NY Times - The Next Frontier Is Inside Your Brain

Illustration for the New York Times' Sunday Review. It's a fascinating piece that looks at a new research initiative into the Brain that hopes answer, among other questions ... 'how the brain generates thoughts, dreams, memories, perception and consciousness...' This was nice, quick job with the turnaround ending up being about 4 hours for roughs and final.

At first I was thinking about focusing on the neurons in the brain but replacing the 'cell' part with faces. Which, although was getting there wasn't quite working. As the art director quite rightly informed me, the neurons looked more like trees or onions.

 

 In the end we went with the classic Head option, with the final image being stretched out to fill the space and the various parts moving around a bit. Normally going from rough to final I would swap over to using gouache and painting it, which can sometimes mean I tighten up and make the image a bit too clean. This time however I was enjoying the pencil marks so stuck with it. Thanks to Alexandra Zsigmond for the commission and great art direction.

The Nightmare before Valentines

On the 13th of Feb to celebrate the day before Love day (where everyone gives strangers hand made cards with hearts on them and scrawls sweet nothings inside with their non writing hand), we aka Owen & The Eyeballs, the band I am in, have a gig at Catch. We will be playing with the marvelous Dead Pirates who contrary to their name are neither dead nor pirates. (I could be wrong).

 

Details below. Poster above by Jim 'Jimbalaya' Stoten.

 

The Nightmare before Valentines.

Live Music, Good Times, Much Fun

featuring live music costumes and visuals from: 

Owen and the Eyeballs 

http://owenandtheeyeballs.bandcamp.com 

http://vimeo.com/owenandtheeyeballs

The Dead Pirates

http://thedeadpirates.com

At Catch 22 Kingsland Road E2 8DA

February 13th at 8 till late

Free Entry

The Future of Illustration

In the future (give it a few years) all Illustration will be done using a giant telescopic pencil that shoots Lazers onto the side of the moon.

Only joking, in the future all Illustration will be made by robots shooting lazers from their eyes.

More predictions about the future soon.

Limner Journal #2 Launch

24th January sees the launch of issue 2 of Limner Journal at Beach London, from 6-9pm. For people not in the know 'Limner is a new critical journal of illustration. It's aim is to provide a platform for the exploration, critique and contextualisation of contemporary illustration. Issue #2 takes the form of a 168 page book featuring new writing and illustration.' 

It has some great people in there including 

Jordan Chatwin, Blaise Larmee, Colin David Stewart, Peter Willis, Penny Klein, Murray O'Grady, Stine Belden Røed, Grace Helmer, Jay Cover, Holly Mills, Reena Makwana, Kai Nodland, Reuben Mwaura, Joe Kessler, Liv Taylor, Eric Timothy Carson, Charlotte Mei, Umberto Eco, Ella Mclean, Florence Shaw, Nick White, Alice Lindsay, Good Press Gallery, Joakim Ojanen, Mike Redmond, Jon Pilkington, Chie Miyazaki, Lisa Wilkens, Rose Blake, Megan Woof, Dan Shapiro and Isabella Toledo.

 

If you look closely you will see my name included in that pile of names, this is due to me writing a whole bunch of words in an order and doing a few drawings too. (Though it is mostly writing.) I wrote the words in Limner a wee while ago and was pleased with them at the time. My piece is about Procrastination and the two people who read it said "It's not the worse thing I have ever read.'' Which is pretty high praise and also odd that they both independently said those exact same words. Thankfully there are so many other clever and talented people within the Journal so I am sure it will be great!

I know Peter Willis and the Studio Operative guys have worked darned hard on the Journal so If you live London way be sure to come down and grab* a copy.

*Buy.

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?!