Illustrations for Cameron Diaz!

I was very pleased to be asked to contribute some illustrations to 'The Longevity Book' by Cameron Diaz, which has recently come out. The book is a follow up to 'The Body book' and is a personal, practical guide that examines the art and science of growing older. My illustrations are similar to those found in a biology text book but perhaps a little softer in style. Top to bottom are senescent cells, cell diagram, neurons and X and Y chromosomes. The book is published by Harper Collins.

Illustrated bag for Chipotle

I recently illustrated a bag for Mexican fast food chain Chipotle, as part of their Cultivating thought Author series. Short illustrated stories by well known authors appear on usually plain take-out packaging, providing customers with some interesting lunchtime reading. 

My story is by Mary Roach and is about a chance meeting between two characters, one arriving at a party and the other leaving. The female character mistakes the guy for a friend of her husband's, and chats easily to him. At the end of the piece, she realises that he is in fact a complete stranger. I decided to use the two sides of the bag as two sides of the dialogue between the two characters, showing how each perceives the situation differently. My artwork takes snippets of the conversation which I have visualised in speech and thought bubbles above their heads. I really enjoyed working with Chipotle and thought it was a great project. The idea of using a bag or a cup as a canvas for visualising a story is a great one, and turns something that is usually a throwaway item into something really special and thought provoking. Visit the Cultivating thought website here.

100 years of the Coca-Cola bottle

This year Coca-Cola celebrates 100 years of their iconic contour bottle. To mark this important anniversary, the company challenged artists, designers and illustrators around the world to use vintage Coca-Cola bottle imagery as inspiration to create posters using just three colors: Coke Red, black and white. Over 130 artists from 15 countries took part with 250-plus pieces for the #MashupCoke project. Here is my piece. 

The Round Robin Letters

The Round Robin Letters by Simon Hoggart came out just before Christmas, and is a very funny collection of Christmas yearly round-ups. Here is my cover - published by Atlantic books. 

The Poundshop at the ICA

I will be selling my animal themed notebooks in a special Christmas Poundshop, opening at the ICA in London tonight. With over 50 designers involved, there are lots of great bargains to be had! The Poundshop is open from 7pm until 10pm tonight and continues through the weekend, open daily from 11am - 6pm. More info can be found here.

 

Happy Holidays!

A sadly unused holiday campaign for a client in the US. Happy Holidays!

Illy words

I have recently done some illustrations for 'Illy words', a book-zine produced by Corraini for Illy coffee. The theme for the issue is everything Italian, and my part was to illustrate some unusually named Italian dishes, including 'Salad of escaped anchovies', 'Heartbreaker burger' and 'Rice and gold'. Images appear alongside interviews with the two Italian chefs who conceived these dishes - renowned chef Gualtiero Marchesi and Cristiano Meneghin, who makes Italian street food in London. 

 

Heart gallery

Many illustrators including lots of those involved in the 7th International meeting were asked to contribute an image with a heart theme to a new gallery - 'Heart gallery' opening in São João da Madeira tomorrow. Here is my contribution!

The 7th International meeting of Illustrators

I recently attended the 7th International meeting of illustrators in São João da Madeira, not far from Porto, Portugal. It was a fantastic week, extremely well organised and I met so many amazing illustrators, the majority from Portugal and Spain, but several from France, Italy, Argentina and Chile too! My role was to run a workshop, but I also got to join in all the other activities, and take part in workshops as well as several visits to see local industry - a pencil factory, a box factory, felt factory and a shoe factory. These were all fascinating and a real eye opener to see what goes on behind the scenes and the amount of work that goes into the production of all these items. I will never look at a box, hat, shoe or pencil in quite the same way again!

My workshop was called 'Drawing the Impossible' and focussed on my book 'Sixty Impossible things before lunch.' Participants did several playful exercises with the aim of generating ideas and images that were surreal, imaginative and creative. Work by Cintia Martin, Ceci Moreno, Guiridi Rn, Sophia Morais, Fernando Perez Hernando and Mari Perez Pantoja. 

Illustration for Principality Building Society

I was asked to produce an illustration for Principality Building Society using a quote about 'home' of my choice. Here is the result and you can see Principality's website here.

A Letter in mind exhibition

I recently took part in 'A Letter in Mind' exhibition at the Oxo tower gallery in London. Artists were invited to create their piece using only a simple white envelope and the title 'A letter in mind' as a starting point. There was a huge variety of responses, and some well known names involved, including Grayson Perry and Chris Haughton. Works were exhibited anonomously and then auctioned off in aid of the National Brain appeal, with the name of the artist only revealed once a purchase had been made. For my piece I used the address of the National Brain appeal which I broke down and fully illustrated on the front - I then sent the piece directly through the mail, hoping it arrived unscathed - luckily it did! You can see the full range of artworks on this link.