The Prehistoric Peak

I am very pleased to announce that my guide book to the neolithic and Bronze Age monuments of England’s Peak District is now available at lulu.com (see link below).

The Prehistoric Peak
ISBN 978-1-4466-3902-3
192 pages
Perfect-bound paperback
Full colour throughout
14.5 cm x 21.0 cm
Price: £35 + p&p

THE PREHISTORIC PEAK is a practical guidebook to discovering and exploring the Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments of the Peak District. Originally researched, written and designed as part of my MA in Communication Design at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design in 2009, the intention is not to explain their origins, but to encourage everyone to go and see them for themselves as they are today. After all, they are located in some of the most spectacular landscapes available to us in Britain today and make fascinating destinations for journeys that are about experiencing all the wonders of the world around us.

I visited each site several times in order to record each one through photographs, ground plans of what can be seen today, custom maps with step-by-step, clear, concise directions on how to find each one and all the necessary GPS and OS grid references.

It also includes practical advice on how to make your exploration of the Prehistoric Peak as pleasurable and safe as possible as well as a comprehiensive list of all other known sites in the Peak District along with their OS grid reference.

I have chosen to go the route of self-publishing the work through lulu.com. For complete information, previews and to order a copy, please visit:

www.lulu.com/theprehistoricpeak

Again, while I am very pleased with the overall quality lulu.com offers, my only concern is the price in that it is higher than I would really want to pay myself, but this unfortunately, is one of the drawbacks of a print-on-demand/self publishing route.

Click here for more details on ‘The Prehistoric Peak’

Big Red revisited

Naturally, having talked below about the painting ‘Big Red Sunlight Breakfast’, a few days later I found myself revisiting it. This came about from wanting to make a birthday card for a friend. I decided to use the image, but to add, in Photoshop, the Kanji text that I had originally envisioned. At the same time I also decided to try altering the colour of the red stripes in the background. Accidentally I hit upon changing them to a gold colour and being happy with the result, I then went back to the original artwork and changed that too.

I am now very happy with the result. I’m still not sure whether I will add the Kanji text over the top of it. I’m going to hold off on making a decision about that. In the interim, I may try adding the text as a sort of Obi strip, which was also another thought I had. Here is the new version (left) and the Photoshop version I used for the card (right):

    

How The Neolithics Influenced Rock ‘n’ Roll

I am very pleased to announce that the dissertation I wrote for my MA in Communication Design at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design is now available to buy in book format at lulu.com (see link below).

How The Neolithics Influenced Rock ‘n’ Roll
ISBN 978-1-4461-9138-5
78 pages
Perfect-bound paperback
Full colour throughout
14.8 cm x 21.0 cm
Price: £16.99 + p&p

Titled ‘How The Neolithics Influenced Rock ‘n’ Roll’, the premise for the book is best described as it appears on the back cover blurb:

‘This book sets out to explore the connections between megalithic monuments and Rock ‘n’ Roll music by first addressing what the megalithic structures would have originally meant to the builders and users of these sites and at the statements they were making at that time. It then looks at how Rock ‘n’ Roll artists have incorporated images of these monuments into album cover designs in an attempt to understand why, despite being separated by millennia from the original builders, they have chosen to use such places to represent the statements they are making through their music in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.’

I have chosen to go the route of self-publishing the work through lulu.com. For complete information, previews and to order a copy, please visit:

www.lulu.com/how-the-neolithics-influenced- rock-n- roll

My only concern is the price in that it is higher than I would really want to pay myself, but this unfortunately, is one of the drawbacks of a print-on-demand service like lulu.com. Because they print each book as they are ordered the costs are higher than those in bookstores where volume printing allows for lower prices. There are of course, discounts if you do buy in volume!

Big Red Sunlight Breakfast

As some of you may have noticed I recently changed the image that appears on my home page to a detail of a painting that I recently finished, titled ‘Big Red Sunlight Breakfast’.

For some time now I have been interested in communist propaganda posters, and the influence of this research has definitely come through in this work. Because it had become evident to me that my recent work had been something of an exploration of the redhead woman, without really understanding why, I decided to consciously use this to almost develop the redhead into a brand.

In a rare moment of clarity I started to realise that my paitings often look like they tell a story, but in actuality they often don’t, they are simpy paintings that seem to dictate themselves to me. I also saw that often I leave space for what could be areas of text. Perhaps that is the designer/illustrator in me coming through. I was inspired by some of the Soviet/Ukrainian posters that promoted the agricultural aspect of the Soviet revolution, portraying healthy, happy people, all contributing to the greater society:

I was also attracted by the use of colour and position in tthe follwoing Maoist poster and wanted to use the ‘sunlight’ background as a backdrop for my work:

Because the work started to look like it had elements of Japanese advertising, combined with Soviet Ukrainian agricultural propaganda, I initially also wanted to have the title in Japanese text over it. It was during this concept stage that the original title of ‘Big Red’s Sunshine Breakfast’ transformed into what it is now. This came about because I tried several sites that have simple translators. Going back and forth between English and Kanji the nearest I could get was 大きい赤日光朝食, which hopefully translates as ‘Big Red Sunlight Breakfast’. Perfect!

In the end the text did not appear on the painting itself, but I do still plan to have an OBI strip across it with the hand drawn kanji characters on it. It is also going to be the first of a series of three paintings in a similar vein, but more on that later when they materialize. For now though, I present ‘Big Red Sunlight Breakfast’. It is probably the closest I have come to having an image in my mind and then have that translated onto canvas. Sometimes the distance between my brain and the brush is a very long one indeed and most of the time it’s not supposed to make any sense.

Bigger, better, brighter.
Fitter, faster, stronger.
Now with added redness,
For just a touch of grace.

Big Red Sunlight Breakfast
Eat me, every day!