Illustration for The Grocer’s Top Products Survey 2020—with big thanks to Stuart Milligan.
How food came home
Monty Don
A new portrait of TV’s most reassuring gardener. Like Monty Don, I’m also growing tomatoes in my back garden but not many are looking that red yet, or are as big as Monty’s. Fingers crossed though.
This is the 2nd time I’ve done our Monty. The first one was a traditional number: ink, pencil, crayon and all that. This one, however, is drawn straight into Photoshop with my Wacom tablet.
Schiavi uniti d’America
Cover illustration for this week’s Internazionale. Big thanks to Maysa Moroni.
Cover illustration on Courrier International
Cover illustration on this week’s Courrier International—’Chine, un temps de cochon’. [Royaume-Uni/Ikon-Images]
Pim Fortuyn
Finished version, plus the work-in-progress, of a portrait of Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn. Drawn from a mix of video stills using Kyle brushes. Click to look closer, alsjeblieft.
The guy was hard to follow
This is about that situation when someone is telling you something important, but your mind starts going off in different directions—focusing on the way the person’s mouth moves for example—while the information they’re imparting seems to just pile up around them.
I thought this would be an interesting situation to try and illustrate, and also a good excuse to get some Klimt-style patterning in there.
Dream at 17
Illustration of a dream I had when I was 17. In the dream I was in some kind of scene from the Bhagavad Gita. There was this gorgeous Indian-music version of ’Ticket to Ride’ playing, as I emerged through a manhole into the street. All true folks.
Nearly Hembrug
If you’re cycling from Zaandam to Amsterdam (which takes about 45 minutes and includes a ferry) you’ll go through a small underpass just before you reach the Hembrug ferry point. As you emerge from the underpass, these sweeping diagonal lines leap out at you. This is what you see here. This is actually the 4th attempt at this picture, each time whittling it down more and more. Eventually drawn in Kyle brushes.
Somerset drug dealers
This image was based upon a real police handout showing convicted drug dealers in Somerset in the UK. The range of faces fascinated me.
It was also my first real attempt using the very-impressive Kyle brushes, which are the best digital brushes I’ve used. The ones that come with Photoshop are OK, but these are really pleasurable to use.
Bonnetje me?
‘Bonnetje me?’ sort of means ‘do you want a receipt?’ in Dutch. This picture celebrates that frozen supermarket moment (probably in a branch of Dirk van den Broek judging by the livery). I’m also slightly fascinated/horrified by people who do that funny thing of closing their eyes briefly when they talk. It’s an unconscious thing, and the people that do it don’t believe you when you tell them they do it.
This was painted directly into Photoshop using the various digital brush tools. Click it to look closer.