Irontree Forge sign

Recently completed sign, for Irontree Forge in Ripponden. Nice brief - Victorian, solid, dignified, nothing fancy. We chose a couple of fonts from rummaging online, which I then used to draw out our words, the first from this poster -

 -and the next from Tony Lewery's  excellent Signwritten Art book -

 Fun to play with the contrast between these two fonts, the first uncompromising and solid, and the other loosely handmade and so warm and a little more forgiving of my tentative attempt to imitate it.

Playing Out now available from Blank Slate's online shop

-with free UK P&P, and just £4 for international.
http://blankslatebooks.bigcartel.com/
hope you like it - let me know!

Out! Playing Out

Hurrah Hurrah - Playing Out exists in the world now, or at least in the form of 20 advance copies. I'll be signing these copies for those that have £8.99 on them at this Saturday's ELCAF comic art event down in London. 980 copies should follow soon with a release date of 1st August, I think, and shall be available all over the place, including Amazon, but wouldn't it be nice to support your local comic or book shop instead? I'm also planning to bring the original pages down with me to make available for purchase.
I'm really chuffed with the great job Blank Slate have done with this - thanks chaps. Great paper stock, good solid hardback, and generally a gorgeous object. I need to pull my finger out and get a follow-up in progress.
Also available on the Blank Slate table shall be a stack of new specially created Riso prints, mine featuring Connor wielding his Burger King cup cuffs. I think these are £10 or something like that, and I'll be signing them too. Should be a fun do.

Teen health flyer

For my brilliant sister, Nurse Helen.

Map of the Heavens

Inspired by Urania's Mirror, a Victorian children's educational stargazing kit, in the Parker collection of Birmingham Library.

Death to Vinyl!

 (click to enlarge)

My latest sign, 120 x 82cm, bemoaning the sad fact that most signs are either digitally printed onto or digitally cut from stickyback vinyl. It always looks so noncommittal to me, as if you don't really intend to keep your shop open for more than a year or so. A good handpainted sign shows that you plan to stay, and are serious about your enterprise - you MEAN it!

New Signs

 This one says 'Toilets', and is for The Beagle over there in Chorlton,

and this one's for Kodie, who is pretty well into cars and that. I'm learning that the script lettering is much easier than the straight, no fuss stuff, and 'S' and 'O' are a struggle to get looking right. got a long way to go with this business.

This one is for the remarkable Alex Potts. Quite pleased with the colours straight onto the raw varnished plywood.

The Fair - Observer/Comica competition entry

 Click to enlarge, and please leave honest comments as I've not shown this to many people yet. I think it was a bit ambitious, and maybe not super clear in that it may need re-reading a couple of times. It's based on the premise that every fairground has a bunch of bloody art students spoiling it for everyone else.

I want to be a signwriter now, instead of a comic artist.

(click to enlarge)

Recently completed for the recently opened Beagle pub/food place in Chorlton. I've not been up there yet, but the menu looks amazing, as does their beer list. Both these signs are 160cm wide, and I LOVED doing them. Been slowly amassing the right brushes (Handovers, and Wrights of Lymm) and a good range of One-Shot lettering enamels, then finally had this excuse to get stuck into a nice project.
Painted 'The Beagle' in a very traditional almost canal boat style, and then 'Old School Wild Style' (my sarcastic distain for 'spraycan art' and equally traditional grafitti style vandalism) in a more gypsy caravan / rustic fairground feel.

Had a warm up by painting our house number, jigsawed clumsily out of marine ply -

This is what I want to do from now on. Just letting you know, in case you have a drab shopfront, canal boat, vintage commercial vehicle or fairground ride that needs freshening up.

In Other news, Playing Out might be progressing towards it's eventual printed book state - I'm told January.

sneak preview