Brian Cox Would Be Proud.

This ad campaign for elegant departure store chain Brown Thomas in Ireland and commissioned by Irish International was to announce the forthcoming festival of beauty in the stores in October, with make-up items made to look as if they were formed from stars.

The job began with a 2ft square universe made of multiple ink colours and pencil, swirling them up over very heavy watercolour paper and drawing into them with a pencil, adding the stars using my magical technique then allowing it to dry to a crisp naturally (the woodburner is good at this but can dry things too fast and hard). The effect of such simple methods is very striking and I use it a lot, but not usually with such bright inks - this was a surprise! The piece was large enough to use a different section for each ad.

It took a while to get the constellations looking like constellations - which are of course always a bit vague (‘mmm yes…of course that’s a lion’) but the end result is a pleasant mixture of astronomical research and artistic licence.

The hand-drawn shout line was cut in the end, but that was compensated for by the use of pin-prick holes and LEDs on the bus-stop posters which lit up at night around the city. At times, the way the dusk fell on the posters helped to reinforce the effect:

Wish I’d seen these!

In-store, the galaxy found is way everywhere and became eyeball-arresting press ads too:

Thanks to Martin O’Neill of Cut It Out Studio for taking some of the photos for me while he was in the city!

Electronic Voice Phenomena.

I put together an evening of music on All Hallows Eve for Altar Ego Radio, during which I did two shows; the opening show, and ‘Hairs On The Back Of The Necktoplasm’.
The latter was colder and danker and took place long after the trick or treaters had shed their costumes. Intended to be a co-presented show, my sidekick of the airwaves met with an unfortunate incident and was unable to present; cue Mole flying solo.

I was by myself in the studio for the majority of the session, the technician and sound guy having ‘nipped out’, so I did quite frankly get a few of the willies. And by the end of ‘Necktoplasm’ I had a hexed left-hand turntable too, thus all jumps, record crackle, distortion, electronic fuckery, white noise and gaps were part of the deal. I suppose you had to be there.

I’m working on a track list which I’ll add here in a bit, since the set, although assembled from music collected and earmarked over a period of two months beforehand, was put together live and on the fly from a combination of 7, 10 and 12 inch vinyl, CDs, digital files, samples, sound effects and YouTube clips. lt took some juggling, but it was enormously enjoyable to do.

Other shows were presented by Altar Ego regular DJ Fuckabout putting his drum and bass down and picking up the dark, and stalwart Reverend Riff doing his doom-metal, whose sets both can be found with the rest of Altar Ego’s weekend lineup just here.

I highly recommend DJ Mandy Corn’s set which was beamed in from Brooklyn, for good old-fashioned surfer-ween and rockabilly-fright Americana - coupled with quickfire samples, jokes and stories.

Mole’s Electronic Voice Phenomena: Opening Set Tracklist

Andy Stott / Lost and Found (Modern Love)
Andy Stott / Numb (Modern Love)
Harmonic 313 / Quadrant 3 (Warp)
Charity Shop 78 / Lost Love Ever More, Church Scene from the film ‘Blossom Time’, Richard Tauber, Tenor (Parlophone Odeon Series) (a quid from LOROS, washed it up in the sink and ironed the label, picture attached below, it’s beautiful)
The Caretaker / All You’re Going To Want To Do Is Get Back There
Japan / Ghosts
Andy Votel / Return of the Spooky Driver (Twisted Nerve)
Demdike Stare / Suspicious Drone (Modern Love)
Vampires of Dartmoore / Dracula’s Music Cabinet
Haxan Cloak / Miste (Triangle)   
Howlin’ Wolf / Evil
Gravediggaz / Diary of a Madman
Ghostface Killah / Rise of the Ghostface Killah
Vampires of Dartmoore / Tanz Der Vampires
The Fall / There’s A Ghost In My House
?? / Buggered if I can remember but it’s fucking good and it’s on vinyl, I know I played it on the left-hand turntable (@1hr 04mins ish)
Lou Rawls / Season of the Witch
The Cure / A Forest
Scene from Poltergeist / They’re Here
Zomby / Horrid (Domino)
Whodini / The Freaks Come Out At Night
The Edgar Winter Group / Frankenstein
Laura Marling / Devil’s Spoke
Vampires of Dartmoore / Dr Caligari’s Creeps Cabinet
Massive Attack / Redlight (Clark Remix)
Battles / My Machines (Clark Remix)
The Caretaker / An Empty Bliss Beyond This World
Demdike Stare / All Hallow’s Eve
Tino / Ghost Dub
The Moontrekkers / Night of the Vampires


