Deck the halls

I've been printing up some bunting to decorate Mr. Millicent Crow's upcoming mammoth album release tour, based on images that I've drawn for the album cover art and associated bits and pieces.  There's a dog, a gramophone, a lyre of Orpheus (based on a brooch Mr. Millicent Crow wears most days) and a pocket watch.  Here it is being tested out at home:

It'll be adorning halls, bars and maritime museums from Auckland to Milford Sound over the next couple of months; tour dates are here if you'd like to come along...

If you find the good oil let us know

That's the cryptic inscription on the under-renovation Govett Brewster art gallery in New Plymouth.  I spent Wednesday night in New Plymouth, where Mr. Millicent Crow was playing at the Taranaki Arts Festival.  I stayed in a hotel for the first time in my life, played the ukulele under a bridge and got to see my artwork projected on the big screen at the Mayfair.  New Plymouth has especially beautiful street art so I wandered around in the rain taking some photos while the band sound checked.

 Walking around at night we stumbled upon Tiffany Singh's beautiful installation What is the Colour of the Breeze, a carpark taken over with a rainbow of windchimes that she had got kids to decorate.  At night they were chiming gently but the next day when I went to take photos of the rainbow colours in the light they were rattling in a frenzy.  Beautiful.  Tiffany Singh also did this installation in Aotea Square back in the summer.

 So long New Plymouth, it was a lovely adventure!

For review

 

Mr. Millicent Crow and I have just finished the artwork for the review copies of his new album...I drew the pictures (except for the map) and he did the layouts.   It's exciting seeing it all put together and to be able to make a few changes to it before the final copy comes out. 

This project has been good practice for drawing gramophones, hopefully I'll be better at it by the time the final version comes out!

Covered

 This one's a bit of a team effort.  Mr Millicent Crow and I have just finished designing the cover for his latest, Antarctic exploration-themed EP, which he has been promoting round the depths of the South Island this past week.  I designed a pattern for it, using these things I drew to represent Captain Scott:

And I did the basic layout of the back.  Mr. Millicent Crow did the text layout, based on The Voyage of the 'Discovery', and the layout of the front cover.  The ribbon is one of the ones I used for these brooches and the one that Loulu the cat had so much fun playing with here.  It's exciting to see the design all made up and I do believe we will be making another EP cover and an album cover soon!

I was going to post this to "My Creative Space" today but it has just finished in its current location.  Thanks Kirsty for all the "My Creative Space" goodness...I might just have to get myself onto Instagram!

Happy Thursday to you!

Gentlemanly

A little collection of gentlemanly accessories that I've been drawing - they're illustrations for a cover I am working on for Mr. Millicent Crow's latest EP.  When they're on the album cover they'll be tiny, and in a repeating pattern.  I'm still finding gramophones a particularly challenging thing to draw! 

Merch

 I've just had some Antarctic-themed postcards made up for Mr. Millicent Crow to take on his South Island tour.  They're some of the illustrations I did that will be projected behind the band while they're playing, and yes, those crazy explorers really did take a gramophone to Antarctica!

 I designed an old-fashioned back for it - it's a wee bit blurry here but the place where you put the stamp has a tiny picture of Shackleton's ship the Endurance. 

Coming soon to a bar near you!

South

Here are some more of the Antarctic drawings I've been doing - I was still inking the top one in the middle of the night of the deadline! Now that the drawing part of the project is finished I keep wanting to do more drawings to add to it.  Maybe my party trick will have to be drawing pictures of the Endurance really fast!

Tour dates for the Explorers' Club shows are here.

Moving pictures

 I'm on the homeward stretch of the pictures I'm drawing for the Antarctic project I'm working on with Mr. Millicent Crow, although I still have to draw another picture of Shackleton's ship tonight, something I've been procrastinating about terribly as I find boats super hard to draw.  I've also spent the last couple of days drawing a frostbitten hand and a mouth showing the effects of scurvy, possibly the grossest things I have ever had to draw!  This morning we had a play with projecting the drawings onto the walls of our lounge and it was so exciting to see my drawings giant and moving!

That clock reminds me that I should stop procrastinating and draw Shackleton's ship.  It wasn't called the Endurance for nothing!

His master's voice

Here's what I've been doing with these pictures I drew of Scott and Shackleton - they're images for a show that Mr. Millicent Crow is doing about the great age of Antarctic exploration.  It was a bit of a challenge drawing a gramophone!

Explorers

I've been drawing some Antarctic explorers this weekend for a project I'm working on with Mr. Millicent Crow.  Here are Shackleton and Scott:

My creative space

In my creative space today I've got some more brown paper drawings - I've been working on some every night this week and I've got an idea for turning them into a zine...
This fellow dreams of riding in a hot air balloon...but only if it matches his bow tie!
And these seahorses are an illustration for a story Mr. Millicent Crow wrote about how difficult it is to buy a seahorse in this town. You can read the story here.

I've got a day at home today, lovely. Screenprinting some feather brooches, working on a couple of paintings and designing myself a new business card are on the agenda.

To see lots of other people's creative spaces pop on over to the "our creative spaces" blog.

Happy Thursday to you!

My creative space

My creative space today is a sneak peek of a painting I've been working on for ages. It's going to be part of an album cover for Mr. Millicent Crow's forthcoming album, Spring Summer, Awesome, Winter. Drawing the giant rat was a bit gross!

I had a bit of a drama with this painting last night when I managed to spill red paint on it, but I think a bit of gouache has sorted it out. I'm still getting used to watercolours and not being able to cover up mistakes the way you can with oils or acrylics. I think I'll just do a couple more touchups, chop off a surplus bit at the top and call it done!

To see other people's creative spaces, take a look over here.

Happy Thursday!