Tennyson and The Lady of Shalott album art.

 

Doing a picture of The Lady of Shalott is like doing a cover version of a classic song - I’m never going to outdo the Pre-Raphaelites!

This is the cover for Dad’s latest album (he sets poetry to music), illustrating Tennyson’s tragic Shalott and her curse. It’s a girl stuck in tower, falls for hot knight with great hair, then inexplicably dies kind of story.

It’s come out a bit R. Crumb with all the crosshatching and luckily I had a medieval-style dress that I could pose in for reference. Dressing up as dead chicks makes my day.

 

And here is Alfred Lord Tennyson, surrounded by strange flowery things! I enjoy his glum Arthurian poems and his big influence on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

 

Drew him in pencil for the sleeve of Dad’s CD and based his face on a portrait in a VERY old book!

Album covers I've gone and done.

My dad’s been setting poems to folk music for years, here are some of the album sleeves I've done for him.

Things I should be making.

Music. 

I used to have piano, violin and bass guitar lessons. Unlike riding a bike, I remember fuck all about these apart from Chopsticks and Smoke on the Water. I also have an acoustic guitar, a vintage harmonica and a pink melodica lying around. And I’m still pretty nifty on the recorder!

Doodles.

Getting back into cartoons again, my fellow (who’s also a guitar whizz, so envious) did an animation course and it’s really re-sparked an interest in them. I always dreamt of becoming a cartoonist, but it’s hard picking up my pencil after a long break! Watch this space, I might even upload some old embarrassing stuff.

Love not war.

Well at least that’s one out of the three.

"Metropolis" drawings.

Ink drawings over b/w photographs, college's "Metropolis" project 2007/08.

Our tutor made us a big ol' landscape out of scrap; hence my buildings look suspiciously like cereal boxes and bottles.

The first collage is rather Gilliam's "Brazil", second is a bit less dystopian (look there's a little tree!) and by the third I'd lost the plot and wanted to draw some wobbly seahorses. I haven't scanned half of my artwork, might be worth doing...

Y'know, actually put some of my art on Natalie's ART House. Instead of just crap.