Vagabondiana Blog Header

Head on over to my other blog Purdylola Loves to read all about how I made this blog header for Ellen Burney of Vagabondiana.

Oueens of the Stone Age

A poster I made for Big Hands for an after-party that actually I don't think ever happened. I was at the Queens gig myself but was so soaked through with sweat after dancing all night the only thing calling me after the gig was a long shower so I never really found out for sure. Anyway the poster was a great brief and I really enjoyed making it AND it became the last of 18 gig posters to feature in my final exhibition, but more on that later.

NEW YORK DOLLS

Another commission for Big Hands who are throwing an after-gig-shindig for what should be an amazing event at the neighbouring Academy. I was asked to use an original b&w photograph of the band from the 70s but I just couldn't resist making my own drawing of it and using lots of super-trashy colours and prints.

Rub the Sleep Out New Year Party

Another poster commission for the Rub the Sleep Out night at Big Hands, this time to advertise their New Years Eve Party. This was definitely a bit of a tricky brief as there seemed to be quite a few things going on. Not only did it need to refer to the usual Rub the Sleep Out night that the regulars would recognise but it was also being temporarily re-named Rub the Xerox Out to honour the guest - Dj Xerox. It doesn't end there, there was also a drag party theme going on at the same time. Initially I must have come up with around five different designs before realising that I was possibly over-thinking it a bit and needed to simplify things somewhat. I decided that the drag theme could be represented by showing my original Rub the Sleep 'boy and girl' but have their jackets so that the boy was wearing a pink one and the girl a blue.

First version (below).

Final version (below). Hopefully I got everything in there. The now hopefully very recognisable Rub the Sleep 'boy and girl' characters, the usual paisley fabric and the Xerox reference using a new contrasting font so that it stands out as a change to the usual line-up.

Rub the sleep Out Birthday Bash

The boys at Rub the Sleep Out approached me again, this time they wanted a poster advertising their 1st birthday party. There are going to be four bands playing on the night so each band needed to appear on the poster. I decided to include my Rub the Sleep 'boy and girl' in the poster as this should help to attract the regulars who may recognise them from the main poster. The balloons seemed like an obvious choice given the celebratory tone of the night and gave me four convenient spaces to fit the names of the bands into.

First attempt at a design for the poster (below).


Detail of the balloons (below).

Final poster (below). I included the paisley fabric which also features in the main poster, again to keep some consistency and make sure that attendees recognise any future posters. The lilacy-plum colour in the background acted as a good base for the other brighter colours to stand out from.

You can read more about the event on Last FM here.

Chew the Float Private View

I've been working at a slightly insane rate recently, what with teaching, writing essays for my Masters, poster commissions and making my work for the 'Chew the Float' exhibition at Victoria Baths. Thankfully I am starting to see the light and everything is finally coming together. Below are some photos of the exhibition including my entry which is a length of wooden bunting which reads 'Not Waving But Drowning'. The statement that went with my piece went as so:

'Victoria Baths inspired me to create something that recalled childhood memories of swimming at my own local baths in Salford. Unsurprisingly my most vivid memory is when I came close to drowning at the age of 7. Waving cockily to my Mum before diving into the deep end I found myself entangled in my rubber ring, trapped underwater, gasping for air. Luckily Mum was able to translate my SOS and saved me from a watery end. However, the experience left me with an overwhelming fear of water for many years.
'Not Waving but Drowning', a reference to the Stevie Smith poem, acts as a sign to both warn and celebrate. The warning goes out to others like my 7-year-old self, giddy with a false sense of invincibility, to take care, but the sign also celebrates overcoming fear to participate in the joys of swimming, an activity that thankfully no longer fills me with the sense of dread I felt as a child.'

My poster greeting visitors on their approach to the baths (below).


A 'hipstamatic' impression of my piece (below) courtesy of Nathan.

In close-up (below).

Some of my very talented friend's work (below).

Emma Baker

Andy Gornall

Rachael Barker

Matt Davies

Chew the Float

As a member of the Cottonopolis Arts Collective I am going to be showing some of my art work at Victoria Baths in Manchester this September. The baths is an incredible building which houses two original Victorian Swimming Pools that are currently undergoing extensive restoration. The brief is a site specific one and although I am yet to decide what I am going to make for it I have had a more pressing issue to overcome first as the organisers gave me the job of producing a poster advertising the show.

The name of the exhibition is 'Chew the Float' which was inspired by one of the organiser's childhood memories of swimming lessons when he would nervously chew at the float. With this as a strong image to go off and because I have been to the baths many times and have quite a few photos I had plenty to go off.

This photo (below) of one of the changing cubicles that line the edge of the pool stood out as a possible background for the poster. Once I had drawn this I made a sketch of a boy holding a swimming float up in front of his face and positioned him outside of the cubicle. Once I had got this right I set about putting the two together.

First attempt to put together the final poster (below).

Final poster (below) with added 'grunge' so it reflected the rust and peeling paint that gives the baths their nostalgic charm. The font was also selected for it's old fashioned quality.

Rub the Sleep Out

Horray I've had a commission! I have been asked to make posters and flyers for a club night at Big Hands called 'Rub the Sleep Out' (great name). The music is a mixture of retro, new and weird tunes and hosted by two guys Jolan and David. They have given me pretty much free reign on how to approach it, in fact the only condition was that there must be a triangle somewhere as this is their trademark. The results are below.

I started off with the idea of what a typical Rub the Sleep Out-goer might look like, male and female. I was then thinking about how I could incorporate the triangle and imagined them maybe wearing monogrammed shirts until I came up with the idea of them in customised jackets. I made it so that the jacket was tight on the boy and baggy on the girl as though they were wearing the same jacket. Once the outlines were complete I scanned in a swatch of sixties paisley fabric and added that to create a connection between the two.

Previously the posters for the night had been quite surreal or psychedelic so I thought I'd keep to this feel by having the two characters staring out into a triangular sunset. David particularly wanted the text to have a similar feel to that seen on this Flaming Lips album cover. Once it was all put together I added an additional layer in Photoshop that subtly came through to make the poster look a bit more aged and vintage.

Poster in-situ at Big Hands (below)

We have talked about possibly making t-shirts to sell on the night. This is a mock-up of how I envision they may look (below).