The Miserable Rich & Lush Perfume // Amelia's Magazine

I have done a couple of illustrations recently for articles on Amelia's Magazine.

The first one was for an article and interview with the band The Miserable Rich and the release of their new single "On a Certain Night" the video featured a creepy house and ghostly figures plus tarot cards. You can read the interview here.

The second illustration was to accompany an article about a new Lush perfume that is made up of three layers of scent inspired by stories of freedom from around the world and constructed by Simon Constantine. I was asked to illustrate the layer of scent entitles Old Delhi Station about his trip to Tibet to meet a monk, you can read all about it here. Due to my extreme over sensitivity to smell I can't walk past a Lush shop without feeling a bit sick and entering one is bluerghh tastic (sorry Lush I know you make lovely things tis just all a bit overpowering when experienced together).

A new range of cards (in development)

These ones still need a spot of tweaking and I'm thinking of doing a range of general celebration cards and a range of Christmas cards, tis (getting toward) the season afterall. So more to come!! But they should all be available to buy from my etsy shop or me in person (at a various fairs) by mid November. Yeah!

Ghosts of Gone Birds // All Tropical Comp (Part Three)

Last but by no means least this is the Mauritius Blue Pigeon native to (rather obviously) Mauritius, they became extinct in the 1830's. It would seem that we are not so responsible for this one – although habitat destruction and hunting are factors – with the blame for their extinction largely goes to Macaques. I wish all pigeons looked like this, Trafalgar Square sure would be a more interesting place if it were so.

Ghosts of Gone Birds // All Tropical Competition (Part Two)

I liked it so much I decided to enter it twice. This happy little fella is the Pink Headed Duck thought to have been extinct in the wild since the 1950's orginally hailing from India. I might try to fit in another bird before the end of the week but I need to find another one which has a good but limited selection of colours in it's plumage, in order for it to work with the design and limits of the competition. Any suggestions??

South East London Zine Fest is coming!!!

The Dinosaurs of Crystal Palace park wanted to let you know so the Megalosaurus posed for this illustration for me. It's at the Amersham Arms in New Cross on the 12 November and Monster Emporium Press are helping to organise it. 

You can apply for a table here and follow the plans as the come to fruition here. 

Ghosts of Gone Birds // All Tropical Competition

Ghost of Gone Birds is a really interesting project that commissions a variety of artists to create responses to extinct bird species on order to promote conservation of endangered species and to "breathe artistic life back into" those already lost. The following from the All Tropical website explains in more detail:

The organisers of the Ghosts of Gone Birds project are raising a creative army for conservation through a series of multimedia exhibitions that breathe artistic life back into extinct bird species, celebrating their diversity through paintings & sculpture, talks & poetry, installations & live music.

The project presents a unique collection of originally commissioned artworks, literature and music from some of the UK’s leading contemporary artists, writers and performers including - Ralph Steadman, Sir Peter Blake, Rob Ryan, Billy Childish, Desmond Morris, Pete Fowler, Charming Baker, Jamie Hewlett, Kai and Sunny, Rebecca Jewell, Bruce Pearson, Olly and Suzi, Robert Gillmor, Dafila Scott and Jimi Goodwin - each one of them has adopted an extinct species and breathed life back into it through their creative talents (Jamie Hewlett from Gorillaz has a Hawaiian crow; Rob Ryan has the Stephen's Island wren; Holly Johnson went for liver birds, and Billy Childish the Reunion owl).

There is going to be an exhibition of the work at the Rochelle School, Shoreditch from the 2-23 November at which the T-Shirt that wins this competition will be sold.

There will be voting from the 7 October so I shall be calling on you all again when that comes around. 

