Change Here For Evolution

It's been rumoured for a good few months, but it's finally here: the follow up and official companion piece to my 'Crystal Palace Monsters' pic - Change Here For Evolution. I knew that I had to do something with more of those lovely Victorian statues from Crystal Palace Park.

Regular users of Crystal Palace Station can now see why that section of the platforms is not open to the public: it's for the animals! For the uneducated (including me, as I had to look them up) the prehistoric passengers to be are (from left to right): Megatherium, Megaloceros at the back; Anoplotherium (Anoplotheria?) milling around at the front. The poser with the big antlers is another Megaloceros. The Megatherium was like a giant sloth and the Anopletherium a bit like a llama/tapir perhaps. Megaloceros is definitely a giant variety of deer or elk. I'm sure they have less formal names, too, but I never asked...

You can also now by A4 and A3 prints of this image in my online store. A perfect companion for the Crystal Palace Monsters.

a pen drawing the antlers of a deer

Statue of an Anoplotherium

Statue of an Megatherium

Ceiling of Crystal Palace Station

Sign at Crystal Palace Station

Mutual Tunnels animation by Jun Cen

When I visited the AOI Illustration Awards at Somerset House, last October, I saw some lovely atmospheric work from Jun Cen. As well as 'non-moving' images, he created an animation based on his work. Yes, I know it's taken a handful of months to blog about this, but it's worth the wait. I'd love to create something like this. One day!

mutual tunnels from Jun Cen on Vimeo.

Mutual Tunnels is a hand-drawn animated short film directed by Jun Cen. The original music is composed by Jason Charney.

Engineering the London Underground

This little 12 minute documentary all about the construction of London's underground tube network is great. I became aware of it on Ian Visits' blog and it's definitely worth making a cuppa and giving it a watch. The bits that caught my attention the most were the '3D-ified' archive stills of tunnel construction. Lens flares, blurry bits and a small sense of camera movement. Surprisingly magical (and a wee bit moving, dare I say it). Commissioned by the Institute of Civil Engineers, I understand.

Survivors of the Great Fire of London

In preparation for a project about the Great Fire of London I visited a clutch of London buildings that are claimed to have survived the flames. (The piece of work now isn't happening, but I may do something with it in the future). I imagine that there has been a bit of restoration to the facades here and there, but they all seem to have kept their charm.

It's quite hard to imagine the city of London as it was in the past, full of creaking, jumbled and overhanging wooden buildings. A recent CGI project by students at Leicester de Montfort University tried to recreate it, which is quite successful but not smelly enough:

Also, whilst doing some picture research into Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, I found some old photos of Coventry before it was bombed during the Second World War. Architecture that's also been lost to fire and destruction, but up until the 1940s I imagine it still had a flavour of what some of London was like before the clumsy baker set fire to his buns.

Borough Market Ideas Give Away

I popped along to Borough Market, SE1 last week to see if I could get some ideas for some new art work. I'm very keen to develop my monoprinting further. I think the marks you can make with ink are really interesting. The trip was fruitful - I'm currently producing five pieces based on what I saw down in The Borough: coloured monoprints with black ink details drawn over the top. Hopefully they will evoke something of the hustle and smells you can get down there - seemingly every day of the week, but I know that's not 100% true. Borough Market is closed sometimes. Here are some photos that I took along the way, but the work itself will be much more produce/stall focussed. Coming soon.