The Then There Were None desktop wallpaper for December 2012 features a little taster of what’s to come for the site in 2012 with an introduction to Tiberius The Siberian Tiger!
[Right Click on the image and select "Save As..."]
I’d created this tiger collage a while ago for my Then There Were None project, but decided to use the Illustration Friday topic this week to play with creating a collage environment for him to live in.
While the ’Then There Were None…‘ site is going through a number of changes as we prepare for the next phase of the project (due early 2012), the free ‘Then There Were None’ monthly desktop wallpapers will temporarily live here.
I hope you enjoy using these desktops – please feel free to share them with your friends and family and help us spread the word about Then There Were None and our mission to help save endangered animals. The desktops are all 1600 pixels wide x 1000 pixels high.
[Right Click on the image and select "Save As..."]
As some of you may already know, I run another site to help raise money and awareness for the plight of endangered animals worldwide called ‘Then There Were None…‘
The site is currently going through a number of changes as we prepare for the next phase of the project (due early 2012) and so for the time being, the free ‘Then There Were None’ monthly desktop wallpapers will temporarily live here.
I hope you enjoy using these desktops – please feel free to share them with your friends and family and help us spread the word about Then There Were None and our mission to help save endangered animals. The desktops are all 1600 pixels wide x 1000 pixels high.
[Right Click on the image and select "Save As..."]
After what seems like an eternity at the framers, my Golden Eagle, Grey Heron and Winter Hare original collages are back and now available through Trent Galleries.
This marks a new venture and outlet for my work and I’m excited to be taking this step with a well renowned Gallery.
If you’re interested in purchasing any of these original wildlife collages, please contact Andrew at Trent Galleries.
I recently received another commission from the ‘Dino Pop-Up Book’ client – this time sea creatures!
After the fun creating the collage dinosaurs for the previous project, this time I got to work on traditional collages of a Great White Shark, a Hump Back Whale, a Sea Turtle, an Angler Fish (such weird creatures) + another 12 or so fish.
I’m still mid deadline (everything is due at the publisher on 4th October) and it’s been a pretty grueling schedule, working until 3am for the past 7 days straight due to other work commitments, but with such lovely subjects to work on it’s also been a lot of fun.
The publisher will be taking both the dinosaur and ocean finished artwork to the Frankfurt Book Fair mid October so fingers crossed they get picked up and reach publication.
I’m not allowed to show the full sea creature spreads but here’s a sneak peek at the Octopus and Humpback Whale collages.
Right, back to work – there are magazines waiting to be turned into a Leopard Seal tonight!
After weeks of feverishly working away on Dinosaurs (hence the radio silence on Twitter), I finally squeezed in time to finish the 3rd and final large scale collage for my gallery debut.
Having taken them to be photographed this morning before dropping them off at the gallery to be framed, I finally have decent images of each piece to share here on the site.
As of mid-September the 3 collages will be on display and for sale at Trent Galleries in Newark, Nottinghamshire (UK).
Traditional cut paper collage / 580x450mm
Traditional cut paper collage / 235x275mm
Traditional cut paper collage / 480x350mm
I was recently commissioned by a publisher to work on 15 collage dinosaurs for a children’s pop-up book – being an avid dinosaur fan since I was a kid, this was pretty much a dream project and I loved every minute of it (even the late 2am finishes every night for the past 2 weeks). I’m practically a qualified Palaeontology Professor now after all my research 
The publisher gave me permission to post one of the dino’s on my blog, so here is the T-Rex (one of my favourite ones to work on). Mostly traditional collage with a few digital details.
The encouraging thing is that this was the first commission I’ve received through a publisher finding me on my Hire An Illustrator portfolio. (For those interested in giving Hire An Illustrator a try, I’ll be posting a review of the service on my Illustration resource blog zero2illo in the next few weeks ).
No time to rest though – it’s straight back into the gallery collages as my deadline to take my 3 finished pieces in for framing is Tuesday. It’s an exciting time though as it feels like this art and illustration thing is finally starting to gather some steam and for that I’m very grateful.
Here are a few more work in progress shots of the Grey Heron collage – hoping to get three solid evenings work on him after my little one has gone to bed and have him finished by the end of the weekend.
I then have 3 weeks to get 2 other pieces (The Fox and The Hare) done before my gallery deadline.
In other news, my commended BBC Wildlife Artist Of The Year entry was featured on the BBC Discover Wildlife website – you can also see the overall winning image and all of the other commended finalists work on there too. So many beautiful paintings – definitely worth checking out.
Working on 3 new collages to go with my Golden Eagle for a rather nice local gallery and thought I’d share a few work in progress photos of the Grey Heron that’s currently on the art board.
After working out my composition and transferring the drawing to my art board (went over the sketch in pen to preserve the line work) I started on the background adding tissue paper reeds.
The tissue paper reeds look pretty harsh at this point but it will mostly be covered up as I’m creating a kind of underpainting to get rid of the harsh white art board and create a John Jame Audubon kind of feel.
Once the background texture had been completed, I started to work on the main collage adding the actual reeds which at this point looks like the heron has come to an unfortunate end having been impaled numerous times.
Still lots to do before I move on to the Heron, including the water that he’s standing in (decided to have the left foot submerged) and add in a further few small reeds and other riverside foliage but quite pleased with how it’s coming together at this point.
The actual collage measures about 60 x 80 cm.