I chose to illustrate the Glaucous Macaw, this little guy isn't officially recognised as extinct – although Wikipedia has the species listed in it's extinct birds page. The species originates from South America  but hasn't been spotted in the wild since 1960 and expeditions since then to try to find it have all failed. I felt it was a good choice to highlight the work of BirdLife's Preventing Extinctions Programme. Two very close relations of  the Glaucous Macaw are the Lear's Macaw and the Hyacinth Macaw are endangered and likely to go the same way as their cousin if something isn't done about the variety of threats to their survival. I love the subtle gradient of colour of this parrot from head to tail, but it's a shame to be only able to draw it from approximations and illustrations, it is particularly sad to see so many photographs of dead birds turn up in a search, when alive their faces are beautiful and full of so much character and charm.

Vote CORLETT!! Don't Panic / Laurence King 20th Anniversary Poster Design Competition

2011 will forever be known as the year of competitions.

Here's another one for you. The challenged to create a poster to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Laurence King publishers of a fine selection of creative arts books. Please if you have a chance could you vote for me, i think if you are logged into Facebook you just have to hit the like button :). Thanks! xx

Gogol Bordello // Amelia's Magazine // Wilderness Festival 2011

This illustration was commissioned by Amelia Gregory of Amelia's Magazine for her review of Wilderness Festival 2011. Gogol Bordello headlined the Saturday night you can read Amelia's review here. I'd actually never heard them before Monday but the brand of crazy gypsy punk they are peddling is pretty awesome and I reckon they are rather exciting live as the eight piece band appear to have boundless energy. You can hear some of their music here. Loving that fiddle. Gone a bit clash-tastic with the colour scheme. What ya reckon? I think it might be a bit of a love it or hate it scenario ...

Here we go again! // All Tropical Competition // VOTE KATHRYN!!

Unfortunately I never heard back from the Picture This! peeps about my submission to their competition :( and it seems a shame to never use this image for anything (especially as I was eventually really really pleased with the outcome). So I am entering the design into All Tropical's weekly competition, another chance for one of my illustrations to be printed as a T-shirt and to win £150. Your support would as always be greatly appreciated.

CLICK ME & VOTE VOTE VOTE!!!

Upstairs at the Ritzy // Flyer // Parakeets of Brixton!!

This illustration is for the back of the Upstairs at the Ritzy flyer, which lists the upcoming events for the bar above the Ritzy Picturehouse Cinema in Brixton (tis my favourite cinema in London but I might be a bit bias).

The brief was to produce something Music or Brixton related. In the wake of a week of rather depressing events throughout the whole of London I decided to make an illustration that is positive and colourful, something that would reflect the diverse and rich culture of the area in which the cinema is located. I've also been thinking about drawing these birds for a while, this little guy is the Alexandrine Parakeet, a character that has taken up residence in South London.

Creature ABC // Undulate Ray // Endangered Creature Alphabet

It was way back in May that Creature Mag put a call out to contribute to this endangered animal themed project and in fact some of my suggestions for animals made it through to the final cut. Most significantly the Kakapo which I first came across in the TV series 'Last Chance to See' feat. Stephen Fry and Mark Carwardine a return to the radio series produced back in the 80's by Mark and Douglas Adams. Revisiting the endangered animals from that show to see how they were doing now (unfortunately some are in fact extinct). The Kakapo is an idiot of evolution, a bird that became so comfortable with its environment and lack of predators that it lost the ability to fly. This seemed particularly significant to me, here was a creature that was getting along perfectly fine until we came along and introduced a bunch of predators into it's environment. It seems just that we are doing something to make a mends for the situation.

Anyway relevant tho this is I didn't actually get to draw this bird, I was assigned this little dude (above), the Undulate Ray. Initially my reaction being, how the crap am I gonna draw that??!!!?!?! I had no idea how a creature like this might move, and I really don't think you can draw something correctly without having a feel for its movement, this being such an intrinsic part of what makes each animal unique (epecially fish right?). Thank fully I found a video of one swimming along the bottom of the sea bed – as is their way. It is really quite a beautiful little thing you gotta love how it errmmm undulates. You can see all the other contributions in the final e-book below. Enjoy! (Also after that why not enjoy a small rant from me about the sea and the threat to the Undulate Ray).

