Wednesday 22 August 2012

Amelia's Magazine | Kotki Dwa Staycations Album Launch Interview with Alex Ostrowski

Final illustration

I answered a callout from Abi Renshaw to illustrate her interview and article about Kotki Dwa and the National Trust "staycations" for which they had recorded a song and video centred around National Trust properties.

Abi had a very clear picture in her mind of how she wanted the illustration to look, being an illustrator herself, and she sent me 2 specific images to work from and combine into 1 illustration. Namely Sutton House National Trust property and the 3 band members in this pose with camera, binoculars and map. So I obliged!




You can find the first part of Abi Renshaw's epic interview and article here:

Amelia's Magazine | Kotki Dwa Staycations Album Launch Interview with Alex Ostrowski



Kotki Dwa — Staycations from Kotki Dwa on Vimeo.

Amelia's Magazine | London 2012: The XXX Olympic Games



Amelia's Magazine | London 2012: The XXX Olympic Games

I decided on illustrating the lovely Olympic Park just prior to the Olympics opening. Wow what a show it turned it out to be! I was so proud to be British - Go US! :-) (as in us, not USA) Great write up by Matt Bramford too and some great illustrations, as always.

With this illustration I started out with a pastel drawing but used my wacom tablet and pen alot to continue painting and drawing (and getting rid of the too imposing corkscrew thing) once I had scanned in the pastel and pen drawing.

work in progress, before digital painting and drawing and editing


Amelia's Magazine | The Canine Games 2012 Illustrated

The finalised illustration





I had great fun in the run up to the Olympics, illustrating this event, "The Canine Games" for a review for Amelia's Magazine. as there were so many wonderfully irresistible dogs I drew 3 and combined them into one mega illustration placing them on the stage of one of the events "Lady and the Tramp".














And you can read the review by Amelia Gregory and see some wonderful photographs and illustrations here:

Amelia's Magazine | The Canine Games 2012 Illustrated

Amelia's Magazine | An interview with Japanese singer Cuushe about the making of Girl / You Know That I am Here / But the Dream

Amelia's Magazine | An interview with Japanese singer Cuushe about the making of Girl / You Know That I am Here / But the Dream


close up/detail of Cuushe's beautiful face

due to my indecisiveness on what version to use, toyed with using a 4 in 1 version!


a potential final version

initial sketch
work in progress

The version I used finally for the article

Amelia's Magazine | Frankie Rose at the Lexington: Live Review

1st draft drawing

added a bit of colour



made the background warmer


that hair took blumin' ages! New discovery - the smudge tool

detail of final image 

Final image as seen in Richard Pearmain's fab review
Read the whole thing and view the other fab illustrations here:
Amelia's Magazine | Frankie Rose at the Lexington: Live Review