Landscapes | this northern boy

September 18, 2018

If I had a hammer…

I do love a good bit or Norse Mythology. Thor and Odin, Asgard and Midgard, Huginn and Muninn… So when Gareth asked me to illustrate Yggdrasil, the World Tree that connects the nine realms, I jumped at the chance.

I was really pleased how this turned out.

Yggdrasil

Drawn, as usual, on A4 Daler Rowney Smooth – Heavyweight cartridge paper, using Copic SP Multiliners and a Rotring Tikky.

You can also find prints of my work here

And you can find more of my work online…
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February 21, 2017

Tentacles Redux

Recently I’ve been working on a new version of my illustration The Island. I want to offer this as a print, but the original was drawn pretty small in a Moleskine sketchbook so not really good enough quality.

The new version is drawn on good quality smooth cartridge paper. I’ve kept the drawing very close to the original, just tweaking a few things here and there. I’m really pleased with the end result and I think it’ll look great as a print.

I should have prints available, in a selection of sizes, from mid March. I’ll post more information soon.

the-island-redux

3 Comments

September 17, 2016

The Inspirational Art of Jared Muralt

A growing Muralt collection.

Jared is primarily self-taught, and he developed his precision and skill through the careful study of books as diverse as those pertaining to anatomy, art history and comics. Muralt is co-founder of BlackYard studio, a Swiss illustration and graphic design studio.

That’s the simple text about the artist Jared Muralt that is printed on the belly bands of his two new sketchbooks, it barely tells you a thing about how astonishingly good an illustrator Jared is.

I first saw his work on Instagram, beautifully drawn images of angler fish, assortments of characters in period costume, floating ocean liners, and squadrons of WWII bombers. That precision, mentioned in the text above, really is one of Jared’s traits, but it comes with huge amounts of charm, and character, and interest. There’s nothing cold about the precise way he draws at all.

It would be easy, as an aspiring illustrator, to be daunted when you see the work of someone as accomplished as Jared, and to simply say – “I’ll never be as good as that”and throw your pencils away, but Jared’s sketchbooks, and his Instagram feed, really are testament to the value of practice. He draws a lot. He draws from life, out in the countryside sketching the mountains and meadows of Switzerland, he draws character studies fastidiously, practising the details from every angle. Rather than be daunted and overwhelmed, you should be inspired and enriched by his work. Stimulated to grab a sketchbook and draw.

If you draw or illustrate for a living, or just as a hobby, you really should buy one of Jared’s books. The sketchbooks are amazing, and Hellship is a wonderful graphic novel. The End of Bon Voyage is for me the real star, a magical, poignant, wordless story with the most beautiful drawings you can imagine.

In Jared’s new sketchbooks there’s one image in particular that grabbed me, this drawing of a man, curiously and noirishly lit. He looks like one of the characters from Fritz Lang’s ‘M’. Fantastically unsettling.

that-guy

Jared can be found on Instagram and on Twitter, and if you’d like to buy (you’d be mad not to) one of his books the BlackYard shop is here.

August 26, 2016

August blogfest – day 26

“Regular maps have few surprises: their contour lines reveal where the Andes are, and are reasonably clear. More precious, though, are the unpublished maps we make ourselves, of our city, our place, our daily world, our life; those maps of our private world we use every day; here I was happy, in that place I left my coat behind after a party, that is where I met my love; I cried there once, I was heartsore; but felt better round the corner once I saw the hills of Fife across the Forth, things of that sort, our personal memories, that make the private tapestry of our lives.” Alexander McCall Smith.

Mapping an imaginary place.

I drew this map for the episode artwork of the North v South podcast I make with Jon Elliman. Every week we have a topic, last night’s recording featured us discussing maps. We love a map. Doesn’t everyone?

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August 18, 2016

August blogfest – day 18

In, and out of, my comfort zone.

I’m really still pretty new to illustration, I’ve been trying to make a living at it for just over a year, and been drawing seriously again for about three. There are lots of things I can’t draw – at least, there are lots of difficult things I avoid drawing. Like helicopters, or armoured Humvees. Today I’ve had to draw both of those, which was pretty challenging. I also had to draw some mountains, lots of mountains. Still quite challenging, but much more enjoyable.

Armoured Humvee.

Mountain range.

July 31, 2016

Rocks

Drawing lots of weird little floating rocks at the moment. Not sure what I’m doing, or where I’m going, with them. But I’m having fun.