Open publication

Endangered-ness wise this is probably the one creature in this book that we can all (well those of us in the UK) directly have an impact on as it lives round our shores. If you see Skate for sale make sure it isn't Undulate Ray and if you can't be sure don't buy it, it is a protected species and has been banned from commercial fishing since 2009.

If you want to know more about the utter all round devastation we are causing in our seas can I recommend you watch the Horizon: Death of the Ocean series available here on youtube (this is about the results of the recent marine census), Hugh's Fish Fight over on 4OD (and sign his petition to change EU legislation in regard to fish quotas) and End of the Line a very revealing documentary that will make you think twice about which fish you buy. If you want there to still be fish in the seas in 50 years time you'd better start paying some attention to this situation.

Fair Ohs // Flamingo Magazine

Having only discovered Flamingo Magazine last week I replied to a twitter request for artists to illustrate an interview with Fair Ohs (who sound a bit like Foals crossed with Paul Simon and a sitar i.e. good) this is the result.

The video for their new single features a very fat man wearing a Batman mask and a young guy jumping around dressed as Robin (think Adam West not Micheal Keaton, George Clooney, Val Kilmer or Christian Bale). Its quite pretty, really tho I guess it doesn't sound like it's going to be from that description. Anyway this image is inspired by that video (which it turns out is apparently some sort of revenge in joke) and their eclectic musical influences. You can read the full interview and see the image in context here.

SPACE Exhibition // Cardiff Design Festival

This an image created for submission to the SPACE Exhibition which will be happening at some point during Cardiff Design week 2011. It's open submissions and the final show will be curated by Ben Cox, Managing Director of The Central Illustration Agency. Hopefully I will make it to the print stage of the show. The theme is space and here is a little explanation of how this image came to be ...

As an Science Fiction fan this seemed like the perfect exhibition for me to create a piece for. However when it came to conceiving of a image to draw all I could think of were my experiences with friends, on still clear nights in various country side locations looking up at the stars. I haven't travelled a huge amount but one of the places I have had the pleasure of visiting is Yosemite National Park in California, it was pretty darn amazing. I hope to return one day and perhaps it will look something like this.

Picture This // Part Two // Finished Spread

So this is what that should have looked like when I handed it in on Monday (if only I had been more organised). I was going to just leave it and be annoyed with myself for messing up but I thought it best to finish it otherwise I would never be able to look at it again (see previous post for original). Over dramatic? Perhaps, but true.

I hate people who ask themselves questions and answer them in the same sentence (its massively over done in the comedy documentary format 'ironically' I'm sure – see Parks and Recreation, which incidentally is actually pretty good)

Beauty & the Beast // Picture This // Waterstones Competition

Picture This is a competition run by Waterstone's in partnership with the Telegraph and Harper Collins Childrens Books. This year Michael Morpurgo is rewriting the nations favourite fairytale (as voted by the public) and they are looking for an unpublished illustrator to work with him on this exciting project.

So I only found out about this last week which has meant it's all been a bit rushed (I haven't really finished the double page spread to a degree that I am happy with), the deadline was today and this saw me rush across London to Kew to hand it in to the Waterstone's offices in person literally just in time to meet the deadline. All a bit nerve racking. I am very pleased with my character designs and I think this competition has made me realise that this is a illustrative direction that I particularly enjoy. Investigating style across a variety of eras and drawing from all kinds of source material in order to create an impression of a personality, tis definitely enjoyable to me.

Time for you guys to get those fingers crossed again

A couple of projects ...

.. that I forgot to blog about.

Back in May Attitude is Everything asked me to produce them a poster for their Glastonbury showcase, obviously the week after Glastonbury is not the ideal time to be blogging about this, anyway here it is. After much faffing about with trumpet hands I eventually dropped that idea and came up with this. It incorporate elements of my camel drawing. By all accounts it was a great success, there are photos of the fun on Facebook.

The beginning of June saw a new project from the most excellent Emergency Exit Arts to the epic pain of my little macbook they asked me to produce a exhibition banner that comes in at about 2 and a half metres tall. But making big things is fun and I am well pleased with the result as are they! Hopefully this will be the start of a beautiful working partnership.

The Big Draw at City of London Festival // 7-10 July

These events sound really really good, gonna try to head along to some of them. You should too. Here is a link to more info about the awesomeness that is The Big Draw.

All Tropical Competition // Part Two // VOTE KATHRYN!!

I am through to the second round of judging for the Shoreditch Festival T-Shirt Competition SCHWING! Should hear about that later this week. However I need your help again! I am entering another design for the weekly competition over at All Tropical I would really appreciate some feedback and votes for it.

VOTE KATHRYN!!

Shoreditch Festival T-Shirt Competition // VOTE FOR ME!!!

This is my entry to the All Tropical Shoreditch Festival T-Shirt Competition. Please head over there and give me a vote. I've gotta win a competition eventually!

Polish Book Cover Contest (50 Watt) // To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

This is a contest from my new favourite blog 50 Watts it's basically an archive of some of the most awesome design I have ever seen.

The competition brief is simple "Design the Polish edition of your favorite book". I have chose To Kill A Mockingbird – or in Polish Zabić Drozda - by Harper Lee, it's a seriously fantastic book, if you haven't read it then you should, now, right now in fact.

Wish me luck! I will let you know how I get on.

If Camels Could Sing ...

"Hi, I'm a camel. When I open my mouth this crazy shit comes out. It's pretty, pretty, right? Yeah I thought so too."

I watched the deserts Human Planet the other day, it had camels in it. Camels are cool, like fezs and stetsons. Fish fingers and custard. Ahem.

Walrus-Hare-Lizard-Sloth Monster

I'd be hard pushed to explain exactly what this is about or why I drew it. It is the product of me and my friend Tom and our drawing club*, plus a book about monsters and another about animals. He also brought round a box of twisters ... so i guess that explains that part. It's silly and I like it.

*This is really just an excuse for us to hang out and make work like we did before when we lived together.

Butcher the Bar // Creaturemag

I did this illustration for a creaturemag interview with the lovely singer songwriter Butcher the Bar a while back, you can now read the interview and listen to some of his songs over here.

PAAAAKKKKKARRRPPPPPP!!!!!!

Koo-Koo-Ka-Cha!!

Girls Who Fight 3 // Monster Emporium Press

As you probably already know I am one of three that make up Monster Emporium Press a small press based in South London. Wepublish zines, artists book and small works of fiction. The most recent addition to this collection being Issue 3 of Girls Who Fight zine, a zine for all publishing contributions from those female persuasion, designed and edited by myself and Mira Mattar. Cover Illustration by everyones favourite Australia based artist Mimi Leung.

My contribution to this issue, in a salute to my long standing TV series obsession, is a drawing of my favourite female TV characters - lo brow tastic - you may notice a strong Joss Whedon influence. See if you can name all the shows/actresses.

GWF3 is available for the bargain price of £3, if you wish to purchase a copy of the zine please email hive@monsteremporiumpress.org.uk or come visit us at the International Alternative Press Festival at Conway Hall, London on the 28th May. Alternatively you can view a pdf here.

Greetings Cards!

I now have a range of greetings card which are available from my brand spanking new Etsy shop.

They are printed on 340gsm FSC certified stock, satin coated on the outside and uncoated inside so you can add your own personal message. Each card comes with a lovely red envelope. Why not take a look!

Tea Towel Design

I entered a competition a few weeks ago with the lovely To Dry For folks just found out that unfortunately I didn't win, oh well one of these days victory shall be mine. What is does mean though is that I am now allowed to post my entry. So here it is.

