Hello, I'm James. I live in London and keep myself busy with illustration, web & graphic design, animation and the occasional bit of music. You can find out more about me at my main website . You might find out even more about me at my illustration/design blog.
This blog is for anything that I've made that doesn't belong on my illustration/design blog or anything I've come across that I'd like to share.
Hello there. I sort of forgot I had this blog, which is intended for the impulsive bits and bobs that spill between the “proper” things (such as an actual illustration). With that in mind, and with a belated “Happy New Year!”, I have a few bits and bobs to share…
I just finished (actually just launched, it was finished last year) this site for photogra-pal Andy Douglas. I was pleased with the overall feel of it (although Andy came to me with quite a realised idea for the layout) and that the photos are being very easily and powerfully managed behind the scenes via WordPress which bodes well for future projects. Check it out!
Next up: I’ve done another Poo John video. Sticking with the 90s classics with hidden lyrical potential just waiting to be applied to the thoughts of an existential robot. I spent a lot more time on the music and the animation this time around but without wanting to ruin the spontaneity and weirdness of my first video. Please watch below and pretty please share with your family, friends & enemies if you enjoyed it even slightly or even if you intensely disliked it and want to drum up support for your cause.
Moving on! As the planets misalign, Hoshal Patrick enters a productive phase. Hoshal Patrick is my two-man band. We have some quite exciting things in the works and are working hard on super-smooth & shiny mixes of our favourite existing songs and some new ones. Until we have something concrete to share, we won’t be saying much more on that topic, but I did record this video…
Last night, we (Alex & I a.k.a Hoshal Patrick, see above) watched Institute Benjamenta on Blu-ray. Having written a dissertation on the Brothers Quay many moons ago I am something of a fanboy and do recommend this, their first full-length feature, especially on Blu-ray. It was snowing on my way home, which if you’ve seen the film you’ll appreciate is rather coincidental, so I made this tribute image using some photos of mine and a still from the film…
Ok, last but not least. I was ‘#FF’-ed today by an awesome illustrator amongst several other awesome illustrators. I draw attention to this only because I really like the work of all involved and you should go (not gentle) into that good Inter-night and find out more about them.
I started what I thought would be a covers project some time ago, creating the character Poo John and a cover of Losing My Religion by REM which seemed to go down quite well. In fact songs that would work especially well as covers don’t come up that often (I do have a new Poo John rendition of another nineties song that’s almost finished, adding the final touches in spare moments - but it took many months to actually decide on the song), so I’ve since decided to expand the project - I’m planning on making shorter videos, doing more images (first one here) as well as continuing to do more full-blown covers. Since Poo John is fond of soul I’d also quite like to do some understated covers of classics (Aretha, Al Green etc).
Anyway, in the spirit of broadening the remit of the project, here’s a quick video with original music - watch Poo John’s normally taciturn friend Bill, having a sing-song:
I am working on a huge-tiny project to figure out exactly how to incorporate people into my artwork. Not just people but identity, personality, faces. I’ve realised it’s one thing that’s really missing from a lot of my work - not that it matters in itself from an artistic point of view, but as an illustrator it’s something I’d like to develop.
People/faces/personalities/identities (not necessarily human) in illustrations are like the vocals/lyrics in a song - people can’t help but directly connect with them and they provide a vantage point from which the audience can safely watch and understand the rest of the picture (or song). I think so anyway.
I’ve always liked drawing characters & faces, but I’ve never found them relevant to the images I like spending a lot of time on - I mainly like doodling them and don’t see an appropriate place for them in my work as an illustrator. I suspect this won’t change. Nevertheless I’m experimenting & pushing for more character/characters in my work and seeing how many mistakes I can make before I get it right.
Look forward to sharing the fruits of my labours, should they bear any, at some point in the near future.
I’ll try to keep it short and sweet: everyone here (and in the last post) is making work which I find exciting, pleasing and generally awesome and it all made a strong impression on me straight away. So here are the people involved:
I will say that Luke has for a number of years been one of my favourite illustrators currently working. And that the snapshot of Jon’s image above doesn’t do justice to the piece which is called ‘Up To The House’ and can be seen on his website and also you should check out his collaboration with the talented David O’Reilly below:
A mindless doodle. Not meant to be suggesting anything about fans of The Smiths. I’m a superfan of The Smiths. In which case, maybe this whole exercise suggests something about fans of The Smiths. Are you annoyed by me saying “The Smiths” yet?
Hello, I am going to show you some things I have enjoyed or found interesting or gave me pause for thought on this day, Wednesday 2nd November 2011. There was a longer paragraph here. I deleted it because I waffle too much and it takes up far too much space. Normal service resumes:
National Novel Writing Month - an interesting idea (force yourself to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days) that I heard about via this Lifehacker article. I’ve always wanted to write a novel, but that desire has come ahead of having anything to actually write about. Perhaps I shouldn’t let that stop me…
I used to do a lot more creative writing and drawing than I currently do, aside from lyrics for songs when I really have nothing else to stick in, and any lines, mark-making & textures for recent illustrations. Here’s a combination of these two neglected past-times… Could be the start of a story/sequence. Or not.
After hearing Temporary Secretary a while ago, and stumbling across Secret Friend recently via Twitter, I felt it was time to become better acquainted with McCartney II, Paul McCartney’s third solo album, released in 1980. It’s not on Spotify but luckily someone has uploaded the whole thing (plus bonus tracks) to YouTube (of course, I could always buy it…). I decided to make a playlist so I could listen to the whole thing in sequence, and now you can too, below. I discovered later that someone else had already done this - oh well, here’s mine:
