Wondered and wandered

I am very happy to report that the Owen & The Eyeballs' world tour was a huge success! Although this world tour consisted of one date in New York, as can be seen above and below and from all the countless photos people took and shared on the internet, the closing gala was a whole lot of fun.

The day after arriving and following a mighty diner breakfast of pancakes and french toast, the band headed to the 'Wondering around Wandering' space to lead a workshop alongside Chrissie Macdonald and Irene Fuga, to create the set and our costumes for the gig. The theme for the creations was SPACE, which soon turned into a ' Sexy Psychedelic Space' theme due to the materials at hand and it being an Owen & The Eyeballs gig.

 

Many a kind fellow came down to help collaborate and oh boy was it fun. Everyone worked hard and late into the night creating some extraordinary creations. Thanks to everyone who came down!

The costumes coming together. Photo by Mr Gildersleeve.

  

The gig itself was a joyous experience with lots of people getting down and dancing their socks off.  

Jim and Andrew discuss the merits of costume changes and whether it's better to have a giant sad face or giant melty hand for a head.

Owen celebrates the fact the gig is over and that he can now drink all the free booze.

The man himself Mike Perry grabs the mic and spits some lyrics / makes a lovely thank you speech,

 

Evidence that the Eyeballs were so loud that even Chrissie had to protect her ears.

The workshop, gala and whole trip was crazy fun. A big thank you to Mike Perry for inviting us and being such a generous host, to Anna Wolf and Josh Cochran for their tremendous hospitality, to Masha, Fiona, Katie and Lee for being so helpful and accommodating to us. Thanks to Hints, Lee and the Menahan Street Band for the lend of their instruments and equipment. And last but not least huge thanks to all the people that came down to the workshop and show.

Photography by Meredith Jenks, Mike Perry, Owen Gildersleeve and Me.

Wondering Around Wandering

This Saturday I am traveling from the big smoke to the big apple to take part in Mike Perry's 'Wondering Around Wandering'. My band 'Owen & The Eyeballs' will be playing the first and last date of our world tour on the closing night of the exhibition / space on Tuesday the 20th Nov. All money from the tickets will be donated to the Hurricane Sandy relief fund. Also part of W.A.W I will be taking part in some workshops with several other great London based Illustrator friends this Sunday. We will be creating space themed sets and costumes and props for our gig on the tuesday. Places are free but limted for the workshop and can be booked here. If you live In New York you should come to both, they will be fun!

In preparation for the gig I wrote a story about how the band was formed. From that Andrew Rae being the talented drawing man that he is, drew a picture based on it. He nailed it. The picture is above, the story is below. From now on I will just write stories in the hope that Andrew will draw them.

The story behind Owen and the Eyeballs:

Owen and the Eyeballs first met on a hill, in the middle of a forest, on an Island surrounded by shark infested waters. Owen Gildersleeve, who had been going for his daily walk to his studio was jumped upon by 3 Eyeballs. These Eyeballs were three times the size of Pierce Brosnan's head (large). Owen ran for his life quickly pursued by his pursuers who rolled towards him, as is the style of travel for Eyeballs. Outsmarting the Eyeballs, Owen climbed a tree at the top of the hill. The Eyeballs, being mostly rotund in shape and lacking the necessary limbs to climb said tree waited for him to come down. Despite not having mouths the Eyeballs started to sing a song. Being a fan of music, as well as one of the top 5 best drummers to come out of Somerset and the fact the song was a 'right belter', Owen couldn't help but grab some branches and tap out a thunderous beat on the tree.
And thus the band was born.

Since that sacred day a lot has happened to the band. For one, the Eyeballs quickly realised that to be a  real band they would need some guitars and the ability to play said guitars and thus evolved into fully formed human beings / internationally acclaimed Illustrators with names like Andrew Rae and Jim Stoten and Nick White. The band wrote some songs and oh what songs they did write. Songs, with names like 'Warm and Gooey' (an instant hit with the ladies), 'Bird Bones' (an instant hit with ornithologists), 'I don't know why?' (an instant hit with the more ponderous members of the audience) and 'Someone, Somewhere' (an instant hit with people who exist in time and space).

Owen & The Eyeballs now have a vimeo page so you can see us in action action as zombie grannies at the recent Halloween gig at Catch.

The Night before Halloween!

Come celebrate Halloween a day early on the 30th of October at

 

The Night Before Halloween!

 

Free Entry!

 

Fancy Dress with prizes for the best costumes.

Music from Owen and the Eyeballs, Glaciers and more

Scary Live Drawing

Wrong Pop, Eerie Tunes and Good Old Fashioned Spooooooky fun!

Bring your friends and their friends and their friends.

Catch, 22 Kingsland Road, E2

 

Poster by the master Illustrator man Jim Stoten!

 

It's going to be scarily good fun! This guy reckons so! Huh?!

