wise.


(and yes that is me, oddly color coordinated with victorian bob)

Next up is a poster illustration for the Irish Youth Foundation's Children's Hour campaign. The idea is to donate the equivalent of an hour's wage to the charity. For more info head over to childrenshour.ie and iyf.ie


A while back I did a couple of banner illustrations for columns on the Bodytonic Music website. I recently did three more similar character pics after I was asked by one of the original column writers, Diesel Weasel, to come up with Sky Clown, Parsley Panda and Seal of Approval.




Another recent interesting job was coming up with an elaborate 30th birthday card for a friend for her fellow (and now fiance, congratulations). It's basically an update of the 25 card I'd previously done(it's on my site), but a lot looser in style and random facts. Fun (if a bit of a headache) to research.


And finally, as I recently got a new camera, here's a photo of the Sloth, wearing a stylish cravat and pondering the nature of toast.

That is all.
BC

Boston International Underage Chess/Tattoo Convention

Boston's Weekly Dig magazine has an odd cover by me this week, some creepy kids playing chess against an evil tattooed arm. It's a piece I did a while back and has always been favorite of mine so I'm glad that lots of Bostonians are being forced to look at it, cheers Tak!

To say nothing of the Dog

I've just done a couple of pieces for the good folks at HKM (who put out Totally Dublin) for one of their other magazines, the business/entrepreneur type SelfMade magazine. First up for the cover, being quite sound and deadly, they let me draw a crazy robot. He's 'self-making' lots of various things out of the gloop that passes along the conveyor belt below him.

The products tie in with some of the articles in the mag, bulbs for energy saving, tree for eco-friendly gardening (or something along those lines). But the little happy triangle character ties in with my other illustration for the same issue.

The article was about the difficultly with bringing in skilled labour from abroad because of the hassle associated with getting work visas. This somehow became lots of triangle guys not being able to fill a triangle hole because of the circle doorway they had to pass through. Strange. It also all takes place in some kind of Japanese walled garden. It was pretty late when I drew it up so maybe that explains the general oddness of it all. Still fun though.

And a happier scene for the smaller spot pic.

Ahhhh. Cute shapes.

There's also October's eye on dublin for Totally Dublin Magazine. It bizarrely came to my attention that I've never done one based around Halloween, so here you go. Scary hoodie kids giving the classic monsters a hard time.

Ahhhh. Cute monsters.

And for this post's stuff I like section it's 'Three Men on a boat, (to say nothing of the dog)' by Jerome K. Jerome. I read it in a couple of sittings while minding an exhibition.

Over a hundred years old but still very funny and sharp, like some kind of Victorian 'Withnail and I', without all the booze and drugs.

Over and out, BC

IMMATATE

Ok, so I probably should have put this up before the show opened but anyway...

Myself and the unstoppable Colm MacAthlaoich organised a show as part of the Dublin Fringe Festival, called IMMATATE. The show opened at MonsterTruck Gallery & Studios last Thursday. The basic idea for the exhibition was to invite creative professionals such as architects and designers to create a piece of modern art. As you can imagine this led to a wonderful eclectic mix of mix being on display.

For my sins I attempted to make a Zoetrope, a simple animation device, and make animations where very little happened. All a tongue in cheek riff on the anticipation and ultimate disappointment which seems to go along with much video art. Unfortunately my craftsmanship consisted of a nail through some cardboard so all that could be seen was a grayish blur. But luckily (and I feel in keeping with the creative process behind modern art) I had titled the work 'Disappointing Zoetrope', so it seemed as if I had intended it not to work all along. Hooray!

Here are animated gifs of the three sequences I made (click them for motion based fun):

The Sloth watching TV,

An unfulfilling Jack-in-a-Box

And a simpleton admiring a Zoetrope.


In other news the Electric Picnic went spiffingly (from what I remember). I'll dig up some photos for the next post.

Squirrels, Octopi, Giant Phones...

Hello, first off I have to thank everyone who's got in touch over the new website, cheers all. Also big thanks to Revolverlover, Andy, Scamp, Illustrophile, Drawn and anyone else who posted up the site.

