Bustling London

Here's another rough from the book I am working on right now.

This is the opening spread showing a busy market scene in 17th century London.
I always loved those Disney movies that start with a great big panorama or a townscape before homing in on a particular figure or area to begin the story. I think it's a great way to introduce the reader into the period and setting of a story.

"The Country of the Young: interpretations of youth and childhood in Irish culture"

The Four Courts Press have just published this very interesting book:"The Country of the Young: interpretations of youth and childhood in Irish culture"

I was honoured that Kelly Matthews (co-editor with John Countryman) asked to use a detail of this rough I did for my Children of Lir stamp for the cover.


Here's the blurb:"Throughout the history of modern Ireland, cultural representations of youth and childhood have served as focal points for discussions of social and political issues. Topics for the essays in this collection range from Famine-era women’s autobiographies to filmic portrayals of post-Good Friday Northern Ireland; from considerations of Patrick Pearse and Máirín Cregan to Anne Enright and Claire Keegan. The result is a complex and provocative view of childhood experiences in modern Ireland, and of the ways in which youth and childhood have been interpreted in the work of Irish writers, politicians, dramatists and filmmakers."

Oisín and Niamh of the Golden Hair

I recently rediscovered another of my roughs for the mythological stamps I designed a number of years ago for An Post.
This one illustrates the story of Oisín and Niamh of the Golden Hair.

And this is the finished stamp.

Medieval Street Rough ...Figures added

Here's how that medieval street scene is developing.
I have altered the view in the distance to include a bendy road down to the docks and I have added the various figures in the foreground.

Our protagonists are over on the far right trying to figure out a way to get safely on board a ship.

Storm at Sea

Here's another sketch from the book I am working on now. The one I have written myself.
I don't want to say too much about the story but I will be posting more of the pictures as I proceed.
This one is a pencil drawing with some Photoshop effects added.

Rough Sketch: Finished Piece

I'm finally getting back to normal after a few very hectic weeks of moving house and studio.
Here are a couple of images where I located the artwork and the original rough sketch. It always makes for an interesting comparison.
The picture above is from "The Names upon the Harp" by Marie Heaney, and the one below is a poster I did for Polka Children's Theatre.
"The Starlight Cloak" is a version of "Fair, Brown and Trembling", a kind of Irish "Cinderella".

Stamps designs: Nollaig 1999

These are roughs for a set of stamps that I designed for Christmas 1999.
They are my favourites of all the stamps I have done for An Post, perhaps because my nephews and niece modelled as the children in the nativity play.

And here are the finished stamps.

Roughs for the cover of The Gift of The Magi

Here are a couple of roughs for the cover of The Gift of The Magi.

The first is a quick sketch that I coloured in Photoshop, and you can see how I was trying to make the type work against the lightness of the window.

A few variations of this went back and forth between myself and Liz Woods, my designer at Walker Books. 

Liz is an extraordinary designer. She takes immense pains in getting every detail of a book cover just right, and is a very inspiring person to work with.

The next drawing is the final rough, but this also needed to be tweaked. I remember that the size of the table and chair in the foreground were a cause of much deliberation. Again, Photoshop makes it easy to change the size of elements like that, and to move them around.

And the last picture shows the almost finished painting. Look how much bleed there is. (That is the surplus area around the actual cover image) This is needed for wrapping around flaps etc, but it makes it very much more difficult to consider the essential image as you are painting it.