Currency cuts; the work of Mark Wagner

In these times of economic doom and gloom, where every other news story is about a company closing its doors or a bank making a huge profit you need to a little creative with your cash and that is exactly what Mark Wagner has done.
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Another AC Christmas

I've just finished the Arctic Circle Christmas illustration, I had a lot of fun with this one figuring out how to build paper icebergs. The image is for a special Christmas event which will be broadcast on Resonance FM and for a free Christmas card sent out by the Arctic Circle to anyone who wants it, all you have to do is leave your postal address here.

Culture Night

Tonight is Culture Night across Ireland. As I mentioned before I am taking part in the celebrations in Derry by showing some work in the Culture Offices just beside the Guildhall.
I have created a new papercut based on the tale of a local Derry legend called Half Hung MacNaughton.
The story goes that MacNaughton was a down at heel part of the Irish gentry, who claimed to have fallen in love with a young heiress, Mary Ann Knox from Derry. However, her father did not give consent to their marriage. In November 1761, an attempt by MacNaghten and his followers to abduct Mary Ann from a carriage on a journey to Strabane and elope with her failed, when he shot and mortally wounded her by mistake. A court found MacNaghton guilty of murder and he was sentenced to execution by hanging. So distraught with grief was he by the death of his love that MacNaghton is alleged to have hurled himself from the gallows with such force that the rope broke. Some versions say that this was divine intervention and MacNaghton could not be hanged for a second time; others say that he could have used the cover of a sympathetic crowd to make good his escape but he chose not to. Instead John MacNaghton freely re-ascended the gallows to be hanged successfully.

This is the first in a series of paper cuts that I am planning to do on this subject.

So if your in Ireland go  enjoy the nearest event to you and if you in and around Derry then please pop in to the Culture Offices and say hello!

1000 Paper Cranes-Last day to donate

Regular readers to this blog will be well aware of my friend Miho's mammoth challenge to fold a 1000 paper cranes to help raise awareness and money for the Red Cross Japan Tsunami appeal.
They will also be aware that she has passed her original target and has (to date) folded 1408 paper cranes.
Well today is the last day of Mihos paper crane challenge and it is the last day that you can donate to her fund so please, please, please take a little time out and donate what you can to a great effort for a great cause.
You can find her donation page here , and as a well known supermarket chain like to remind us "every little helps!"

Fairytales and Monsters: the final cut.

All my paper cuts have healed up, my scalpel is cooling off in it's case and the Fairy Tales and Monsters art work should start appearing across London from tomorrow. At the moment I'm busy working out designs for tote bags, t-shirts and badges to tie in with the festival as well as suggesting a few activities to keep people busy in the foyer of Kings Place. So stay tuned for more bits as they arrive!

As well as creating the main paper cut illustration I also found myself creating a typeface, which is something I hadn't planned on! After going through all the typefaces I had and a few on line suppliers I started drawing my own. The type face took inspiration from the highly decorative letter types used in storybooks and fairy tales. I wanted it to have something of the decorative drop cap about it, without feeling too cartoony. I also felt that the characters should be linked somehow, as if they had been woven together like the elements of a good story. I know it's not Helvetica on the legibility scales but I'm happy with how it turned out and thanks to all those who gave their opinions along the way ( you know who you are)!

The typeface in development, trying to find a balance between legibility and sensibility.

All in all it looks like it should be a great few days of music, events and fun, well worth catching if you can. For more info pop over to here.
I was also fortunate enough to have the design featured on the Design Week blog which is always nice.

The final logo

Another Summer

I just finished doing a paper cut illustration for Paris based record label Les Disques du 7eme Ciel to grace the cover of their latest release. Each summer the label puts on a series of small, intimate acoustic concerts which take place on a balcony over looking the Sacré-Coeur. To celebrate the last season of concerts, the label has put together a compilation of rare tracks, album outtakes and demos from the artists who performed. The album contains 18 fantastic tracks from the likes of Josh T. Pearson, The Reject Cards and The Daredevil Christopher Wright. I would strongly recommend popping over there and downloading it and as a bonus you can even download a PDF to print out and create your own CD, including a CD onbody design by yours truely!

If your interested then click here and did I mention it was FREE?!

An initial trial on white paper to see how things work.

A slightly elevated view showing the concertina fold

A different colour variation

Paper animation

Making Of Oi FM from Giroscópio Filmes on Vimeo.

