Where the hell did that time go ?

Good grief - I knew it had been  a while since I posted but didn't realise it had been quite THAT long :) There is a reason for this however. For those not following me elsewhere, I've been working on an illustrated horror anthology with american author Sean Walter that we started, well, about this time last year and have just taken on tour.

Tales in Sombre Tones book cover.

The book features 24 stories, each with their own full page illustration. Sean and I had a great time - some stories Sean wrote to go with illustrations I already wanted to do, such as the new Stephen piece. Some illustrations were done to compliment his own monsters and some pairings we took great delight in inventing between us.

The first 12 illustrations of 24

Not content with just doing a book, we created an entire touring show, for which Sean flew in to do live readings. The desk models helped out with more animation, we had sign language readings and are now working on 3d versions of the art for the blind and partially sighted.

Tales in Sombre Tones on tour at All Saints Church, York.

To see where we are headed next with all this, literally and figuratively, visit the project website or Tales in Sombre Tones on Facebook. To buy the book, original artwork and fine art prints, head to Drawing in Dark.

Skulls, skulls, more skulls......oh and bats !

As Whitby fills up with goths for our biannual weekend of velvet clad silliness, it seems like a good time to sit down and share what's being going on around here. Because I also have a blog over on my own website Drawing In Dark I don't always post here too so we have some catching up to do. Sitting comfy ? Good, then I shall begin :)

Skull t-shirt by Drawing In Dark

Most recently (read - just landed lol) is my new merchandise range based on two of my latest drawings, the human skull and my little hanging bat.

Skull tote by Drawing In Dark

This is the first time I've tried having any of my work screen printed and was frankly delighted with the results - I hadn't expected such a close representation, even down to tiny details.

Skull mirror by Drawing In Dark

I have also added to my range of accessories for the discerning goth by expanding my collections of mirrors and bookmarks. All of the products here are of course available in both skull and bat designs.

Bat bookmark by Drawing In Dark

I'm hoping to be adding cards and notebooks very soon. Asides from being very gorgeous, the merch serves another purpose - most of my time this year is being spent creating full page illustrations for a new horror anthology with author Sean Walter. The new lines keep my shops full while I'm bound to the drawing desk and are also letting me test out new product ideas for when we take the book on tour.

What a tour it will be - we didn't want the usual art show 'glass of fizzy and a nibbly thing' boring goings on so we're creating a fully immersive experience complete with animation, readings, 3d creations and an opening night party that's actually a party :) That's more than enough for a post all on its own so I'll get further into that in my next one. In the meantime, all of the above goodies are available via my website or my Drawing In Dark Etsy shop.

It's alive !

So, in case you're wondering where I've been, I did finally manage to kill my beloved xp machine. Happily, that didn't impact my business too much as I have a tablet but since that didn't want to talk to Blogger, not even a little bit, I've been locked out. This means we have quite a bit to catch up on but let's start with this years most fun news.

Murder exhibition crow display

 After a mistake filming the drawing of one of my crows, I wound up with a matched pair following take 2. This got me thinking and I decided to see what a whole flock would look like. One Kickstarter later, 20 crows had pre sold and the game was on.

Limited edition Murder crow with certificate

The lovely chaps at Dillons of Whitby offered me the use of their beautiful breakfast room for a pop up show earlier this month. Supplied with wine and canapes we entertained a happy room of people also curious to see what a murder of the same crow looked like. Three crows from the exhibition were chosen for limited edition prints and sketchbooks.

Limited edition prints and sketchbooks

Those crows sponsored by the purchase of printed rewards are to be auctioned for Whitby Wildife Sanctuary. There are a very limited number of originals and printed specials still available to buy - you can bag one on my UK website or in my Etsy shop. When all the pieces sold have been shipped out, I'm building a virtual version of the exhibition on my website, more on that to follow.

Back In Black

Well, hello :) It's been a while - lots going on behind the scenes here so we have some catching up to do. How are you doing ? Good I hope.

Probably the biggest single thing that's changed is my UK website, I started over with Wix and have been able to add lots more features so the site is now a proper studio tour.

 From the beginning I wanted to make more of a connection between you the viewer seeing the artwork and me making it so that's one of my front paws right there on the home page :)

Stephen now has his own corner of the website - as his file continues to grow with contributions from other talented creatives and fans, I wanted somewhere to share and showcase new elements as they are added. If you'd like to play along, go see.