I've been crazy busy these last few weeks but I guess that's a good complaint. First thing to show is a pair of illustrations for the Bodytonic Music website. My old Totally Dublin conspirator and currently Berlin based hack, Conor Creighton, got on to me to knock out some quick characters to accompany two online columns for the new site. A ridiculously open brief, the only suggested ingredient was squirrels!


I thought octopi are always a good addition as well.


Next up is an illustration for a poster for schools. It's based on an Irish language poem Glaoch Abhaile (Phone Call home) by Áine Ní Ghlinn. The commission came through the juggernauts of graphic design, Conor & David. The poem and some details will appear on the poster alongside my doodling. I tried mixing some really clean inking and colouring along with my usual mess of pencil lines.


There's also a new eye on dublin over at my other blog but sure I might as well save your tired finger a click and stick it up here as well. It's a simple, dour one this time round done to commemorate the recent death of the Irish Summer. We barely got to know him.


Once again I thought I'd throw in something that I've come across and love. Kiskaloo is a comic strip by Chris Sanders, the clever chap behind Disney's Lilo & Stitch (curiously, as well as directing the film, he did the voice of Stitch). The strip features the adventures of Sesi and her out spoken cat.

Word of advice, read them from the start as hopping in halfway, although fun, probably won't make a lot of sense.

That's about it, lots more stuff on the go but I'll wait till I have some shining finished pictures before I stick anything up. I'm off to the fantastic Electric Picnic music festival in Stradbally tomorrow to set up some walls which myself, the unstoppable Christian Reeves and a bunch of others will be drawing on all weekend. If you're heading down knock by and belittle my artistic abilities. BC

NEW WEBSITE... and other stuff I like

I've finally, after much back-tracking and dawdling, got around to redoing my website, check it out. I won't be messing around with it too often so I'll be using this blog to post up any news and/or nonsense I have...for instance:

Looks like I'll be doing some art type graffiti stuff at this year's Electric Picnic Festival at the end of August. I'll be joining some other very talented artists and most excitingly of all a possible reunion of the the Tender Trio(myself, Christian Reeves and Brooklyn exile, Stephen Kelleher). Screw the Sex Pistols and My Bloody Valentine, this would be the biggest comeback of the weekend. Also...

Scott Pilgrim, Rating: Awesome. Completely randomly came across this brilliant comic by Bryan Lee O'Malley and then quickly devoured all four volumes. I urge you to do the same, it's become one of my favorite things ever. Word of advise, don't read the blurb on the back, just dive in and be surprised. And...

The Man who was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton; imagine Sherlock Holmes meets James Bond, written by Flann O'Brien. Yes it's that good. Between this and Scott Pilgrim I've regained fate in the world.

Next time I may have some actual illustration to post up. BC

THIS IS THE BLOG

Hello all, this is my blog where I'll be putting up some work, sketches and anything which generally amuses me. To start off I've a bunch of recent stuff to get things rolling.
This is from the July issue of Totally Dublin. It accompanies an article, writen by Mr. Conor Creighton, about an evening he and I spent (voluntarily) at an A&E. Needless to say some oddness was witnessed, but to be fair both his article and my illustrations embelish reality a little.

Another poor A&E customer.

The most impatient chap in all the A&E.

This is my piece from the recent CandyKaraoke show at Monstertruck Gallery. The show featured over 70 creative types riffing on their favorite record cover. I could chose no other than Doolittle by The Pixies, which featured stunning original artwork by Vaughan Oliver. No beautiful photographic collages for me though, I simply did a painting of the cover's monkey, happy now that a labotomy had removed all his troubles. To see all the other work from the show head over to Candy's flickr page.

For their stall at the recent Taste of Dublin fair, Barry's Tea invited some illustrators to customise a teapot. My effort featured Little Red Riding Hood chasing a jolly wolf on one side, and then the two of them taking a break for a cup of tea on the other side.

Ok, that's easily enough for a first post. I will try and have something new go up every month or thereabouts. Be good, BC

BLOG BLOG

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