Golden Oldies from Jill Calder-No.1

As I mentioned on my facebook page, I have just found a glorious old green box, packed full with some of my old, original artwork (back in the day, before I used Photoshop)
My style is a bit all over the place - painterly one minute, scribbly the next but there are some interesting bits and bobs that I want to share with you.
I am going to scan them all in and put up a blog post every so often with some of these Golden Oldies!
All have been painted onto paper or card, using acrylic inks and paints and I promise I have not sneakily tweaked them - apart from the get the colour balance to match the original.
The first one is a piece I did in either 1999 or 2000 for The Sunday Herald (I think) - I cannot remember the article I was illustrating, but it I am blogging it to celebrate the 2010 Winter Olympics!
The second piece is a bit different in style and done for my old illustration agents, Eastwing, for a promo item (hence the shape - which is actually a cut out!)

I'll also try to find and post more of The Singleton cartoons that I did - I know I have a book full of them somewhere!

More Golden Oldies soon.

strange and stranger still

Thank you to the lovely Door Sixteen via her Twitter for this best blog link of the day.
Black and WTF
Sometimes odd is just the tonic you need. I love these photo - the dog's face! The butcher's face...weirdly absorbing

The Singleton Years

I am attempting to sort through all the STUFF that was moved out of my studio during the great Studio Ceiling Disaster, in an attempt to chuck or save it before I move everything back in to the now lovely, crisp white room.
Anyway - got distracted as I found some old, old artwork, so I thought I'd share it!

I used to draw a cartoon for The Scotsman magazine called The Singleton (yes, very Bridget Jones). I was given free rein by the art director, Sandra Colamartino, who trusted me for some reason (despite my NEVER having written and drawn a cartoon before). She also had a very awkward little space to fill on the horoscopes page!
There are millions of these little ink drawings, all of the characters are based on friends and real life happenings. The idea was that The Singleton was a girl about town, but not as sassy as the Sex and the City lot...more jacket potato and a pint of shandy kind of character.
Date on this one - 2001...and it is number 53!!

New work for Dickson Lewis

A nice wee job came my way a few weeks ago from David Reid at Because Brands Matter, based in Edinburgh.
New start-up accountancy recruitment company, Dickson Lewis, wanted a friendlier, more funky look for their website and chose an illustration route rather than the usual "business" themed stock photos that we see too much of.

My work had been recommended to David (word of mouth works!) and he managed to persuade his client that I could provide business themed illos, but with an added edgy dash of inky digital to provide interest! I kept the colour palette limited (dark gray, blues, purples)and tightened up my drawing style just a touch* to keep the whole thing looking sharp and clean. Blocks of colour are created using the polygon lasso tool and colouring in with my favourite Photoshop custom brushes!
I like this here accountant chappy - he's meant to be 35, so I hope he looks it!

*OK then, quite a bit...

Ay! Cuba Libre Señorita!

It's gettin' hot and sassy in Promo-land, I can tell you!
Friend and Johnson, my lovely reps, are pairing their illustrators and photographers together in order to create a punchy series of double page ads in Luerzer's Archive magazine. The ads will also have tags that you can scan with your iPhone to take you direct to the F+J website - nice touch.
The wonderful Coco Connolly, a creative director from Minnesota who is designing the spreads decided my work would pair well (contrast well!) with that of Canadian photographer, Jock McDonald
Jock's beautifully punctuated picture of young Cuban boys standing on the sea wall acts as a quiet, profound partner to my brash, bold Cuban girl drinking a...Cuba Libre (Rum'n'Coke, silly).
My idea here was that somewhere behind where the boys were standing would be a wall covered with huge, faded and peeling advertising posters,including this Cuba Libre one.
Coco has added in some final flourishes to the spread, using parts of the lettering I created for it.
It was great to create a brand new piece of work for this - so much fun thinking about Cuban heat and music, whilst the snow and hail fell in chilly Scotland!