I've built up a complete collection of my crow drawings and added a new line in printed loveliness. Pocket mirrors, notebooks and prints are now available to buy here. I have more designs and products coming over the next few months.

Black box

 I've discovered a new toy :) Or rather, a new technique. If you read my last post you'll remember that I photographed something in a black mirror before drawing it. The results were fantastic so I've pretty much spent all my free time since stuffing things into the felt lined box I created to go with it and snapping away.

 There is a bit of an art to it - to photograph a reflection, you have to adjust your focus to cover the distance from your lens to the mirror - and back again. Then of course there's the issue of lighting the object without shining light on the mirror or towards the camera.

 The results are worth it though - I started with a deer skull and took two photographs of its reflection using different lighting. That completely transformed it as you can see from the resulting drawings here - they don't look like the same object in both at all.

I then drew the images out on Fabriano Artistico paper using charcoal pencil for the details and pure carbon stick to get that gorgeous velvety black background. You can buy the drawings framed and ready to go over in my Etsy shop.

In the bag

Following on from my last post, I did finally finish my illustration for Sean Walters story 'An Invited Guest'. It's now available to buy printed with the tale in my Etsy shop. 

This was an interesting piece to work on - featuring a non traditional representation of death as a dark figure, his features hidden beneath a sack. I wanted the image to have an overall recognisably human shape but with a touch of otherness so I built a foam skull, working from a deer skull I had. I added suitably pointed teeth and covered it with the sack.

 To create a dark image, I photographed the piece in a black mirror so only the highlights would show. A lamp picked out the fine details such as the wispy beard I had given him.

 The drawing itself was done in charcoal and carbon on watercolour paper. I got through a lot of carbon on that background :) The finer details were picked out with a knife blade.

Now framed, I'm quite pleased with the overall effect - I've also gone on to do a lot more photography using that mirror. More on that in my next post. The image itself reveals more the longer you look at it. I exhibited it at this years Dark Arts show as part of the Bram Stoker International Film Festival.

A non traditional death

Proof that social media can be fun came along the other day when I bumped into the splendid Sean Walter online who was looking for a 'non-traditional death'. Once I'd been persuaded to put the egg whisk and balloons safely away again, I established that what he actually wanted was an illustration to go with a new short story he was working on. 

Sean himself

Now as this is a new project I have nothing to show yet besides an interesting google search history but I'm so excited to be working with Sean that I thought you should meet him too :) You can follow Seans work as it develops through his Patreon page or grab a copy of his current collection on Amazon.

Seans current short story collection.

Our first collaboration will be available online and if I get copies printed fast enough, will be coming with me to this years Dark Arts exhibition in October. Exciting stuff ! Naturally, we've already got bigger plans and I hope to be bringing you more news of what we've been up to very shortly. No balloons...

Monsters everywhere !

Total chaos here this week as I launched a new Kickstarter campaign for the monsters. I'm going to be showing them at Dark Arts again this year here in Whitby and after thinking how interested people were in their individual stories, decided to make something of it. In this case, more monsters and, if we do well enough, a book about them.

We wanted to the project to reflect what it's like to live with these things so made our own short video black and white movie style, complete with wibbly stop motion. You can see that here.

We also used the time to create an entire folder for our favourite monster, Stephen, including a map of the asylum where he lurks, newspaper cuttings and patient files.

We've also tried to explain what it's like dealing with these things day in, day out ( hence Rich in full monster wrangling outfit). We love what we do but it can be hard work, they come and go when they please and make working with children and animals look like a breeze. So, if you have a minute to do something fun, pop over to our page and if you can, support us - either by pledging or sharing on social media. It all helps :)

Camera review Canon SX700HS

New toy !

As you may be able to tell, I am rather excited about the latest bit of kit to turn up in the form of Canons SX700HS. As an artist I spend a lot of time with my cameras - whether I'm out shooting locations, setting up studio macros or photographing pieces of work so I can put them up for sale.

Since many of you will probably do at least one of the above and may be looking to upgrade, I thought I'd share some of the results. Photography for me is a means to an end so I'm still figuring out what many of the buttons actually do. That said, if you want instructions on how to use it they do a remarkably idiot friendly manual (I actually read it this time) so I'll stick to the end results.