What are you gonna do? Eh?

Mammoth Repeat

The other day me and my friend Tom did this tutorial on the Design Sponge website in order to make repeat pattern drawings, its a really cool tutorial and really effective, i managed to mess mine up somehow so that the left hand and right hand sides don't quite line up so it needs manual tweaking to make the tile work. Next time I will get it right. Think I might get this made up as wrapping paper, if I can find somewhere cheap to do it. Anyway this is set up so it can be used as yer desktop wallpaper (screen resolution 1280 x 800) if you happen to fancy finding it really hard to see your icons :) enjoy

Submission for Illustration Rally - Portraits // Part 3

This week the theme of the portrait rally is Science Fiction, potentially my favourite theme of anything ever. I was going to draw Isaac Asimov as he has epic sideburns and i may well still do that tomorrow evening but today i was compelled by a keyring i have to draw E.T. This film was made in the year i was born, i think that's partly why i like it so much, but it's undeniably great, right? Well, i think it is.

Submission for Illustration Rally - Portraits // Part 2

I couldn't resist drawing David Lynch's hair, its truly awe inspiring. I have a theory that Charlie Brooker is attempting to slowly turn himself into David Lynch (in appearance alone), i tweeted at him about it but he didn't reply, i take this an admission of it being the truth.

I think David Lynch would be a pretty cool dinner guest unless he started ranting about Transcendental Meditation and making unintentionally offensive statements about the Third Reich.

Submission for Illustration Rally - Portraits // Part 1

This month the magnificent blog illustrationrally has the theme Portraits, with different sub-theme for each week to denote exactly who these portraits are of. This week it's ideal dinner party guests with a choice to draw one of these guys/gals .... David Lynch, Nick Cave, Björk or Marianne Faithfull. I gone done me a drawing of the lovely Björk, might do Mr Cave or Lynch tomorrow too. Whoop!

Some things, some people said about books. That i like.

"Books are frozen voices, in the same way that musical scores are frozen music. The score is a way of transmitting the music to someone who can play it, releasing it into the air where it can once more be heard. And the black alphabet marks on the page represent words that were once spoken, if only in the writer’s head. They lie there inert until a reader comes along and transforms the letters into living sounds. The reader is the musician of the book: each reader may read the same text, just as each violinist plays the same piece, but each interpretation is different."

Margaret Atwood, 2011 (excerpt from this article).

"If you only read books that everyone else is reading you can only think what everyone else is thinking."

Nagasawa. Norweigan Wood, Haruki Murakami.

A sketch for Gatsby

Whilst designing 'The Great Gatsby' cover below i did another sketch which i eventually moved away from for the final design but i thought seeing as i had done it i should probably finish it. So here it is! She was going to be crying in to a cocktail glass but i never finished drawing the glass, thereby making the image pretty irrelevant to the book but nonetheless a nice image, though she could definitely do with looking a bit sadder.

The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

This is an illustration for a competition over on The Fox is Black website.

Bit un-nerving to be able to see all the other entries there already. Have been wanting to do book covers for a while, this an The Outsider are hopefully the start of something bigger. Not submitted yet, think it might need an additional colour, but i need a break from looking at it ...

********** UPDATE **********

From Kathryn Corlett

So I kinda had just shoved the authors name in there in a font that i had considered using for the title before deciding to do it by hand. Following the original post this was called into question and i decided i had been lazy, i have therefore redone this bit of text and am much happier with it now. Thanks to Mr Velky for the constructive criticism xx

p.s. blogger is driving me crazy i may have to switch, where is the compatibility between picasa and blogger??? they are both made by google for christs sake!!

House of Illustration/Folio Society - The Outsider, Albert Camus // COMPETITION

WAHHHHOOOO!!! Just finished my drawings and entered! To be quite honest I'm rather pleased with how they turned out. They should probably be a bit darker but if I win the other scenes i have picked will be. Wish me luck.