I came across this on a great website called Strictly Paper, which highlights projects that do extraordinary things with paper. The just featured this animation by a Brazilian studio called  Giroscópio Filmes. The animation is great but  the 'making of' is something else! With a project of this kind my automatic default says "Yeah great but I bet they did it all with 3D-max or Maya!" but no each frame was drawn, traced, arranged printed out then cut and animated! If you liked this then you can find more of their work here.  OK just one more!


Consciente Coletivo - ep 06 from Giroscópio Filmes on Vimeo.

Paper Penguins

A new year and a new season of events from Arctic Circle and this gives me a chance to try a new look for the penguin. Last year I experimented with a mixture of 3-D paper sculptures with 2-D characters. I really enjoyed this as it totally took me away from my computer and left me alone with a sheet of paper, a scalpel and an idea. This year I have reduced it even more restricting my self to a single A4 sheet and a single cut.

Here are a few snaps I took of the process:

Jen Stark Animations

I have been a fan of Jen Starks paper sculptures  for quite a while now,  so I was really excited when i went back to her website to find not only a redesign and new work but also an animation section!

"Streaming Gradient" by Jen Stark from Jen Stark on Vimeo.

The Highest Point © Jen Stark

If you don't know her work pop over to her site and take a look at her beautifully intricate paper cut sculptures. Here are a few examples of what you will find.

Recipricol © Jen Stark

Purple © Jen Stark

Christmas presence

Just finished the AC Christmas concert image last night, I decided to loose the white Christmas tree and to just keep the emphasis on the presents which is a tree in itself!

If you have the chance check out the concert, if past years are anything to go by it will leave you with a feeling of good will to all men and a head full of beautiful songs.

An Artic Circle Christmas, so far…

Well you can almost hear the sleigh bells, with the Grotto pop up shop and the F&F wrapping paper in the last post and now I'm working on an illustration for Arctic Circle's Christmas concert which is at Kings Place, London on the 17 December. It's become a bit of a tradition now and is well worth experiencing, for more info pop over to the Arctic Circle website.

I'm almost there with the design, the idea is formed and most of the parts for the illustration have been cut and folded, so here the progress so far…

Rob Ryan in London

If you are in London this month pop down to the TAG gallery where there is a collection of new work by Rob Ryan, it runs until Saturday 20th November 2010. I am so gutted that I won't be over to go and see it as his paper cuts are unbelievably intricate and poetic.
For those that can't make it pop over to the TAG gallery site where  you can see a short video of Rob talking about his work, in the meantime here are a few images to whet your appetite…

All images © Rob Ryan

Paper clouds

I am working on a cloud project at the moment and came across these paper clouds by American crafters gosh and golly. I think the rainbow cloud mobile is genius, so simple but it works really well.

wall art

cloud mobile

Paper Penguins

I've just completed the next paper cut illustration for Arctic Circle used to promote the next series of AC concerts which include Emily Barker and Peter Broderick, both well worth a look and a listen.

Outer Circle update

Just got my copy of the outercircle CD through the post at the end of last week, this has been quite a nice project and it has been fun to see my papercut appear on posters, postcards and on artists websites and now on the CD cover.
The CD is available now from Manchester's Humble Soul and accompanies a week of concerts being held in Manchester, Bristol and London. You can get more info and give the CD a listen here.

Paper Players

I'm an old movie buff , if it's in black and white I'm there! While I was browsing for some classics this morning I came across this site by Kriegel . I really like his Paper Pack designs and they are free to download and you don't even need to use the colour cartridge! We just need Ol' Blue eyes, Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford to complete the classic 60's Rat Pack line up and have a paper reunion, in the meantime we could recreate any number of scenes from Cannonball Run, on second thoughts maybe not…
 

An Evening Illustrated

 

For all of you who aren't in London or who can't make it down to Tate Britain this Friday here is a little peek of the illustration I did for the free guide to the evenings events. I had a lot of fun doing this one, letting my imagination loose for each of the events!  

Paper Penguins on-line.

After all the late nights and paper cuts the Tate image is on line!
You can see it by clicking the link below.

If you happen to be in London town on the evening of the 6 August please pop in to Tate Britian. As well as seeing one of the greatest collection of art in the world you will get to experience a fantastic night of  music, performance and interventions and all for free plus a free guide to the evenings events (illustrated and designed by me)! Not bad I say!

http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/eventseducation/lateattatebritain/lateattatebritainaugust2010.htm