Pocketbook 2

More hijinks from the end of the first year of University back to Leicestershire.

Cider Labels

Recently I got a commision to design a set of labels for the chaps at Pine Trees Farm, near Doddington in Kent. A company that sold a range of apple-based products among others, they required label designs for a new range of four bottled ciders, which will probably start kicking about around September time. Watch this space!
From the start I mined the traditional custom of Wassailing, which (still!) takes place all over England in various forms. Visually I was going for a china blue effect, too.

You can find Pine Trees Farm's website here: http://www.pinetreesfarm.co.uk/

Marks and Meaning (Part 1)

'Marks and Meaning' was the formal name for our last project, the Maidstone Project. This project had two halves really; the first was experimental and observational drawings within and around the town, and the second was applying those techniques to print processes. Here's a small selection of the first half, culled from two of my sketchbooks (A3 Landscape/10"x10" square sketchbook.) For most of the start of this project I drew alongside the frustratingly talented Mr Ian O'Shea(http://ianosheagi.blogspot.com/) in the intense cold, which is bound to knock anyone down a few pegs. Eventually, though, we split up; he pursued his Victoriana and I followed NATURE!

If you're interested, much of what I worked on this project was trying to improve my charcoal and watercolour skills. Me and Ian were lucky to be able to gain access to the gigantic All Saint's Church in the centre, which isn't usually open to the public, and should really be called a Cathedral. Eventually I followed the elusive River Len which snakes underneath the town up to Mote Park. Straight up, I don't have access to an A3 scanner now I'm back home, so I can't get up the second part of this project for a while yet. Ah well.

Pocketbook One

This Spring I bought three little fake-moleskins for a pound in a shop called Tiger in North Finchley, and they handly fit in my pocket. I basically started using them to record the offensive remarks friends and colleagues make, or strips, or notes. Since I can take it anywhere, there's a few drawings from nightclubs that I don't fully understand...this is a small collection from the first book, recordings from mainly Maidstone and London in April through May.

A chap called Lee Crocker is partly to blame for this (http://leecrocker.blogspot.com/) when he came to talk to us, who works in a loosely similar way. I think there's other influences too, it's probably been building up like steam for a few years now.

Metapmorphisis

Musicz!

At all the recent gigs I've been to, I've started drawing the bands there, and I find not only do I love it, but so does everyone else! These are all from a variety of sketchbooks from the last few months. Featuring: The Hots Rats and Hobo Jones and the Junkyard Dogs, A whole cast of people from the Folk Against Facism Village Féte, and Maidstone Symphony Orchestra.

The Christmas Project.

"Um, it's very, er, experimental Callum".

Over the 3 weeks we have off for Christmas, we were all given a reasonable-sized A5 sketchbook and were told to fill it. We were given two random photos in which we had to create a loose narrative thread which joined them. I decided to make it stupidly hard for myself by only using observational drawings and to make sure no 2 pages had the same combination of materials. My story is basically my journey 'homes' to Leicestershire, Hartlepool, Newark and others, explaining the trains. I was also lucky to be able to go on my good friend Chris Well's Radio show, DEMON FM, hooray! And as for the churches, I just like them.

Tune into Chris' shows on the live feed on Wednesday lunchtimes and I think Fridays too: http://www.demonfm.co.uk/