Category Archives: Art

High Hopes for Tyler.

Posted on 12/04/2011 by Lee| 2 Comments

Every now and again, I get emails from people that not only confirm for me why I make pictures for myself and others to enjoy, but really put life in general into perspective. A while ago one such email came my way from a customer who wanted me to help him out with a special, yet very sad request as his wife had tragically jumped to her death the previous year, leaving him and his 13 year old daughter Tyler behind.

Gary went on to say in his email that both him and Tyler were big fans of my work and already had a few pieces on their walls, but when they first saw my High Hopes image, it ’stopped my daughter & I in our tracks’ for obvious reasons. The thing is, quite a few people I know approached me after the release of the image and asked why I was painting pictures of a woman committing suicide, every one of them missing the point completely. Tyler however, like myself and thankfully many others out there, is a ‘glass half full’ kinda gal. She new that the woman in the image wasn’t about to fall at all, but about to float away amidst the birds. Full of hope, she’s taking a positive leap of faith from the edge of building and in my mind, and obviously Tyler’s, is moments away from taking flight.

The idea from the image came from a lifetimes worth of dreams in which I’m able to fly. It happens so much it’s actually unusual if my feet stay on the ground for the entire dream. Even in a dream state, the feeling of walking to the edge of a building and slowly stepping from the edge but knowing you’ll be ok is pretty awesome and something I’ve had the pleasure in enjoying time after time for as long as I can remember.

And so, Gary wanted to buy a copy of High Hopes for Tyler as a positive symbol for her as she moved forward and to remind her to keep her spirits high, but he asked me if I’d mind writing a few positive words on the print to make it that extra little bit special. Which I did no problem and got the print out and didn’t hear back from Gary for some time, until he sent me another email to thank me again for the personal touches to the print and to ask for my address as he had something for me. Shortly after I replied I received a package in the post from Tyler herself, containing this great painting…

Here’s a great explanation from Gary about the meaning behind Tyler’s painting.

‘Central to the picture is a river with no beginning or end. That’s because she thinks that spiritually or on some other level the “life” that dwells in a body already exists before we are born, and continues after our death. I guess part of that is her own emotional reckonings – backed up by a bit of science in school which says you can’t destroy energy, it simply moves to a different state. Heavy stuff for 13!
The river meanders from one bank to another alternating between a flowery pleasant land & a series of mountains. On lifes journey the current takes us to both sides & Tylers feelings are that we should enjoy the good times (flowery side) with the view across the river reminding us that life isn’t always that good, but we have reached a good place. When you reach a bend you never know which side you will land on next.
When we hit the mountains & the harsher side of life, you just have to keep climbing. The further you get up the mountain the more of the other bank you see & you can work out a new way forward… hence High Hopes.’

So now the painting is proudly on the wall of my studio amongst all the other bits and pieces that keep me inspired and moving forward and is a reminder to just relax and enjoy life. Like Tyler says, you never know which side of the river you may find yourself on from one day to the next, but if you just keep your head and your spirits high, you’ll keep moving forward no matter what. Very wise words from a 13 year old.
BIG thanks to Gary for getting in touch and to Tyler for the painting and the inspiration.

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Posted in Art, Life, Print

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Dreweatts Urban Auction

Posted on 04/04/2011 by Lee| Leave a comment

Dreweatts have another Urban Art Auction taking place tomorrow. My painting ‘String Theory’ is up for grabs so if you fancy bidding on a bargain visit the Dreweatts Website.

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Posted in Art, Events, Urban art

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Demons.

Posted on 23/03/2011 by Lee| 3 Comments

Here’s a few scribbles of some Demons. They’ll be included in an interesting group project I’ve been asked to be a part of alongside some huge names within the *cough* Urban Art scene including D*Face, Paul Insect, Eine and a few others.



These are just a handful and I had a lot of fun getting loose and busy with my brush pen. They’ll eventually be screen printed around a wooden xxxx which will then be xxxx. I don’t wanna give too much away just yet and spoil the surprise but I’ll let you know when there’s more news.

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Posted in Art, Events, Illustration, In the Studio, Print, Urban art

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The Best Laid Plans.

Posted on 17/03/2011 by eelus| 1 Comment

Afternoon all. After a few utterly depressing months of being bitterly cold and down from a lack of sunshine here at the Eel Cave, it’s good to see a little proper daylight and to work without wearing all my snowboarding thermals…and hat…and North Face coat…and gloves as things start to warm up slightly.

