black and white | this northern boy

August blogfest – day 8

In the post today I received a copy of Jeffrey Alan Love‘s Notes from the Shadowed City.

What a book. If you don’t know Jeffrey’s work have a look at his website – he creates incredibly bold, silhouette images of beautifully textured ink, occasionally there’s a dash of red, but for the most part they are black and white.

The book is the travelogue of a young man in search of magical swords. 70 pages of gorgeous illustrations and hand-written text make this an absolute visual feast.

I’m glad I pre-ordered as it meant my copy came with an original illustration and a signed numbered print. I really can’t recommend this enough. Stunning.

Notes from the Shadowed City

He promptly went insane

The sword in the city

Original art that came with my order

The minotaur of the sun

A skeleton priest

The last of his name

Sir Caspian’s petrified tree

Prefer the axe

The journey is uneventful

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August 5, 2016

August blogfest – day 5

Some process videos of recent illustration work. It’s always strange watching these back, like watching someone else draw. I never know where the pen or brush is going next.

https://vimeo.com/177615124

2 Comments

July 27, 2016

All families need a little space.

Here is a recent commission I worked on for a friend. He wanted an illustration of him and his family as astronauts – I was delighted to help out!

Once again I used my (patent pending) coin and tracing paper masking technique. There must be a better way…

Completed illustration

Initial sketching

Inks going down

Craters!

Filling in the blacks

Getting ready to splatter

Making stars

Almost finished

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June 22, 2016

The Lighthouse

This is one of the most enjoyable illustrations I’ve done. Mark, who commissioned me, wanted a drawing of a lighthouse – with his daughter at the top – for a tattoo. The final illustration, now winging its way to Tewksbury (Massachusetts not Gloucestershire), will be framed for Mark’s daughter’s room. I’m really looking forward to seeing how this looks when Mark gets it inked.

Final illustration.

Initial sketches.

Details.

Final sketch.

Lighthouse work in progress

If you’d like to commission an illustration (or a tattoo design) from me, have a look at this blog post and get in touch.

1 Comment

May 29, 2016

Inky happenings…

A quick blog post to share a couple of recent ‘horrific’ illustrations.

The first, a commission for my good friend Leon (check out his band – The Day of Locusts), is a tattoo design based on the make-up of the Danish rocker King Diamond. I love drawing skulls, and this was a nice twist on the usual. Leon’s going to be having this inked on to his calf. Brave man.

King Diamond, tattoo design.

Detail.

The second illustration was just something I did for myself. I sat down to draw a creature, no more of a plan than that, and something tentacled and Lovecraftian emerged. If you’ve been reading the blog for a while you’ll know I like drawing tentacles – even though they’re bloody tricky – and I think these are some of my favourites yet.

This illustration is for sale. Message me if you’d be interested in buying it.

Creature from the Deep

Initial sketch.

Beginning the inks.

Creature ink

Both of these illustrations were drawn with Palomino Blackwing Pencils, Copic Multiliners, and Rotring Tikky pens. I use a smooth, heavy cartridge paper from Daler Rowney.

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 10, 2016

Jimi

For a recent commission I was asked to drawn Jimi Hendrix as a Cosmonaut. So I did…

I drew this using Copic Multiliners, a Pentel Pocket Brush pen and a a big brush with some Sumi ink. The stars were splattered using an old toothbrush, white emulsion paint and some careful masking using tracing paper weighted down with coins.

2 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 29, 2016

The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen

Daredevil commission.

Daredevil

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…