History Week.

Last week was 'History Week' at school and to celebrate in true artistic style, I helped design a picture timeline of Finchley. The aim was to show our school at different parts of history and what the area would have looked like in the past, starting in pre London swamp times and including World War Two. Here is the whole thing on the wall in the hall!

Several groups took on different eras with the help of the other adults in the class, I will focus mainly on the parts I was involved with. I started off in Roman times and with a little help from a great book called 'A Street Through Time', and took my group on a journey through time! The children quickly became obsessed with the funny looking toilet but I managed to get some wonderful drawings. One of my favourites was a Roman kitchen, here is a close up..

I got the children to draw themselves in Roman clothes!

Our next stop took us to a time of plague and fire, 1666. Again there were some fantastic drawings, particularly the plague infested corpses lining the streets!

Up next for my group was 1912, the year our school was built.

Time was running short now so the school is shown as part built, I really liked the builders that we decided to put in at the last minute, here is a close up.

We decided to draw a school of the future, I think the children enjoyed this part the most, they were imagining really crazy things! Here is a collage of the whole piece......

Loads of ideas, the ones I really liked were, the rat rockets and the flying teachers! See below!

Well, that was History week, I hope you enjoyed all of 2C's hard work, and I hope you learned some good facts about the past!

I have been really busy this Easter, eating loads of eggs! I did do a few drawing bits. I'm in the process of writing an all ages comic about a rock band who happen to be a bunch of monsters. I drew all the characters individually and layered them in Photoshop. Here is that artwork

I then used Promarkers to add colour. I wasn't happy with how the background came out. It was quite streaky and at the moment I'm obsessed with really flat colours, so I sampled the colours I had used and filled in the background digitally. Here are the results!

I'm working on the comic now and will hopefully have it for MCM comic expo next month!

Laydeez Do Comics

Last week I was bestowed the great honour of being the guest blogger for Laydeez Do Comics. For those not in the know, Laydeez Do Comics is the first woman led graphic novel forum in the UK. It is run by Nicola Streeton and Sarah Lightman who are authors, illustrators and curators in their own right. The meetings happen once a month on a Monday evening in Foyles bookshop on Charing Cross Road. They have guest speakers talk about the work they produce aided by a slideshow depicting paintings, panels and this month even rugs!

They have had amazing guests in the past including some graphic novel royality such as Posy Simmonds, Alison Bechdel, and Darryl Cunningham to name a few! The guests' work is usually has an autobiographical twist supporting the new wave of graphic novels and comics that aren't just men in tights! It's a lovely evening and always inspiring to creators and non creators and of course there is the cake!

Laydeez Do Comics has become so popular that branches have sprung up worldwide, so if you are near Chicago or San Francisco be sure to make a visit! If you are closer to the UK shores then please try Leeds, Bristol, Glasgow or London. All the information can be found on the Laydeez Do Comics website which can be found here and if you have time please look here for my guest blog I drew this month.

Golden Gesso Frame!

This is a bit of a different post today, I wanted to share my lovely frame with you. It has a 1960s 'High Art' copy of a Doors concert poster inside! I've been looking for ages for the Janis Joplin poster in black and white where she is only wearing love beads...but I cant find it anywhere. So I picked this one instead.

The print is A3 in size and the whole thing is sitting over the record player, shrine like! Paul very kindly put it up today using his shiny new hammer. Also as this week has a music theme, I thought I would share a video I put on Youtube a while ago. It's a cover version of a Mazzy Star song called I've Been Let Down. I can't believe I'm drawing attention to it by putting it on my blog aahhhh!

Here it is!

The finished rugby piece.

Here is the finished rugby commission!

Rugby commission

This week I've been busy with a rugby commission, it's a work in progress and not finished yet!

Diary diary diary comics

More journal days from the past!