Yes You Can Can

Welcome to the next phaze! 

  Not so long ago, it was old vinyl I was Infecting, but now the dish of the day is the empty spray can! Its cylindrical shape and tendency to roll a little when trying to draw on it have made it slightly challenging, forcing me to step my game up to produce the goods! 

  I find it helps if I rest my hand on another can when Infecting one, side by side to stop the rolling. 

  

They are going down well with people though. I sold these two pretty quickly over the weekend at a party with a few other local artists and I'm currently working on 8 more to order.  They'd make good Christmas presents, although you'd guess  what it was straight away if you shook it! 

  Watch this space for the next lot. 

I LOVE My Job!

Since the middle of August, I've been working on a great project with Aspired Futures.

  We received £3000 funding from Youth Community Awards, through a bid that was co written by some of the older children.  I've been given the responsibility of spending the money on art materials and holding workshops with the kids to undertake a project to brighten up Kensington House.

Since Lego is a big favourite of both the kids and myself (and nearly all the Lego men have disappeared from the boxes!), I decided we would build giant wooden Lego figures to stand around the house and bring some extra characters into the mix!

First we decided on a range of characters to be our band on the recently built music stage.

  We went with a punk guy and a punk girl (still in production!) and decided John Lennon (in Sgt. Peppers uniform!) should be our lead singer and Jimi Hendrix our lead guitarist. (Only the best for Aspired Futures!)

Then, to mix it up and make it fair to girls and boys, we decided to make a Tinkerbell, a skater chick, Wonder woman and Iron Man! 

  Iron Man was an absolute treat to paint, but the other three are still in production.

I've held 8 workshops so far, not all of which the kids have attended due to them going back to school and progress was slow at first due to the good ol' British weather, but it's been good getting them doing a project like this, sanding the wood and spray painting some of the larger areas on the figures before I add all the details in.

We wouldn't have been able to do the project without the help of a splendid chap called Ken, who is the father of one of our helpers.  He sourced the wood for us and once I'd pencilled in the outlines for each character, he took them away and cut them out with a jigsaw. (Ken also built the music stage I mentioned earlier)

It really is a fantastic place to work, if that's what you can call it!? 

  Amazing people, great kids, quality vibes all round! 

  Watch this space for the next four characters! 

  

Snareophobe Album Cover And Merchandise Project

Every now and then, I get the chance to REALLY sink my teeth into a massive project and let my imagination go crazy.  This was one of those chances.

  Snareophobe are Pete Fibre and Chris Munky: a pair of musical wizards of the dj persuasion, currently on tour in Canada and North America with the mighty Dub FX.  

  A few months ago, they asked me to undertake probably my biggest illustration project to date and design t hem a debut album cover, inside and out, including artwork for the CD itself and a new Snareophobe logo to be printed onto t shirts and stickers for their tour.

  

Armed with a list of 'elements' to incorporate into the design and the dimensions of the space I had to work with, I was told to just go with it and give it the full Infected By Design treatment! 

I mapped out a rectangle using the dimensions they gave me onto an A1 piece of paper, the idea being that the design within this rectangle would be shrunk down to size to make up the front and back covers of the CD and artwork for the inside.

  Somehow, it came to pass that this full image couldn't be split up as intended and we ended up playing around with the images, merging parts together and mirroring others to make it work.

Pete said they want to use the full image as a poster to sell on tour and there is also the possibility of getting it into 'Don't Panic' packs of fliers.

  It truly was a huge project! The original image took over a week to illustrate and then, once it was scanned in, about a week to colour! (I had to have breaks inbetween, looking at all those lines and colours was boxin' my shwede! haha!)

The logo above was the one they went with in the end (in pink), but I've included the one I came up with first which wasn't used (see below), as it was decided the 'S' was too thin and the ink coming out of the 'A' and 'R' obstructed them too much.

I was also asked to create a 'border', to be used around the information on the inside cover, but I think in the end, they didn't use this either. 

I had great fun on this project, despite serious aches in my joints during and after its completion! (Too much doodling can kill you?!)  But then, I wouldn't be Infected By Design if I didn't suffer a little for my efforts! 

  I'd like to thank Pete and Chris for such an awesome project and for being sic guys! 

  You can download and buy the new album, or pre order the limited edition CD with artwork here 

http://snareophobe.bandcamp.com/

Infect Me If You Can!

As followers of my work will know by now, I will Infect anything I can get my hands on! 

  And what better way to recycle used spray cans than to spray the can itself and doodle on it, creating a piece of art from the thing that helps create pieces of art?! 

  I've been using spray paint a lot more recently, for a big art project with Aspired Futures (watch this space for photos of that!), so I've been seeing a lot of empty cans and thought I should have a go at painting some. 

I painted four and sold them within minutes of putting them on my stall at the Alfresco Cowbell Carnival last weekend, all of them to kids! 

  This particular one was commissioned by 'Tha Gods' dj Jonny 'Jaydub' Wilde for his daughter Holly.

  Around the base of the can, I fixed one of the wrist bands Jonny gave me at the carnival.  (Thank Maccy D's Olympic glasses and wrist band promotion for that idea!)

Sprayed with Montana Gold yellow spray paint, then doodled on with black Posca, the surface isn't that easy to work on, but you can bet I'll be painting some more nonetheless! 

You can follow hip hop dj's 'Tha Gods' via Facebook here:

http://www.facebook.com/ThaGods

Dub and Dubber

I've recently been working on designs for a range of products featuring an image of VW Beetles, camper vans and trucks in various locations.  As the client hasn't decided on which ones they will use yet, I haven't posted the images up, but these two are designs I did just for fun, as I was itching to give them the Infected treatment! 

  I've been playing around a lot with Illustrator recently, looking at all the colour pallets and various patterns that are available, as you can see from the swirly body of the camper van!

I'm quite pleased with the VW truck though, despite what some may perceive as misuse of the metals pallet to colour the various parts! As I say to people all the time though, there is no right or wrong with art! Just things you like and things you don't!