Been speaking to quite a few people lately in person and over email who have all been asking 2 questions. 1. Why are you giving up stencils? and 2. How’s the new direction going? With a feeling that I should be using this blog a little more for thoughts on things like this to try and document my goings on, for those who are interested, I thought I’d spend  few minutes to try and explain things, and hopefully at the same time get them clearer in my own mind.

When I announced a desire to take steps towards a new direction to work on other projects, that wasn’t me throwing the towel in, snapping my scalpel in half and retiring from the world of stencil making. It was just a need to step back, take a few breaths and challenge myself with some new personal projects that weren’t stencil related. I just felt so burned out after Africa and realised that I just wasn’t having much fun crawling around on my hands and knees in the studio cutting huge stencils to paint outside. I don’t see myself as part of the street art scene any more, this is true, but I am still a stencil artist and do still enjoy making well crafted pieces of art within the solitary confines of my cold, dark studio.

So I decided to try and explore other avenues of picture making in the hope of putting some of my creative eggs into other baskets. The only problem is the good ship Eelus seems to be sailing at full speed and people don’t want to get off. Job after job and opportunity after opportunity is placed in my lap and it’s been impossible so far to make any kind of moves towards experimenting with other things, as people want and expect the look and feel that I’ve built up and become known for. Which is amazing, not a bad thing at all and the things I’m working on at the minute and the jobs lined up for the rest of the year are really exciting. One project in particular is going to be quite interesting. I’ve been commissioned to produce a range of prints and paintings based around both Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz. So that’s just one of many things that I have on the table that have been put there by people who want the ‘Eelus’ style.

But at the same time, it makes moves into new areas more difficult. At the end of the day, I see my role and purpose on this big spinning rock is that of a picture maker, plain and simple. I make pictures in any way I see fit that are pleasing to me, and in turn will hopefully be pleasing to a few others.

So my Freak Show Projects site is gently simmering away in the background while I attend to the boiling stew that is full of all the other tasty projects that keep coming my way that I’m finding hard to turn down. I guess from here the plan is to find a balance. A balance between not only respecting and nurturing the ‘brand’ I’ve worked so hard to build up and establish over the last 7 or 8 years, to make sure I still have a presence in this strange art world that I seem to have found myself in. But to also find the time to work on other styles and avenues of creativity, which will be the Freak Show Projects side of things. It’s just that age old nut that needs cracking; ‘YOU WILL ALWAYS BE TOO BUSY’. How often do you find yourself saying ‘as soon as I get this out of the way, I’ll be able to concentrate on x,y,z’? ‘I’ll just do this one last job and then I’ll have a bit of free time to write that comic, get those t-shirts out, work on those illustrations, that book, that movie idea, that magazine…’ I’m quickly discovering that that time will never come, there will always be plates already spinning.

So it’s just time I started to spin a few more plates, work on improving my time management, streamline my work flow and hopefully just start embracing everything that I feel is important to me but hopefully without the quality being affected.

Anyway, I’m off to buy some plastic plates. Cheerio!

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Owls, Pussycats & Imperfections.

Posted on 16/02/2011 by eelus| Leave a comment

A quick paper cut I did for the missus for valentines day. I don’t really subscribe to all that to be honest, especially not the ‘off the shelf’ affection we all get rammed down our throats every year by every supermarket, restaurant, gift shop and florist. Still, all that said, it’s a nice excuse to make a little something different that will put a smile on someone’s face. I’ll be experimenting on lots of little projects like this this year, nice little affordable ‘bits’ that will be available to buy in the Freak Show online shop. Hopefully a nice style will be developed over time but in the meantime it’s just nice to be working on completely different things in very different ways.

The type is a little rough around the edges, but I’m learning to be more forgiving with little things like that, especially after reading a great book called Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland. I seriously recommend this book to anyone involved in creating any type of art, very well written, funny and extremely inspiring. Some great sections in there about the negative effects and often fruitless nature of striving for perfection. Humans by nature are far from perfect, and with your art being a reflection of yourself you should also allow your work to reflect those imperfections and concentrate more on simply producing more work instead of sweating over making a single piece as perfect as possible. I think that the presence of imperfections are what gives something originality, you needn’t bend over backwards to iron out such flaws, accept them and allow them to add character to whatever it is you’re making.

