I was asked to do the storyboard for the Marks & Spencer Jubilee ad recently – here’s a page. Very cool to do it, M&S can’t do a lot wrong in my eyes. Featuring Twiggy, Myleene, Dannii and Jamie Redknapp. The turnaround was very tight – Sunday afternoon to Monday lunch! You can see the rest of the frames here and the finished ad here.
Originally I was asked to do it in colour but the client came back to ask if it could be in grey instead. Here’s the first colour version..
Various things including lots of work, getting engaged and trying to address the garden before it takes over Hackney have kept me from my blog. Here is a picture I just did of the latest thing to occupy my time – our puppy Elsie, who is meant to be a Jack Russell/Shih Tzu cross but looks nothing like the latter. This is her favourite spot, against the radiator in my study. Peace comes at last.
The topiary garden at Levens Hall in Cumbria, one of my favourite places. It’s straight out of Alice In Wonderland, you half expect the Queen of Hearts to come stomping round the corner.
Rich watching the match last night. His posture during Liverpool games alternates between this, tense and waiting to spring, to sprung and screaming at the TV; this applies to both good and bad results. He felt it was important the score was added to the picture but I’m not sure it would be there if Man City had won.
Wow I haven’t done any sketching of stuff in front of me for ages. As a treat/break from current task of designing business cards, I visited the V&A this morning. I wandered through the Asia rooms and popped out in Sculpture, hence..
Some netsuke – tiny Japanese carvings, very popular post-Hare with Amber Eyes. These ones are all carved from ivory – such detailed craftsmanship.
And a Lord Chief Justice from the 1700s – I liked his profile, kind of Roman. Possibly his face fell victim to the sculptor’s classical aspirations.
When time allows over the last couple of months I’ve been knitting a cardigan for my lovely goddaughter Evie’s Christmas present. I promise the art will return but in the meantime you have to put up with my various attempts at knitwear.
Here’s Evie doing the right thing and wearing it while I’m there.
I’ve been trying out a new method of getting people and heads down quickly, so there are a lot of figure drawing sketches lying around at the moment and not much else. Here are some androgynous folk..
I think I’ve found the perfect teaching combination in Andrew Loomis and Paul Richer, two great artists who wrote some classic texts on life drawing. Loomis was an illustrator of the 30s & 40s whose republished book Figure Drawing For All It’s Worth is full of advice for nailing the foundations of a person/picture. Richer was a 19th century doctor who put together Artistic Anatomy, a classic study of bones and muscles with the artist in mind. Loomis’s advice can get quite specific to his time (women should be drawn with wide shoulders, narrow hips etc.) so I’ve adapted some of his techniques by cross-referencing with the more accurate Richer.
A couple of pages which pretty much represent what my sketchpad looks like at the moment..
I’m even more pleased with my combo having discovered they’re connected. Richer was a professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris where George Bridgman studied; Bridgman went on to teach many illustrious students, including Loomis and Robert Beverly Hale, at the Art Students League of New York. Hale (whose books I also use) became a renowned life drawing teacher himself and in the 60s translated Artistic Anatomy into English, ‘not only the most complete but the most accurate of contemporary works on artistic anatomy.’ I love the way this story demonstrates the legacy of a good teacher, influencing not only future artists but future teachers too.
I discovered some amazing marker pens today, which would usually be the sort of thing I can’t justify spending the money on, but I was armed with a voucher from my v. generous ex-colleagues so it seemed the moment had to be seized. They’re Tombow double-ended pens (brush/fine tip) and both the cut of the nib and the zinging colours make them awesome to draw with. I’m definitely using them for storyboarding.
This is the page I was testing them on in the shop; at least two people tried to have a go as well when my back was turned thinking it was the communal pad of paper.. er no. Anyway I like the confusion of colour – if I tried to plan a jumble like this it wouldn’t come out the same.
Some more doodles once home (something about the blue girl reminds me of Tom Cruise).
Introducing my first attempt at knitting a piece of clothing, as opposed to accessories… this is a Sirdar pattern for a child of 6 – 12 months, and was a present for my friend Ness’s baby Samson. If you look at the back you can see how many errors I had to fix but overall I’m pleased! I really want to make a big one for me.
Here’s Sam in a maelstrom of stripes.
Here are a few pages from a recent storyboard for McDonalds. A couple get in their car in a modern suburban street and as they drive to the McDonalds, their dress and environment change into a 1950s style. The McDonalds they end up at is the Des Plaines branch in Illinois, which was built in 1955; hence the ad is named ‘1955’.
You can see the complete storyboard here and the finished ad here. Each frame was drawn up in A4.