Mole’s Electronic Voice Phenomena: Hairs on the Back of the Necktoplasm

Dick and Dom / Halloween Scream
Boards of Canada / 1969
CocoRosie / Beautiful Boyz
CocoRosie / K-Hole
Deaf Centre / Thread (Type)
Burial / Ghost Hardware
Chimes + Bells / The Mole (Trentemøller Remix)
Black Ghosts / Some Way Through This
AGF Delay / Beautiful Kill
Frank Bretschneider / Like A Little Lizard In The Sun
John Grant / Pale Green Ghosts
The Knife / Upheaved
Venetian Snares / Deleted Poems
Haxan Cloak / Mara
Haxan Cloak / Miste
Recondite / Rise
Boards of Canada / album track sample
Krysztof Komeda / The Coven 4 (from Rosemary’s Baby)
Warren Zevon / Werewolves of London
Bjork / Frosti
Aphex Twin / Syro
Nathan Fake / Fentiger (Clark Remix)
Clark / Alice (Redux)
Mica Levi / Death
µ-Ziq / Blem
µ-Ziq / Smeester
Ry Cooder / Paris, Texas
Jacaszek / Rytm To Niesmiertelnosc
Demdike Stare / Haxan
BBC Sound Effects / Death and Horror Vol. II (used liberally)
Burial / Stolen Dog

Red Tears.

Red Tears remains one of my favourite book covers, and dealt with the harrowing subject of self-harming in an extremely sensitive way but without sentimentalising it, and certainly without hiding from the grim realities of the subject. It pre-dates the blog, so has never featured anywhere till today.

Written by Joanne Kenrick - now Jo Cotterill - this was the first time I’d been entrusted with a ‘serious’ subject - I’d been doing masses of chick-lit and adult female fiction, so I suppose this was my early taste of teen fiction. Although, I had done a cover for Naomi Wolf which sadly became a photograph in the end!

I was determined not to make it maudlin or off-putting, and it definitely couldn’t be too graphic. I played with several ideas, starting rather abstract, using the ink to try to represent a swirling mass of concentric feelings, and then fairly quickly we settled on the one with the back background. The hints are there, but they’re very subtle, and the black lends the book a definite gravity. I was trying to suggest too the connectivity of everything - the way problems and issues and feelings and events all ball up together and become impossible to disentangle, till you can’t see the wood for the trees.

It was published in 2007.

Many years later I am happy to have united Jo with her original artwork this week, most of which she’d never seen, in return, this time, for a donation to our chosen charity Mind. The artwork will be living at her house now! Which only feels right.

http://jocotterill.com

Stitch-For-Stitch.

Today Autumn came. Finally, albeit briefly, it padded in overnight on rainclouds and stayed the morning, letting us have the sun and blue sky for the afternoon, then returning this evening arm-in-arm with the chill and wearing an early darkness (though not before a spectacular sunset).

I think it’s probably here now, officially, and I also know it’s here because I’m having my annual pre-winter anxieties. I love this time of year but dread it too, since from October 1st a terrifying momentum takes hold as we slide and clang our way through the pinball machine that is Hallowe’en > Guy Fawkes > Thanksgiving > Christmas. So much to do, always, and never enough time.

But this time I feel a little more prepared. The wood shed is stacked, the winter coat has been away for repair and dry cleaning, I’ve put on my Mum-knitted olive winter-weight cardigan, curtains are being discussed and the Christmas ‘promo’ has been underway for months. Today I made vegetable stew and dumplings (I don’t know how I reached this age without making dumplings before), lit the fire, tidied the wood and bought knitwear.

We’ve always striven to buy our clothes from British manufacturers but none comes with quite the pedigree of John Smedley, who’ve had a knitwear factory in Matlock since 1784. They make very fine knitwear for men and women, and between us I guess we own about 15 garms. My favourite is a knee-length black dress with 3/4-length sleeves - very Jackie Kennedy, and excellent for work.

Today they were holding an open day with tours of the ancient but still-working factory - built right over the river from which they draw their water including that is required for washing and softening the garments - followed by a lengthy if scrum-like bash around the Mill Shop, always at discount and today at 30% off; ravenous Smedleyites Dysonning up sweaters, capes, leggings and shirts like the Luddites were on their way to smash up the knitting machines once and for all. We made a handful of beautiful purchases; each piece is made via a series of time-honed, time-consuming and time-honoured processes, carried out on handsome well-oiled machines by…well, handsome well-oiled men and women!

