Work in Progress - Deepak Rughani

Drawing courtesy of Valerie Pezeron. Copyright Valoche Designs 2011. Do not reproduce without permission

I am working on an improved version of this illustration about climate activist Deepak Rughani. This above version can be seen on Amelia's magazine

Holy Shit Flyer

Drawing courtesy of Valerie Pezeron. Copyright Valoche Designs 2011. Do not reproduce without permission

Art Shop Collective Opening

This is the entrance of the Arthur and Albert studio where the Art Shop Collective have found a home for their twice a month contemporary artefacts sales.

The brain -and the red glasses- behind the 27 artists strong collective!

 Katie, a member of the collective and a lovely person to boot!

Taking place every 1st and 3rd Saturday of the month, last Saturday was the opening of the venture.
There was cake, tea and rose wine on offer.

 This is me posing next to a row of my watercolor portraits and trying my best expressive face. It worked? Non?

Yep, there was music on the day! And the atmosphere was really chilled and friendly. The day was sunny and the public very supportive. We sold quite a few artworks on the day!

The till with tea, business cards and other promotional materials such as artists statements.

Yum! 

My watercolors and below, one of my digital prints on display at the very bottom.

More of my watercolors and digital prints above.

As you can see the collective is a collection of very disparate styles, the only selection criteria being it must be just very good art indeed.

Above another one of my digital prints, called "Fear".

The lampshade made of sunglasses was quite popular with the crowd!

The shop was pretty busy all day. Set right next to the Regents Canal in Haggerston, we benefited from a  fair bit of footfall from all those ramblers making their way to Broadway market.

Many of the collective came along with their friends. The collective is composed of a good mix of up and coming and more established jobbing artists such as recording artists who also paint.

Art Shop Collective

I am now part of the artists collective and gallery called Art Shop, a new venture from Arthur and Albert. The gallery space will be open to the viewing public every 1st and 3rd Saturday of the month.
Looking forward to seeing you there!

Mokita at Pick Me Up Somerset House

 

Last Tuesday I attended Mokita at the Pick Me Up art fair at Somerset House. The brainchild of reputed academics Roderick Mills, Darryl Clifton and Geoff Grandfield, this all day symposium had for ambition to take an in-depth critical look at illustration today. The all-mighty Adrian Shaughnessy was chair of the proceedings for the day. I understand Shaughnessy cofounded Varoom magazine and that it might be in this capacity that he was there on the day, but I still found his presence puzzling yet perhaps revealing about the status of illustration today? Could it be that the industry is still struggling with a widespread perception of it being an offshoot of graphic design? Surely there are illustrators of the status of Shaughnessy out there that would do just as much justice to the role of mediator for the talks?

On the programme were three questions; the first one “Is commerce the only real context for illustration?” was discussed by James Jarvis and Darryl Clifton. I found that particular exchange the most enlightening of the three, not least because of the well constructed Powerpoint presentation of Jarvis. “Illustrator as Author, new paradigm of the disciploine?” and “Do we need a theory of Illustration?” were respectively discussed by Luke Best with Roderick Mills and Sam Arthur and Geoff Grandfield. 

At £70, this event was a naughty treat that I thoroughly enjoyed. I guess Somerset House does not come cheap but my wish is for Mokita 2 to be more democratic and accessible to a wider audience. After all, the overriding thought of the day was for illustration to raise its profile and be on a par with photography in the mainstream British culture the way it is for the French. That said I enjoyed seeing some familiar faces there such as Gary Powell and Richard Harris, a former tutor of mine at Kingston University. 

Where were the girls? I am told Simone Lia dropped out. Why not replace her with another woman? It was a bit of a sausage fest on the day and one of the participants heckled: "It all looks rather 19th century to me!" After all, if the conference is to be a true window of the recent seismic changes within the industry, then it is only just to shed a light onto the vast amount of ladies working as illustrators. Geoff Granfield mentioned an agent told him 90% of illustration buyers are male... I’d love to meet that gentlemen and find out where he got his “facts”.

Dismomorphibia- Ted Talk

I am fascinated by people's faces. I find this talk interesting for its treatment of the psychologies of the face and its link with art as therapy.

Saving Grace- Work in Progress 2

Image courtesy of Valerie Pezeron. Copyright protected 2011. No reproductions without permission.

I intend to have this image included in my "Coffin Island" picture book. The final version will look quite different! We're gathering ideas away....