That Thing About The Storks Is Total Rubbish

There have been quite a few lovely, whimsical and serene images of hot air balloons being floating gently being created by a variety of artists.

Though an innate fear of heights, or rather, plummeting to earth from a great height will probably stop me ever actually going up in one, they have always mystified me, and i have always thought they are a wonderful form of transport for exploration.

In allowing nature to dictate direction I can't help but see it as very exposed and vulnerable, and strangely organic.

The tale about the storks delivering babies to the door has always seemed  interesting, if not mildly annoying in it's bullshit factor; why a bird would carry a baby to a human never made any sense to me as a child.

This idea has been around for a while in my head; large organic balloons netted with sinew and blood vessels, gently carrying, nurturing and sustaining the life of their precious cargo across an unkind landscape.

It became a play on the stork story that, while equally misleading to children on "where babies come from", is closer to the truth, and would be infinitely more mesmerizing.

It was also an opportunity to try something stylistically new (for me) as i couldn't imagine capturing the look i wanted painting the way i normally work, and being invited to submit a work into a show being organised by Fire was the catalyst to attempt it. Thanks go out to Chris Oatley who has offered up a selection of his own photoshop brushes on his website, and it is probably the main reason this work didn't end up being a frustrating churn to complete, if it was actually completed at all.

The show is the official opening of The Copper House Gallery (off Synge Street, Dublin 8), on Tuesday 27th Sptember 2011 at 7.30pm.

Cock Fight

It is what it is. Two giant cocks battling it out to the death, in a desert dust bowl. Two cocks enter. One cock leaves. This is the way it has to be....

The title, based on that weird bird blood sport, was the obvious inspiration for this painting, but as i was sketching it out in the sketch book, i decided that i wanted to work on painting monumental scale, in a kinda fantasy art wankery way.

Last year sometime i saw some of the artwork done for that abysmal film Clash of The Titans. It was the Cracken emerging from the water,  and while the film was crap, this image was awesome, and the sense of scale of the beast was wonderful, and i kept in in mind while working on this.

The other thing i was looking to study was getting  movement in dust and atmosphere a little more, as the cocks would be rising up and thumping down and twisting like two snakes fighting, kicking up debris, and dust.

Wreck The Balls (Merry Christmas)

Was running a bit late getting a card ready to send out this year. After last years card (here), the pressure was on, but i just couldn't get there... properly anyway.

This started as a sketch when i had christmas carols stuck in my head, and couldn't get them out. This is a take on Deck the Halls. It could have easily have been When Shepards Wash Their Cocks By Night, but after the commission i've just completed , the thought of another landscape just horrified me.

Not sure the blue glitter really worked out, but whatever - at this time of year, it's the thought that counts.

Bring Me The Head Of Brian Cowen

A man can dream, can't he?

50 x 45 cm prints available, and, this year, would make the perfect Christmas gift!

Process Diary: Cowen

Starting off some of the process diary stuff. This is a work in progress of the leader of Ireland, Brian Cowen. I've done a quick one of him before, but wasn't completely happy with the likeness, so i'm having another stab at it.

Getting the jowls right is more of a challenge than i'd thought possible, in particular getting the to hang properly off those mammoth lips, but at the same time kinda prop them up...


Well see how this develops over time. Hope to keep going with it, but have to juggle a couple of other jobs at the moment too. Maybe it'll be ready for Halloween...

Nymph In Milk Bath. In The Snow (Normal Lindsay Made Me Do It)

I was looking to try out some more Water Colour brushes, and as i've never really tried to draw a female face i set out to do so. It seems i was unable to pull very far away from the cartoony faces i normally do, but managed to get closer to a 'pretty' face - though i'm not completely happy with it.

The ears turned up along with the hair as i began to be reminded Normal Lindsay's nymphs and playful nudes. If you don't know what I'm on about, look it up.

I needed to put her in some sort of context, and as i wasn't really in the mood for f*ck-arseing around concentrating on clothes, i just worked down the body til she appeared to be partially submerged. And i wanted to draw some boobs. Lets call it an exercise in painting buoyancy....

Home Early

A quick study of skin, weight and shame....

No real reason for it, other than for the laugh.

In Event Of Emergency

Ever run out of toilet paper?

Every so often, through practical experimentation, over the past 20 years, this technique has proved it's self to be relatively reliable, if not quite time consuming. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of steps 5 and 6, and urge any who need to adopt this technique when the time comes not to rush. Take all the time available to you. Trust me.

Just felt that some knowledge needs to be shared, in the interests of surviving various otherwise potentially disastrous scenarios.

Submitted for Illustration Friday topic Satelite - When a fresh roll might as well be in space....

Extol The Virtue

First illustration for Illustration Friday, this weeks topic was Slither. It's open to interpretation, but i found myself seeing the word and it's connotations in a slightly different way....

Update: I might just add here - i'm living in Ireland, where a report into the shocking child abuse, sexual and otherwise, of male and female children alike, was released recently.

Girl And Bear

Saw some pencil work recently that reminded me of how wonderful pencil work can be. I particularly like pencil for soft toys and children so, in an attempt to get away from using Painter's Artist Oils brushes and have ago at the Pencil brushes, I went with doing a bit of both.

But as i have been doing a lot of fairly straight ahead nice work, I couldn't help adding a little bit of blood to this one...

Update: Submitted this for Illustration Friday topic: Trail.

Better To Have Drunk And Lost Than Never To Have Drunk At All

This is about a short mans violent battle with alcohol and therefore everyone around him. It is the companion piece to The Gouhl, as after all - they are a couple.

It's amazing what people will do under the influence.

Impaled

This was one of the first attempts using painter. Done using the gauche brushes, though beginning the sketch with the pencils. It had no direction and started as a bit of a doodle. I also captured it using ScreenFlow, and the result can be seen here.



It was fun....