The Hand Drawn Creative Blog

Rewind… Summer 2015 and the Golden Greats Exhibition

So let's kick off the Hand Drawn Creative re-cap with last summer's exhibition as part of Bangor's Open House Festival. I remember the opening night's weather being atrocious – heavy rain & black clouds don't usually get people out at night. But I underestimated the draw of the Open House Festival and opening night was a huge success and Sync Space was packed out. Here are a few of the pieces that were on show on August 2015 along with a short video from local filmmaker Ross McConaghy…

'Sync Space Presents' - Neal McCullough from Ross McConaghy on Vimeo.

  

Indie Crush #1

Here's the first of a new series of illustrations I'm calling Indie Crush. I'm harking back to those days when playing in an indie band was the coolest job in the world and a long sleeved tee, crumpled pack of Marlboro lights, black jeans & a pair of Doc Martens were standard issue. Ah, the early 90s were a blast, weren't they? Now who remembers Miki from Lush?

Never Give Up…

I went to a little Q&A session in Belfast's recently renovated Ulster Hall recently featuring Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy, Tim Wheeler of Ash and Duke Special. The theme? Songcraft. I'm no songwriter, but I can see the similarities between writing a song and creating an illustration. It was an interesting way to spend an hour – lots of inspiring conversation for would-be songwriters et al. Neil Hannon arguably stole the show, coming over as the dry, arch  Wildean wit one would expect. One thing he said really stuck and I may well adopt it is a mantra: "If absolutely everyone is telling you you're shit – then give up!"

Rocking the Hall

It's a peculiar thing – seeing your work out there on billboards can be one of the biggest buzzes a designer or Illustrator can get. Seeing your work being re-used after a couple of years can still be a real kick, it's just strange when you're no longer involved in the brief and another designer has been tweaking the artwork. I know, I know… Divo alert! I've always been very precious about my creations – they're almost like little vector offspring (yes that probably does sound weird to most – but I'll wager not to many other illustrators out there).

But I digress… Rock the Hall is a great New Years Event that first took place at Belfast City Hall on NYE 2006. I remember that the event was even broadcast live on my beloved BBC Radio 2! I guess those marketing bods at City Hall must have liked the logo, because 2 years later, they've decided to re-introduce it for this year's event. And guess what… Supergrass are headlining! Now all I have to do is wangle a couple of free tickets!

Hello Ruby in the Dust…

BBC Four continues to dominate my Friday night viewing habits (much to my wife's annoyance), but how can I avoid it when they run such great programmes about my rock & roll heroes like Neil Young.

What a great evening's viewing and what a good excuse to upload an old illustration I've done of the great man himself, playing that great old Gretsch White Falcon