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!

Amazing nature at Renishaw Hall and Gardens!

 

The amazing woods near Renishaw Hall.

The amazing lake near Renishaw Hall.

The amazing garden near Renishaw Hall.

I could have walked around here all day, such a beautiful place! Very ‘The Secret Garden’ and one of my favourite Derbyshire stately home haunts.

It was also a fun surprise finding Watership Down under a tree. You can’t see it (you gotta have faith), but they’re gazing at a suspended wooden sun (Lord Frith I assume). Except for atheist bunny on the left there.

 

 

The amazing flowers near Renishaw Hall.

The amazing statue near Renishaw Hall.

Digitally tweaked in Photoshop for added drama/contrast/really cool things.

The cellist is Amaryllis Fleming and she was sculpted by Fiore de Henriquez. My knowledge of cellists extends to ‘Hilary and Jackie’, so I always reckoned this was a dead ringer for Jacqueline du Pré!

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.

"Magic Roundabout" collages.

A group project at uni. We’d decided to make an advertising campaign for an art festival on Nottingham’s BBC roundabout. 

Above are some of the guests who would've turned up.

These were the camping and leisure facilities available.

Aaand, I GO ON HOLIDAY TOMORROW! I’d say goodbye, but I’ll be taking my laptop with me because I’m a money-grabbing workaholic.

"Fear" paintings and video.

Above are a couple of things from my college project on fear, made using the noble method of finger painting!

And another, this one's paint and chalk on photocopy of a dead locust. I was into Francis Bacon at the time, but you can’t tell AT ALL.

Carrying on the buggy theme above in mixed-media...

And the last one. These were all done in 2008 during my final major project at college -- like the huge creep I am, I chose irrational fears and phobias for my theme. It's quite wonderful how many people are terrified of insects and choking and choking on insects.

I also made this short film expressing fears about spiders, premature burial, weather and dogs through some rather twee stop motion sequences. It's a bit crap (not to mention hugely compressed) now that I look back on it, but evidently I have an irrational fear of being proud of my early work, and would say that!

Valentine's Day cards I've designed.

Have a cynical, ironic and emotionally detached Valentine’s Day! Yes, I’d really like a grossly sentimental and predictable artifact of consumerism please.

Above I’ve designed the kind of card I’d like to get (if I did celebrate said holiday, or actually had a significant other).

Another one.

"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.

Twin Peaks fanart.

Agent Cooper in pencils and actual coffee, Laura Palmer's lovely dead face in oil paints. 

I've finished watching Twin Peaks now (an absolute joy as usual), so to celebrate have some fanart by me from 2009! Wow, I say that as if it being two years ago makes it any less embarrassing.