Nostalgia Post 1

It's been a while so I thought I should start catching up with various things that I forgot to document at the time. I am slow. Here are some much delayed pictures from 'Friday Late : No Strings' at the V&A at the end of last year. The night consisted of many good things connected to contemporary graphics and independent publishing. Nobrow invited me to be part of their room, where they had all their usual great books for sale and a comic workshop with the mighty Jack Teagle and awesome Luke Pearson. I had my very own tattoo parlour, tattooing either an animal, vegetable or mineral onto the arms, occasional legs and one bum of members of the public. It was very fun and pretty intense, with me drawing non stop for 3 hours with one loo break in between. Sheesh. Here are some of the results which include some kind of Zebra / stripy donkey, an aubergine called 'Obie', a diamond and a whale with a tattoo of a whale with a tattoo of a whale... (Whaleception)

Pain at the dentist.

Thursday the 19th April sees the opening of 'Pain at the Dentist' a group show at Alvarado Gallery. The exhibition explore the notion of pain and has some great exhibitors like Rob Ryan, Martin O'Neill and some guy called Nick White to name a few. If that wasn't enough the gallery is an ex dentisits and who doesn't love an old dentists?

The private view is on from 6-9 at 33 Chatsworth rd, London, E5 0LH. More information over at Alvarado Gallery.

Pick Me Up 2012 - Kibbo Kift III and Heavy Pencil

Pick Me Up is back at Somerset house and so am I playing some musical music and doing a bit of live drawing.

First up is Supermundane's Kibbo Kift featuring a whole load of illustrator people performing poems and songs! The last two Kibbo Kift's have been awesome so it will be nice to take it to a new and grander venue. Should be a great evening featuring all of the above. I am excited. It's on the 22nd March from 6:30 until 9:30pm. Tickets can be bought here LINK

The following thursday eve I will be back amongst another whole load of talented people. I will be playing songs in a band featuring the mighty Andrew Rae, the stupendous Jim Stoten and the powerhouse that is Owen Gildersleeves. More Info below.

Thursday 29th March Heavy Pencil at Pick Me Up

Pete Fowler, Jim Stoten, Nick White, Luke Best, Miles Donovan, Andrew Rae, Owen Gildersleeve, Chrissie Macdonald, Lauren Davies, Anna Lomax and Jess Bonham

6.30pm-9.30pm Entrance included in fair ticket £8 or multiple entry pass £12 or £6 concession.

As well as the Thursday events I will have my Heart Limited Edition Snake tee for sale in the Pick me Up shop. There's always some great stuff to see and do at Pick Me Up. I for one am particularly excited about seeing Peepshow's Museum of Objects & Origins.

www.somersethouse.org.uk/pickmeup

Now Or Ever

Tomorrow I head off to Belgium for the install of 'Now Or Ever' a group show at Ter Dilft in Bornem. There will be work from Ephameron (BE), Joanna Hellgren (SE), Louis Reith (NL), Nous Vous (UK), Ward Zwart (BE) and myself (UK). It looks to be an exciting show, with plenty of space to have fun with. I have been creating and collating various bits and bobs to show, including some frames with pictures in, some 3d pieces and whole lot of heads. Fingers crossed everything makes it there in one piece or just the correct amount of pieces.

The show opens this saturday 17th march with live performances from those Nous Vous guys and is on till the 5th May.

A Perfect Day

Four original artworks from my Nobrow published book 'People I've never met & Conversations I've never had' are to be shown in the excellent group show 'A Perfect Day' in Amsterdam which opens today. The show is the continuation of the Apexart exhibit 'Lots of things like this' that took place in 2008 in New York and which was curated by author / publisher / artist man Dave Eggers. A perfect day carries on with the original exhibition's focus of drawings that mix text and image and the funny and it looks like a winner. I am pretty darn excited to be showing my work alongside such greats as Glen Baxter, Chris Johanson, Raymond Pettibon, David Shrigley, Simon Evans, I could go on. Ok, Saul Steinberg, Royal Art Lodge, Jeffrey Brown, Mr T from the A team. Ok the last one I made up but still I was impressed. If you find yourself in Amsterdam due to a holiday or because you live there then you should go and then you can let me know if I'm really in the show with those guys or if they've just put my stuff in a toilet or something.

A Perfect Day.

The Maestro's Loss

Normally at this time of the year (the start) I would post all the things I forgot to post during the last year but instead I thought I'd start as I mean to go on and post something published in 2012. This Illustration was for the Observer and came out on New Years day which also happens to be the first day of the year. The drawing accompanied a short story by Hari Kunzru called 'The Maestro's Loss' and was / is a great story to try and Illustrate. Go read it over here. The Cembalo Scrivano that the story has at it's centre is a fascinating contraption and you can really imagine a writer having to push down hard on those thick wooden keys.

As you can see the piece was printed up nice and big which was pretty exciting when I opened up the paper on Sunday, though perhaps others were probably cursing me for getting newspaper ink all over their fingers and elbows. 

I also got to include a few chalk drawings of the typewriter as a spot. Noice.