JazzAndDraw - illustration for Keith Jarrett's "Autumn Leaves"

A couple of weeks ago I received an email from Philippe at the great JazzAndDraw blog, asking if I'd provide an illustration for a jazz track of my choice. I chose Keith Jarrett's great "Autumn Leaves" track and did a quick reworking of a screenprinted image I did a while back.

Oh Comely magazine - alien illustration

For their Space issue (published August 29th) Oh Comely magazine asked illustrators and doodlers to illustrate a piece of text about an astronaut called Alfred and an alien he encountered on a visit to Mercury. The quick doodle above was my submission to their challenge, and the other entries can be viewed on Oh Comely's Facebook page.

Soviet Space Posters

Came across this great set of Soviet Space Posters on the fantastic Retronaut website this morning. Makes me nostalgic for the optimism engendered by space exploration in the last century. The full set can be viewed here.

Happy New Years Kids!

Let there be peace!

The way for man is open!

In the 20th century the rockets race to the stars,

Illustration - Seven Deadly Sins

A new Beyond Thrilled illustration, just for fun, illustrating the classic Seven Deadly Sins; Greed, Lust, Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Wrath and Sloth. I've opted not to label them - you'll just have to guess which is which.

Vintage British Airways Posters

There's a great collection of classic airline posters from the 1920s to the 1970s here on the British Airways website. Not just British Airways posters, but also from previous incarnations and other airlines such as BOAC, BEA, Imperial Airways, Quantas and Wilson Airways. They're all available as reprints from the British Airways Heritage Centre. I think the four I've selected here are probably my personal favourites.

Londonscreenprints.co.uk launches

While I was moving my Beyond Thrilled website the other week I was offered a free domain name by the hosting company, and to my surprise Londonscreenprints.co.uk was available, so I took it. I thought it might be quite useful to put together a showcase of screenprints of London by other screenprinters, and to see if having the all in one place would benefit us all in terms of exposure and sales.

The website went live yesterday and has already had a good bit of attention on Twitter. It currently includes prints by Jayson Lilley, Emily Parker, Kim-Leigh Pontin, Todd Stewart, NigelDK and Ork Posters, as well as my own London screenprints, and later today I'll be adding several screenprints by LucyLovesThis. Hopefully there will be other screenprinters out there who will be happy to be included in this little project.

New Beyond Thrilled website

Ta-daah! The new Beyond Thrilled website is now live, showcasing my screenprints and illustration work. It's actually been half alive for a few weeks but I had a some teething problems when it was hosted on a friend's server. I bit the bullet though and got paid-for hosting with www.ovh.co.uk (recommended) and the problems have been resolved. It's a lightly tweaked version of the Infinity WordPress theme from ThemeTrust. So, finally everything (well, most of it) is in one place. Go feast your peepers.

New screenprints - Highgate Cemetery

I've just finished printing two new screenprints in my London Undertheground series. Highgate Cemetery in London is one of the group of Victorian Cemeteries known as “The Magnificent Seven”, The East Cemetery contains the grave of Karl Marx amongst others, while the West Cemetery features the Egyptian Gateway. These hand-pulled screenprints are part of an ongoing series of prints featuring these wonderful London landmarks. Both prints are screenprinted by hand using non-toxic water soluble inks on 300gsm Fabriano 5 paper, and are available now from my online shop along with the usual stockists.

The Apostrophe Cowboy

One for the sub-editors and punctuation pedants - say hello to the Apostrophe Cowboy.

Recent illustration work

Just thought I'd post a couple of recent illustrations I've produced. I may at some point think about printing them up as screenprints if I think there'd be any interest in them - as they're both designed with a limited colour palette/overlays - but for now they'll just be added to my portfolio on the hireanillustrator website. 

Promotional postcard printing

Recently signed up with the Hireanillustrator.com website, so I'm getting some tasty promotional postcards printed to be distributed with their regular mailshots...

Illustrators designing rugs - Kumbeshwar Technical School

About a month ago as I was packing for a trip to Nepal to trek the Manaslu Circuit a friend sent me a link to the great social business that is Node. Set up by illustrator Chris Haughton and Ashkay Sthapit, Node "aims to connect a worldwide network of designers and artists with traditional Nepalese carpet makers to create beautiful handmade rugs". 

The rugs are hand produced at Kumbeshwar Technical School in Patan, one of Kathmandu's neighbouring cities, and as I had a few days in Kathmandu at the end of my trek, I contacted Chris to ask if I could visit the school and see the production process. He put me in touch with Satyendra Khadgi who kindly gave me a guided tour  of the school and explained how it - and the school and orphanage it helps to fund - operates. The rugs are hand knotted - using pure tibetan wool and natural, non-polluting dyes - by disadvantaged Nepali women who are trained in the different processes involved, before being washed and finished. (the rugs that is, not the women). The results are quite beautiful.

Node has recently worked with a group of illustrators to produce a series of rugs which are now on sale in the Design Museum. You can see - and buy from - the selection here in their online shop.
Node also offer the opportunity to design and have custom rugs made, something I'll definitely be working on over the next couple of months.