Saturday, June 2, 2012

The Scenic Route

It's been a long time since I blogged - too long! I thought I'd share a couple of things that I've been working on:
I had this terribly ambitious idea that it would be really cool to create an entire city out of little cut-outs made from my own illustrations. However I don't work that fast. This would probably take me a lifetime, so I decided to start off with this which is a San Franciscan scene assembled from some of my illustrations. The basic idea comes from the pop-up theatre.
I first saw these in a London toy shop that I visit from time to time. They're sort of old-fashioned but always had so much depth. It took quite a bit of 'paper engineering' to work out the best design. It's a bit of fun and I wanted to create something that was a ready made and inexpensive 'art' that you can just hang on a wall to brighten things up a bit. I'll be looking at adding in a cable car between the houses at some stage.
This is my latest illustration which is a house on 18th Street, San Francisco. Yup, still got a lot of inspiration for this body of work, it has shielded me from any kind of creative block that's for sure. Some of the most interesting houses are off the beaten path in this city, away from the Alamo Square's and Pacific Heights. Don't get me wrong though the houses in these areas are also very beautiful. I was recently visiting the city and returned to look at some of the houses that I had previously illustrated and was curious to see that one of the earliest houses that I drew has since been re-painted! It sounds silly but I wasn't sure how I'd feel about this, and yes, I have thought about it! As it goes I was happy to see the change and decided that I would have to re-visit this subject again and paint it afresh.