Happy Late February 2010!

Well my new years resolution of blogging more is going really well. It has only taken me 7 and a bit weeks into the year of 2010 to get around to doing my round up of 2009. Pretty good huh? Yeah. So here are all the bits and pieces I forgot to post about last year so I can get onto posting some new stuff!


I was in an Exhibition up at The Royal Standard in Liverpool at the start of the year. The show was called 'SALE' and it was like a big ol art supermarket where you could buy the art work straight off the wall. The prices of said works would go up and down depending on inflation and the artists profiles. I was selling some screenprints and some heads. At one point you could buy an original Nick White head for as little as 20 pence other times it was a huge amount like a tenner or something.


One of the screenprints shown at SALE. The show went on tour in November to the Liverpool Tourist Information Centre.


At Easter Laura and I flew over to Turkey and traveled around looking at many mighty man made and natural feats of beauty. One day I'll do a proper post on this as it was pretty darn amazing just look at the fairy chimneys of Goreme.


In the meantime here is a picture from Pamukale that looks like snow and ice but it's not.


A very old piece graffiti depicting a chicken-man fighting a cross.


And Superman, Spiderman and Batman (with red cape).


At the end of April as posted on this blog I was involved in a lovely exhibition with Mr Tom Hicks, Miss Clare Mallison and Mr Paddy Molloy. Having gone to uni with these fine animator / illustrator peoples it was about time we had a show together. We collaborated on a large drawing of 2 rabbit headed Vincent Steinbecks and showed a variety of drawings and prints. The launch was a busy and grand affair even if Tom did miss it. Above is a photo of one of the pieces I had on show.


As previously mentioned I was invited to take part in the first issue of Nobrow, a journal released bi-annually by the lovely people at Nobrow. Here is my submission for the 'Gods and monsters' themed issue.


The conversation that never made it into the piece.

To coincide with the release of 'Gods and Monsters' and the start of Nobrow as publishing house proper a new website was designed. Sam and Alex originally asked various artists to design a banner including the name and logo for the site. These banners would change every time you visited the site as Is the done thing. Though the banners weren't used in the end I still like the one I did.


A large portion of 2009 was spent making and designing books which was very much down to other people helping me get my act together. One of these people is Sam Rees (see above) - zine maker and drawer extraordinaire who along with his equally extraordinary wife Marina Rees (see also above) signed us up to various book fairs. It's good to have deadlines and these fairs made sure I made stuff otherwise our table would look pretty sparse and no one likes a sparse table unless your selling sparseness.

Sam, Marina and Laura Wardfrost rightfully ignore a customer at the Alternative Press Fair August 2010.

Luke Best and some guy looking pretty darn pleased with their spread.


Shifty stall holders at Handmade and Bound 2010. Photo stolen from Sam Rees's blog.

In the latter part of the year Sam, Luke and I collaborated on a limited edition hand screenprinted tea towel.
Toot!


The other people giving me a big helping hand and a whole lot of support and back patting were of course Alex and Sam from Nobrow. (Not sure If I've mentioned them in this post yet) But thanks to them I had my first book published and my first solo show. Here are some pics of the exhibition and private view. A very belated cheers to everyone who came before the fuse went.







Photos stolen fair and square from Concrete Hermit's flickr page. Cheers Chris.

Limited edition poster made for the launch and exhibition.


In October I was invited up to Dundee to do a talk at the university about my work and Illustration. I showed them a pretty snazy powerpoint presentation of - my work, how I did my work, where i did my work, why i did my work and some shopping lists. Thankfully this event was split in two so only half of the students dozed off.


I showed them this carefully styled picture of my desk.


Whereas it usually looks like this.


Earlier in the year I was asked to contribute to the latest Taschen 'Illustration Now!' Vol 3. It was released in November and subsequently they sent me a copy which was nice.



To coincide with Dufus's autumn / winter tour of the UK and Europe I made this limited edition of 25 stencil cut screenprint to sell at their gigs for money. It's inspired by the artwork I did for their classic album 'The last classed blast.' yup yup.


Varoom! The magazine made by the Association Of Illustrators did a review of 'People I've never met...' in their winter issue. The review appears on the same page as a review of Peter Blake's new ABC book which I was just as chuffed about.


To round off the year I was invited by the good man that is Andrew Rae to take part in the first East end version of 'Heavy Pencil'. I sang songs and drew alongside other Peepshow greats as Mr Luke Best and Spencer Wilson. Despite it being pretty darn cold and all the pictures suddenly disappearing at the end, twas a great night indeed. Snaps taken by paper folder extraordinaire Chrissie Macdonald.


Thanks and apologies to anyone who read this far for the horrendously large and self indulgent post but that's it I'll shut up now. Good.