Although we’ve shopped there for a few years, the insight really did bring home the fact that it IS possible to make lovely things right here in Britain, and they don’t need to be monstrously expensive. Every Smedley we buy feels like an investment; a sound bet. It also framed very vividly the fact that similar garments made in the Far East will go through a great many of the same processes as those seen on the tour, yet can be sold for under a tenner, and we all know who are the losers in that equation. Besides - the Smedley clothes, if properly looked after, last for years and years, and because they’re quite classical in their design, don’t need to be replaced every few months. (And being so fine, they’re really good for layering).

So, watch the little videos and enjoy the myriad tiny details captured from around the factory. Knowing I finally have a proper winter hat and gloves is helping! So I’ll clear a few tired things out of the wardrobe - mainly the annual charity shop summer purchases for under a fiver - and after an emptying and re-oiling of the wardrobes, will introduce them to the rest of the Smedleys and get ready for the chill, the pumpkins and the fireworks.

The amazing turn-your-jumper-inside-out machine!
https://vimeo.com/108019484

Woman cuts neckline with impressive precision!
https://vimeo.com/108019331

The sneaky sleeve-knitter:
https://vimeo.com/108019457

This guy was measuring the garments to check each one was perfect. The machine pulled the sleeves straight, then sucked the jumper in and ironed it, dropping it back out the other side neatly onto a pile of other ones:

This fella had just knitted some leggings - all in one piece, no sewing-up required! (we were all a bit baffled)

Ancient hallways, massive stone bricks painted white and the remains of the cobbled floor:

The day was rounded off in the staff canteen with a coffee, home-made root vegetable soup with a decent amount of scovells and a phallic bap, all for the imperial sum of £1.75. Darned good it was too (Sarah, OUCH).

And finally the purchases, clockwise:

- ‘Aggie’ women’s gloves in Bitter Chocolate (100% wool, the gloves reach to the elbow, 40s-style!).
- ‘Hindburn’ hat in Teddy, 100% wool - Sarah’s hoping for a very cold Guy Fawkes night.
- ‘Brock’ men’s pullover in S (but bought by Mole) in Dark Leather, 100& cotton.
- ‘Seth’ men’s collared shirt, 100% cotton.

Stand and Deliver.

This book, ’The Accidental Highwayman’, was released in the US recently so I am able, after a long (but not untypical) wait, to write about it!

It is the first book by Ben Tripp, who previously worked for Disney and thus is a bit of a dab hand with the ink pen - no pressure there then, ahem. Some of his internal illustrations were already done by the time I started work. You can see them below - they look digital, which if they are is quite marvellous - but the art director Seth fancied a typographic approach.

I did some little thumbnails as I had so many ideas - thumbnails are unusual for me as I normally go in with something a but more resolved - and Seth picked the one he liked.

It was then sketched out in proper detail and approved with a couple of minor changes but went to press almost exactly as I’d drawn it, in one take, ink a combination of dip pens and fineliners. My own pistol, mask and horse (I’m getting good at those considering I am not a horse fan) were substituted with Ben’s, since he did want some of his own input on the cover, but the cover is essentially unaltered.
In the process of researching I of course had to Image Search for ‘hanging’ and ‘lynching’, along with ‘pistols' and 'rearing horses' - not as ‘delete-history-scary’ as some of the things I’ve had to Image Search, mind...

There were plans for two versions of this - night and day as shown here on my final artwork - but I do not know whether these will make it to the shelves!

Here’s an excerpt from the book - which was finally published in red!

The Big Issue.

I daubed the cover of this week's Big Issue, always a decent read. Black felt tips on paper, nothing clever, just lots of references. And done bloody quick too - two days' notice.

Renaissance-man Eddie Izzard is on the front, interviewed about his new role playing the inventor of radar! Spot the SS cufflinks.

http://www.bigissue.com/

Jingle Bells In August!

It was nice to be featured on this get-your-geek-on blog about print called For Print Only, run by the team at Under Consideration.
Having submitted this to the site a few months ago, the timing is odd (Christmas cards in August) but hey - and it scares me to say this - it’ll be here in no time!

It reminded me how beautiful the block was that was created for the foiling - like a giant piece of jewellery.