Recently came across this amazing animation by the extremely talented Jon Klassen. If it doesn’t melt the cockles of your heart until they’re just a puddle on the ground, I’m afraid to say that you’re dead inside. Simple, beautiful and touching.
While you’re here, I’ll remind you of the awesome sting he did for the BBC Winter Olympics. Such a great style, total inspiration.
Posted in Animation, Illustration
Tagged An Eye for Annai, Animation, BBC Winter Olympics, Jon Klassen
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.
Posted in Art, Books, Paper Cut
Tagged Art & Fear, John Wyndham, Owl and Pussycat, Paper Cutting, The Chrysalids
So awesome to see the incredible Christopher Lee pick up the Bafta Academy Fellowship award. The quintessential British movie villain, from Saruman to Sith Lord, and of course for his many roles as Dracula in the Hammer Horror films. An incredible actor who has made an entire career from embracing the dark side. We at Freak Show salute you sir!
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.
Posted in Art, Events, Nature, Stencils
Tagged Broken Crow, bushdwellers, Logan Hicks, Lucy McLauchlan, Mysterious Al, The Gambia, Wide Open Walls, Xenz
Hello everyone, my name is Lee and…I’m a bookophile…there…I said it. I love books, I love bookshops, I love the smell of books, old dusty pages, brand new printings, worn tatty covers inside protective bags, strangers names and dates long gone scribbled on the insides of covers.
The Kindle or iPad will never be able to replace the feeling you get from holding and flicking through a real book, not for me. Another thing that is difficult to appreciate on a digital reader is a good cover. An art form that has seen a strong renaissance over the last few years, especially for the world of illustration.
After discovering the amazing Edward Gorey illustrated War of the Worlds recently, and the fact that I’m stuck at home feeling rotten with some kind of bug, I thought I’d share a random handful of my favourite covers from my collection. Enjoy!
I love how Gorey’s tripods look swift and nimble, not just stiff machines like we’re used to seeing. Like giant swaying spiders capable of running across the land as they hunt humankind to extinction. OOOOO-AAAAAAA! The choice of pink for the sky is brilliant too, really makes the cover pop.
A lovely cover from ’56, actually got this for Christmas from the folks, much better than socks.
Haven’t gotten round to reading this one yet, it’s one of the very few Lovecraft stories I haven’t read. Looks pretty bonkers, just how I like it.
I used to have wall to wall Frazetta when I was growing up and I love this cover, such a blast from the past for me. I lost my copy growing up and decided to track it down again after Frank died last year. RIP you absolute legend.
It’s not old, or weird, but I love all the covers from these editions of the 2001 books, this is my favourite of the 4. They were done by the brilliant Michael Whelan.
A book that has to remain in it’s plastic bag home due to the state of the inside, the pages are about to crumble to dust. Great cover though and a lovely addition to the collection.
The Iron Man illustrated by one of my all time favourite illustrators Tom Gauld. A master of beautiful simplicity.
Come on. Don’t even pretend that you don’t think this cover is awesome. I used to draw this weird Lion, scorpion dude when I was a kid and loved all of these Fighting Fantasy books. This is another I had to acquire recently from ebay after my childhood copy was sadly lost over the years. This is by John Blanche.
My favourite Gorey cover, The Gashlycrumb Tinies. An a-z of unfortunate childhood fatalities, each one drawn to perfection, gorgeous stuff.
Here’s a perfect example of why you should never write off charity shops for good book finds. I bought both The Inferno and Purgatory for £2 each, both printed in 1904, absolutely beautiful little books.
Posted in Books, Sci-Fi, Uncategorized
Tagged Arthur c. Clarke, Books, Dante's Inferno, Edward Gorey, Frank Frazetta, H.P.Lovecraft, James Silke, John Blanche, John Wyndham, Journey to the centre of the earth, Jules Verne, michael whelan, Steve Jackson, The Day of The Triffids, The Gashleycrumb Tinies, The Iron Man, Tom Gauld, War of the Worlds
…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.
Posted in Art, Competition, Print
Tagged Expresso Beans, Not Everything is so Black & White, screen print
Thought it was time to give the blog a quick face lift. Nice and simple, no fuss, ready and waiting for new content.
Posted in Uncategorized
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.
Posted in Art, Books, Events, Paper Cut, Sci-Fi
Tagged Book cover, H.G.Wells, Paper Cutting, Penguin Books, Stolen Space, War of the Worlds
First attempt at a pumpkin since I was a kid. Carved it whilst watching American Werewolf in London. What a way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
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.
Posted in Art, Events, Graffiti, Nature, Painting, Photography, Urban art
Tagged Africa, Broken Crow, bushdwellers, Ian Cox, Kubuneh, Logan Hicks, Lucy McLauchlan, Makasutu Culture Forest, Mysterious Al, The Gambia, Wallkandy, Wide Open Walls, Xenz