Drawn with Blackwing or Lamy pencils in a Moleskine sketchbook.

Aggregation

Seven Sentinels

The Rock that Floats

The Broken Rock that Flies

Rocks

2 Comments

May 6, 2016

What’s been going on…

I’ve been reasonably quiet on the blog recently, and I’m determined to post more regularly for the rest of the year.

As a bit of a catch-up post, here are some pictures – illustrations and photographs – from the last couple of months.

A little view in to my studio/office set-up at the moment.

Tools of the trade.

Pens and pencils.

The slip case for Taschen’s amazing book on 2001: A Space Odyssey.

A fairly typical, and amazing, spread from the 2001 book.

I met a parakeet.

Shadows in the walled garden at Ham House.

Ham House under a brooding sky.

What we do in the shadows (take photographs).

A seventeenth century teapot at Ham House.

Nothing vile about a classic Penguin book cover.

A flavour of the excellent Monotype Recorder.

Sketching some sci-fi scenery for a commission.

Doodling spaceships.

Spaceships.

More spaceships.

I’ve been freelancing here, on Eel Pie Island, for a couple of weeks.

Eel Pie details.

Eel Pie Slipways.

Ship chains.

I was featured in this month’s Artist & Illustrator magazine.

Big sky, big clouds.

Beautiful light in Bushy Park near where I live.

Green Woodpecker (or Yaffle) in flight.

Green Woodpecker.

Red deer in Bushy Park.

Bushy Park.

Sketching landscapes for a commission.

Griff Gristle

4 Comments

April 4, 2016

A Big City Triptych

I love drawing city scenes, which is why it’s always been one of the options I’ve offered for my illustration commissions.

Last year Rob Harris contacted me to commission a medieval/fantasy street scene, and he must have liked the result – because he came back for two more illustrations.

This was the first image…

Big-City-2

I loved putting in as much detail as I could, making it seem like a place that had a story to it (even without the addition of any people). Rob then asked me to do another illustration, continuing the scene to the right…

Big-City-1

It was fun to be able to tell more of the story of the town, adding in the celtic style cross, the strange section of bridge, the silhouette of a figure in a window. Finally, just a couple of weeks ago Rob asked me for a final (I think) illustration to continue the scene to the left of the original image…

Big-City-3

This has been my favourite commission so far, I had a great time producing these for Rob and I’m delighted he liked the first one enough to commission the second and third.

Seen together I think the three illustrations look pretty good…

Big-City-Tryptich

If you would like to commission a street scene, or anything else, from me – have a look at this blog post for more details.

9 Comments

March 10, 2016

Commissions

Stilted-City

I’m now happily accepting a new round of illustration commissions. If you’ve ever wanted to own some original art – and like my work – now’s your chance.

Commissions

If you would like to buy an original drawing, email me at rob [at] thisnorthernboy [dot] co [dot] uk , and you can request one of the following:

A robot
An Astronaut
A Spaceship
An imagined place
Something else entirely

What you’ll receive will be a black and white pen drawing, on an A4 sheet of good quality, 220gsm cartridge paper. The artwork will be approximately 240mm x 160mm in size, centred on the paper so you can frame it easily if you’d like to. If you would prefer a colour illustration – let me know and we can have a chat.

You can also request for the illustration to be landscape or portrait in orientation.

Any other requests – type of landscape, style of robot etc. can be made, but there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to take this into account. I know this sounds a little strict, but I only want to accept commissions that I’ll enjoy drawing right now, and in return you get a lovely surprise when you open your finished illustration.

What will this cost?

I charge a flat rate of £60 including post and packaging for the UK, and £60 + post and packaging for the rest of the world.

When you email me to request a commission, if you can include the address you’d like it shipped to, I’ll work out the cost of postage and let you know. If you’re happy with the overall cost I can accept payment by PayPal.

When will you get your drawing?

I’ll aim to complete and post all illustrations within three weeks of receiving payment.

What might your commission look like?

Well, it could look a little like these…

The Day of the Dead. £40.

The City and the Tree

The Copse

The Astronaut.

3 Comments

February 9, 2016

Crenellations!

I’ve been to both York (my home town) and Windsor in the last couple of weeks, both boasting more crenellations than you can shake a sword at. I always try to take plenty of photos when I’m visiting historic places, just to add to my reference folder. You never know when you might need to draw a castle.