HR Magazine!

Here's a job I did last month which I think i'm now safe to post up ; the above image was created for a cover to a supplement given away with HR magazine.

This job came about from a chatting with the AD of HR magazine Laura Hawkins, who received one of my 80's Last Supper postcards (*see earlier post) and was I think if I remember correctly the first entrant in the competition to get all the names completely right.

Having got all answers correct, and receiving her goody bag through the post, Laura said that as soon as something suitable came up she'd drop me a line.. now often when an Art Director says things like that, or the classic line: "We'll keep your work on file!"... more often than not, and bearing in mind i've done this job for quite a while, well when you hear that, you never hear from them again and "keeping your work on file" is code for; we'll file that it in the bin... but there are exceptions, thankfully Laura was one of those exceptions and did in fact wait for an appropriate commission.

So the brief was; to show a car boot sale scene, with a business type selling items, several of the items were to be reused for an interior layout, and related to various things in the feature, so on the list we had an old cash register, an old phone, cars and a carriage clock, I was then able to pepper the table with other items of my choosing.

It proved to be an absolutely lovely job to do; I was able to go overboard with little details, such as a little ballet dancer in a snow globe, a vintage robot, russian dolls etc..

Must admit though the real icing on the cake was getting to work with Laura on this, who was personable, fun and professional... in fact I was hemmed in from being my usual approachable self, because at the same time I was doing about 4 other jobs.. bit of a stress head there for a while! Still I've said this before, but work is generally steady, and than BANG; I get 4 or 5 at the same time.. not that i'd ever really complain about being busy!

Hopefully this won't be the only time I'll get to work with Laura and HR mag, as I really enjoyed myself on this one, click on the top pic for a close up.

A Catch Up!

Here's a much needed catch up posting, i've been incredibly this past month, and there's still a lot of images yet to see print, which is why I've been slow in putting up new stuff.

What I can show you at this time are a series of spots i've been doing for various clients, above is another Rise of the Machines illos for Men's Health, this time our Terminator's using a Smith Machine to work his upper body, this was art directed by the always ace Graeme Sapsed.

I was saddened to hear last week that MH Art Ed Rob Milton was leaving and heading for pastures new, Rob has been brilliant to work with and has really championed my work over the last couple of years.... I for one will miss working with him greatly, and was gutted that I was too busy with deadlines to send out a leaving gift.

I wish him all the best, someone of his ability will always land on their feet, and I hope i'm lucky enough to get to work with him again in the future.

Here's the first four in a new series of rather saucy spot illos for Nuts magazine, Simon the Art Director at the mag, asked me if I fancied taking up this new regular gig called Celebrity Kama Sutra, in which every week a celebrity is posed in a compromising position.. obviously I jumped at the offer!

The above images I've actually managed to put in reverse order here, Ryan Giggs was first up, then Heston Bluementhal was second, followed by Ashley Cole and the Tiger Woods.. i've said this before, but I love working for Nuts, these were art directed by the superb Simon Freeborough and Barney Hammond.

Even more spots! These were done for a new regular section in Financial Director magazine, these were art directed by Gavin Hinks and Richard Crump.. I can't remember what each article was about, certainly the top one is about security for Cloud computing, the second one I was asked to draw a head exploding, and the third one I was asked to come up with concepts for an article, which had something to do with certain people getting paid out less than others.. sorry if i'm a bit vague there, it's been a busy period, anyway we came up with the idea of someone getting a larger slice of the pie!
Here's some more spots from the same magazine, Richard at the title has been great to work with (in fact I'm working with him at the mo!) and allowed me to come up with my own ideas for an illo about the state of the Italian economy, really fun these and I went to finish on both, one's obviously the Tower of Pisa being propped up by the euro and the other is a Roman phalanx crumbling under an attack... i'm not sure which one they ran with in the mag.
Finally, on to other news I got an image accepted into Images 35: the Best of British Illustration 2011, there's an irony there as all the work was produced/printed and submitted in 2010!

Anyways, this is the first time i've got a piece in... having said that it's only the second time i've entered in the whole time i've been working (the price put me off for years!) Anyway I bit the bullet last year, and entered a selection of illos for inclusion, and the cover for the my booklet Kaleidoscope got chosen in the Self Promotion category... which was really nice, and i'm entering it this year too.

I received the annual through last week, but only got around to looking at it yesterday, and get this I get mentioned near the front of the book by none other than Bonnie Greer, who was acting as the judge for the prestigious Critic's Award.

Bonnie Greer is a playwright, author and critic and is perhaps best known for her appearances on the telly for Newsnight Review (which I used to watch in my student days!), anyway every year the AOI invite someone noteworthy to pick one of the entries out as I suppose a 'Best in Show", alas I didn't get it this year, that went to a young fella called Peter Strain, however I take heart in that perhaps I was on the shortlist with this honorable mention: "other outstanding work.. Bill McConkey 'Kaleidoscope', a cornucopia of what he likes to draw, his visual influences and stuff from his childhood"

Maybe one of these days, i'll pick up another award to sit with 2009's 'Wellcome Image Award' and School swimming certificate... I think I only ever got the one?!