It's been a long while since painting my first guitar back in 2015. 

I decided to tackle another painted instrument project this summer, 2018, as a present for my sisters birthday. This time I was looking to paint a guitar that had some more figurative and recognisable imagery and so I decided to paint this Cherry Blossom and Crane scene onto the guitar.

The guitar is painted in Titanium white and Mars Black acrylic based spray paint. All detailing is made with Enamel paints. Between each layer is a single coat of matt polyurethane lacquer. 

I decided to finish the guitar off by adding a chrome scratchplate to tie the design together with a proffesional finish. 

See below for various pics of the finished guitar. Looking to post some work in progress pictures and more details in the coming weeks. 

Yesterday saw the start of my art residency in the Bibliotheek Mol.

This project uses typography and shows my own thinking process after coming in contact with a ne language in my new home in Belgium.

Over the rest of the month I'll be adding to my text in chronological order, which chronologically for me is the order in which I learnt the words. So, to start the work i began with the new quite ironic phrase "Het is warm", which I learnt on the first day of my Dutch language course in Antwerp.

Stay tuned to my blog and other social media outlets to keep up with the rest of the updates from this project over the following month.

Jakob Smits "Van Malvern tot Mol"

It's been a long while since my last post,
but a lot sure has happened.

I graduated from the BA illustration course I followed in Farnham.
Then I upped and moved from my hilly English home over to the flat lands of Belgium, crazy, I know right!!

However, It has already proved a fruitful move full of opportunities, the first of which I'm pleased to share with you.

The "M.Art interpreteert Jakob Smits" exhibition. This exhibition in my new local town of Mol centres around a Dutch painter Jakob Smits (1855-1928) who also moved to the area circa 1888.

The exhibition centres around the local celebrity of Smits and his work and life. We, the M.Artists (a new youth art collective I've joined), produced work related to Smits based around what he meant to each of us.

New to the area and new to Smits, I focussed on the way his work made me feel. His use of texture and the low skyline were key elements to me. I used these elements in my work to convey this idea of my moving to a new place and moving from the hills to the flatlands. All the images are paintings of surrounding areas of Mol but by adjusting and tilting the skyline i can create the illusion of a hill incline or a landscape where the sky seems insignificant to the land but also of that similar to Smits where the sky becomes this great vast leviathan above the low flat land.

More updates on the Guitar painting. Here's are a selection of photos detailing the phases layering up from a ground colour to impasto layers and then some decalcomania layers. 

Final layers to follow soon.

First flat colour layer

second layer (Impasto)

Headstock and Neck detailing (impasto)

Neck detailing (base) 

Third layer (liquin, impasto Decalcomania)

Third layer (liquin, impasto Decalcomania)

Third layer (liquin, impasto Decalcomania)

Third layer Headstock (liquin, impasto Decalcomania)

Fourth layer (final thick Decalcomania)

Fourth layer (final thick Decalcomania)

*In between each layering is a double coat of Matt Polyurethane lacquer, this was then knocked back before the subsequent paint layer was applied.* 

Folio Society Ghost stories

For those that couldn't make it to the exhibition

Here are the Longlisted Illustrations I produced for the Foliosociety Competition brief.

These images were made using a mixture of Gouache, Acrylic and glue aided with the technique of Decalcomania

House of Illustration Competition

I've been long listed for the Folio society & House of illustration book illustration competition. 

My illustrations for the Ghost Stories will be on exhibition among the other long listed illustrators at House of Illustration, London, for the next few weeks.

Here's a sneak peek of one of the details of my illustrations,
you can see more details and the long list, online here:
https://www.houseofillustration.org.uk/whats-on/whats-on/longlist-the-book-illustration-competition-2015.

Updates on their way

It's been a long time since I've last posted here, but soon there will be a storm of updates drawing near.
I'm very excited to show you some of the new projects I've been working on. 
so stay tuned to this space.