A recent cover illustration for a publisher client

This little drawing was fun to do and it turned out more colour rich than planned. My illustrations are sometimes finished in Photoshop and often when they’re converted ready for printing they intensify in colour. This was drawn for a friend of mine at a publishing company in East London and a couple of these covers are created each month. I’m really enjoying the work.

I have also found a fantastic new pencil after a million years of looking. I go through pencils so quickly that I need a collection of them in store which I keep permanently sharpened – hence my blog title, leadhead60. To see more of my illustration work go here.

In one weeks time, Liz and I will be flying out to America for my exhibition of paintings and we’re really looking forward to it. It’s a different take on the kind of drawing I have been doing  professionally for years, but it demands the same concentration and calls on the same set of skills – that’s why I love it so much. I’ll be back to let you know how the show is accepted, until then, please do take a look at my exhibition blog.

An oak tree with ivy twisted around its trunk | © Paul Hampson

Out walking this morning in The New Forest I came across this twisted tree trunk and it struck me as quite a sculptural image. The sun was rising and catching the edges of the ivy that so often lives on oak trees. Everything seems to be coming into life now. It’s amazing what three days spring-like weather does to wildlife, flowers and plants. It makes us all feel better too.

I have been busy working on a range of different projects today. I call it spinning plates and at the moment and as I write this, they’re still on the end of the sticks but slowing down. I really do need to get going.  I have a book to complete for an educational publisher, then six cover illustrations for my regular London publisher client. I’m doing this so that I have a month’s images in the bank – so to speak before I go to America. On top of this there are one or two other projects waiting in the wings.

I plan to have Giclee reproductions of this at my exhibition next month.

A fast, dry brush drawing | © Paul James Hampson

Fruit from the cheap little shop | ©Paul James Hampson

Talk about Sunday painters. This quick watercolour was created yesterday afternoon, in between cycling round the village and sweeping up around the house. This is not a cartoon of course, so perhaps doesn’t qualify for being on this blog, but does it really matter – it’s all connected. If anything it shows what can happen with a decent brush to hand and a decent set of watercolours. I bought this set in New York around fifteen years ago, they’re a German make and one of the best little sets I’ve ever used. Thanks for looking.

Monster of a job

The UK foreign secretary William Hague made a blunder recently by instructing the UK special forces to go walkabout into Libya during the dead of night. Mr Hague stood up in Parliament to explain his actions and passed it off as an error of judgement. The detainees were later released and boarded a UK war ship to be returned to safety. This drawing is one of a series I’m doing using of well-known people, topical situations with simple sketchy imagery and bold textured lines.

More later.

Last year around this time, I received a call from a really pleasant guy from a record company you will all have heard of – but who shall remain nameless. I nearly dropped my Nokia when this producer began talking about his studio’s latest AC/DC offering.  The band had apparently just completed a European tour and were planning the DVD follow-up. He went on, “Listen, we need an illustrator to develop the Angus’ character for us.” I adjusted the Nokia and listened intently. “Angus Young is looking for someone who can draw him in a loose animated style. He’ll be in all kinds of fun situations in a short interactive animation for the beginning of the DVD. Are you up for this?”

Do bears relieve themselves in the forest?

After a couple of weeks, that particular phone call sadly turned out to be most promising part of the project as I found out afterwards that the finances just weren’t right to make a decent job of it. I spent time (with a number of other illustrators I gather) creating my own take on Angus – which passed the final audition – only to learn of a budget that wouldn’t quite cover a tour’s worth of strings for Angus’ Gibson.  In the end, I had to bow out with dignity, which was a shame really as I would have loved Angus to have seen the light- this guy is a master guitarist in a great band!

Finished Pilot Character Illustration

Sometimes the most promising projects never quite make it. Now where have you heard that one before?

©  Paul Hampson

Bonus Time Again

The sobering but realistic part of earning a living as an illustrator is you never actually get to receive huge bonuses for doing your job well. It’s agreed when you’re commissioned right at the beginning of a project that you’ll complete the work on time and that it will meet the brief within the agreed budget – no more, no less.  I can imagine the intake of breath if I were to demand a bonus. -it just wouldn’t work. The bonus is in seeing your own work reproduced.

I read somewhere earlier today that Britain’s banks are allegedly preparing to announce multi-million pound annual bonuses to senior staff and are aiming to pocket hidden subsidies from the taxpayer worth over  £32.5bn a year. Not only that but a major high street name is withdrawing finance for small businesses.  I don’t know if that’s true, but this illustration seemed appropriate for this posting. To make Mr Cameron’s Big Society work, everyone needs to contribute. Big cats included.

© Paul Hampson | See more like this on my new website