The Hand Drawn Creative Blog

New Product!

Yay! It's the Frock Around The Clock Vintage Fair at Belfast's prestigious Wellington Park Hotel on Sunday 15 February! I for one am very much looking forward to it as I'll be there (in person) representing Hand Drawn Creative Worldwide® and exhibiting its full range of luxurious illustrated products! Vintage Fair hostess Becky Moore promises a jam packed day out for anyone interested in Vintage fashion & culture. I'm personally looking forward to the Ulster Lambretta Club exhibition and the Ashby Gents retro hairdressing demos! I'll have my Vintage Collection guitar prints on display along with my latest postcard releases;

Vintage Motorcars…

and Vintage Glam Girls

If you live in the Greater Belfast area and like really cool stuff, I guess I'll see you there! The fun begins at 10.30.

Mac Break…

It's not often I think of working my pencil sketches up to a detailed level, but I've been working on a personal piece today and I thought I'd just let fly with the old Pentel 0.5 propellor and see where it goes. I'd forgotten how relaxing it can be just drawing and staying away from the Mac for a few hours. I've scanned the sketch and placed it here for you all to see. I might just dig out some of my pencil & ink sketches from college days for display soon.

New HDC Logo revealed!

I'm so bored with my existing logo! And if I want a new logo, then I'll have a new logo! Oh god, this is what happens when Designers get bored I suppose. I found this great typeface Megalopolis online and then… well, you what I'm like with type. I didn't get called Little Lord Fontleroy because of my love of purple satin breeches. So I did the blog header and just couldn't stop. So here it is; the all-new HDC logo with secondary colour variations & everything! Expect a new logo at the end of March! Jeez, why can't I just leave things be!

Petrolhead?

This post is about as close as I'll ever come to being a petrolhead I'm afraid. I'm not renowned for my skills under the bonnet, but I've always had a keen eye for smart automotive design and well buffed bodywork. So here is a selection of recent illustrations I've been crafting with the discerning motorist in mind.

More New Illustrations…

I've been a busy boy of late. Lot's to do around the house, getting ready for baby, as well as getting the roof fixed after the recent storms. But in between all this I'm still doodling like a man possessed. Here are 2 new illustrations I've been fiddling with in preparation for an upcoming Vintage fair in Belfast next month. Hope you like 'em. In fact, why not pop up to the Wellington Park on 15 February and buy the whole set for yourself?

Let's see how Junior is progressing…

…blimey, coming on a bit don't you think! Jules & I attended the 20 week scan yesterday and were blown away at the difference from our last scan we attended. You could see all manner of stuff going on in there – an astounding experience all round I'd say and from a dad's point of view it really brings home the reality of impending parenthood. Again, yummy mummy is completely hyper-excited and glowing more and more each day.

Chelsea Girl

In keeping with my preffered niche market for illustration (weekend & womens' glossies) I've been keeping my hand in with lifestyle illustration. It's starting to become a nice little distraction in the evenings when there is little to watch on television and it's dark outside. Jules will read out selected pearls of wisdom from the Pregnancy Bible whilst I scribble away at an illustration that will hopefully be 'portfolio-worthy'. So here is this week's offering; she's probably called Jocasta or something and daddy owns half of Kensington!

Illustration Sunday…

Hi folks, here's this weekend's latest illustration, carrying on with my habit of sitting down and starting and completing an illustration in one evening. This week's effort will be used next month's Vintage Fair… more of which I'll tell you about in the near future.

Who would live in a House like this…

I had a nice comment on the blog a few days ago from someone down the road – a fellow vintage poster devotee. I had a look at some of her vintage pictures collection on the old facebook and thought it might be an idea to show off some of the pictures that adorn my walls and give me inspiration.

This is my wall based moodboard featuring the work of some of my favourite Illustrators

My customised Unity print. I always loved this design and wanted to buy the enormous framed print that Habitat were selling. I just never seemed to have the £150 to spend on it, so I redrew it myself and framed it a smaller size.

My Dad gave me this when we bought the place. It belonged to my grandfather first, then Dad had it, now it's moved on down the line. A proper, graphic family heirloom!

Jules bought me this for my birthday a few years ago – without a doubt, my favourite print in the house!

I scanned and printed this one from book cover – it once had pride of place in my old lounge at Muswell Hill and always brings back great memories.

This print is hung by the front door (what a surprise)

These are FANTASTIC illustrations by Tadahiro Uesugi. This hangs where the laundry gets done

Here's a lovely (quite rare) photo of personal hero – Nick Drake

Release the Freebie!

I love my iphone, do you love yours? Of course you do – nothing quite says I'm NOT a PC! quite like it. One of my favorite features I is photos. As an Illustrator, it's an invaluable way of carrying my entire portfolio around with me wherever I go. Of course you can also convert any image from your photo gallery to a wallpaper. There's quite an iphone wallpaper cult building up online at the minute,the first example I came across at James White's sublime blog Signalnoise Since then, the best resource site I've discovered is Poolga. I'm not displaying any work there myself (yet!) so I've decided to upload my own HDC wallpaper design right here.

View this photo 

Feel free to download this image for your own iphone viewing pleasure and share with other like-minded Mac evangelists. I hope you all like it, there will be more little freebies coming up throughout the year, so keep dropping by!