Ltd edition prints.. and other things

A while ago I did some work through a fine art printing company, http://www.bucksfineart.comBuckingham Fine Art Publishers are an on-line company selling both original paintings and limited edition prints. I liked the idea of working with thempartly because of the quality of their prints, which use the giclee process (see http://painting.about.com/cs/printing/a/gicleeprints_2.htm for more info) and partly because of the quality of artists they cover: Fletcher Sibthorp, Christine Comyn, Mark Spain...I first worked with them a few years back, producing a set of oil pastel drawings of a friend, Janet. The people at BFA, for reasons best known to themselves, wanted her to be called Jeanette and prints on-line are under that name.. for clarity, she's Janet..

"Janet" Oil Pastels

After this I was asked to produce another set of figures, this time on system, using painter software. I wanted these images to be evocative but partially abstract and was pleased to be able to experiment with them digitally. They were again distributed through BFA, but seem to appear on different websites now; I keep seeing them in on-line galleries I've never heard of..

'Figures" Painter Software

I liked the feel of these system based images and the process of working digitally on them, but wanted to carry on and produce oil paintings of them which I then did, here's one below:

'Deep Gold' Oil Painting

In commercial fields I spend much more time these days working on system as opposed to 'traditionally'. . it can be a very expressive process and has many advantages over traditional media: speed is one, the ability to make amends easily - infinitely forgiving of mistakes - and it's also much quicker to deliver to clients on tight deadlines.Producing pixels doesn't have quite the thrill of working with paint though.. painting is a physical process, as much as anything I love the 'feel' of paint. For the above, the digital files served really well as visuals from which to produce paintings.... it's lovely to be able to experiment in colourand composition in this way, making 'painless' mistakes. The software is wonderful; Photoshop, Illustrator and especially the more organic Painter... but it's ultimately no substitute for the physicality of pushing paint around canvas..

Work Ongoing

Here's a look at two paintings I'm working on at the moment. 

NCG Big and Bold Soups

Recently published and in store this winter are a set of graphic illustrations I produced for Daniels Foods, who own New Covent Garden Food Company  http://www.newcoventgardenfood.com , founded in 1988 to make homemade quality soup using entirely natural ingredients, ‘and despite many imitators over the past eighteen years New Covent Garden are still the bestsellers in the fresh soup market’.

NCG Books of Soup

Detail

I’ve worked for a long time with NCG, one of the loveliest clients I’ve had. In the past I’ve been asked to re-vamp their range of soups with pastel illustrations of the ingredients; also producing four books of soups for them:

The latest brief was to produce illustrations for a new range, Big and Bold Soups, launched in single-serve pots rather than the traditional cartons. The designers on this branding were Ziggurat, http://www.zigguratbrands.com/ , a company I've worked with for a long time now. Moving away from their pastel branding NCG were looking for strong (bold) graphic illustrations here. After producing a range of visuals for them, the graphics below were preferred, along with some woodcut-style illustrations around the pots.

Series of Illustrations for NCG Big and Bold Soups

These were worked on further, giving them texture to create a more rustic, organic look before going to print. See below the range; also how they were used in a London Underground Poster Campaign: 

Range of Big and Bold Soups

Detail: Single Pack

NCG Big and Bold Soups in London Underground Poster Campaign

Have tried them all now, lovely on cold winter days. I'm working on some illustrations for NCG's range of smoothies very soon, which means a fridge full of them for the next couple of weeks! Back to pastel drawings for the smoothies product; to be posted at a later date..