 The good

 

 

One of the main reasons for wanting to improve on my previous point 'n' shoot  was its flat refusal to believe anything existed in cloudy conditions or after about half past two in the afternoon. The SX700HS claimed to give impressive results even in very low light so I started with that. 

The photo above is the great and terrible Catmonkey (found washed up on Scarborough beach), shot on a black card background with a halogen desklamp providing suitably dramatic lighting. Given that he's only a couple of centimeters high it's picked out the detail very well and I was very pleased with the monolithic look....

 After that triumph, I decided to push things further and tried out this delicate bird skull, using only a single tealight for illumination. The image is pleasingly crisp and I was able to choose between the natural colour of the scene or, using the cameras own clever white balance, get a good 'daylight' shot if I wanted. Personally, the candle flame did it for me so I left it as was.

The bad

 

 Possibly the biggest issue people seem to be having with the new superzooms in general ( not just the Canon) is lens flare. We went round to our favourite haunt, Saltwick Bay, to catch the sunrise and while my elderly Panasonic Lumix had no trouble at all with the sun appearing from behind a band of cloud, the SX700HS had a pink fit. Literally. The reason for this is the number of things that one lens is meant to do. With 30 x optical zoom and good macro it's a great all-in-one for most conditions, but the range of focal lengths means there's no way to avoid this problem.

 

To be fair, it doesn't do it all the time - in fact there have been a few things like the ice crystals on grasses above, where my old camera would have had extra sparkly bits all over the shop so it's worth playing with and can actually be used to give some very interesting effects once you know its limits.

The ugly

Then, there's this thing....

It's actually a wood ear fungus on an overturned log which I'm sharing because a) if I had to look at it, so does everyone else and b) because it means I can point out one last fun thing. On certain settings, you can control both the aperture and the shutter speed using the handy dial on the back of the camera. So, the only real ugly was the one I ended up getting a remarkably detailed shot of in gloomy woodland conditions.

It also proved remarkably handy when taking a quick snap of the flower below for identification. The flower being bright white, some fiddling about was needed so I didn't lose all detail in the centre as the sun was fairly strong and reflecting off the petals.

 So all in all, a good buy. Practical for someone like me who needs a camera that can go anywhere without a team of sherpas to fetch all the extras and with the exception of the lens flare which you can't really avoid with this type,  it's vastly exceeded my expectations. Nor was it terrifyingly expensive so I'm not afraid to use it. 

Of course, this does now mean I have a few hundred additional photos to choose from for drawing- I may be some time...

 

Black birds

 Those of you who keep patiently reading my posts will know just how many crow pictures I've been getting through lately. I'm still enjoying them, it's nice when time is tight to have something I can do start to finish in a relatively short time. 

 However, I also wanted to get some new pieces up in the shop to keep them company. Since we moved to Whitby, I've become fascinated with the cormorants that sit out in the harbour. I wanted to see if I could produce similar images with them, on a slightly larger scale.

These stand at just 6" x 4", done in the same charcoal pencil on Fabriano Artistico paper. There's enough detail to give them life while keeping that stark black outline. I've put the first pair up in my Etsy shop thanks to some rather pleasing photos taken on my new camera - more of that in the next post :)

Flying out of the door

 I recently showed my work at the Dark Arts exhibition here in Whitby. I sold a couple of crows as expected - they're a nice size for presents - and thought I should print off some more photos to work from so I could restock my Etsy shop. 

jackdaw charcoal drawing

 At which point, someone found my shop and bought a couple for their new home. Another customer came along and swiped a pair for themselves. I dug out all the paper I had and got stuck in.

crow drawing in progress

The first Etsy buyer then came back to say they'd spotted a couple in my sold listings and could I redo them ? No problem I said and added those two to the pile. I caught up and listed another two new ones...which promptly sold. Followed by another two :)

 

 

 

crow pencil drawing

By the end of the second week, I had one crow left in stock and ran out of paper ! So, guess what I'm doing this week - crows anyone ?

Meet the monsters :)

It's all go here as I prepare Stephen for his first public appearance at the Dark Arts exhibition in Whitby. The show runs from October 24th-26th at the Spa Pavilion, free entry so do come along and say hello if you're in the area.

I've not taken my nightmares out in daylight before, so it will be interesting to see how folks react up close and personal. It's fantastic having a show like this on our doorstep, though a little nerve wracking allowing strangers access to such personal pieces.