Speaking of imperfections, I recently finished a brilliant book by one of my favourite authors, John Wyndham. The Chrysalids is a tale narrated by a young boy named David, living in a simple, God fearing  farming community many years after the Earth has been left devastated by a nuclear disaster. The effects of the fall-out have a firm hold not only on farm life, but on the people born into this post-apocalyptic world. Whole fields of ‘imperfect’ crops are burned and children born with any sign of a mutation are seen as an act against God and are banished, or worse. As David and his friends grow older, they become aware that they have been born very different to the rest of their community and live in fear of discovery, communicating between themselves in a very secret and unique way. It’s a fantastic book and as with most of Wyndham’s books, (Day of the Triffids, Midwhich Cuckoos) it comes in a great selection of covers if you can be bothered shopping around.




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Posted in Art, Books, Paper Cut

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WOW Video

Posted on 14/02/2011 by eelus| Leave a comment

Just been sent the link to this nice little video of the work we did out in The Gambia as part of the Wide Open Walls project. It unfortunately doesn’t cover all the work out there, and they spelled my name wrong,  but it’s a lovely little video non-the-less.

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Posted in Art, Events, Nature, Stencils

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Thank you…

Posted on 20/01/2011 by Lee| Leave a comment

…to all the lovely art freaks over at the Expresso Beans art forum for voting my Not Everything is so Black & White print their favourite of 2010. What a nice way to start the year.

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Posted in Art, Competition, Print

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Never Judge…?

Posted on 29/11/2010 by eelus| Leave a comment

There’s only 1 thing I love more than books, and that’s book covers, so I was pretty excited when the nice people at Stolen Space Gallery asked me to be part of their next group show ‘Never Judge…?’ In conjunction with Penguin books, the gallery will be filled with book covers created exclusively by a great list of artists and looks to be a great show.

Here’s my contribution, taken from one of my all time favourite books, War of the Worlds by H.G.Wells.

I wanted a simple but classic feel and decided to try my hand at a bit of paper cutting. Loved the process and the concentration needed and it’s something I’ll now be doing a lot more of in the future.

So if you’re in London and free on Thursday night, I’ll see you at Stolen Space. Click the image below for full details.

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Posted in Art, Books, Events, Paper Cut, Sci-Fi

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Back from Africa.

Posted on 31/10/2010 by eelus| Leave a comment

So I’m finally back from The Gambia after ‘curating’ the first every Wide Open Walls arts project. It was a tough few weeks, with many highs, plenty lows but the most important thing, lots and lots of incredible art.

I’m not sure where to begin with this one really, a million miles from anything I’ve been involved in before I’m not really sure what I expected. I guess I’ll start with the good stuff, the positives, because there was plenty of them. First of all, the team I got together was incredible, and I shall blow my own trumpet and sing their praises no end. It was a very tough job for everyone in many ways. The environment was challenging, the heat was relentless, humidity was high and sweat was never in short supply. Things were unpredictable out there, you never really knew what you was going to paint from one moment to the next and as soon as you’d finish one thing, you were guaranteed to have at least one villager leading you somewhere new to paint their compound wall or mud hut. It was difficult trying to keep everyone happy as there was so much wall space, all really spread out over quite a large area, we could only do so much, especially in such intense heat. But, with all that said, Logan Hicks, Lucy McLauchlan, Matt Watkins, Mysterious Al, the Broken Crow boys and resident photographer Ian Cox handled everything that was thrown at them with such inspiring patience and professionalism that regardless of the problems we encountered, and there were quite a few, we were all able to stick together, help each other out and keep going.

The villagers we met and hung out with on a daily basis were also incredible. Friendly, kind and always ready to help in any way they could, even if it was just holding stencils or shaking paint cans. Not only did they make us all feel so welcome, they were genuinely excited and thankful for what we were trying to achieve.

It was an amazing thing to be a part of and an experience that I’ll never forget. I met some incredible people, made some fantastic friends, saw the most beautiful wildlife and worked out of my comfort zone. I painted pictures on trees, stood amidst a Baboon riot, saw snails as big as my fist and ate every night under the gaze of a barn owl who tried to shit on me.

Here are a few of my photos from the trip. I strongly suggest you head over to the Wide Open Walls Blog and the Flickr page for more amazing shots of what we did out there.

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Posted in Art, Events, Graffiti, Nature, Painting, Photography, Urban art

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Raven Haired Redux

Posted on 01/10/2010 by eelus| 1 Comment

Decided to revisit an old friend and breath some new life into her for the W.O.W project. Thought it would be nice to give it an African twist and get it up and out there. I also quite enjoyed the process of seeing how my style has moved on slightly since I made the original back in 2008.

Here’s the new African version.

And the Original ‘Raven Haired’.

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Posted in Art, Events, In the Studio, Stencils

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