The Hand Drawn Creative Blog

Triangles – a new Print

An interesting new direction with this new print. It's on display in Atelier in Belfast if you'd like a closer look, or click on the image and find out more on my Etsy page…

 

Seven Delicious Flavours? Sounds Damn Fine!

Hey Gang, just working on a new little project with my new chums at Dublin's Damn Fine Print Workshop. They're holding a show at Dublin's RHA Museum in conjunction with Irish Design Week this Halloween. I'm chuffed to bits be involved, especially as it gives me an excuse to pop down to Dublin for a few days.

The brief was "Quirky historical Irish Artefacts"

I came up with this – an homage to to the beautiful advertising of (long gone) ice cream brand Bangor Maid…

God Help the Troubadour…

My First Exhibition is currently on show in my hometown of  Bangor! Finally, I've made it out of the Wendy House and onto the streets (Dufferin Avenue to be exact) Local Gallery SyncSpace is hosting the show which will be open for the rest of the month.

We opened on Wednesday night 7 August to (thankfully) see a crowd of folks pop in for a look at my work, both old & new (we even managed to sell quite a few prints too). So a BIG THANKS is due to the SyncSpace Crew, Stephen Potter for taking some cracking photos on the night (some of which you can see here). And thank you to everyone who made it down on the night. It's been a career high point for me, I'm inspired to work on the next one as soon as possible!

     

 

Extraordinaires Design Studio

Here's a project I participated in about a year ago with Belfast's Creativity Hub. I was asked to illustrate two of the Extraordinaires characters along with a host of Ireland's best known and talented illustrators. The final product is called  Extraordinaires Design Studio and is being marketed as a toy to help train our next generation of Designers – great idea. I missed last night's unofficial launch party, but I'll be in Dublin on Friday night to attend the official launch and put my signature on some prize giveaways as part of the OFFSET conference.

Here are the two Characters I designed for the Design Studio…

 

Fab News…

Fab Europe are running a four day sale of my prints from today (20 March 2013)! I'm really excited as to what may come from this, and am really chuffed that they've approached me. All print fulfilment will be carried out by my good buddies Brough & Ready in England, so all the prints will be much larger than usual and gallery archive quality too! If you've always fancied investing in one of my prints, now may well be the time to act.

 

 

Quirky New Artprints at the HDC Store

Hi there, if you haven't been there recently, my Etsy store has a host of new pop-culture prints for you to choose from. Pop over for a nosey…

The Reader

I've been studying a lot of photos of Marilyn Monroe recently and thought I'd create an homage to a photoset Alfred Eisenstaedt photographed for Life Magazine in 1953. I just loved colours in these pictures and took them as a reference for this illustration that'll be available as a print very soon.

Two Wheels Good

I had a stall at a local craft fair last weekend and had more than a few people ask about cycling prints. So here's something I worked up yesterday. Might print off a little run next week. What do you think? Bike Nuts & Fixie Fans – I need your feedback

Furniture

Vinage Fisher Price inspired Artprints

An exercise in getting stuff done quickly – each of these illustrations took 8 hours to complete. I was going to print these off just for my little boy's room, but I ended up finishing a printrun of 50 for each design. Based on old 70s Fisher Price playsets, I know a lot of you will know recognise these from your childhood. They're only £20.00 each and are available on the HDC Store right now.