I've got some prints and of course the original drawings but I'm also prepping some pages revealing Stephens history and showing some of the research/prep work that goes into creating something like him.

I may even take along sketchbook and pencils so I can do some drawing while I'm there, so long as the organisers don't mind black fingerprints everywhere :) 

Something under the bed....

 Most of you will be familiar by now with the great and terrible Stephen. It's been a while since I had the time to work on a new nightmare so I'm especially pleased to announce the completion of the first picture of Stephen in his natural habitat.

 He's always clung to the shadows, I don't think he likes being around people so an abandoned building seemed the most appropriate hiding place for a shy monster. Given the uncertainty as to where and what he came from, an old asylum had the right combination of creepy and isolated.

 This is my biggest piece to date, worked in carbon pencil on watercolour paper. Rich and I made a scale model bed and set up photographs to get exactly the shot I wanted. Stephens shadow has always fascinated me and so we backlit the frame to reveal just his hands and the shadows reaching out toward the viewer.

I added in peeling wallpaper and a couple of objects for Stephen to play with - he's inquisitive and with all those hands, likes picking things up.  I'm hoping to have prints done of this one soon - in the meantime, you can buy the original Stephen drawing here.

Sing a song of Stephen

 Like many artists, I sometimes 'see' things that aren't there. Or maybe they are. I don't know. Anyhow, of all those lurkers in my peripheral vision, the one that I get asked about most often is the great and terrible Stephen. So, here's his full story for you to...um...enjoy ?

Stephen charcoal drawing

It all started with a song - the actual track by Alice Cooper is titled 'Steven' but I changed the spelling as otherwise there may have been a terrible temptation to address him as 'Steve' and I don't even want to think about what might happen then.

Should you decide to dip a toe in the water, you can find it on YouTube along with 'Years Ago' which was another of his personal anthems. It's best listened to at good volume with your eyes closed, it's actually a fantastic piece of music once it gets going but it is very, very creepy.

Prep work for Stephen

I'm still not sure where things like Stephen come from. When I'm working on them they are as real to me as the chair I'm sat in but whether that just means I'm barking, I have no idea. I find they tend to come around in the early hours when I'm alone. I like to have my headphones in to cut me off from the rest of the world so I'm not distracted. It's often as if there is a quality to the music I have on that attracts them in the same way that different aromas will draw in different animals.

The first impression I got of Stephen was of something squatting with his hand against a wall or a door, as if to keep something else out. I drew more hands and arms thinking I was looking for the right posture when I realised they all belonged to the same thing. I still couldn't see how it all came together though. I tried adding a spider body but that wasn't right so for the next year or so I spent a lot of time experimenting with different arrangements in the hopes it would become clear.

Stephen never really went away and I kept returning to my sketches, gradually pairing up arms and getting a sense of how he moved. A good couple of years after I'd first started work on him, I had what has to be the most disturbing nightmare I've ever had.

Stephen early sketch

He was in the house and started coming out of one of the cupboards, arms first. His limbs unfolded and extended which is when I first knew he had that extra joint in each one. I ran away but something made me go back, I think I wanted to make him leave but each time I found his hidey hole I would suddenly find myself standing outside the house in the dark. This happened again and again in different rooms and it became apparent that he was somehow in control, was making me lose time and keeping me away.

When I woke, I was in a complete panic and Rich had to get up and search every inch of the house with me. Needless to say, it was a sleepless night after that.

Stephen arm bones

That whole experience did however give me most of the information I needed to start putting together a plan of his anatomy. I always test my initial sketches by working them from the bones up, to be sure I have them right. Only if the blueprint for want of a better word matches the proportions of my original drawings do I consider them to be true and go on to do a finished piece.

His head was the last piece of the puzzle - for a long time I wasn't even sure he had one but as I got closer to a complete image, I could see him in my minds eye moving around and realised that his head was slung low, which is why his eyes are on the bottom half of his face.

Stephen portrait

The picture you see on Pyewackett and Pecke of him side on is, to me, the single most important piece I have ever done. There will be other images of him in abandoned buildings but that particular drawing is when I was closest to him and he came all the way out into the light. It's also when most of my fear went away.

Stephen is an odd one - we've learned to live with him but he's still unsettling. It would be strange without him though. I get the feeling he was maybe a person once but has been by himself for so long he's become confused, something else. Not a creature you could or would want to engage with but he's done us no harm so we just live around each other.